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Our contribution to the continuation of the human species turns nine months old this week. It's hard to believe our baby Harvey will have existed outside the womb for as long as he was in it. That math does something weird to my mom brain that I can't quite articulate. Has anyone else noticed that time seems to have sped up considerably?

Alas, the little giggle factory has more than tripled in size and probably double that in personality. We interact now in ways far beyond him letting us know he's hungry or tired. It's glorious.

We're all sort of hardwired to be in complete and total love with our babies, despite the fact that they ruin sleep as we once knew it and refuse to even wipe their own tooshes. And for me, having a baby has always been joyous; the thing is, now it's starting to get legitimately fun. I'm talking swings, peek-a-boo, carousel rides of glee, activities one might generously refer to as catch, wrastlin' and reading books.

It's surreal to look at him and from time to time catch flashes of myself. I don't so much see it in his physical appearance — he's a far more gorgeous human being — but in his mannerisms, like the way he turns his head to the side with a playful grin or his fuss when he's hungry (do not come between a Gomberg and our food). I think we also might share a sort of TA-DAH! face, and Elenor says we wake up the same way. And she'd actually argue that we do look a lot alike.

What delights me to no end, though, is seeing glimpses of Elenor in Harvey. When we were choosing his sperm donor (which, I have to admit, is both a bizarre and awesome experience), we looked for Elenor's traits so he might be a good amalgamation of the two of us, his parents. And quite remarkably, the kid looks more like her than me. It's my favorite when people notice Harvey has blue eyes (mine are brown) and mention how he must have gotten those from Elenor. Oh, yeah?

And then there are the traits we read about on an online catalogue of random unidentified men. What of Harvey's characteristics belong to Mr. 4849, the atheist, cat-loving, astrophysicist who played college football and served 10 years in the Air Force? Certainly, if Harvey is good at math, it's that guy.

But you know what's weird? We may never know. It turns out, we had to promise never to seek out this guy's identity. I totally get it, and quite frankly, we chose a stranger donor to create those very boundaries in the first place, but that doesn't stop me from wondering who is that guy!? The guy who describes himself as curious, and the staff at the cryobank say is charming and has a smile that lights up a room. The guy who gave us the most precious gift we will ever know.

When Harvey is 18, he can choose if he'd like to seek out the dude who was so generous with his life juice, but there's a chance he won't want to, and that's, of course, absolutely understandable and reasonable. We'll know more in 17 years and three months on that.

So, in case we never get the chance to say it directly to him, I'll say here how deeply we appreciate him for being, without really being, part of our modern family. He has done what we call in Hebrew a mitzvah, a thankless good deed. And to that we raise our glass/sippy cup. L'chaim (to life)!

Marina Gomberg's lifestyle columns appear on sltrib.com. She is a communications professional and lives in Salt Lake City with her wife, Elenor Gomberg, and their son, Harvey. You can reach Marina at mgomberg@sltrib.com.