Crawling out from beneath it

The past few days I've been at a conference. The same conference I was attending last year when I started to think I was losing our sixth pregnancy, which unfortunately turned out to be right.

It is hard and sad to be here again (although geographically in a different location). Hard to be reliving some of the aspects of that looming loss, and hard to swallow that we are no closer to having a family, and hard too to acknowledge that I've lost major faith that any avenue could or would work for us.

One of the things that is most difficult about our latest disappointment with the failed egg donor situation is that it just completely derails us about what steps to take next. And I am terrified that because it took me nearly a year to get on board with going with E. the egg donor that it may be hard to emotionally regroup and also hard to take the practical steps necessary to move on to whatever is next.

Because I'll tell you, I do not want to be in a hotel room a year from now still no closer to having a child. I've had that thought for years now, that the next year will be different, that we will find a way out of this, but I have to, WE have to, find our way out of this.

And so emotions be damned. I'm moving forward. Tentatively, but forward, trying to figure out what could be next. I can grieve as I move.

I've been in continued contact with the potential gestational carrier, who is just a lovely, lovely woman. The major frustration there is our clinic. They want the carrier to have three periods post breastfeeding (which she is doing until February) before they will do a one day work up, and THEN they said it will be another four months until we could try a cycle. Of course assuming she passes the frigging screening process, which I'm growing concerned no one does. And even bigger, assuming she still is open to doing this as it moves from a romantic notion to an actual possibility. Oh, and of course, clearing all those hurdles, she might not successfully get pregnant with our embryos. Ugh!!! So this is a wonderful option, but there are still many ways it might not work. And it also feels way way too far off in the distance to hang my hat on.

I talked to my sister, who offered a couple years ago to give us some of her eggs, and God bless her she is still offering this. So we'll probably start having her screened with some preliminary bloodwork to see if she might pass the stringent Denver standards. See if her chromosomes line up, check her FSH, get an antral follicle count. She is remarkably blase about all this. Remarkably no big deal, which is lovely. As we do all that, we can keep talking together - all three of us - about what this would look like and whether it's a beautiful idea of how to make a family or the most convoluted mess-your-kid-up-before-they-are-even-born idea we could pursue. And again, I doubt she'll pass the screening, because, hey, maybe no one passes the Denver screening. Or maybe I'm just jaded.

We're talking to the agency we used about whether they have someone else we should consider for a donor, someone who has donated before or at least had all the screening, who meets our other criteria. They don't think they do. One zinger they shared is that our clinic is the only one they have worked with that does karyotypes on the donor. Really?! Is that such a rare thing? So everyone else is flying blind on this? (would love to hear your experiences on this. seems a bit crazy to forego this karyotype screen). It is financially very steep to go to another agency at this point. And honestly, I'm just feeling soured on the whole agency thing in general now. Feels so risky financially and timewise. Sigh. Denver has their own donor pool, but it is tiny. Only 57 women or something. And they only show pictures from ages 2-7. So we will look at it, but I don't expect to find what I'm looking for (remember previously I looked across the entire United States and found a measly two donors I felt comfortable with). Sigh.

The Denver clinic is having a meeting about our case today, to give us advice on how to proceed. Schoolie, the head of genetics (who is also an embryologist), and the genetics counselor. I will share more news on this when I have it. It is a nice gesture - and probably won't, but maybe just maybe could lead to some clarity on which of the many roads to take.

And that's it. One thing is very clear to me, for today at least: I am just not going to sit beneath the weight of my grief for another year. I am NOT. I am crawling out from beneath it, even though I don't know what direction to crawl in. Hopefully we'll find ourselves at a destination sooner rather than later.

Mo

Click here to subscribe