HCG: 66

Magic words, who knew (at our clinic they are looking for a first test number over 50). Actually anyone on this path knows. I know too well now. Ten years since we started trying to grow our family, have a baby. Our fabulous DE daughter will be three in March and now, luck on our side, we will finally add to our family this year. There’s still a long way from the “You are pregnant” to “This is a viable, healthy pregnancy and you’ve finally passed 12 weeks so breathe a little and perhaps tell a few close friends”.

So that’s where we are. Finally. I’ve actually lost count of how many failures we’ve had a this point. Certainly double digits when including all the miscarriages before we even started with IVF. But we are here. We are grateful. I am trying to start breathing now.

This could be it

Well, tommorow is the pregnancy test...no i have not tested beforehand. The way I know if a cycle is successful is that my body starts sweating at night about two days before the test. Last night, no sweat. Of course I also had insomnia because this is all stressful. I'll see about tonight, but I have a feeling...

The embryos, two, that they put back were great quality. There were many to choose from and many were frozen on day five and three on day six. very different from our previous totally sucky cycle.

If you are reading this, breathe for me today, I'm having trouble not holding my breathe.

When you Fall of the Horse, Get Back On

Well we are mid cycle again…with a new donor. I know I’ve been absent for a while. It was a little tough to say the least. But my husband and I decided to try one last time. And this is why I thought it’d be worth another post: not to to say we are trying again but how we chose because, at least from my experience, choosing a donor is hardly easy. And for us on this journey we originally started in our minds wanting the donor to be as like me as possible and now we went for the donor who would maybe be most like our daughter. To be clear: I am small boned, straight hair, hazel eyes, fair skin. The new donor is: small boned, wavy hair, dark brown eyes and olive skin. Did I care if she was arty as I had last time? Nope. In fact she actually made an x in the no box on the part that said any artistic ability. Did I care if she was musical as I did last time? Nope. In fact she seems, at least on paper to be more inclined to math and science proclivities as foreign to me as another language. What she does have is two children and two previous successful cycles (last one with twins) and at this point that’s what makes a good donor for us. A proven one. How did we find this donor who actually looks like our daughter especially when she herself was a baby? I turned off the selection that said white. Yup, and there she was, our donor. Amazing. And she is white but with olive toned skin (like my husband). Imagine that. So yeah, I have now let go of any illusion that the donor looks like me and finally I really don’t care. If nothing else this journey has shown me that the love I have is not bound by genetics so it certainly wont be bound by looks.

As for my daughter whomever we picked would have the same dad so they will have similarities and in this case we did choose someone whose children had similar features to her own as well.

Keep you fingers and toes crossed for us again if anyone is still reading. HCG shot for the donor should be middle of next week.