Discovering her "Dibling"

Shortly after Ellis was born, we signed up with the Donor Sibling Registry. You create a profile and include your sperm bank and donor number, and matches are flagged for you. We were quite disappointed that there were none for us. Then in the spring, we got an email from a single mother by choice who had just registered her daughter, and we came up as a match. She asked if we wanted to meet up, and we said of course!

Since then we've emailed off and on, frequently sometimes and then long periods of time without. They live in central New Jersey, and we discussed possibly meeting at a playground or park midway over the summer. Life was busy as always, and plans never materialized. Ellis's first birthday went by in May, and the other baby's in August. We finally both got deliberate about making plans in November, and last weekend we met up at an indoor play space for toddlers in Hoboken, NJ.

I wasn't sure what to expect. When we first emailed, I mostly noted her lack of personable communication. She was very straightforward, not as exuberantly emotive as I was with exclamation points and smiley faces. I do read a lot from that kind of thing, and wondered if she would be warm, and how this relationship would look.

The meeting was wonderful! Conversation was natural for the most part, and it was fun to watch the girls together. They're only three months apart, so they were doing a lot of the same things. The other baby is more physical, walking at an earlier age than Ellis was crawling, but is saying only a handful of words whereas Ellis picks up three to four new words every day. Their personalities were also night and day. We have a spirited, high needs kid that has the two of us juggling and barely able to eat our own meals when we have her at a restaurant, because she does not want to be in the high chair for any longer than she has to to eat. You'd better be willing to have her on your lap and walk around while waiting for the food, and when she's done eating, you'd better be done too! At lunch, the other baby sat in her high chair completely content the whole meal. In their strollers, Ellis fussed loudly demanding to either be moving and going outside, or else let out. The other baby just sat and chilled in her stroller no matter where we went or how long we stopped, until she was taken out. I'm glad for her sake, as a single mom without family nearby, that her baby is so much more easygoing!

I appreciate that she lives just far enough away that we neither of us would have the expectation of frequent meetings. It took us this long just to organize one! I had looked her up on Facebook to see what she looked like (we had exchanged photos of the girls, but not of ourselves), but intentionally did not send her a friend request. We seem to have a mutual unspoken understanding that we don't want to get TOO friendly. For me, that's because of the fear that it could go sour, and what that would mean for our kids. Yes, it's nice for us as adults to connect over our experiences too - but we can do that with anyone in our situations. The fact that we used the same donor does not really enhance that. But our kids, this is their life. This is their chance to know other people with shared genes and similar conception stories. That is the focus and the priority. Being friendly and in touch but not too enmeshed is the perfect place to be. We had a great time, and we'll do it once or twice a year so the girls grow up knowing who they are, and can then make the choice to have more contact when they're older if they choose. I suggested exchanging holiday cards which they can kind of "collect" from each other as they grow up, and that idea was met with enthusiasm.

I'm so glad we're establishing this connection for Ellis!