Back to the Future

We're going back to the first donor we chose after the last cancelled cycle--the Proven One. We decided that it would be much worse to try with the Really Smart One and fail than to use the quite wonderful Proven One. She is pretty, athletic, and in college. She is truly a wonderful person.

And we could have a baby if she does again what she did before.

And stay tuned when I dissect Star Magazine's Glut of Hollywood Twins article. I guarantee that at least half are DE.

The Ride Continues

I don't even know where we are as far as the Number of Donors We Have Chosen. We do have some unexpected good news: the donor we chose first a few weeks ago is back from vacation and very willing to cycle in October. On her last cycle, she had 30 mature eggs, they ended up freezing 10 and she had 10 frozen embryos in addition to the BFP her intended parents had.

Them some good numbers. She is basically 2 for 2 in BFPs and I don't know about the frosties for her first round, but this second one makes her clearly a super-donor.

And then we have a entirely new donor: She's but very similar to me in education, academices, body type, and apparently, from her genetic report, some personality characteristics. However, she is UNPROVEN. We don't know how well her eggs are going to perform. I know this clinic has an 80% success rate and that includes both the proven and the unproven.

But do we want to chance it? If I found out later that she was a good donor, would I be sad we didn't go for it? Or would I fall into a deep, deep funk if we don't get pregnant because we didn't choose a donor whose history we know?

DE Daddy is out town for the night and with a buddy, so he won't be able to talk. What do you all think about everything, Internets?

Crappity Crap Crap Crap

Well, there are apparently no suitable donors willing and available for October. There are donors available, but they are not proven. There are also proven donors available, but they appear to have problems (28 eggs retrieved and no frosties; they live across country adding in thousands of dollars to the fee).

There is one donor who is willing to cycle in November. We're trying to find out whether that will be early, mid or late November.

Then we'll be hitting December, which if October is a problem, I'm sure everyone will be lining up to donate over Christmas. Then with my maternity/academic schedule, we're now looking at a February cycle.

I am beyond sad.

Re-re-re-re-re-re-WTF

Oh, for heaven's sake.

Donor Last Week has yet to return the clinic's call about cycling in October (which would actually turn out to be November based on her last cylce). We have thus moved on to another super donor (28 eggs last cycle, 10 frosties and a BFP). She would be available early in October and the coordinator is expecting to hear from her today or tomorrow, as opposed to Donor Last Week whom she warned me up front would take a few days to respond.

I'm getting frustrated. And remain sad. I was expecting to be on bedrest right now, not back at home trying to find another donor.

I'm really ready for this to be over. And to finally have my children here on earth, healthily with me.

New Donor

I think we have our new donor. We've officially chosen her, but the coordinator has not let us know if she's agreed to do this.

Taking your advice and speaking with DE Daddy, we're going with the best donor who meets most of our needs who is available *now*. DE Daddy's best point was asking if I was willing to sacrifice 6 weeks of my maternity leave to wait for That One Donor who looks great. I am not.

So our new donor is tallish with brown wavy hair (some close relatives have curly hair), has some college in her back ground and appears to be a super donor: Her last two cycles had 34-36 eggs. Her last cycle had 34 eggs with 32 mature eggs. 10 mature eggs were frozen, 10 high quality embryos were frozen and they are waiting on the beta results for the two excellent embies transferred to the intended parents.

We know that past behavior is not a guarantee of future behavior, but it's also our best guess.

We are hoping this is it.

Re-re-re-re-choosing a Donor

I might note, at the beginning of this post, that I am in less of a good mood today than I was yesterday. And I wasn't in a particularly good mood yesterday.

I am really, really tired of the dramz in having this second (and third) child. I'm tired of knowing I had 8 miscarriages in the last 3 years. I'm tired of having our cycles canceled for reasons that have nothing to do with me (e.g., inept lab, stupid government regulations on a false positive). I am ready to TRY and get pregnant and get on with my life. I am tired of waiting to see what is going to happen.

I really want to complete my family. I know all the readers here (fellow DE bloggers) know what that means: it's not just that I want another child, it's that I know there are some empty spaces around our table that are waiting to be filled by our children. And I'm tired of being coy about how many more children I want: I want at least two more children. We are too old to want two more children, but I want two more children. I'll take either twins or two more pgs in quick succession.

Nonetheless, here we are again. I am so annoyed at being here again, choosing another donor. And our clinic has not recently kept their donor records up to date. There are donors who we were previously interested in but were in cycle (May, June, July) but we don't know whether those cycles were successful or not. There is a donor who is wonderful (tall relatives, curly haired relatives, athletic, smart (3.95 college gpa!), thin, my eye color and very pretty) but she's in cycle now and won't be available until the end of November. DE Daddy is perfectly willing to wait until the end of November. But our coordinator told us that we would be ready to cycle again at the beginning of October *if* we find a donor who is available right now.

((sigh))

I know that in the long run 6-8 weeks of delay does not make a big deal of difference. In 10 or 20 years , it just won't matter. (It will matter in 5 years because of our school's cut off age for entering school) But right now, it feels like it matters a substantial amount. I am an academic. I get the summers off. I get a semester off for maternity leave. An early July due date (October transfer) will give me a guaranteed 6 months home with my baby or babies. An August/September due date will give me 4 or less months home. I know that is more than most women get in America, but it certainly less than I could have and that is recommended to keep a child home.

I want to choose a fertile Myrtle donor who has at least some of the characteristics that we want and who is going to give us a ton of amazing eggs (we're only looking at proven donors who pop out a lot of eggs and have a lot of left over frosties) and I want her to be available now.

What is your advice? You've helped me before in choosing my donors. What do you think?

Oh and feel free to throw in a few: wow, things suck for you right now. Cuz I am not happy that our cycle has been cancelled.

Cycle Cancelled

The donor tested positive for HIV. It is a false positive test--they've tested and retested and used tested and retested with 2 other tests and only one of the 5 tests came back positive. But the FDA considers any postiive a positive.

So the donor is now very upset and thinks she had HIV---I might too in her case. It would definitely freak me out. And the doctor called the cycle because the FDA could sue him or put him jail or something like that if he went forward.

We're ok. We're going to try to cut our trip short because there's no need to stay out for 2 weeks when my conference is one week and we can see our friends.

I'm ok. I still feel like today's meditation was right. We're on the right path. There's just a delay.

7 Day Update

As of today, our donor has 16 follicles measuring 13-14 mm. I take this to be unambigously good news.

Also, I found out that 7 mm (?) which is what my lining measured is the minimum level for success and therefore is just fine.

I've been meditating off and on these last few weeks, and had a great one today. I like the meditations where one prays/talks/asks and then listens. Somtimes I get answers. Today's meditation was that we're going down the right path. Things may change, but right now, we're doing what we should be doing.

I'm also pulling for the other new DE bloggers that I'm reading now and hoping for good news. I want us to all be in the same pg boat together.

Bleah

I wish I felt as positively as you all do about this cycle. I appreciate the kind comments and words, but so far the news from the clinic is not unambigous.

I did look over our donor's history. She has had 9 cycles before us yeilding 10 to 34 eggs with 8 pregnancies. Of course, it's been 2 years since she's stimulated, but I don't think 2 years for a super donor is the same as 2 years for someone, oh, I don't know, say like me.

We're doing the best we can at the best place we can be, so I'm hoping the best will come out of this.

It's really hard to focus on any other work, though.

Bleah again.

Update 2

Well, my lining is apparently OK. The clinic considers the next one, when I'm actually at the clinic, to be the more important one.

And we got an update on the donor's follicle count. She's doing well and not having any side effects from the drugs (yay!). I don't know whether to start the next sentence with "and" or "but." So I won't use any conjunction:

Her follicle count is 11 after 5 days of stimulation. My coordinator says this is "as expected" and their goal is 10-20 eggs for us. They are going to do another u/s on Wedsnesday, so we'll have another update then. The coordinator also says that this donor typically develops more eggs as the stimulation goes forward. We can expect 80% of the follicles to yeild mature eggs, so at this point, we're close to the minimum.

I know I'm asking the impossible: I'd really like unambiguously good news from now until we get that positive HPT.

Life doesn't work that way, so I have to learn this coping skill. Still, I would like to worry as little as possible until we're done.

Update 1

I went in this morning for the second look at my lining. It was a 7, which I'm pretty sure was the same thing it was last week. I'm not supposed to have my "passing" ultrasound until next week....in California...at the clinic. I hope this is where it's supposed to be.

Nonetheless, it's starting to freak me out a bit about that a week from now we may...no we WILL know about the number of eggs, the retrieval dates, and how my lining looks.

Crappity crap that just freaks me out.

I did reassure myself that if my lining looks horrible, the clinic will freeze all the embryos and with a 70% success rate with frosties, that won't completely derail us.

But I'm sort of becoming a little anxious thinking "A week! A week! Holy shit, it all starts in a week! And in two weeks, the embies will most likely be back in me and in three weeks, we'll know whether I'm pregnant or not. Holy. Freakin'. Shit. "

I wonder why I'm having a hard time sleeping at nights?

It did occur to me that this feels a lot like moving to me. I've moved completely across country three times now. Each time, I was excited but relatively calm getting ready for the move. And then on the day of the move, I freaked our realizing "HOLY SHITE, I'M MOVING ACROSS COUNTRY!!" I'm fine before the move and I'm fine once I'm on the road. But the day of travel freaks my freak.

This cycle feels a lot like that.

Something up?

Can anyone on there in the internets read this blog? I'm getting a weird error every time I try to access it.....

All You Need is One Good Egg

DE Daddy: Do you want one egg or two?

DE Mommy: One egg is fine.

DE Daddy: OK. Then you'll have one, DS will have two and I'll have two.

DE Mommy: Oh! You were able to cook all 5 eggs at one time! I'm so glad. I was worried you'd have to cook two batches.

DE Daddy: Well, usually, I have 3 and DS has 2. But today, I'm giving, no, I'm donating one of my good eggs to you.

DE Mommy: All I need is one good egg.