telling Maddie how she came to be

All kids will ask, "Where do babies come from?". It is a part of life and one that must be explained. For fertiles you have several age appropriate options. You can tell them that the come from mommy's tummy, the hospital, the stork. Take your pic. Even as they get older and you have "the talk" with them it is all pretty straightforward. But what about third party reproduction? How do you explain donor eggs, donor sperm, donor embryos or surrogacy to a child? To someone that doesn't understand the biology of it all? I will tell you, it is not easy. Though I do think that donor embryos will be easier than some of the others, it will still not be easy.

My Madison is going to be 3 years old this summer. She is maturing and talking so much and we have decided that we will talk about her origins now, even though she cannot begin to understand. She looks just like us so she will never question why her hair or eye color or skin color is different than ours. It isn't. She looks just like us. Probably more than a genetic child would have. It is really crazy!! And amazing! So for us we either have to sit down and tell her one day or always make it a part of her life. We will make it "the norm" and start telling her now.

This morning Maddie and I went out to tend to our little patio garden. We have some tomato plants and they have the first tiny, little green tomatoes growing on them. Maddie loves to give them a drink of water, talk to them and kiss them good bye. This morning she mentioned that the pepper plants didn't have any tomato babies and she wanted to share them from the other plant. How perfect of an opportunity to start telling her story!!! So we found one that my niece had picked off and put it over with the pepper plant. I then told her that a nice family shared her with us and we put her in my tummy to grow. Her response? "No. Mommy and daddy make me." I will say that this kind of shocked me!! She has no idea about babies as she isn't not around pregnant women or ask about babies. It was funny that she was so determined that we made her. LOL My stubborn little girl is going to argue this one, I can see. But I have laid the groundwork and will continue to do so. Hopefully she will be more accepting as time goes on.