During fertility treatment, women often need support from their closest family. Some of the women I have talked to have one sorrow in common; they don’t get support from their mothers!
There can be many different reasons why their mothers choose not to support them, the most common reason is that the treatment involves egg donation. Their mothers have waited a long time to become grandmothers and now they find themselves in a situation where they ask themselves these questions:
- Am I becoming a grandmother to another woman's baby?
- Will I be able to feel that this baby will be my grandson or granddaughter?
- What shall I tell my friends?
- Why didn’t my daughter start earlier to have children?
So how can I help these ‘soon to be grandmothers’ understand their daughters?
This is the information that I want to give them:
- You are not becoming a grandmother to another woman's child! Your daughter needs a donated egg from another woman, this egg is not a child! This egg cannot, by itself, develop into a child. Your daughter is the project leader, she is the one that decides that this egg should be fertilized with sperm and she is the one that decides that it is this exact embryo that will have the opportunity to develop into a child inside her tummy. This child would never exist without your daughter’s decisions, she is the mother of the child’s existence.
- How you will feel about your granddaughter or grandson is hard to plan, but your relationship depends very much on your investment. Your grandchildren will love you like a worthy grandmother if that is your wish. They are not born with thoughts, or feelings that will make them feel less bonded to the closest family members around them.
- When and if you can accept and be proud of your future grandchildren is when you will be ready to tell others, your attitude will affect the people around you and how they react! If you accept; they will accept.
- I am sure that your daughter has made choices in her life that she thought was the best for her at that time. Egg donation is normally not a women’s first choice, the decision to use egg donation is often a better alternative than living the rest of their life as childless and it is a good alternative so that they can become pregnant and finally a mother. The emotional process can be challenging, that is why you should support your daughter. You should respect and accept that her maternal instinct and wish for a child is that strong that it leads her to do egg donation and create the child she is longing for. Let your daughter decide how much you should, or shouldn’t, be involved in the treatment and choose not to have a judging attitude. Behind every decision to do fertility treatment, is love, the need to give love and care for a child. So how can you judge this love? Let your daughter have the opportunity that you had — the opportunity of pregnancy and her own child.
Some patients want to be supported by their parents and friends, but also some don’t! What I see is that the woman that really wants and need her mother’s support and doesn’t get it has the hardest time!
I hope that this woman that misses the support of their mother, can copy and send this text to them.
Having grandparents involved in child’s life is a gift.
To offer children a close and loving family is a gift.
Let every child be loved and accepted for its existence, independently of where the egg came from...
Tone Bråten
