We have a baby boy!

Three weeks ago, on the 5th April 2017, I gave birth to a baby boy.

Three weeks on and I am still looking at him and wondering if he is real. I can’t believe that he is actually here, or that he is mine. He is my baby, my son. I am a Mommy now. David is a Daddy. We have a child.
I just keep saying these things to myself both in my head and out loud, because the reality is still sinking in.

It’s been a long journey. We lost six pregnancies on our way here. I’m amazed when I look at my child to think that grew in me –
that I was, in the end, actually able to grow a baby.

I emailed the clinic to let them know. I do not know their policy in these matters but I hope they tell our egg donor that her sacrifice has resulted in our son being born. I would like to think that she receives the news and it makes her smile. We have decided to name him Hunter Sebastian. Hunter, after Dr. John Hunter, the first physician on record to help a couple conceive a child through artificial insemination in the 1770s; and Sebastian because he was born in Malta, on our seventh pregnancy, and the Maltese for “seven” is “sebgħa“.

I do not know who our son looks like. He doesn’t look like me of course, although I don’t see that he looks like David either. I wonder if he looks like his donor, or her father, or some member of her family. It gives me pause, but not in a bad way. I am more in awe of the science that has made his existence possible. He is not less mine because of it. I wonder what he will grow up to be, who he will grow up to be. What change will he bring to the world? Will he make it a better place?

Although for us of course, he already has.

Here are some links and articles related to this post:

• Ombelet, W; Van Robays, J. (2015). Artificial insemination history: hurdles and milestones. Facts, Views & Vision in ObGyn. 7(2): 137–143.
• Maltese Numbers. Learn 101.