The Eggbaby

I realized in preschool that I was different. “Mommy, why do most kids look like their moms, but I don’t look like you?” I asked. I don’t remember what she said, but I do remember comparing myself to her. Her sapphire blue eyes and thick blonde hair that contrasted my brown eyes and mousy, dark hair. Her thin body and my broad shoulders. Her slender hands and my “sausage fingers,” as my brother called them. We didn’t have the same face shape or the same nose. We really didn’t look anything alike at all. But I knew she gave birth to me. I remembered seeing pictures of her huge belly. I remembered her telling me that her usual cravings were chocolate cake and banana bread. I knew I wasn’t adopted, so what was I?

It was Mother’s Day, 2006, when she explained it to me. “In vitro,” she had said. I didn’t understand it at the time, and I knew it wouldn’t help to ask her for more details. She looked like she was hurting — aching, even. I didn’t know if she was aching to tell me more, or hurting for how my opinions of her might change. She walked slowly away from me. Her back slumped and her hand clutched her stomach. It was like a scene from a movie. A sad, life-changing scene.

My dad came home from a business trip a few days later and attempted to help me understand the weird word. I said to him “so she’s not my real mom?” He sternly said no, and explained that she is my mom and always will be. It took me a few more years to understand that you don’t have to be genetically related to someone for them to be your mother. She is my mom in every sense of the word. She always will be.

In middle school, I got curious. I wanted to know more about In Vitro Fertilization (IVF), and I wanted to know if there were others like me. I wanted to know if I had more siblings. I brought it up with my mom gently. I knew it was a touchy subject for her, but after a few days she laid a file on my bed and said “here’s everything I have about your birth, her name is Mindy Mansfield,” then left the room. I looked through it, but that name was nowhere in the files. So I asked my mom about the name and she explained that everything was supposed to be confidential, but out of sheer luck she heard the name mentioned in the doctor’s office once, and saw Mindy in the waiting room and automatically knew. She could feel it in her stomach and in her heart, so she memorized that name.

Without telling my mom, I looked for this woman online, but I didn’t find anything about a Mindy Mansfield that would lead me to believe that she was my biological mother.

Until my senior year of high school.

It was a few days after my 18th birthday. I was lying in bed one night, scrolling through Facebook when the name just popped into my head again. So I decided to search online. Again. After clicking through a few profiles, one in particular caught my attention. It was a woman with dark colored hair and brown, almond-shaped eyes. Her cover photo was a picture of two girls, about my same age, smiling at each other. One looked strikingly familiar. She looked like my reflection.

I found her profile, Alexandria Mansfield. She was a senior at a small high school in Pennsylvania. She had a boyfriend named Tom and a couple of golden retrievers. I proceeded through her profile and looked at her pictures. I put together a side by side photo of my face and hers, then sent it to a few friends and my aunt who said “that’s a nice picture of you.”

I had to reach out. I was so nervous, but after talking to a few close friends about it, I sent Mindy this message:

“Hi Mindy. This may sound odd, and if you’re uncomfortable at all, of course you don’t have to respond… But I was wondering if you were ever an egg donor? Just to be clear, I don’t want or need anything from you at all! I’m just curious about my roots. Thanks for your time.

Emily”

A full six months went by with no word from this woman, but I didn’t keep searching for other Mindy Mansfields. I knew it was her. Just how my mom knew. I could feel it.

I was disheartened that she didn’t reply because I really wanted to know about the two girls — my potential sisters! But I felt that it would be inappropriate for me to reach out to them. It was possible that she had never mentioned anything about donating eggs to fertility clinics to her daughters, and I surely was not going to be the one to tell them.

Then it happened. On May 3, 2015, I got a message on Facebook from Mindy. My heart started racing, but I couldn’t open it. I was at an IB study session for an upcoming exam and we were supposed to leave our phones in our cars — oops.

When I left the study session I was still too nervous to open it. I got home and my palms were sweaty. My stomach was in knots. I went straight to my room without saying hello to my parents. I opened the message.

“I am so sorry this took so long to respond. I didn’t know there is a second message box (my daughter found this message). Yes, I was. When is your birthday?” she said.

“I’m sorry your daughter had to find this message first,” I said, “I was born on December 11, 1996.”

The next message blew me away. It filled my heart with joy and excitement. I cried a few happy (and also very nervous) tears. “You have two half-sisters! Elizabeth and Alexandria, born November 9, 1996,” she said.

We continued talking. She asked if my parents knew I had reached out, and I told her no. She assured me that she was completely fine and even excited that I messaged her. Then she told me a story about her experience at the doctor’s office.

While signing paperwork, she happened to glance over the doctor’s desk at some documents and saw a name written in neat cursive. “Jane Almy-Loewinger.” She explained that she knew right away that this would be one of the women receiving a few of her twenty-seven donated eggs.

“I often wondered about that name,” Mindy told me.

After a few back and forth conversations with Mindy and the girls, I decided it was time to tell my parents. I was extremely nervous, but I told my dad first and together we went through ways to bring it up with my mom. He was excited for me and felt like she would be too.

We sat her down. “Please don’t tell me you’re pregnant,” she said. “Good,” I thought to myself, “now this will be less shocking than what she originally suspected.” “Umm no… I recently came into contact with my biological mother,” I said.

My mom broke down. She jumped up from her chair at the kitchen table. She covered her mouth with her hands and shook her head. After a few anxious seconds she yelled “I’m your mother!” I reassured her that she was my mom and always would be my mom. I explained to her that I didn’t see Mindy as a replacement for her. She was just an interesting woman who had my same eyes and hair.

My dad and I finally calmed her down. She sat back in her chair. She looked pale and tired, but she was ready to listen. She had waited eighteen years for this moment.

Eventually we all arranged to meet and when we finally did, it was beautiful. Everything felt so natural and the mood was full of excitement and love. We went to a family-owned Italian restaurant called Luigi’s Trattoria. We told our waiter a little bit about the special occasion that brought us to the restaurant that night and they gave us free desserts.

We all talked for hours on topics anywhere from school to tantrums we threw when we were kids. My mom and Mindy became close friends that night and talk often now. My sisters and I talk every week.

We’ve all seen each other a few times since then and each of us always leaves wishing we had longer to spend together. My sisters and I have talked about living together after we all finish school. Maybe one day.

By chance or destiny or some miracle, we all found a beautiful, happy ending, or beginning, rather.