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The first time Andrew Botwin said "Daddy," his mother gulped.
Was this the moment Shari Botwin had anguished about ever since deciding, at age 38, to have a baby on her own? Was this the time to begin explaining about "choice mommies" and "donor daddies"?
But Andrew didn't seem worried, Botwin recalled. He wasn't asking a question. He was trying out the new word with a 2-year-old's exuberance, the same way he yelps "Dora!" while watching television or "broccoli!" when naming his favorite foods. Botwin breathed: The Conversation could wait.
She knows it's just a matter of time, though, until Andrew will ask, "Where's my dad?" Botwin, a therapist who lives in Narberth, plans to say something like "I wanted you so much I decided to have you all by myself."
The story of conception is no longer a single narrative: woman, man, sex, baby. At its most complex, it can involve five individuals: a sperm donor, an egg donor, a gestational carrier, and the intended parents. Not to mention petri dishes, hormone injections, and a good reproductive endocrinologist.
And...
Was this the moment Shari Botwin had anguished about ever since deciding, at age 38, to have a baby on her own? Was this the time to begin explaining about "choice mommies" and "donor daddies"?
But Andrew didn't seem worried, Botwin recalled. He wasn't asking a question. He was trying out the new word with a 2-year-old's exuberance, the same way he yelps "Dora!" while watching television or "broccoli!" when naming his favorite foods. Botwin breathed: The Conversation could wait.
She knows it's just a matter of time, though, until Andrew will ask, "Where's my dad?" Botwin, a therapist who lives in Narberth, plans to say something like "I wanted you so much I decided to have you all by myself."
The story of conception is no longer a single narrative: woman, man, sex, baby. At its most complex, it can involve five individuals: a sperm donor, an egg donor, a gestational carrier, and the intended parents. Not to mention petri dishes, hormone injections, and a good reproductive endocrinologist.
And...