It's been a long time

Hello. Well 66 was our number. It kept going up, not always the case. It took many months for me to feel secure (almost the whole pregnancy), there were some bumps along the way but they were minor and in October 2012 our son was born. To recount: we used a different donor one who is/was proven. in other words had donated to "successful cycles" were the outcome was a baby. That may be the single most important attribute you want in a donor. Certainly what she looked like, her skills, those did not matter. Most of that is advertising, or feels like it. For me it began to feel like i was trying to find myself, only fertile. So i dropped that with this donor. Chose one who looks like our daughter, didn't care what she did, did care about previous cycles and cared about her health and that of her extended family. Our boy looks like himself. He is a joy. We love him dearly. again it doesn't matter how you get there, how your family gets made, you will love that soul that comes to your family. Well i do. also WE TOLD OUR DAUGHTER a version of her DONOR EGG story. She knows there was a lady who gave us a missing part and that's how she and her brother were made. She is four. It seemed appropriate. Maybe I'll post more on the telling part, but frankly this blog has been defunct for sooooooooooo long i just wanted to post something more to tie things up in case anyone (you?) came by for a gander.

HCG: 66

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

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

This could be it

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

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

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

When you Fall of the Horse, Get Back On

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

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

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

The Body doesn’t Lie

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…

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

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.