why not me

HCG: 66

2011-02-09T03:35:00.000-08:00

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

2011-02-07T08:51:00.000-08:00

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

2011-01-20T12:43:00.000-08:00

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.

The Body doesn’t Lie

2010-10-29T09:29:00.000-07:00

Or mine doesn't...Last night I woke up with the sweats and knew it was not a late implentation. After ten cycles I know the signs. I decided not to take anymore meds and spoke to the doc this AM who convinced me to take another blood test. THANK THE UNIVERSE, the Beta went down. It’s over. For now.

Thank you all for your support. Somehow this is harder than normal. And yes, when you have a donor you do think it’s a magic bullet – but there is no magic, just life unfolding. Will spend the weekend trying to heal.

It’s happening again…

2010-10-28T08:02:00.000-07:00

22 HCG ten days past transfer. It’s cruel really. The last pregnancy in February the one that dragged on for six weeks before the D&C started with a 34. It almost seems like a joke to go through this again - to be in the "you're not negative but your positive is really sucky" place. I’m trying to go with it. Hope for the best but really, the whole thing is like, F*#$ this is happening again. Would like for it to be over quickly one way or another. We are going out of town this weekend so I wont even be able to do a blood test until Monday.

So there we are. Once again. Waiting in limbo, not really anywhere. Still so grateful for all that we have balanced by this is just totally crappy news and I feel stuck.

Imagine our shock

2010-10-20T13:42:00.000-07:00

when we sat down with dr. fabulous to go over how many of our 18 fertilized embryos we’d put back/freeze and he told us that in fact we had a grand total of two that had made it past the five day mark and those two we’d put back because neither was yet a blast. so the chances that both would make it/stick were very small.

Aint life amazing. One minute we are hypothetically speaking to our obgyn about if I could even physically carry twins the next we are so grateful that we even have two embryos that we can put back at all.

All I can say is that Summer put is so well (thank you Summer) when she said in her comment to my previous post “even though medicine can try to create more and they can retrieve more than one mature egg per stimulation. The whole point of retrieving multiple mature eggs per stimulation is to try to find that good one.”

And of course there is this to say once again: We have no control over events, science certainly gives us that illusion, but it isn’t totally science. There is something else involved in all of this otherwise 1+1 would always equal 2 but that just isn’t the case in the fertility spinning wheel.

So keep sending your thoughts and comments. I have nine more days to go.

My husband and I are, I think, at peace with the idea that whatever the outcome is; it’s what’s meant to be for us and for our family. That said of course I vacillate between hopeful and totally negative until I’m able to remind myself to remain in the present moment which is a nice one to be in.

What Control?

2010-10-14T12:19:00.000-07:00

So all is set for a transfer this coming Tuesday. Our donor had 25 eggs retrieved and we get the fertilization results tomorrow. Great right? Yes and we are now, of course, agonizing about whether to put on or two back. Twins would be a lot. And then we think, but my gosh could we actually be that lucky that two would take on the first go? And of course this is all so hypothetical and all about this illusion of control over details when you have a child this way. Details that we have no control over whatsoever. Tuesday will be transfer. I’m up. Our obgyn said, given my past pregnancy (the one with our first donor cycle) she things, besides some possible discomfort toward the end, I should go for two embryos as we would have more of a chance of a pregnancy that way. Maybe I was looking for a medical reason not to try two, I don’t know. At any rate I think, at the moment, our feeling it to go for it because well, we wont try this again. Its sort of our last shot. I would love to expand our family, am satisfied with what we have, and well, this is sort of it . Also not getting any younger. I turned 42 last month.

So there it is. If anyone still reads this, please send your good thoughts our way.

The Issue with Gattica

2010-05-27T14:17:00.000-07:00

Just cause it looks good on paper doesn’t mean it is. And so our donor, who looked perfect genetically on paper doesn’t have good eggs. Whoa. Right? She just did a second cycle eleven eggs, two good. The doctor is not recommending her for further egg donation. Kinda funny, but not really.

The upshot is that we did have a back up who was our first choice but had said she couldn’t work with our time line. Guess what?! Now she can. So we are back on after a minor glitch that only took up about two hundred and seventy nine extra hours of thinking about it and stressing.

Enjoy the weekend.

Going Gattica

2010-05-06T12:51:00.001-07:00

Do you know the movie? You know the one where “In "the not-too-distant" future, genetic engineering of humans is common and DNA plays the primary role in determining social class and ethan hawke plays a guy who fools everyone he being born without the help of genetic tinkering is discriminated against etc…anyway…where was I. Oh yeah, finding a donor.

As my husband and I looked at the donor selection – trying to minimize photos by asking the two agencies we were working with to send us PDF sans images…we started to get caught up in the stories – not the whole I like this, or eat that but the story of I paint, or I’m good at math, or I studied this and my siblings do X while my parents do Y – getting caught up in whose story is most similar to mine…and then the epiphany came…these are just stories and it really doesn’t matter what these people do (direction is so much determined by home life/circumstances/chance etc) – I see how much we influence our daughter now, see how different she is from her cousin of the same age in many respects because of how we are raising her and while genetics are responsible for a predisposition and her looks we help to guide that and foster or negate certain qualities which bring me back to this: in the end we threw out the stories of the donors just as we’d thrown out the images and went to who is the healthiest, who doesn’t have cancer, and has perfect eyesight etc (see Gattica above) and then it was easy there was only one who had such a clean slate. So we picked her. And in the game of pretending we can control anything we feel like we have someone who at least on paper will give our possible baby the best chance for a long disease free life. That and we had the nurse who chose our previous donor take a look at the photo of this donor to let us know if she thought she was compatible not with me but with the donor for our daughter. And she is. To back track I sent photos of our daughter to the agencies and had them select donors for us since we didn’t want to see the images.

And there we have it. We will do a cycle at end of August/September.

Fingers crossed.

Donor Search Update

2010-04-26T09:01:00.001-07:00

So we looked into donors – thank you everyone for your suggestions. Summer’s list is extensive. Please take a look at it. http://worrierwarrior.wordpress.com/agency-list/

We tried Beverly Hills Egg Donation and aside from the fact that the donor we chose – that they suggested – decided she didn’t want to cycle again the experience has been good. They are responsive, I sent photos of myself so they could help me with the search. My husband and I DO NOT want to see photos of the donor. We aren’t looking for someone who looks like me, or the previous donor (not that we know what she looks like) but we are looking for similar physical traits like hair texture, skin color, body type, overall healthy (with healthy family members) coordinated and someone who is college educated (although that isn’t even necessarily an indicator that someone is intelligent). Oh, and a proven donor. We don’t care what music they like, or what their favorite books is, those are not genetic characteristics.

At any rate it did seem to be too good to be true that the first person we chose would work out. Luckily there was someone else equally good. And finally lucky for us the nurse we worked with who chose our donor for us before looked at both these donor’s profiles AND their photos so she could let us know if there were any red flags or any reason the ones we chose would not be good.

So there it is: we have decided to move forward. We have a second donor we also liked – although , and here is the kicker – while she has donated once before there was no pregnancy. It’s a risk. More so then say, with our other choice who had donated three times and had three pregnancies. So of course nothing is perfect. And we are a little hesitant because of this. But then we all know this isn’t an exact science – if it was there would be a formula and all of us would get the correct result. So there is that chance and I guess we are gonna take it.

Searching

2010-04-13T05:39:00.000-07:00

We have decided to see if we can find another donor. Last time we didn’t look. The nurse who we had worked with for two years just called and said “ I have the perfect donor for you”. And that’s who we went with. This time that donor is done donating. We have asked the nurse again to look out for us but I’m also now contacting donor agencies which is bewildering…maybe a little odd to be flipping through images of people. I actually never saw our donor and don’t have any desire to see the next one. Anyone know of a great East Coast donor agency? Let me know.

So that’s where we are at. Although if we don’t find a donor in the next four to five months we will stop searching. We are very happy with our family as three and while it would be an incredible blessing to have another we are already so blessed we will be happy to keep our family the same size.

Ugh

2010-03-30T07:12:00.000-07:00

Blah’s have set in. Back went out. Almost got sick. Body is tired. It is different getting over this loss with a child already here. We know how lucky we are to have her, and she doesn’t let me sit and stew. All good.

Still it’s hard. And now that the relief of having the D& C is behind me I can feel sad. DH and I went to hear some classical music and I immediately started crying. A good thing. Went to a toddler CPR class and heard this girl say everyone here has just had a second baby, or is expecting one except for her (pointing at me). Crap thing. Seeing my “friend” and not talking to her about any of this….the one who said she wished she might have a miscarriage. Yeah, that friend. I did not officially tell her what happened, have not really seen her alone, but have not felt like it. And I don’t really want to hear about her pregnancy. Awkward thing. She lives two blocks away and her daughter and ours like to play together – they are two weeks apart. Guess I’ll stuff my feelings around her and go pay my therapist more money to get through it all.

Anyway, life does forge ahead, and this one is.

It’s over.

2010-03-23T15:42:00.000-07:00

It’s over. For now.

D&C this morning. When our doctor came to do the ultrasound he said something once again that was totally icky. This time I was ready. And guess what? He heard me. He totally apologized. And apologized again. And again. And it really made a difference because instead of feeling vaguely icky I just was able to feel sad. I urge you, if you are ever in a similar situation to speak up. I didn’t yell, I know I had tears in my eyes because well, because. And it was fine. And it was a relief. And I don’t care if he remembers about last week, I am hopeful that he will drop in when he speak to the next patient in a similar situation. And I know he can. And when he says he understand how painful this is, he does. He and his wife used a donor and a surrogate and we all know you don’t just start there.

It feels like a relief to have all the waiting over, finally. Even though the waiting means the end of this pregnancy. This is my fourth miscarriage. I hope it is the last. DH and I have to talk about what we want to do. We may be done, and we may try again. I’m just in this moment getting through. Taking the time to sit and breathe and feel instead of covering up with busy work.

Thank you as always for your support.

Sucky friend update: she emailed an apology. A nice one (in a way better than a phone call since I didn’t have to respond etc.). But I’m not sure if the damage has been done. In other words I will still be friends with her, how deep that friendship goes remains to be seen.

With a friend like this who needs an enemy?

2010-03-18T09:50:00.000-07:00

So there was one friend I told about our pregnancy. She had told me she was pregnant and was not so happy about it (not someone with fertility issues). At any rate she asked me how things were going. “Not great, it looks like I’m headed for a miscarriage.” “Oh I wish that would happen to me.” I kid you not. That was the response. I looked at her like WTF and almost started crying and said something to the effect of, umm that was not helpful. Immediately she was like I’m sorry blab bla....i had this urge to smooth things over and say to her I know you didn’t mean it. Instead I just said, it’s fine. Don’t worry about it. Then she’s all like I feel terrible – and I’m sure she did but I didn’t feel like consoling her for telling me she wished she was having a miscarriage too. Gawd.

I know she didn’t mean it. I know she has a lot going on. It’s just disappointing when a friend doesn’t come through. And it’s just sort of gross.

Anyway, still waiting and eating and popping pills and doing injections and time is slowly dragging by till next Tuesday.

Thanks for listening/reading.

How Sucky Can it Get?

2010-03-16T06:36:00.000-07:00

“It looks like you’re headed for a D&C” but, of course we need to wait an see because there is a chance (and the doc has seen it happen0that everything could be hunky dory). And the five days behind in development are still about a late implantation. And so begins the fourth week of wait and see. Very hard psychologically and physically. We have shared with no one although this morning I finally told my mother. Her response “ can you get the same donor again?”. Not exactly the warm nurturing comment I was hoping for. And no I don’t know what I was hoping but I do know it wasn’t that.

At any rate, still waiting, still doing shots and popping pills and stuffing my face because I’m starving all the time and in the back of my head is that small image today that didn’t have a fetal heartbeat when it should but we can’t give up yet because we never know. So I guess in the moment I’m still pregnant and next Tuesday’s scan – scheduled for 9:00 AM so that if I need a D&C I can get whisked off to another floor for a 9:30 procedure – will tell all.

Safe…for now

2010-03-10T03:07:00.000-08:00

So it’s not ectopic! Bedside manner of doctor was horrible. You’d think that was actually not a good thing the way she said it…you are still in a gray area sac hasn’t developed yet. And I’m like do you expect one now? And she’s like no. God…youd’ think they’d have an ounce of sensitivity. Maybe. At any rate we are still playing the waiting game. On to next week’s scan. I’d like to remain cautiously positive. Will let you know in a week.

Seesaw

2010-03-04T09:08:00.000-08:00

Well today my number is somewhere in mid 500s which is normal for the number I had earlier but is low for this point in time. So they are all like we’re not worried BUT should come in for ultrasound next Tuesday (instead of waiting another week for my doctor to get back from a trip) just to rule out an Ectopic Pregnancy. Ugh. The nurse was like, “I’m not worried at all your numbers are right on target from the 34 baseline”. And yadda yadda yadda – ugh. And I’m like ummm you know you are talking to someone who seen so many permutations of what can go wrong this is not soothing.

Please keep your fingers and toes crossed for us.

Today lottery number इस...

2010-03-01T12:57:00.000-08:00

Today my number was 270. Doctors have gone from cautiously optimistic to optimistic. We are still cautious. Always. I am scared to think it might have worked. Again. Scared and grateful.

And no I am not thinking I wish this time it was with my own eggs. Not at all. Why should I. It makes no difference in my love.

I am just hopeful that everything will turn out ok and that we remain grounded enough to integrate a possible new soul into our family in a safe nurturing way.

We tried again

2010-02-25T10:29:00.000-08:00

We tried again
hi,

Don't know if anyone reads this anymore. My husband and I tried a frozed DE cycle with our last to frozen embies. One didn't make it one was chugging along. I just got back the pregnancy test blood test certain it would be negative. And...it's positive BUT with a number of 34. I am not very hopeful. This kinda sucks. I wish it were a flat out negative. To contrast this number, with our daughter it was 160. Ugh.ugh. ugh. And of course they can't say no way but they also can't say this is great. I know they look for a number over 50. ugh. If anyone is reading this and has any words of support of wisdom of whatever, please share.

Nurture vs. nurture

2010-01-10T03:34:00.000-08:00

Hi.

As you can see I don’t post that often anymore but I think there may still be a few things worth sharing for DE moms and those thinking of becoming DE parents.

Here it is: I think I’ve become so much more conscious of who I am and what I do, how I react, assessing my values, or family values because I know that the thing I pass on to our daughter is my morals, my actions, and my example not the genetics. So I can’t say oh well at least she gets X from me since I messed up raising her. Nope, I get raising our daughter, period. What I can show her through my actions versus what she’s received simply by being born. And ultimately that’s what it’s about. Your looks and your natural talents are just that. It’s the person who embodies it that makes the difference and as a DE mom that’s the input I get.

It’s nice. It keeps me grounded while staying on my toes.

And

2009-11-23T06:39:00.000-08:00

i'd like to add back then, three years ago the choice was not easy. The idea that i would not carry on a genetic link that we wouldn't together make a baby was VERY hard. VERY. what i'm trying to say, albeit clumsily, is that now that was have our daughter i cannot imagine anyone else in my arms. and i would not change a thing.

hello

2009-11-23T03:13:00.000-08:00

hi.
it's been a while.
i still read other peoples blogs though rarely post.
i still think about all we went through to be able to have our daughter thru DE.
i still have a plastic bottle filled with used IVF related needles

And...

i still wouldn't change anything we went through to get to where we are today.

our daughter is twenty months old now.
it does not matter how she came to us, only that she is here. really.
people do ask me who i think she looks like and i always say her daddy.
some people say she looks like me and i always say, you think?

obviously i don't know what i'd be like to have a genetically linked daughter i only know that when i think back on the agony and stress we had deciding to go this route i keep thinking but why was it so hard? And then i realized we had to go through it all to get here. And it's something no one can really tell you, although I'm trying to: you will love your DE child as much as you would love your genetic child. I simply can't imagine loving someone more than I love our daughter and i can't imagine having a different daughter.

Perfect Moments

2008-11-18T10:57:00.000-08:00

I’m borrowing a title (sorta) from Kami …first let me say I don’t know where the time
goes. I still can’t believe our little one is now 8 months old or that it took us over five years to get to this place. There are many days that go by where I don’t think about DE at all, and many others when I do…especially when

a. someone asks: do you want another. Ha, as if it were so easy.
b. someone says: She is the perfect combination of you and your husband
c. someone says: She has your: eyes

I just nod and smile and say something agreeable to any of those comments. Sometimes I wish we hadn’t told so many people as it REALLY DOESN’T MATTER that we used an egg donor. But I know it mattered to us at the time to tell people and it still MATTERS A LOT to let our daughter know of her fantastic high tech origins. How we will do this is umm, unknown. We read a lot of books that said start telling her her birth story from the get go. We haven’t. Other say tell her when she is x, or y or z age. If anyone has experience of thoughts on the when to tell or how, I’d like to hear/read what you think.

Basically for all we went through to get here I doubt our lives are that different from other first time mom’s although perhaps the appreciation I have for the struggle it took to get here adds another layer. I don’t know. All I can say is I LOVE OUR DAUGHTER. All the perfect moments in her day make me very happy. Of course there are imperfect moments a plenty. And the adjustment for my husband and I has not been that smooth. No one talks about the transition for the couple from infertile couple for years, to couple with child. Or how when you’ve waited so long for something you get very overprotective…we’re loosening up but…anyone have a similar experience?

Anyway, just wanted to post because it’s been a long time.

Every day is a blessing

2008-09-01T17:05:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone…time passes so quickly. Our daughter will be six months old in a week. I can’t believe it. And I’m so happy to know that there are many new DE mother’s to be out there. Every day with her is a day when I think “it’s so amazing that I ever thought that a donor egg could matter in my love.” But I guess you have, or I had to, go through the whole process to understand it all.

I secretly laugh at the people who don’t know us well who peer into our little ones face and announce things like “her eyes are spaced the same as yours…or there’s just something about her that is like you…” People really do see what they want to sseen. So now I nod and say thank you.

Anyway just wanted to say hi. Trying to keep up with everyone please know even if I don’t post I am following what is going on sending out support vibes to all.

This Time This Year

2008-07-20T11:41:00.000-07:00

Since 2003 it’s been “maybe this time next year I’ll be pregnant, we’ll have a baby” it’s been so long that I was startled when we went hiking last week and on our first day walking a trail I remembered that in 2004 with pregnancy number two not yet a second miscarriage, I saw a family with a small baby and thought to myself this time next year it’ll be us…and then realized as we walked along in 2008, that we have arrived. There is no more this time next year, it is really this time, right now, this is it. The time we have longed for, waited and cried for…and it’s amazing. Truly amazing. DE has been a gift for us. To say getting here wasn’t easy is an understatement to say being here isn’t easy is also true. I don’t have the fears that protracted experiences with infertility seem to bring to a pregnancy that finally “sticks” but I do have the emotional scars and memories. These have begun to well up in anxiety, fears cousin, of the future and a difficulty in enjoying present moments. Yes those precious moments that are gone as soon as they arrive. I am determined not to let them slip as anxious thoughts of the terrible things that could happen seep into my mind. I am determined, if thinking about the future, to think, “what if everything goes right” instead of “what if everything goes wrong”. All these years of contingency plans for possible cycle failures seem to have taught me too well to prepare for the bad and not the good. But I am trying to change that…albeit slowly. And I think there is a glimmer of light…I don’t want to forget the past but I am trying to make a peace with it.

Now for the quick recap: our holiday was the first as a larger family and the first time my husband was able to spend so much time with our daughter. My parents came for one week and I have to say, as I’ve said before, DE continues not to make one iota of difference in our love, or the love of our daughters extended family. It does not come into play it doesn’t matter. What matters is her smile in the morning, her laugher when we play with her, the squeals of delight when she gets a bath, her look of wonder at everything.

She will be twenty weeks old on Thursday.

Gone hiking

2008-07-04T09:18:00.000-07:00

Yup, first trip with our daughter. Very exciting and totally terrifying.
I don’t know that I’ll have access to a computer to check up what everyone is doing but hoping everyone will be well!

How Many People Did You Take a Shower With?

2008-06-20T14:20:00.000-07:00

Asked a very wise man once…in other words when you take a shower are you in the shower or is your mind going through lists, or possible conversations etc…this morning I showered with my fifth grade teacher, of all people, and revisited several past events but did redid them so they came out the way I wanted. And then I thought about the wise man again and this blog and well, now this post.

Just reminding myself as anxiety was starting to get the better of me to take the time to remember to breathe and most of all to take the time to be where I am instead of somewhere else in my head. Not so easy.

Anyone have any tips for trying to stay in the moment instead of rushing on to all the things that might happen? I’d appreciate any suggestions.

Four Days Ago

2008-06-18T10:59:00.000-07:00

It was Father’s day…I never thought we’d celebrate. It gave me pause to think about how much all the IVF/Fertility stuff has changed him…after all it hasn’t just been me going through it all. As far as I can tell it was even harder for him to talk about than me…not because he can’t talk about his feeling (he’s good at that) but finding another male friend he felt he could speak with wasn’t so easy. In the end he had one person he could really talk to and im grateful that he had that outlet. He has been such a support to me, I don’t think I’ve mentioned it much here but since it was just father’s day I’d like to say how thankful I am to have him by my side. If not for him I could not have gotten through all the crap…he helped me see light when all I could see was blackness and his smile always makes my day.

Just wanted to recognize my partner in life and say I love him.

12 weeks

2008-06-06T05:39:00.000-07:00

Wow, 12 weeks old yesterday. Our beautiful little one has really woken to the world now. It is amazing. Truly. She is a gift. I don’t forget that ever. I know I’d die for her. How strange, but how true. I got a call from our clinic yesterday because they wanted information for some sort of DE study. What’s the study? Why? Where is the information going? All questions I asked, I thought, were reasonable AND none of which the poor girl on the other end of the phone could answer except to say, you have to do this. Ha! Again I asked all the questions and said you understand you want me to give you personal information and you can’t tell me what it’s for, right? Yes she finally conceded. I’ll have to get back to you. Personally I hope I scared her away.

While we told our very close friends and family about DE because it seemed important that it not be a secret thing, and we will tell our little one, it also seems just as important now to protect her privacy and let her decide who she wants to share information with when she is older. The sharing of information before she was born is part of our story, now it’s hers to tell. At one point I thought I wanted to become some sort of poster DE mom but, at least in this moment, I’d like her to choose.

Anyway not much else to say. I love her fiercely, cannot imagine life without her, and there is no loss with DE, just bountiful overflowing gains.

Ten is a Magic Number

2008-05-15T05:56:00.000-07:00

Today our daughter is 10 weeks old. Sometimes it seems so unreal after having waited and wanted this for so long…I keep thinking is this really my life now? I had gotten so used to the cycles and needles and planning weekends to recoup from disappointment and loss…these memories/feelings do not go away with the birth of a child. Yes the recede but they are also a part of me and have shaped who I am now. It’s why we didn’t have a baby shower, it’s why when I speak to friends I don’t speak about her first – or check myself to make sure I’m not going over board with baby talk. Mind you I am totally in love with our daughter and very happy…what’s funny is after wondering before we began the DE process if should would feel like my daughter without the genetic connection (yes 100%) I am now worried as I go back to work full time that the person we hire to care for her will become so connected to her that our daughter will think of her as her primary care giver…re-enforces yet again that is the time spent and love given that makes the parent.

I know I’ve blogged a lot about how being a parent is much more than a blood tie, and I think at this point there is nothing new to say on the topic besides the blanket statement genetics don’t matter…so going forward I’ll try to refrain from repeating myself and focus more on experiences I have that seem DE specific which some of you may or may not find helpful or of interest.

And on that front: we told another couple (known for a long time but rarely see) about our little ones origins this after the wife was saying how she is a mix of both of us…I wanted to share with her because they’d had their own fertility issues…wouldn’t you know it she told me about her close friend who used DE and a surrogate – goes to show there are so many combinations and so many ways to create a family. Anyway it felt good to tell her and at the same time it seems less and less important to say anything. Not because we want to hide DE (we will tell our little one about her high tech beginning) but because it just doesn’t seem to matter. I read an interview of the mother of a girl I went to high school she was adopted and the mother refers to her simply as her daughter…it think that says it all.

Who's your mommy?

2008-05-12T14:18:00.000-07:00

I am reminded once again that genetics do not make the parent. My close friend who is adopted spent mother’s day mourning her mother, she past a way a few weeks ago. Does she care that her mom is not her biological mother? No. Would she be sadder if she was? No. And every Father’s day I am happy to have my dad who is my adopted one. I do not mourn the one who died who has a biological connection to me. How can I? I never knew him. Besides I love my life and if things were different I wouldn’t be me.

What makes your mom your mom? That fact that you might look like her or share some of her talents or the fact that she stayed up late at night when you were sick, hugged you when you were hurt, was there for you even when you hated her (my teen years were not exactly smooth) and loves you no matter what?

This was my first mother’s day as a mother. For a long time now I thought maybe next year I’ll be a mom…and it’s finally happened but that does not wipe away years of yearning. As Summer said in her beautiful post: “I also want to remember the children that we have lost and the ones that we hoped for but never came to be.”

She looks just like you: part two

2008-04-18T17:51:00.000-07:00

Our daughter is now six weeks old – six weeks of experiencing what we had dreamed about for almost seven years. It is still unreal to me, to us, and yet it has happened. All the agonizing we did about using DE and how we would feel was mostly washed away over a year ago when we finally decided on this route and now that the little one is here I truly understand how all our fears meant nothing. I do not feel that oh she’s not genetically mine, that doesn’t bubble up at all. I look into her eyes and think here is a tiny human being and we have been trusted to care for her and give her roots so that when she grows her wings and flies away she’ll also be firmly grounded.

The thing that has continued to happen and I suppose will continue well, as long as we’re alive, are the comments from people on who she looks like and no I’m not just talking about strangers. My mother-in-law who knows all about the DE said to me last week she has your eyes and long fingers. How funny is that? I didn’t correct her and launch into a whole thing about how it’s totally impossible for her to look like me, I just smiled and fell back on my favorite response: you think so? It goes to show how little it really matters and how people will see what they want to see. For instance I’m pretty sure she and I stretch the same when we wake up…

She looks just like you…

2008-03-24T08:05:00.000-07:00

A few people have said our daughter looks like my mother and my Uncle and what do I say? I say “you think so?” or rather I write that as it’s people who have seen photos of her. Of course I don’t mean our close friends and family, they all know we used a donor egg – these are the circle of people who we are not that close with. My husband and I decided we don’t need to explain to every person what we did or went through – the caveat being if we ever feel uncomfortable with what we are saying…in other words if either of us feel we are lying, or covering something up. My husband’s father asked us: do I tell everyone she is from a donor egg? And we said: only if you feel uncomfortable not telling them.

Has anything changed in perceptions of her in the last two weeks? Do I think “ what if she was my bio daughter? Am I missing out because she wont look physically like me?” And the answer is: she is my daughter, it’s really as simple as that. My husband says she sleeps like me and furrows her brows like me, I am reminded yet again that we take on our parents mannerisms and intonations and it is perhaps this that makes us most “look” like them…and again, it doesn’t matter who she looks like. It’s actually amazing to me that I ever thought it would matter, that I mourned the loss of my genetics at all (yes I cried and got angry)…of course that was something I had to go through to get to this place right now, this place of knowing it doesn’t matter how she came into this world, this little girl is our daughter .

1:39 AM

2008-03-14T09:03:00.000-07:00

Our daughter was born on Thursday March 6th at 1:39 AM. What can I say, as I write this I feel like crying tears of joy. I can tell you that it really really doesn’t matter that she started with another egg than my own. She is our daughter. The soul chooses the parents it wouldn’t have mattered anyway how we had her she’s still be her. If that makes any sense any at all. So right now being a DE mother feels like just being a mom (I can’t believe I am finally writing the word mom for myself)…as far as I can tell at any rate. We went to the pediatrician this morning and when he asked about family history I said she’s a DE baby and gave him the medical information I have that’s probably the most eventful difference between me and someone with a 100% bio baby, at least for the moment.

As for the birth nothing went as planned but it was wonderful experience anyway and I kept remembering the forest for the trees. My husband at my request had found some photos online of woods, meadows and trees in Oregon and thereabouts which I looked at often during the 22 hours of labor to remind myself about what we can and can’t control. In the then end she was a floating baby meaning she never dropped. I was induced 10 days after our due date and despite 20 hours on petocin without an epidural I never dilated or effaced, although my water broke. I ate like a fiend the entire time: chicken, pasta, eggs, apples, almond butter, quinoa…after 20 hours the doctor and doula agreed I should try an epidural to see if my muscles would relax enough to let the babies head come down. It didn’t work. So we ended up with a C-section and I’m grateful for it as she simply wasn’t going to come out any other way. What we did do is keep her with us during the entire surgery and she came intro recovery and latched on. So yeah, not the experience I’d planned but still a good experience. Forest trumps tree!

Thank you for your thoughts – I am happy to report we are all well. I will check up on everyone in the next weeks, just trying to adjust to everything at the moment. I hope everyone is well.

The Forest or the Tree?

2008-03-03T14:31:00.000-08:00

Today I remembered that it’s the forest not the tree that is important – by that I mean it’s the big picture – that for us, after years of infertility we are going to have a baby this week one way or another. Sure a “perfect natural” birth would be great, but what’s perfect? The most important thing is that we will finally be parents.
I temporarily lost sight of this, I got side tracked by details that don’t in the end matter, that are a luxury to even think about given how hard it was to get pregnant in the first place. We are very lucky that DE was available and that it worked for us. I do not take this for granted.

Thank you for the words of support from my last post…I appreciate that no one was offended by my fixating on loss of control over a birth as opposed to the larger issues of infertility that brought many of us to blogland…wanting to be parents.

Which brings me back to the forest: we are so grateful that we are finally, almost there, or here.

The lesson learned…again

2008-02-29T08:28:00.000-08:00

This week I am learning, or relearning yet again, that just because we want something or do all the “right” things does not mean something will automatically go as imagined. In this case I’d imagined our little one would come on or around the due date and that I would not be looking at a possible induction next week. Yes I know, I have time…but it’s the lesson I am grateful for…again. There is only an illusion of control that we have over our lives. The only thing we can control (hopefully) is our reaction to the things that come our way. My husband said to me we’ve waited almost seven years to have a baby so why should I think it would be easy or fast now? Good point. And again I am humbled by the largeness of life that we are swept up in and again I am reminded that I have a choice: I can make peace with how things are going, stay as positive as possible or I can rage and feel helpless or angry or sad (all good things to feel, get out of my system and let go of). Today I am choosing to make peace with whatever happens over the next few days…or should I say the rest of my life?!

That doesn’t mean I’m going to stop the acupuncture, reflexology, meditation, relaxed breathing, cranial sacral, sex, primrose oil etc. to try and get into labor, but I am also embracing, or trying to embrace the knowledge that ultimately I have no control and must take things as they come. It’s the lesson I learned with our infertility in general. How many times I’ll need to learn this lesson I don’t know, but it’s a good one to have a refresher course in I will say that much.

How do you deal with the your loss of control feelings? Any suggestions let me know.

It’s Official

2008-02-22T11:01:00.000-08:00

I have nothing to do and it’s freaking me out. I had one last deadline for a big project and that was finished yesterday. When I look at my calendar for next week there is nothing....well other than the due date for the baby on Monday February 25th although the future little one has not sent an RSVP and for all I know might be rather late. For now this is the official beginning of maternity leave – but my brain is working overtime coming up with little projects like, oh, why not clean out the freezer? And, how about ripping the rest of the CD’s so your collection is totally digitized, and lets plan a hiking trip for the Summer in a place you know nothing about and have no information on so you can spend several hours trolling the internet. I keep making lists and finishing everything, which while gratifying, is frustrating because I seem to want to have things to do. My husband and I are going to a play tomorrow afternoon which I’m looking forward to and the rest of my days are filled with acupuncture, reflexology and pregnancy massage all designed to get my body into labor…I actually have until March 4th to do this and then I’ve been told induction awaits so I have time, and I’m not worried, my body will do what it needs to do.

I am so grateful for the donor egg process. I think about how upsetting the idea was at first and can now barely believe I was every upset. I feel very calm, very happy and have no doubts that this is our baby and that the soul that was meant to come to us has. I have no wish that things played out differently. I think that’s a good place to be and just wanted to share that because I know with DE the question can comes up: will I be able to love/accept this baby and while I certainly can’t answer for what anyone else will experience I can say from my own experience up to this moment the answer is yes I can love/accept this baby AND not have any second thoughts about what might have been had this been my egg. It will be our child and that is a wonderful thing.

Six Things

2008-02-18T06:37:00.000-08:00

Summer tagged me.

The Rules:
1) Link to the person who tagged you.
2) Post the rules.
3) Share six non-important things / habits / quirks about yourself.
4) Tag at least three people.
5) Make sure the people you tagged KNOW you tagged them by commenting what you did.

1.I eat three squares of dark chocolate a day.

2.I don’t drive.

3.There is a falcon that often sits outside one of our windows on sunny days and makes our two cats bonkers by its presence. The falcon never deigns to look at them.

4.I play piano and recently my mother gave us hers, it’s the one I played growing up. It brings my great joy to be able to play again. I am relearning the sonatas I played as a teenager and finding a depth to them I did not then know existed.

5.I love reading.

6.Mountains, and walking in them, makes me very happy.

I am tagging M, Peep, and Foreverhopeful

Infertility is not Failure

2008-02-15T05:07:00.000-08:00

At least I don’t think so. It just is. I stopped playing the what if and why games a while ago, they got me no where. That and I realized that I really like who I am today and since I’m a product of my experiences if they hadn’t happened I wouldn’t be me.

Not that there haven’t been times when I have asked why and what if, and not just for infertility – cancer, death of friends or family, general tragedy, and wtf? moments…but somewhere along the line I decided it was better to ask why not me? And then to accept what has happened and try to learn from it. I actually know the exact moment this occurred: I had just had my second D&C and was walking across the street when it hit me: I wouldn’t want anyone else to have to go through this and feel this way. I’d been doing a lot of meditation and reading at the time (still do) – and of course after that, when I found out I had a cancer a few weeks later I thought why me? But again, I thought – I don’t want anyone else to go through this, and again I thought – what can I learn from this…of course I also cursed and cried and was angry too.
And then there’s the infertility…I doubt any of us who discovers themselves in this camp got there on purpose – it was not, is not our fault. It just is – for a variety of factors and there is no magic that can make it go away. And it is not a failure – in fact if anything, it takes great courage to hear this, live it, and figure out how to move on from it. When I read the blogs of others in this community the word failure never crosses my mind – I think, this women is a hero, or that women has been through so much and is figuring out how to persevere and this other women is an inspiration, and here’s another I can learn from...the list of positive things goes on and on, not to mention it is through the shared experiences of everyone that I have been able to grow and move ahead too…so thank you….again.

Never Say Never

2008-02-03T14:37:00.000-08:00

I’ve been doing a lot of blog reading this weekend and one thing I am reminded of is how I first reacted when told by our fertility doctor that DE was the best chance we had of being pregnant. NOT ME, NEVER, NO $#%@! WAY. Meaning, I could not imagine that we would not be able, through persistence to have a biological child, that some of my eggs must be good. Never say never. Today I read this piece about ending infertility treatment -- many thanks to Gabrielle over at fertility notes pointing it out. The thing that stuck with me is the final sentence which I wanted to share:

"Those whose greatest loss with infertility is the loss of the opportunity to parent are the ones who have the easiest time looking at options beyond treatment -- options which involve some kind of adoption: traditional adoption, surrogacy, donor gametes."

In the end, that’s what it came down to for us: we wanted to be parents and I wanted, if possible, to experience pregnancy – that a child shared my genetics, or looked like me didn’t/doesn’t matter. And it wasn't easy -- I'm not sure that there are many choices we make in the IF world that are easy. Although I can honestly say today that I would not change anything. It is not about creating someone who is a combination of our looks, rather the combination of us will be in who that child becomes

You need a permission slip for the fieldtrip

2008-01-23T05:09:00.000-08:00

I’m finally able to give myself permission to relax about this pregnancy. Yes, at week 36 I can write the following: we have a really good chance at a healthy birth and baby and that makes me very happy. There I did it. It’s scary to see that written, or typed, or posted, but it’s also great. I’ve vacillated between fear and fear since we got a positive pregnancy result from IVF number 8 and donor cycle number 1 so this is kinda momentous for me. Over the weekend my husband’s brother came and took the futon bed out of the room that we have finally started calling the baby room and not the guest room. So it seems it is possible after years of loss and sadness to enjoy pregnancy without forgetting or obliterating what came before. For those wondering if the fear every goes away it doesn’t completely (at least not for me), but it does recede. That said, I’ll still knock on wood any chance I get and the baby clothes we purchased are still wrapped in their packaging because part of me is terrified if I open any of it, something will happen. So yeah, it gets better but it’s not care free.

And on the telling front because yes we are still telling our friends: I think we have finally told all the people close to us. There are a couple I have not said anything too – one I’m waiting to see in person, one, a relative, I’m just not sure about – what I mean by that is I don’t think this person every really hears what I’m saying – or what anyone is saying for that matter. I wish I could count on some sensitivity but then it shouldn’t matter if this falls on deaf ears because ultimately for us what matters is there are no secrets and not what others have to say about it.

Sometimes Biology Can Take Three

2008-01-09T05:32:00.000-08:00

My husband and I spoke to our future pediatrician last night – the doctor who has two DE children…we wanted to hear a little bit more about how he thought a donor recipient might affect the future little one as he/she develops since clearly it’s not gonna be in the genes. What he said in a nutshell was this: A DE recipient can and does effect the constitutional hardiness around the immune functions for the first 4 to 7 months after birth. In other words early on the baby will carry what we pass onto it/is protected by our biology for a short period. After that there are things that we can continue to modulate (his word) that can have a biological effect on the future little ones immune system. For example if one chooses to breast feed limiting exposure to certain foods can help prevent allergies or, a less direct example, by exposing the baby to animals like cats and dogs we can reduce the likelihood of pet allergies. Previously I’d discussed with him taking certain supplements like fish oil, which can positively effect brain development, and probiotics which help against development of food allergies because they break down food into digestible bits – in other words taking certain vitamins etc, can benefit the health of the baby. That’s pretty awesome. It’s nice to think about what can be done to help shape how a future little ones body responds to certain things.

On another very brief note (and this is directly about my current pregnancy so if for what ever reason you don’t feel like reading about these kinds of details please stop.): I am into my thirty third week and finally yesterday had the guts to purchase something for the future little one: a pair of totally frivolous and unnecessary fuzzy orange slippers. So now we have one pair of useless fuzzy orange slippers coming in the mail and nothing else. Go figure. The fear has really kept me from mobilizing but all of a sudden there are seven weeks left and all of a sudden im feeling like this is really going to happen and something terrible isn’t laying in wait around the corner. Although I’m still keeping my fingers and toes crossed.

The Bio mom

2007-12-26T07:23:00.001-08:00

I had a long conversation with a good friend of mine who was adopted regarding whether she considers her bio mom to be her mom and how connected she feels to her bio mom. I was curious for the obvious reasons around DE and what a DE child might want to know.

The background: my friend did not find out she was adopted until she was 15. Yes she was very angry at not knowing AND it also answered a lot of questions for her as she was so physically different from her parents. About 8 few years ago, as she was turning 30 she decided to look for her bio mom. She wanted to find her bio mom for the medical information AND to well, find her. Her big fear was that she’d register and discover her bio mom had no interest in being found. he entered her info into a registry and within 24 hours had the contact information. She initiated contact and they have been in touch ever since mostly by phone with an occasional visit.

How she feels today: After meeting her bio mom she fantasized about being raised by her her and the bio dad (who actually were not together) but then she realized if she had been, she would not know the people she knows today, would not be married to her husband, have their kids, and basically would be a totally different person. She likes who she is and she loves her parents, so once she thought it through the fantasy stopped.

She went on to say that she does not feel that this women is her mom because they don’t share a common background and she was raised by someone else. As she put it: I feel closer to my aunt than I do to my bio mom. At the same time she is very glad to have her in her life, to find out things about the biological side of her family – there are also half siblings.

Now this is one person’s point of view. There are many other experiences out there. I just thought it was interesting to post what her feelings are regarding the love she has for her mother and father versus what she feels for the women who gave birth to her.

As I’ve mentioned a few times here I did not know my birth father – he died right around the time I was born. He had no siblings, his dad was dead and his mother died when I was very young. After his mother died I had no contact with his side of the family. I know nothing exact about his medical history. I do have a few photos of him with my mom and the stories that have been told to me by those who knew him. I was raised by another man, who adopted me, and who I consider my father. When I was a teenager I fantasized A LOT about my dead dad, as an adult I know I am very happy with my life and that a lot of who I am is because of my adopted father. I’ve grown up thinking a parent is more than a biological connection. In a very real way it has prepared me for the DE path – not that this was a path I ever envisioned or knew existed. I had dreams of having a family the old fashioned way.

I don’t blame myself because my eggs didn’t work – they just didn’t. I accept that we will never know why, and even if we did know why it would just be a fact, not a fault. I do think of myself as someone who perseveres and continues to have hope and I am someone who absolutely believes parenthood is more than genetics because that has been my own experience.

You never know who has used donor eggs…

2007-12-19T11:20:00.000-08:00

Note: I re-wrote this post from the first posting…feel it now says more of what I wanted to convey…and kami thanks for your support as always…when I put this new post up everything got deleted.

It’s good to tell people.

The pediatrician we interviewed this morning has two children via egg donor. This was wonderful news to us. I think I felt my heart lifting when he said that. It re-enforces my belief that being open and honest about DE is the way to go and just for that serendipity – finding someone who has some direct experience with infertility with the issues around DE or DI etc.

I keep wanting to talk about DE with more people. For me it is very freeing and every time we speak about it I feel it becomes less of a big deal, more of a this is what we did. If that makes any sense.

I had a long talk with a friend recently who was adopted and is now in touch with her bio mom. I’ll post about that later as I think there is some correlation between what she has experienced and some of the things I know I’ve thought about when deciding on a donor and thinking about how we would tell the future little one etc.

I’m out of time today, need to get back to work, but will post more on this later.

It takes 30 weeks plus 1 day

2007-12-18T07:30:00.001-08:00

to stop feeling totally terrified that something might happen to the pregnancy (which i still do please see previous post). At least for me. Not that superstition has abated totally. No baby shower and we still have not bought anything for the future little one…although we have plenty of time and I do have a list.

It is very exciting to feel the future little one kick and move. Which it does a lot and is a sign of good health, I’m told. I’m meeting with our doula again this Friday – that’s actually the one thing I did do very early on – find a doula. Like as soon as we passed the 3mnth mark. We are walking the fine line between natural birth and a hospital that does mostly epidural and c-section births. It helps that our obgyn has worked with doulas in the past and is on board. Of course since we’ve prepared for natural I’m also totally prepared to be told I need a c-section for some sudden reason (or not so sudden as I’ve been told the placenta is lying very low and may obscure the cervix so the baby would not be able to come out). You know it’s like planning for a wedding – it wont ever go perfect – and it’s just one day compared to all the days, weeks, months, years after. So we’re doing what we can to plan for a natural birth knowing full well that anything can occur and we just need to go with the flow when/if anything happens. Bottom line is we trust the care we have. Same for the IVF doctor. We very much trust him too. It’s so important to trust and like the people we allow to handle our bodies so intimately.

Infertility doesn’t stop when you're pregnant

2007-12-11T07:55:00.000-08:00

It has often been confusing to me being pregnant. Not the pregnancy, that’s been something where I’ve felt afraid the whole time that something will go wrong…no, I’m talking about the signs of visible fertility. Kami has a post about this that got me thinking about it even more. Sometimes I feel very uncomfortable – like when the lady on the street corner asked me my due date and then told me to be careful because there were women out there who could not get pregnant so they might want to steel my baby, possibly even cut it out of my stomach. I’m not kidding. It was so absurd. And of course I am one of those women who could not get pregnant. Could not until DE and even then, it’s not a given. I got lucky. Finally.

I straddle both worlds. Once my husband and I started having our fertility problems five years ago we slowly withdrew from the people we know who were pregnant, or had children. It was just too painful to be around them or to hear them talk about their babies etc. It was our effort at self-protection. And it sort of worked. When I spoke to friends over the phone and they started in with baby related talk I would not go along for the ride because it left me in tears after hanging up. Rather I started saying things like, oh wow, I didn’t realize the time, I’ve got to go, or some version of that. It was much better than going along.

Now we are pregnant and I found myself reluctant to speak about the pregnancy because I remember and know all too well how painful it is to hear about pregnancy and babies if you want them. I do this, apparently to a fault. One friend actually asked my husband if everything was ok with the baby because I never talk about it. She is single and in her 30’s and I just didn’t talk much about it because I didn’t want her to be upset. Same with the other friends of ours who do not have kids or are not in relationships. The interesting thing is that she, unlike me, wants to hear about it. Which means, as Kami discusses in her post (and others discuss in the comments), that it is better to ask and be honest with people. So in that spirit: I grapple with how much to talk about my pregnancy online because I know when I wasn’t pregnant there were many days when I just couldn’t read about someone who was, and then there were the days when reading about someone who’d been through so many hurdles and was finally pregnant gave me great hope. I try to strike a balance here, if I haven’t please let me know.

Ultimately I don’t think infertility stops when something works be it a pregnancy or an adoption or the decision, as some make, to get off the roller coaster completely. Infertility changes all of us and makes us who we are, or will become. I think I am a better person today for all that I’ve been through (and will continue to experience) hopefully more empathetic and sensitive to those around me. I am continually reminded to take nothing for granted. Especially this online community.

A little more on telling…

2007-11-29T10:20:00.000-08:00

So my husband and I have now told just about all the people in our lives that are close to us about DE and the struggles we’ve been through regarding infertility. Mostly in superficial detail with more explanation when it’s asked for. A couple of interesting things

1.one friend revealed that she too had two miscarriages
2.only one friend asked us questions about the donor

Regarding #2: I’m not sure why more of our friends haven’t asked more detailed questions but I can say that I was grateful to go into detail with the friend who did ask. It felt amazingly good to talk frankly about coming to terms with DE, choosing the donor, the first waves of genetic loss followed by the embracing of the idea that a baby is much more than genes. the best things my husband and I can pass on to the future little one is o the knowledge we have learned and continue to learn by living our lives.

I’d be curious, if anyone wants to share, how your friends reacted when you told them about doing DE or DI. Did they ask lots of questions? Tell you that they were happy for you and leave it that? Something else?

Oh – glucose test came back negative. No gestational diabetes!

worry warts

2007-11-26T07:13:00.000-08:00

turkey day was fine -- my husband and i decided that we would tell people about the donor if it made sense to do so regardless of my parents. it's been interesting for me to see how much i still want their approval even though i'm an adult. needless to say it didn't actually come up...and most people there were not family. the close friends who came already knew so there you are. once again i was worried about something that didn't happen. i read something somewhere once about how the things you worry about are the things that don't happen which is true until it isn't. so i guess it's good to be prepared. and i appreciate the advice that people left for me. it was helpful.

had a glucose test this AM and everything seems normal. i'll know the results in a day or two. i ate the food the chinese doctor suggested instead of the bagel the doctor suggested and feel fine. no sugar crash. and quinoa congee is fairly yummy. the test really wasn't as bad as i thought it would be. once again something i was worried about that was basically a nothing.

we are now 27 weeks and the baby is 2 pounds. doctor said this is when you feel the kicks the strongest because the baby is big enough and there is still room for it to move around.

Sweet and Low

2007-11-21T05:30:00.000-08:00

On Monday I go in for a glucose test – this is a test for gestational diabetes that, at least from my doc.’s point of view, is mandatory even if you have no symptoms because there is a 5% chance I could be one of those who has it but doesn’t show it. Being a veteran infertile I know all about being on the low side of the odds so I’ll have to suck it up, or drink it down a 20 oz. bright orange sugar liquid. You have to fast for about 8 hours beforehand drink the stuff and then take a blood test an hour later. I don’t eat sugar (except in fruit and sometimes honey) so I imagine I’ll get pretty wound up and then totally crash and feel like crap. On the up side I spoke with my Chinese doctor who told me what to eat right after the test and the homeopathic pediatrician we found suggested some drops to take as specific intervals post sugar high.
Will report back and let you know.

One more thing: my husband finally told his brother about DE – no we hadn’t told him, hadn’t even told him details about our infertility, we’re very good at keeping secret, but as I’ve written here before we don’t want this to be a secret. He’s still got a few more to tell, but that will come. Of course tomorrow being thanksgiving there are more people we could tell BUT because my parents, while understanding that we want to share this information, are reticent to tell anyone they know there is a bit of a conflict in my own mind: do we tell people because want to tell them tomorrow OR, to spare my parents their conflicting emotions etc., do we just not say anything save it for times when we see individuals alone? i think im leaning toward waiting for the parents not to be around. Anyone have any advice/thoughts on this?

have a nice thanksgiving!

95% of the time it’s nothing…

2007-11-13T11:58:00.000-08:00

Just got a pre-cancerous melanoma removed on Saturday. The dermatologist had said “when you’re pregnant things grow so be sure to check in with me” and voila…she found something. Well, that’s why I go. This is the third one that’s gotten cut out of me. I take cancer or it’s possibility very seriously. Coming up on Thursday is the three year anniversary of the general check up appointment when the doctor, agreeing with my Chinese doc and acupuncturist, felt things weren’t quite right around my neck and that I should get a scan. 95% of the time it’s nothing…and silly me, I believed her. Of course it wasn’t fine. And I had to have a 6 hour surgery to remove two tumors and my entire thyroid which meant that the treatment after surgery was more aggressive. Basically I drank radiation. When you don’t have a thyroid you don’t have a metabolism, and without a metabolism your stops working. There are drugs to take that can give you a metabolism. The trick is knowing how much. Every person is different and it is not dependent on weight or height. Basically you feel like crap until the meds are adjusted which takes a few months.

And what does this have to do with fertility? Well the day I got the go ahead to start my first IVF cycle after all the tests etc. was the day I found out I had cancer. I was on the phone with the IVF doctor when the cancer doctor called. Too much. Really. After my surgery the first thing I asked when I could think was can I still do my IVF cycle. I’m lying in bed barely able to speak unable to really move my head and all I could do was focus on that. When the cancer doctor said no I’d have to wait six months because I’d have to do some aggressive follow up treatment since the tumor had touched muscle I just cried and cried and cried.

In fact it’s safe to say I never really dealt with the cancer because I was much more focused on wanting to have a baby. Now that we are pregnant (25 weeks) I guess I’m finally wondering to myself if I actually dealt with everything I went through. I don’t know that I have.

Maybe some of you know what I mean – I mean about not dealing with other big huge things in life because fertility/infertility completely takes over. Has that happened to anyone else?

what if the other shoe never drops?

2007-11-02T07:18:00.000-07:00

Next Monday is the 6 month or 24 week check up. It’s hard for me to believe. Still. All the baggage from the years of trying does not simply get put into storage. It’s more like a suitcase that I still carry around with me. I don’t know that it’s necessarily bad. Or that I want to forget. Actually I know I don’t want to forget. What I struggle with is how to feel at peace with where i am now, with full acceptance, with not worrying that something terrible will happen. But I guess terrible things do always happen and maybe all I can hope for is that I have the strength and wisdom to deal with things as they come up. Sometimes it’s hard to just be happy without the worry. My husband was also saying he’s worried because everything is going so well for us now. We’ve been so used to not having things go the way we’d hoped that now that we are we’re worried because everything is too good. Is this normal? I don’t know.

What I do know is im feeling cautiously optimistic about this pregnancy and about having a healthy birth. The little one kicks a lot now. Or I feel the kicks more often, take your pick. That’s the optimist part. The cautious part is my husband and I have not thought about names, we have not gone shopping for things yet and we wont have a baby shower (we’re way too superstitious). But that’s fine.

What else…oh! People have been asking us if the future little one is a boy or a girl. we opted for not knowing. For us after so much medicalization and knowing almost too much we wanted to have this be a surprise.

On making the choice to go with a donor

2007-10-25T06:35:00.000-07:00

When I started this blog we’d already made the choice to go with a donor, had found our donor in fact and were waiting to cycle. We were at peace with our path. BUT getting to that point was not easy. I mean we didn’t just wake up and say lets do this. We didn’t just embrace donor egg. We didn’t just say hey, what a great idea. In fact it would be more accurate to say that I felt like saying f$%#! off to our doctor when he mentioned that I was a great candidate for this option after try number 3. My husband who loves tough odds said if we just persevere we’ll be fine. I was pretty sure too. After all I couldn’t be one of those people who’d have to resort to that now could I?! Besides I was just 37 had great responses, great fertilization results and we knew from our previous miscarriages that carrying a baby wasn’t the issue. Patience was what we needed. Patience we had.

But it kept not working.

After the 5th try our doctor mentioned it again. We said oh we’d like to keep trying. He said fine. This time I cried when I got off the phone with Doctor XY. I couldn’t be the one that had to go THAT route is basically what I thought. Again we reasoned it was a matter of perseverance that even with a less that 5% chance there was still a chance. And then the EPHIPHANY: I went to see my acupuncturist and he, looking like Buddha with soft lighting behind him, said it doesn’t matter how you have a child (natural, donor, adoption) the right soul will find you. And that gave me pause. It made (it makes) sense to me. For the first time I really thought, hmm…I could do that.

But we didn’t.

After the 6th try and another donor suggestion from doctor XY my husband and I had a long talk and I had a long (several day) cry. Our chances were less than 1% of conceiving with my eggs. We decided to go in and meet the head of the DE program who we naturally hated because we had not fully accepted needing to be there in the first place. We were still scheduled to try again with IVF/PGD, we just said to ourselves this is how we cover all our bases. This way we have a back up plan and we need to do this now because it can take 6mnths to a year to find a match.

Shortly after we sent in our application the fabulous nurse we’d worked with over the past year called and said she had the perfect donor for us. She said I just want you to know she’s here for you. She sent us her information (as much as we were allowed to see in an anonymous donor situation) and in fact, we liked what we saw. We actually never looked at anyone else. Maybe it’s strange but I’ve never had any doubts, and neither did my husband, that she was the right donor for us. I guess that is because at this point the idea of the soul and the letting go of the mini me had taken over and it did not seem so important that the details of the donor (length of fingers, size of eyes, type of hair, etc. things that had originally seemed of the utmost importance) mattered so much.

But we wanted to try again.

After the 7th try well…devastation. naturally. Again. This time we talked openly with our doc about a donor…he strongly urged us to do it while also supporting us if we wanted to try again with my eggs although he was clear that it would be random luck to get pregnant with my eggs. He also said that even the fertilized egg that past the PGD test might still not be ok because they can’t test for everything. In other words the odds were, given our past history, that there would be something wrong with it. We’d gone from a 20% chance of success when we started to actually not having a percentage chance at all. This was what got us. We’d gone beyond percentages. Well that and the opinion of two other doctors.

So then…

We started to feel lucky that we had another option for us to experience pregnancy/birth. And then I started this blog because I felt alone, and scared and I found all these other blogs and wonderful women and well that’s the short version of the beginning of our story.

Hopefully this post wasn’t too long.

letting go

2007-10-19T10:21:00.000-07:00

Kami has a very interesting post at Are We There Yet – discussing her feelings about being a donor recipient. Certainly for me coming to terms with this has not been fluid…I’ve mourned the genetic loss and occasionally still do even as my own history of never knowing my biological father and being adopted by my non genetic dad makes me realize how unnecessary genetic continuity is in creating a family. I get angry or resentful of people who seem so cavalier about pregnancy – this time I want a girl, or the just we wanted to have a baby and two months later voila, preggers…or even the we want more children…all the things the “fertile world” says. I resent the way they take their fertility for granted even as I understand that it’s totally normal to do. Why should you ever think it could be a problem? But it can be, it is. And then I think that this experience, the losses, the trying, the pain and sadness that my husband and I have gone through, that has made us appreciate this precious growing life in a way I don’t know we would have been able to do had we not gone through all that we have.

Finally I really believe as I posted on kami’s site:
To me it seems natural to mourn or be angry at the genetic loss while understanding that genetic code is only one part of what makes us who we are. it’s important to make peace with conceiving through DE. For me it’s an ongoing process (part of which I deal with by telling people about it). That said I know in my heart when our little one is born (hoping that all continues to go well) the fact that we used DE wont make one bit of difference.

Thankfully love is not based on genetic code.

On our little one front: more movement. i had a moment of panic the other day when i thought when was the last time i felt anything...instantly morbid thoughts flooded my brain...it is so easy to get pulled into those dark thoughts...the trauma of infertility has a long reach.

And on the spreading the news front:

2007-10-12T06:34:00.000-07:00

I’ve now told my two closest friends. they had interesting reactions.
Friend one said: I sensed there was something you weren’t saying but I was scared to ask because I thought it would be something bad because of your previous history. She was so relieved and happy for us. It was nice to hear.
Friend two said: That’s amazing. I didn’t know about that and it gives me hope (she’s single in her late 30’s and wants children) and it seems like a nice option besides adoption.

We decided to tell people now because I just had my 20 week scan and everything is GREAT!!!! I really felt like I was being dishonest before. After all, as I’ve said before we are proud of our SUPER HIGH TECH WUNDER CHILD and grateful that we had this option. The main reason we weren’t saying anything or the two main ones were:
1. fear that the pregnancy would not be viable
2. we’d gotten used to not talking about anything related to fertility – it’s just been so painful.

So now we’re just spreading the news of how we conceived. It feels, for me, like a BIG HUGE BURDEN has been lifted. What a relief.

Oh and the best for the last: I started feeling the little one kick and move last week. I was lying in bed reading and felt these two little movements. I almost cried. I never thought I’d feel that, or get to this point. They are very soft pushes on the inside of my lower belly. Like if someone was to gently poke you in the abdomen with their finger. Now I’m feeling them everyday. Maybe now, at 21 weeks i'm finally starting to relax, just a tiny bit and accept that things just may continue to be ok and normal as far as pregnancy goes. It's a strange feeling, not used to it at all.

Books

2007-10-10T18:13:00.000-07:00

Wow…time moves fast. I didn’t realize how long it had been since my last post. Got buried under a work tsunami.

So, as promised, here are some books that my husband and I read as we thought about telling or not telling:

1. Telling and Talking about Donor Conception with 0-7 year olds. A guide for parents. This is put out by the donor conception network a non profit group based in England. It’s very slim with useful information AND quotes from parents discussing telling, not telling and other related experiences like enrolling children in school. It’s very straightforward. We liked that there were so many examples from actual parents for very common situations.
2. Flight of the Stork What Children thnk (and When) about Sex and Family Building by Anne C. Bernstein. This is not about if or when you should tell but, as the title says how to speak to a child in an age appropriate way. Since we don’t have much experience speaking to kids this was interesting.
3. Having your Baby Through Egg Donation By Ellen Sarasohn Glazer. This one is mostly for those thinking about egg donation although there are a few pages about Parenthood and suggestions on whom you might want to tell. I’d say not necessary if you’ve already taken the decision to go the donor route.
4. Experiences of Donor Conception. Parents, Offspring and Donors through the Years. Caroline Lorbach. Another book we really liked and found useful probably for the same reasons we liked the Telling and Talking book – although this has many more pages – we like the quotes and interviews from people who have gone through the experiences. There is also a section of essays by donor conceived adults none of whom knew from birth about their special conception. It’s interesting though, what I found really helpful, again, is what the parents of donor children had to say about their own choices and experiences.

If there’s a book or site about donor conception that you like please let me know.

Gone hiking

2007-09-22T12:29:00.000-07:00

Really. We’re off for a week to hike. I can’t wait. This is the first vacation since October 2005 that is not a pre or post IVF, let’s rest or let’s recuperate trip/weekend. And it’s also a needle free one! Clearly my idea of vacation has changed a lot over the past few years.

I still have another book to check out and when I’m back in, gasp, October (ok, ok, it’s only a week but when we’re back it will be a new month) I’ll post which one or ones struck a cord when we get back. no computer in hiking land...

One more thing…ever since we had the talk about telling I feel like a giant HUGE burden has been lifted from my shoulders. No I have not said anything yet but that’s because it’s something I’d like to do in person to the people I’d like to share the info with. Of course if there’s one thing I’ve learned lately it's that there's never a perfect time. So perhaps the phone will do…but in the meantime it’s time to go hiking!

It starts with a whisper

2007-09-18T06:19:00.000-07:00

So my husband told a friend of his (also going through infertility with his wife) that our pregnancy is through the amazing technological wonders of donor egg. And wouldn’t you know, he was like “that’s great”. And so it begins, the telling of a few close friends…what a relief to have it out there. For us this feels right. And of course they may tell people too…but that’s ok. By the time the baby is born (knock on wood because I still get waves of fear), none of this will be an issue.

M , who is trying to choose a donor has an interesting discussion on her blog about genetics: do they matter? check it out.
I left a long post there which i wont repeat here but i will say this:
My husband and I want to have a child/children to raise people who will make a positive difference in this world. In the nature vs. nurture debate I think that may fall with nurture. So yeah, genetics matter on some levels but perhaps not with this.

On the donor egg book front – I’ve been reading a few and the next post will cover which ever one or ones I think might be work someone else taking a look at. One of them seems particularly helpful but I want to wait till I finish it to post more.

Monday will be week 17 for us. Last week we heard the choo choo train sound of the little ones hearbeat.

The Cat’s Out Of the Bag

2007-09-07T04:59:00.000-07:00

So we had a great family therapy session with my family regarding “telling”. As I mentioned before it was my immediate family’s first response of “why tell anyone including the child?” that prompted us to go in the first place. And I’m so glad we did. It really cleared the air. Sometimes you really do need a third person involved so that what is being said really gets heard. I must say my parents made a HUGE leap by the end of the hour in their understanding of why it is not only important for the child to know it’s AMAZING FANTASTIC HI TECH DESIGNER BABY origins, but for the people closest to us to know too. Can you imagine the scenario of the future little one saying to Uncle xy “did you know three people made me, I’ve got a special piece?” And Uncle XY not ever hearing the word donor before saying something like “what, no! you’ve got it all wrong” or something like that….anyway you get the idea.

As for the mister and his hesitation at telling others – once he understood how uncomfortable I was feeling when people close to me were asking certain questions that I felt I was responding to in a lie (maybe it would have helped if i'd told him about these things), and once we both realized that you don’t even want to have a whiff of shame associated with what we are doing, it became clear that telling a circle of other people was/is as important as telling the future little one.

And what about the world knowing? Well if the world ends up knowing that is fine too. But it’s not our mission to tell every stranger on the street, or person we are not in close contact with. Rather it is our mission to have this be open information that is familiar and comfortable and essentially just a part of our story so that when the future little one does encounter someone who says something negative the little one has the confidence and knowledge to either respond or not care.

We are proud of the technology that has enabled us to become pregnant. All the things we went through to get here as individuals and as a couple have made us stronger and made our capacity for love even greater.

Is your family supportive of the decisions you make/have made regarding donors and telling?

Fear vs. Stomach

2007-08-30T07:05:00.000-07:00

my stomach finally trumped my fear. i bought maternity clothes yesterday (just finishing up week 14). i hope this is not jinxing things but i've been walking around with my pants unbuttoned and long shirts for a while now. my mantra is "this time things are different" and then i take a few deep breaths when the anxiety creeps up.

next week we are going to talk to a family therapist with my parents regarding disclosure -- i'm looking forward to this and hopefully it will give us some broader understanding of ourselves and of this topic. i've also ordered a few books on DE and books for DE children based on a long bibliography from our IVF clinic..once i get them if any seem really good to me i'll post the titles.

what else...we started telling our friends our news...just the pregnancy part. most of them didn't even know about the IVF or our losses -- it was something we chose not to share. anyway, that has been interesting. i feel very hesitant, it's partly the fear and partly just, well it feels strange to have this type of good news and i'm not sure how to wear it...so to speak.

many of my close friends are single women all of whom would like to have children and find a life partner so im very sensitive about how to tell them -- plus i've been on the receiving side of pregnancy news and felt a mixture of happiness and devastation (because of our fertility issues) so often and for so long that i just don't want our news to be the focus of most conversations.

it goes without saying that the already extended offer for a baby shower was kindly denied because well, frankly, i am too scared to celebrate until our baby is born. wow i can't believe i just wrote that...until our baby is born...how great is that?!

s/he looks just like you part two

2007-08-23T13:43:00.000-07:00

a little more on disclosure.

Yes we want to tell our child everything…but does that mean we tell everyone everything?

I have to say that I feel funny not saying anything but the MR. doesn’t want to think about this right now. He wants us to just be happy things are working (knock on wood). I don’t think every stranger needs to know our story but I am feeling like some of our close friends, especially two who have had fertility issues of their own, are people it seems odd not to tell the real deal too. I worry that inadvertently we will become the poster couple for IVF…if you just stick to it eventually it will work. But that is not our case. I mean so far it has worked (currently finishing week 13) but with DE.

When I tried to bring up the subject recently to my husband he got very defensive and I shut down. I don’t like fighting. So I stopped pressing it, and decided to wait for another day. no im not dropping the issue. Last night we told two friends who have been through fertility issues our news and they were so happy for us…PGD worked they said, or something like that. GOD I felt like such a liar. This baby, our baby was conceived via DE. There is nothing wrong with this, why should we hide it? And yet, and yet…my husband is hesitant and my parents don’t think we should breathe a word.

I asked about disclosure before regarding telling a child, but what about friends? Or mere acquaintance? Do you draw a line? Do you tell everyone? I personally am for telling though as one wise person posted on this site..”you can’t untell” so I’m not in a rush at the moment but I don’t think it will sit well with me to forever say nothing to anyone.

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

All’s clear

2007-08-15T06:04:00.000-07:00

so lots of good news this week from the medical front.

1. ultra scan (the test for trisome and down syndrome) was fine (lowest possible risk category). they ask you to drink 20oz of water an hour before my appointment. in order to do this i arrived an hour early with a book, drank everything in one gulp, curled up in a chair and didn't move. for the scan you lie down and depending on where the baby is it can take a few minutes or, if you're like me, 45...not comfortable with a full bladder -- but seeing the images is amazing.
because i'd done the blood test a week prior i was able to get the results immediately, which was a relief.

2.had my blood levels checked at the IVF clinic on Tuesday and they are good which means my body is producing enough of everything. bye bye meds. finally. officially discharged. i wrote a note to dr.XY saying how thankful we were for everything.

tomorrow another gyno appointment and then we will slowly start telling a few close friends our news. it's really hard as i mentioned before to pull ourselves out of the "it's a secret" mode. that and to try not be scared that things will go wrong. we're trying.

The needles I have known

2007-08-10T05:30:00.000-07:00

Today was the last morning for shots. hard to believe. i have no idea how many hundreds of shots i've had. it has been 23 months. that's right. i did my first ivf/pgd september 2005 and have been at it ever since taking two sometimes three month breaks in between. i also pull of my estrace patch and stop popping the progesterone pill. On tuesday i go in for blood work to make sure levels are all ok. i still doesn't seem real that i wont have a sharps container in a special spot, bottles, band aids, heating pads, ice etc.

anyway, just wanted to share that. it's a really big deal for me (and my husband) that there are no more meds...well we hope not.

Good news!

2007-08-09T13:50:00.001-07:00

just stopped by DG's site and her pregnancy test was positive. how great is that?! i think she goes in for the blood test in a few days.

It’s a secret…

2007-08-07T10:18:00.000-07:00

everything went great yesterday -- after i stopped crying from fear and then relief i saw the heartbeat which was reassuring. our doc. even said you can tell everyone. HA...and there's the catch: we've spent so many years not telling anyone anything and leading these double lives that it feels really odd to think no more second life that now all of a sudden after not sharing our infertility we will share our fertility. my husband and i agreed to wait until next week after the ultrascreen (non invasive procedure to test for trisome 12, 18 and 21) to make sure that everything really is ok...and then there will be the telling (again assuming all is ok) -- but like i said it seems odd and the words almost stick in my throat. and how do we say them, and when -- right now only my mother and our doctors know. so we will wait till next thursday when the test results come back before saying boo to anyone about this.

then there is the other thing of: do we explain the donor egg idea right from the get go? We want full disclosure for our child, does that mean full disclosure to everyone? to close friends and family? i'm not sure what it means. If anyone has thoughts on this please let me know.

Testing, testing 1,2, 3

2007-08-06T06:14:00.000-07:00

I went in for the blood test part of the ultra scan this morning. as i filled out the form i was totally surprised at the box which said ivf: age of egg donor. Wow. There must be a critical mass or recipients to get a box on an insurance form. the test is a quick finger prick and then next week is the ultrascreen to check for fetal abnormalities. as i've mentioned more than once: the fact that this is a DE pregnancy makes all these test so much less stressful -- i can actually go by myself as the terror alert is more like a blue than bright brilliant red.

still can't say i can do everything alone. we are also scheduled today for another ultrasound with a new obgyn -- still don't have one yet....for this appointment i need my husband to hold my hand. it's actually at the same office where we went the two time we discovered that we would need d&c's. i had mixed feeling about going back there -- the memories are so sad and horrible. on the other hand, this is a new chapter, i hope.

today is the beginning of week 11.

waiting

2007-08-01T10:24:00.000-07:00

i'm still having some problems not letting go of the fear that something will happen -- as i well know something bad can. so while i am really happy that things continue to seem good, i am struggling with letting myself really accept what is going on even as my body tells me all is well. my boobs are so HUGE now they are like aliens on my body. i think i'm growing out of the C cup which is terrifying...i mean it's the end of my 10th week! it also means i might have to get another bra which i don't want to do in case this doesn't work out. maybe i should have called this post conflicted? i've actually rewritten for the second time now.

We have not told anyone our news except my mother -- as far as we're concerned it's not news until we pass that magic trimester mark AND the ultrascreen comes back with an "everything looks normal". Every time i pee (which is often) i look to make sure there is no blood. My pants aren't fitting not because i'm showing but because my butt and thighs have expanded with my appetite. still i don't want to buy anything new because what if this doesn't work.

We have not bought any pregnancy books either because the last time we did that the shipment came like 2 days after the first D&C. it was heart breaking and this horrible reminder of our hopes. so now that we've "arrived" i'm just gonna wait before unpacking.

if this pregnancy continues i guess ill find out if/when these worries dissipate.

we have an obgyn appoitment on monday, that will be 10 weeks if things go as we hope they will.

in the DE blog world I'm hoping that things will continue to go well for drowned girl who just did a FDE transfer and Lara who is getting her second beta today and anyone else who just transferred or is waiting to hear something in the next few days.

Keep moving

2007-07-27T11:11:00.000-07:00

everything continues to look good. as we were waiting for the obgyn i started getting really really nervous. when we saw the scan on the screen i burst into tears i was so relieved. and then i couldn't stop crying for about five minutes. and now i'm back in front of the computer trying to do work but obviously not doing it as im writing this.

so there it is. we have a pass go card again. the next test is the non-invasive one to check for abnormalities. the relief i feel what was are using a donor egg and not mine is once again HUGE. of course the fear will come back, and we are not out of the wood yet (are we ever?) but for today it is not here.

me count?

2007-07-25T11:03:00.000-07:00

9 weeks 2 days today…hmm. We have a obgyn visit on Friday and as we get closer I get more nervous. our first pregnancy ended at 9 weeks…I know this is different. I keep wondering if the fear will ever go away. So far it’s more like a rolling sea – comes up in waves. I do have symptoms (tired, sleepy, and my boobs jumped from a large A cup to a C cup -- yes they seem to be meant for some other body.

the thing that is so wonderfully different, that I have to keep telling myself and blogging here, is that this time we used donor eggs. This time the eggs are healthy.

And still...i am so nervous about it that i don't want to plan into the future and i didn't even want to buy an new bra in case things don't work out. that said i had to buy a new bra because i just couldn't squeeze into mine. while im excited at the change i keep thinking what if...and then i put on a baggy shirt and try to pretend nothing is any different. We are also trying to hid any changes from friends and family until we pass the magic 12 week mark. basically i work, fall asleep at my desk, don't go out and look like a slob. but hey...that's ok.

Anyway I’ll check back Friday. For anyone reading please think good thoughts for us.

s/he looks just like you

2007-07-18T11:10:00.000-07:00

certainly not a comment a donor recipient expects to hear, although i have read that it does happen.

my husband and i decided a while ago on full disclosure to our child (if we should be lucky enough to have one). i know this is not the usual way that one has a family, but there are so many different permutations of families these days...we're not quite sure how we will say it -- someone we know who is a mother from donor egg began telling her daughter almost immediately the story of the nice lady who helped create her.

that said I don't know that we plan to tell everyone -- certainly the obgyn who we work with will know -- whether we tell all our friends? the stranger on the street who says "s/he look just like you!"...maybe to them i'd just nod...i don't know.

there is no stigma attached to this, at least i don't think there is -- but it does require a little explanation and i don't know we will always feel like giving it. moreover at some point it will be up to the, now imagined, teenager if s/he want to tell people.

on the other hand -- there are people we will tell -- we don't want to inadvertently become the poster couple for IVF finally working...they tried 8 times and now look! so for those people we know who find themselves down the IVF road and having it not work we will/would absolutely spill.

genetics does not a family make...and yet without the donated genetics we would not have the possibility of a family.

so yeah, we plan on telling the story right from the beginning -- getting practice saying the words so that later they wont seem so awkward.

do you plan to disclose? have you thought about it?

coming up for air

2007-07-18T11:02:00.000-07:00

so we did not go back for another scan Tuesday despite the nice offer of dr.xy at the fertility clinic. i decided i didn't want to give into my fears -- this pregnancy is different from the other ones. instead of dreading the worst im going to try and hope for the best.

don't get me wrong i remain TERRIFIED, at least part of me does, but if i don't take a stand within myself to not succumb to every fear now i don't know when i will. so there it is.

we are hoping for the best and are always prepared for something else.

today we are 8 weeks and 2 days pregnant. everything, at least on the surface seems fine. we have an appointment with an obgyn july 27th for an exam and another appointment on the same day with another obgyn for a consultation.

continuing to mostly hold my breathe but occasionally breathing.

Knock on wood

2007-07-11T09:42:00.000-07:00

second scan was good. we heard a heartbeat...as my husband said yesterday "i think im finally giving myself permission to be happy but i want to knock on wood anyway."

all i can say is that as scary as the scan is for us given our previous history with pregnancy scans it would be A THOUSAND TIMES SCARIER if this pregnancy was with my eggs.

the knowledge that the odds are we were given a healthy egg from a proven donor makes an enormous difference. this is something we thought about when we took the decision to go with DE -- that knowing we'd be using healthy eggs meant the fear factor would go down enormously. and it has.

of course, because i always have to say this: anything can happen.

for now all is well.

getting to here from there

2007-07-09T04:04:00.000-07:00

i've been reading a bit on other DE blogs about the process of accepting (or not accepting) the path of DE. a little pregnant has a really good discussion going on about this and if you haven't read it you might want too. there are MANY points of view.

for the record i wanted to explain our thinking a little bit more and why we were able to accept DE. of course when Dr.XY first mentioned it when we had failed ivf/pgd #3 we were OUTRAGED....but by #7 things had changed a lot: we'd gone from having odds have success (granted lower than 1%) to having the idea of random luck to get us through a healthy pregnancy. all of a sudden DE seemed like a gift not a curse.

some reasons i was also able to wrap my brain around the idea of DE and accept it into my heart and psyche.

1. my father died when before i was one and i was raised by my adopted father. when i think about who i am today -- mannerisms, values, how i conduct myself in this world and around others, not to mention many of my interests -- lots of these traits come from his example. i am who i am today because of how he and my mom raised me. how i look is the superficial coating. not to mention that i have "inherited" several of his facial expressions.

2. when my husband and i decided to have children it wasn't to have clones of ourselves (though of course that initial fantasy of blending our looks/talents was there), it was to raise people who would make a positive difference in this world.

3. we believe that a soul comes to you no matter how you have your child (adoption, DE, the "normal" way etc.)

4. of course i had my moments thinking wow, this child will never physically look like me but as i said above that is really not the reason we want children. i mourned the genetic loss as we discussed the idea of doing this, but that loss quickly became a gain when we realized how much we've learned through this process.

if anyone would like to share why they chose/welcomed DE as the right decision for them, please do.

Tomorrow is our 7 week scan...the balance of terror and hope continues.

seeing is believing

2007-07-03T17:42:00.000-07:00

"this is what we want" said dr.xy this morning when we did our scan. the heart was flickering and we could see blood pumping. it certainly feels real now and i was TERRIFIED to do the scan...im still not comfortable. i know anything can happen all to well and that a good scan now does not mean you make it through the first trimester.

that said things are different this time with a healthy egg. we have a second scan next week and then the hand off to the obgyn (i just found out mine quit so we are scrambling to find a new one).

i was reading some other blogs and the question of being comfortable with a DE has come up here and there. i'd like to say for the record that there has been no looking back since we took the decision to go this route. for us it came down to a few things:

1. our probability of becoming pregnant with my eggs was so low it wasn't a probability but random chance

2. even if we got pregnant the likely hood that there would be something wrong was very high despite the PGD (they can't test for everything). the fact that none of the embryos ever took points to the fact that even though the passed they were damaged.

3. my acupuncturist mentioned to me the idea that the soul chooses it's parents so ultimately how it gets to you: adoption, DE, IVF, the "normal" way doesn't really matter...somehow that idea resonates with us.

so there has not been any looking back. and when we saw at the scan today neither of us thought this is a DE we thought: this is our baby -- and we could see that it was my body that is pumping blood into this teeny tiny life. that said we are very aware and grateful to our donor. we are not pretending she does not exist.

for today i am not scared.

hurdles

2007-06-24T10:28:00.000-07:00

so just about a full week has gone by since we got over our first hurdle the positive pregnancy test. i struggle a little bit with actually believing it's true even as i find myself getting exhausted every afternoon, and very hungry once in a while. it is not smooth sailing after all the struggle and past pregnancies that didn't work. it's hard for me and my husband to let ourselves by happy or even fully embrace what is happening. don't get me wrong we are happy and grateful but we are also terrified. i keep thinking that as scared as we are we would be a thousand times more scared if we hadn't gone with donor eggs. with my eggs the odds that if id gotten pregnant i'd ever have had a healthy pregnancy were slim at best.

i had my follow up blood test a few days early and things are still looking good although my progesterone is borderline. they'd like the number to be high. what the number is i don't know. i don't ask because with my personality if i knew numbers i'd start fixating and scouring the Internet for information or misinformation etc...so all i know is they'd like it a little higher but are not worried and my beta is good.

so now my regime is

1. 3 estrogen pills a day

2. 1 estrogen patch every other day

3. 2 progesterone pills a day

4. and of course, one big shot every morning.

So it goes. i am doing a follow up blood test on Tuesday to check the progesterone levels and the big heartbeat check comes july 3rd. that is the one that is most terrifying because with my other two pregnancies that is when we were told the pregnancies were no longer viable and it was on to the D&C.

so i keep reminding myself not to jump ahead. to stay with today, and to remember that this time with a healthy donor egg things are very different.

update

2007-06-18T07:10:00.000-07:00

it worked! we are pregnant. wow. very exciting and sort of surreal. i'd always wondered what it would be like to get the call that we should continue our shots etc....and now i know. after 7 phone calls saying stop everything and wait for your period we finally heard: keep taking your shots and taking your pills everything looks great right now.

i have no doubt doubts will come because of previous experiences -- but actually things are so different this time around. we started with a healthier egg -- not my eggs which have so many problems. my husband and i talked about how if the IVF/PGD had ever worked we'd have been terrified because we still wouldn't know that something wasn't wrong -- PGD detects only about 12 abnormalities. Right now we know that the egg that was used is totally healthy, without question -- and that the embryo (or embryos) growing inside us have a fantastic chance of being healthy. It is a relief, it is a gift.

sweating

2007-06-18T05:39:00.000-07:00

so no sweating last night...phew. this AM we went for my blood test. I did not take a home pregnancy this time. I have always done this in the past on the 9th day because i've sweated at night and wanted confirmation that the cycle had failed before being told. This time is different. this time im thinking it may have worked and the idea of taking at home test and possibly getting a false negative is what has kept me from doing anything other than the blood test route.

ill get a call late this morning. not really going to try and concentrate. figure why pretend that i can? it's actually what i usually do, but i guess it seems like as good a time as any to do something different.

waiting

2007-06-16T10:36:00.000-07:00

well week has gone by fast. i have been mostly able to focus so that's good and the visit from my best friend was great. i have begun to dare thinking that this may have worked.

Why?

Well because the past seven times about 5 days before the pregnancy test i start sweating at night in three places:

1. between my breasts -- a sort of sticky sweat.
2. on the back of my head
3. back of my upper thighs.

I think this is my body trying to get rid of the progesterone that it no longer needs. Once i stop the shots then my body really goes to town for like the next two nights. so much sweat that i keep a spare t-shirt next to the bed so i can swap it with the totally soaked one i am wearing. really.

this time no sweats.

so two more days to see if my theory is correct.

i am cautiously hopeful.

two

2007-06-10T05:32:00.001-07:00

two were put back two frozen and another three waiting in the holding docks for possibly freezing today!

we are cautiously optimistic. i know the odds are better this and i also know that nothing is a sure thing. so now begins the waiting while pretending not to wait -- hoping that work sucks me in so much that i can totally concentrate and think about what im doing not what might or might not be happening in my body. luckily i love what i do and a good friend is staying with us for the week so time should move along.

although that said i am very much fine with the present moment.

while you wait

2007-06-07T07:41:00.000-07:00

waiting waiting waiting....i think i've spent the last 22months waiting on things IVF related and the last four years waiting for things pregnancy related. waiting for the right time of the month, waiting to try a pregnancy test, waiting to try again, waiting for doctors visit, waiting to see if the fetus grows or we do a D&C, waiting some more, waiting for information, waiting through cycles waiting through the times in between...and now waiting, again, for another transfer. albeit this time with way better odds. and at least i have plenty of practice! tap tap tap. there is a possibility we'd be called in today for a day 3 transfer...we'll see.

it is nice for me to read the blogs of other people going the DE route. Mr. B and i have been very private about all things fertility related and donor egg is so far away from the thinking of most people I don't even want to have to explain it, or us, or anything. Which is why, i guess, it is such a relief to read all the other DE blogs. so thank you to everyone who posts and puts up their experiences/thoughts/feelings you've all really helped me not feel so alone.

oh, and to answer Daisy, regarding putting back 2 or 3 embryos: previously we would have put back 3 because the odds were so low for us with my own eggs. to be honest i'd be so happy to put back one healthy embryo that had a decent chance. i really don't know what i'd do if given that choice. finally i think the clinic we are working with only puts back 2 on DE cycle so that wont even be an option for us.

ticktock

2007-06-05T11:15:00.001-07:00

well between today and yesterday 7 embryos grew. 7 chances for us to possibly have a healthy pregnancy and baby. the doc. said we will wait 5 days for a transfer. this is all new to us as our previous 7 attempts -- hmm the number 7 again -- were all with PGD when the fourth morning is spent staring at the phone waiting to find out if any embryos are healthy and can be put back. In our case it was always one in ten would be good to put back. amazing isn't it. Once we had 21 embryos and after PGD only three were deemed ok. what happened to my eggs? maybe the radiation treatments? maybe they were never that great...it isn't age yet -- or so they tell me. and i guess, in the end it actually doesn't matter. this is the way it is. we are happy to have this other chance.

surprise

2007-03-30T13:04:00.000-07:00

today i discoverd through broken eggs that there are more than a handfull of other women discussing their experiences, or their thoughts about going through this process. she has, in fact, a long list of blogs on her site.

Mr.B and i were talking last night and both of us are really relieved that we've embraced donor egg. imagaine we now have over a 40% chance of getting pregnant instead of a less than 5% chance. maybe less than a 2% chance...and even then we would not be certain that the egg was healthy despite the PGD.

doing 110%

2007-03-16T05:49:00.000-07:00

yesterday i spoke to my shrink -- told her the news of our decision...i am amazed at the adaptability of the human brain to rationalize situations, to turn potential negative into positive. but then what else can we do? i mean should we sit around and say how horrible WHY ME?...and that's the epiphany i had one day on my way to the subway two weeks after my second miscarriage...WHY NOT ME? i mean it's not like i want anyone else to have to go through this...and then i realized at the same moment that i am not alone...that there are plenty of people out there going through whatever it is they are going through...and that somehow going through this pain makes me better able to empathize with the pain of others. and i guess that's why i can sit here today at 8:57 AM in front of my computer listening to regina spektor and say it's all going to be okay. a donor egg is of course not what we expected...i mean we didn't even know something like this existed way back when...and last year when Dr. XY suggested it after our 3rd IVF attempt i got so angry...what the hell was he saying...we can do this. MR.B and I agreed we would persevere. that low odds were our friends...that persistence pays off...and so we tried, 4, 5, 6, 7 and now we are here at the threshold of this new attempt, trying something different with a donor egg and hoping that this will be what works for us...cause really when you think about it, when i think about it we've actually had embryos 9 times (2 were previous miscarriages) 7 IVF attempts over 100 fertilized eggs only 10 good enough to put back...we have tried everything not to mention all the body work i do lets see

1. cranio sacral
2. maya massage
3. acupunture
4. very healthy diet in conjunction with chinese doctor
5. every test known to man and women by western docs
6. get my 8 hours
7. rarely drink
8. yoga six days a week
9. gym 4 days a week
10. meditation every day

i think i can truly say i am doing everything i can do. and i know we are going to a great doctor who has also tried everything, and we've spoken to other docs. to get their opinions and it all came to this: donor egg. and even then, even then we must keep in our minds that it is possible this will not work either. okay. enough for today.

ready to launch

2007-03-15T14:20:00.000-07:00