Consent forms in The ugly truth about making babies

Just filling in our billion consent forms. I mean, I give chemo in work, people consent for me to essentially pump them with poison, and that is one signature on a scrap of paper. I exaggerate, it’s the brightest yellow piece of A4 paper and it’s all officially and shiz but, regardless, it seems an underwhelming way to say yes to chemo.

We have 14 different forms between us. Just so they can mix our little eggs and sperm in a dish. Or you know something massively more technical than that. Not being funny but the fact that you turn up for these appointments and hand over little jars of very personal bodily fluids, or hop in a chair and get your vag out for all and sundry kind of implies that you know what’s happening and you’re happy to go ahead. Or you’re a wild exhibitionist. Either works.

Having a bit of a struggle with the ‘if either of you dies or caves your head in and can’t make a sound decision, what do we do with your sperm/embryos’.

It’s thrown up all kinds of questions. I mean how attached to my embryos am I gonna be given that I have none yet? Is this not an inappropriate time to answer this question? Should we not answer it when we know? Like when we have an embryo to decide about, but before we leave the hospital and, you know, get in an accident that maims us for life.

Do I consider an embryo a baby even? I mean there’s no guarantee that any embryo that’s implanted would stick and grow into a living baby. How would I feel if I died and joey met someone new and they decided to skip a few steps and just use our embryos? I mean I’m dead so my opinion counts for shit but would I want my child on this earth if I couldn’t be the one to raise it? As a woman who is able to have her own children I wouldn’t want to use someone else’s embryos if I didn’t have to.

On the flip side, thankfully we only have male factor infertility to deal with so if, god forbid, joey died, I could meet someone else and have our own kids. I don’t know how desperate I’d be to have a child that was Joey’s without him. I mean we’ve gone into this whole process as a couple, with the intention of having our child together.

I think I’m gonna tick no. I don’t want access to his sperm in the event of his death. And I don’t want him using my embryos (our embryos?) in the event of my death.

If this has fucked with my head this much I’m not even sure how it would feel if they were the only eggs you might ever produce. A woman got denied access to her embryos from a relationship that had broken down because he was alive and didn’t want her to use them, didn’t want a child being brought into this world that was his but he wasn’t involved with. They were her only embryos and the European high court declined her application as he didn’t consent. Would have been easier if he was dead to be fair, and not at all as flippant as that sounds.

I’m thankful we’re not in that position. If anything happened to either of us we could go on to have children of our own so I don’t feel as bad saying no. I’ve said I’d like our embryos donating to research. Again, this is the whole am I letting them mess with my potential child scenario. Is an embryo a baby? A two day or five day cluster of cells that may or may not continue to develop. At what point do you consider it a baby? I think for me, there’s no way of survival outside of a woman’s body other than to be frozen in time in a lab, so I don’t consider them to be children. Potential babies yes but equally they have just the same potential to not be babies.

It’s an absolute head wrecker. It’s a complete hypothetical. Make a decision about embryos you don’t have, and what you want doing with them should your partner die or cave their head in or something equally horrific. As if the whole process isn’t difficult enough without having to think about these things.

Joey is particularly unhelpful. Due to the autism I think he has, he doesn’t have an imagination, he’s a literal, in the moment kind of person. So asking him this question is like asking him what would he do if I suddenly started sprouting diamonds in my eyeballs. He’s clueless. I love a good hypothetical, usually. I can keep myself thoroughly entertained for hours thinking up fantastical situations that will never happen. His answer to this question? I’ll be dead so I don’t care, you make a decision.

I feel like this should be a joint decision, and we have talked more about it, but it’s something he just doesn’t seem to be able to envisage on more than the most superficial of levels. I suppose that’s also an answer in itself, I don’t want him making a decision about our embryos if I’m incapacitated or dead!

Xx