I was taken to live with my grandmother, and although calling her such, she is who REALLY holds the place of MOM in my heart. It is her teachings and wisdom that made me the lady I am today, as well as the mom I one day hope to be.

My egg donor claims I was brainwashed into not wanting to have a relationship with her. It was her own actions. For one example;
As my sister was moving back to Ohio from California, she asked our egg donor (who she had spent most of her life with) to please fly my niece to Ohio so my then couple month old niece wouldn’t have to suffer the rigors of a week long road trip. My sister packed all my nieces necessary possessions from toys to diapers and clothes for our egg donor to take. (BTW she was unable to breast feed so that wasn’t a consideration) My egg donor then attempted to get my sister and brother-in-law to sign a document stating that if such and such a period of time went by (like 2 days or something) if they had not claimed my niece they would relinquish all parental rights to my egg donor, but still be required to pay for all the food, clothes, doctor visits and school supplies for my niece. She also told everyone that my sister had not sent a single article of clothing, toy, or diaper and claimed that my sister had never given her my nieces immunization records (which my stepfather later gave to my sister), therefore trying to make my sister seem the bad parent. That was the last in a long list of strikes against our egg donor.

I am happy to have gotten to find out what a horrid person she was before I ever have had children because now I KNOW I never want her as a part in my life. I do not want her there for any event, from my hand-fasting/ marriage to the (hopefully) one day birth of my own children. It also encourages me to be different from her as well.

She still believes herself to be the worlds best mom and feels the need to tell other people that we (my sister and I) are just horrid kids and nothing more. Instead of looking for every place she failed, I enjoy enhancing my memory with every place my grandmother succeeded. From teaching me to fold fitted sheets to setting an elaborate dinner table and how to have a formal tea, my grandma has been the person I have learned the most from. My father took me away from my mother and placed me at my grandmothers with him not to pawn me off on someone else, but because he knew he could never teach me how to be a lady and my grandmother could. My father helped me with all he could, but somethings, a father can’t do.

Many times we have mothers who believe that just carrying a child makes them a great person and they don’t realize there is a lifetime of work and fun, relationships and learning that go with it. I may not be a mom yet, but I get a great joy from practicing with my niece and new nephew, and I am learning that it truly is a labour of love and not something you can be there when you “feel” like it.

I congratulate and applaud all of you moms out there and encourage you to continue your labour of love and devotion to bring out the loving and caring in your children that we may have lacked. Encourage your kids to better their own in the same ways. It is truly a “do as I say and not as I do” encouragement for the next generation to become better then we are today.

Luckily you can get your own if you can find just felled birch trees – or cut one down for some other use, say, firewood – since xylitol is mostly collected from the inner bark layer of birches. I used to go collect it with my mother as a child and chew bits of that sweet layer happily. No part of a birch tree is poisonous so don’t worry if you don’t get the right layer before several attempts The layer is readily recognizable by a distinct sweetness. The quality is of course not as good as with processed xylitol, but probably quite enough to get one a sufficient dosage for tooth care. And substitute-sweets don’t get much more natural than that

-lia