Moms after 40

This series of pictures gives such false hope to women out there; it's celebrities who have had children after 40. Of the 20 celebrities they list, I suggest that the following used donor eggs. Oddly, the only person who is suggested to have used donor eggs was Elizabeth Edwards, probably because Real People analyzed her life (not just celebrity gossips)

Probably used Donor Eggs:

Kelly Preston

Jayne Seymour

Susan Sarandon (??? Can't tell. Could have used FET from her first IVF)

Beverly D'Angelo

Holly Hunter

Marcia Cross

Marcia Gay Harden

Elizabeth Edwards

Geena Davis

So why am I so sure? It is highly...HIGHLY unlikely that anyone over 40 gets pregnant using IVF, much less has twins. I know, from friends, that it happens. But the odds are that none of those women, who had twins or got pg after 46 used their own eggs.

There is nothing wrong with that---obviously!---but be honest 1) to use your "power" for destigmatizing donor eggs and 2) to take always false hopes from regular folks.

Just my kvetching.

New Year, New Family

You're right. I haven't been here in a while. Not too much going on DE-wise. I am sure that you all have been thinking about Elizabeth Edwards' children after her passing. The probability is that we'll all live to a ripe old age even after giving birth to our DE children in at an un-ripe old age. But it still makes me get a little anxious thinking about her leaving such young children.

In any case, what would any of them wish for--not to be born? No. They were brought into this world in deep love and that is how I hope they remember their mother.

In other quite big news, our friend is (finally) starting to move forward with our embryo donation to her. I hope that by this time next year she will have a child and our own children will have a new "special cousin" on the other coast.

I don't know what will happen with the remaining embryos after that. I actually believe that there will be one or two more "special cousins" that will be part of our extended family.

What have you all done with your extra embryos? Who else has donated them or decided not to?

Celine

Comes in 3's, yes? Who is the next celebrity to use donor eggs?

Celine Dion, at age 42 and 9 years since her son and 6 acknowledged IVF tries is pregnant with twins. Perhaps these are her own eggs, but I sincerely doubt it. (BTW, I do have a friend who on her 7th IVF attempt with her own eggs got pg with twins using LESS hcg to stop frying her eggs, but she is by far the exception)

Again, I don't judge her. What if you were one of the first people to adopt in the world? Wouldn't you want some privacy. But all these women in our boats who don't know about DE and who think they just need One More Try.

Oh, and this story about John Travolta and Kelly Preston annoys the ever loving effing shite out of me: "it's a miracle! We've been trying for a really, really long time and we really, really wanted it!!" OK! That was my problem!!! I probably was too stressed about it, too. Should have just taken a babymoon and relaxed. Have a bottle of wine. (I see this on a bulletin board as advice all the time. Dude I have one most nights; it didn't appear to help)

OK--so our plans to donate our embryos have fallen through. Anyone have information on adopting embryos? We're ready to help another family or two.

Take a Guess

Kelly Preston, age 47, is pregnant. Go figure, eh?

What is sad or frustrating or whatever you want to call it is all the women who are currently struggling to get pg via regular IVF and can't. And they think it's due to the extra money she has to spend.

I completely understand her desire to keep the DE origins quiet, but it doesn't help make DE normal for the rest of society.

SJP

Sarah Jessica Parker, age 44, is expecting twins this summer.  She is using a surrogate carrier.  And one might seriously suspect that at age 44, with twins, she's also using an egg donor.  

More power to her.

Oh, and I Forgot This

I was getting my hair cut last week and read an article about Courtney Cox in a magazine.  Her efforts to get pg through traditional IVF are well documented and I believe that the procedure was traditional IVF (with auto-immune treatments).  However, in the article, she was saying that she was trying to add a sibling to the family and she was exploring some "high tech options that involved freezing" or something like that.

If she had some frosties already, she would have already had another child or two.  And at age 45, I just don't think she's undergoing traditional IVF.  So if she does get pg soon, I think we can be assured it was the high tech option of donor egg, not FET.

Just a thought.  

Pre-Cycle Insomnia

It's not that late for normal people, but considering I usually get up at 5 am to exercise, it's late for me.

Nothing big is going on.  I'm still neglecting to blog about the spate of 40+ women who have given birth in Hollywood.  Basically, Marcia Cross is the only one I think  who used her own eggs (although she had twins, so I'm not really sure).  Everyone else:  Geena Davis (twins at 48), Jane Seymour (twins at 45), Joan Lunden (twins at 54), Elizabeth Edwards (age 48 and 50 with her last two children), and Holly Hunter (twins at 47) really seem obvious that they used donor eggs.  

I actually had someone on my other blog get all cranky that I suggested that Geena Davis used donor eggs.  She had twins at age 48 and a son at 46, even though she claims the twins were an accident.  Really.  Reallllllly.  First, the statistics suggest that she didn't have these children by accident.  Three children in two years also suggest somebody was on ice: i.e., there were frosties from an IVF process.  Second, what does it matter?  Why does finding out that someone you like used donor eggs to finish their family bother you?  What if you found out that someone you liked adopted a child?  Had stepchildren?  Had a child out of wedlock?  Was a foster parent?  Used a sperm donor? What difference does it make to you and your relationship to this person, much less to their child?

Second, I'm starting to get annoyed at hearing The Definitive Answer as to Why Women Choose Donor Eggs.  I chose donor eggs because I wanted the best probability to have another child considering the amount of money we could spend.  I did not choose to use DE just because I want the intimate experience of giving birth.  I just know that 30% of domestic adoptions end up in "adoption miscarriages" in which the birth mom changes her mind.  That's a risk that feels too hard for me, right now.  Plus, I'll get to breastfeed more easily-and considering our DS breastfed until he was 40 months old, it is important to me.   

  

So don't tell me why I did what I did and stop saying that Hollywood simply has enough money to do multiple tries at IVF so that they get pregnant.  They didn't.  They used donor eggs, and all of us know that.

Phhht.  Now, let that sleeping medicine works soon so I'm not up for another two hours.  

But boy, reading back over this blog post, I sound CRANKY!!  I'm not really all that cranky. (And I've come back on Saturday morning to edit this--so it was worse before now!!) I'm really  excited that we're starting another cycle, but I'm just not that naive anymore.  

So whatever.  I also may be picking up on the fight I'm halfway watching on HGTV.  Now, there is some crankiness going on.  I may try to find some other program to calm me down.  It's a floor gone bad on HGTV.

Clay Aiken

I never, ever thought I'd blog about Clay Aiken. But when he and a 50 year old woman conceive a child, I, for one, know that woman used Donor Eggs. So did he want a child so badly that he is having this friend of his carry a DE child or did she want a child so badly that she used DE and asked him to contribute.

I honestly don't care about any of that except that she is OBVIOUSLY using Donor Eggs and everyone else thinks she just got really lucky with IVF.