It is Labor Day weekend. Labor Day celebrates the social and economic achievements of society’s workers, and here at The World Egg Bank, we like to take this holiday to also celebrate the successes that our Recipients have had with our company and our donors. After all, as every person undergoing IVF knows, being a donor egg Recipient is a job in its own right, and the same could be said for being a Donor.
We would like to thank every person reading this for being part of our family building community. It means so much to us that you have chosen us to move forward in your path to creating your family. We invite previous Recipients to continue sending in photos of your precious children, and we invite Donors and current Recipients alike to feel and focus on the hope that current IVF technology now allows.
The Word Egg Bank staff spends most of their time coordinating the logistics of donation cycles. The outcomes of these cycles are our end goal, and we never lose sight of that throughout our work. Building families is a beautiful gift of which we are proud to be a part. Oftentimes, Recipients will send in pictures of their beautiful babies, thanking us for our role in their family building process. This is perhaps the greatest joy of working here.
I have had the absolute pleasure of answering the phone when a Recipient has called to announce that she is indeed pregnant. Having been able to be a part of coordinating this Recipient’s donor’s cycle was an amazing feeling. She thanked me, which was completely unnecessary, because the elation that she brought with that news was overwhelming. I asked the Recipient if I could let the rest of the office know, and she said, resoundingly, “yes!” As I went from office to office, each of my coworkers’ faces lit up.
This is why we work here. It was something I had known since seeing the job listing, but to feel the electricity in the room that a baby was coming for such a wonderful woman who had been trying for years to get pregnant? Well, that was another thing entirely. I will never forget that first phone call.
We have a wall in our office dedicated to photographs of babies that our Recipients send in—first photos with footprints, holidays, picnics, birthdays, and first days of school. After that, we hear and see less from our Recipients, but we know that it is because they are busy taking care of their families, which is satisfying in another way entirely.
Whenever I have a hard day—usually because I want to use an “m” dash for stylistic purposes in a more technical document, which somehow doesn’t feel right regardless of its correctness—I go and look at the smiling faces on that wall. I always become hopeful, and remember to focus on the present. Hope is what guides us through this process—the hope that every cycle we coordinate will result in another smiling baby.
Happy Labor Day from The World Egg Bank. May you be safe, happy, and filled with joy and hope.
Oxford commas forever,
The Mother Hen
