What you wish for

Round 29: April 2030 (Autumn)
Amelia Gottlieb is 41 and Wade is 40.

When Joanna and Rose told us they were going to try artificial insemination and wanted Wade to be the donor, I was caught off guard.

And then when Wade immediately agreed, I could hardly believe my ears!

This is Sophie's last year with us at home and it's brought back my urge to have another baby. Wade and I discussed it years ago and he was against having a fourth. It was hard enough to talk him into a third.

I've mostly accepted that we're not going to have another. I've brought it up again from time to time since we had Emma and Wade definitely felt done.

Well, fine. I don't want to force him into it. But I just can't get over the fact that Wade agreed to this donor thing, apparently without a thought as to how I'd feel about it. And now, possibly in just a year's time, there's going to be this kid out there who will be biologically Wade's but not mine? I don't know how to feel about that.

I've just been stewing about it for months now and I've decided I really need to talk to Wade about it. He seems completely oblivious to the fact that anything is bothering me, so bringing it up myself is the only way I can get this off my chest.

So I sat him down and told him everything. I told him how I felt completely excluded from his decision that, really, affects me as well.

Wade was surprised and he asked why I hadn't brought it up before now. He said it's the kind of thing he would have wanted to know.

I guess I should have said something sooner but it didn't seem right to talk about it in front of Rose and Joanna. And then the longer I left it, the weirder it felt.

But the time when Wade's actually going to do this is drawing closer and closer. If I was going to say anything, the sooner the better.

Wade was actually good about it and even succeeded in making me feel a little better. If this insemination works, Wade isn't going to feel like the baby is his in any way. He's very confident that once the baby is here, I won't feel like that either.

I hope he's right. I don't want this baby to arrive and then feel like it should have been ours. I don't even know if I would but apart from feeling left out of the decision, that has been something playing on my mind.

Wade asked me if I wanted him to back out. He said Rose and Joanna would understand. I don't know if they really would, at this point. They were both so excited when Wade agreed to it.

Still, I was tempted to take him up on it. I chose not to though. I know Wade would feel awful to have to tell Rose and Joanna that he wasn't going ahead with it and I'd probably feel crappy for making him do it.



So I guess this is really happening. I can't say that I'm completely comfortable with this yet but I do feel a lot better about it than I did before. I just hope this doesn't happen too fast. It might give me a little more time to get used to it.

Outtake:
Some of you will have seen this one at N99. For obvious reasons, I didn't use this in the update. But it totally cracked me up!

Notes:

• This took forever to write. When I'm playing/posing, I usually write down everything I want to say in the update in Liquid Story Binder. Sometimes, I get the idea that I'll be able to remember certain bits without writing them down. Of course, I never do, so I end up having to fudge a little. But I think this actually worked out better than what I would have written in LSB, so my laziness may have worked in my favour this time.
• But there we go. I'm probably not completely finished with this. I don't really think that one talk with Wade has made Amelia totally okay but she feels somewhat validated, at least.
• I can't remember if I said in Rose and Joanna's update but the first attempt at artificial insemination will be this May. I'll try it every month until they're successful. I think I set it at either 20% or 25% odds.