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.
Friday, October 29, 2010
Thursday, October 28, 2010
It’s happening again…
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.
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.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Imagine our shock
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.
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.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
What Control?
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.
So there it is. If anyone still reads this, please send your good thoughts our way.
Thursday, May 27, 2010
The Issue with Gattica
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.
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.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Going Gattica
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.
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.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Donor Search Update
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.
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.
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