Delving deeper into me!

Earlier this year I had an appointment at a fertility clinic as I wanted to register as an egg donor. Well, that idea didn’t quite come to fruition and I took to this blog to rant – Feeling all the feelings! (If you’re short of time, to cut a long story short, I was unable to donate my eggs as I couldn’t provide my family history from my father’s side).

I barely had any followers to my blog at that time – I still don’t now but it’s slowly growing. So I was taken aback when someone reached out to me after reading my post and suggested another clinic where these rules didn’t apply.

This melted my heart and so the adventure began.

Blood tests and scans revealed that myself, including ovaries and womb were healthy and therefore I was able to become an egg donor and help two women to have babies. Women who had been waiting patiently for over 18 months for that phone call.

I almost did a U-turn when I found out I would have to inject myself each morning which would then increase to doing another injection in the evening . It took all the strength I had not to run out of the hospital right then. To put this into perspective, I don’t even like to pluck my eyebrows. Don’t even get me started on waxing! I’m such a wimp with causing myself pain.

But I thought of the women and the gift of helping them create a family, so turning back was not an option.

I was told that going through the process would be a bit like going through menopause. Well if my menopause is anything like what I experienced then I’m in for a rather strange and ‘hot’ time.

Alongside the hot sweats. I was feeling very….very lustful. To put it plainly I was ridiculously horny!

Amorous Emma had stormed into the building. I bloody didn’t know what to do with myself. (Sidenote: At the beginning of the year I wouldn’t have shared something like this but why the heck not? I’m human and this information could be of use to anybody thinking about going down this path). Because of this I was getting a tad scared of what the second round of injections would do to me. Then I received a call from the clinic.

I put the phone down (or maybe threw it – I can’t remember) and the tears began to flow. Tears of frustration and sadness.

The powers above the clinic had put proceedings on hold as they said they couldn’t go ahead without me knowing about my father’s family history. This was going to be a struggle as I didn’t know who my father was. I asked to be given a week to try to find out and so the research began.

I had a name but alas he wasn’t on social media. I took to Google who came up with a likely possibility and I reached out to a few people who I thought may know about him. Alas, the dead-end came into view sooner than expected ending my donor journey.

This blog post isn’t to rant about the rules and regulations, I feel like my other post  already got my point across. I’d already cried those angry tears and typed those frustrated words.

As upset as I was that I couldn’t donate my eggs, I was relieved that I didn’t have to deal with the awkward moment of getting acquainted with my birth father.

“Hi, I’m your daughter. I just want to know…Do you, your parents or your siblings (if you have any) have any health issues I should know about?”

You see, I don’t long to get to know him or establish any sort of relationship. I have no bad feelings towards him – he is simply the man who was partly responsible for giving me life. And for that I am grateful.

Although I wasn’t interested in taking the search to find out who my birth father is any further, the experience left me feeling like I should find out more about where I originated from.

I wanted to delve deeper into me.

Today I took a step forward and purchased an AncestryDNA test. The test is meant to be able to uncover where your ancestors came from and provide a breakdown of your ethnicity.

The only thing I know about my family history is that my birth mum was born in St. Kitts in the West Indies.

It really doesn’t matter to me where my ancestors are from. Yes, it’s interesting but it shouldn’t really make a difference to how people view you. Just like it shouldn’t make a difference whether you know your family’s health history.

I suppose having the tests results will come in handy when I get into this type of conversation:

• Intrigued person: “Where are you from?”
• Me: “Leeds”
• Intrigued person: “No. I mean where are you really from” (hmm perhaps that should be ignorant person)
• Me: “Leeds. That’s where I was born” – confession: When I was younger I would at this point make my Yorkshire accent even stronger when answering the question.
• Interrogator:  “I mean where are your family from?”
• Me: Depending how I’m feeling I would either say “the West Indies” and end the conversation or make the person squirm and say “I don’t know. I was fostered at birth” (queue tumbleweed and silence….)

So I guess the results will come in handy when faced with the above and will be money well spent as I have this conversation more often than I care to remember. Now I’ll be able to pull out my ethnicity breakdown and ask them where exactly they’re from…..

But –  I won’t don’t do that. Okay, maybe on the odd occasion I will, you know for shits and giggles!

I often think about the women who almost had a part of me become a part of them and I hope they’ve found the happiness they desired. I thank them for making me look into my family history. Maybe one day the children I have will be interested in finding out about their ancestors so this will be my gift to them.

Me? Well, I’m happy being Emma from Leeds, who currently resides in London.

Watch this space for the results……..

Emma x

Instagram: @emmalouhalliday 

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