Plan B and C and...

So today we are pregnant. At least a little bit pregnant. 4w4d, but who's counting? Only maybe pregnant, right? No beta has been drawn since Monday, so it could all be over by now. Maybe the IVIG killed the embryos. Hopefully not. Of course, I haven't felt anything cramps-wise in almost 12 hours, so you never know.  Ok, I do think I know sometimes. This never, ever works out for us. This is our seventh pregnancy in less than five years. Yowza. And last I checked, no live children. Still, it could work out, right? Maybe. But hard to tell. Hard to figure out anything, really.

That happiness I felt yesterday? Elusive, I tell you.

Ugh.

It is tough to believe in even the moment here sometimes. This all still doesn't feel very real most of the time. (I find myself weirdly experiencing the feeling of being over the moon and in simultaneous disbelief and denial.) And it feels very necessary to try to protect myself as much as possible. So that if everything falls apart (negative thought - when everything falls apart), we are ready to move forward toward having a child.

So we are moving ahead with our alternate plans - donor and gestational carrier - so we don't get left high and dry when this silly delusion I've been having that I'm pregnant reveals itself to be a fantasy.

So where are we at with our alternate plans?

There is a wonderful woman I've mentioned before who came to us and offered to be a carrier if we need it (unbelievable, really) - she has sent all of her medical records to the Denver clinic and they are reviewing them. She will be able to go for a one-day work up in May or June 2012...three months after she finishes breastfeeding her youngest daughter. We still have two euploid embryos and one no result embryo left, which we could potentially transfer to her. It's also possible I might do one final fresh IVF cycle to see if we could make anything more decent/higher quality for her to carry if I lose this pregnancy. So that's percolating.

We're also still in the process of screening potential agency egg donors...and this process continues to move at a glacial pace. We're pre-screening them ourselves rather than have another donor fail the stringent standards of the Denver clinic, because boy, that sucked.

Here's where things are at:

Donor #1 (E) - the twenty-three-year-old donor we loved with great AMH, 33 resting follicles, low E2 and FSH...but the inversion on chromosome 9 - we have asked a great clinic here in NYC if they would let us cycle with her and do CCS, eliminating of course all aneuploid embryos...They are thinking about it and talking to their geneticists and getting back to us.

Donor #2 (R) - a scary bright twenty-something physician - has a great AMH and is FINALLY expecting her period after going off the pill in December. So once that happens, we will get antral follicle count, FSH, E2 drawn. If that's all good...we'll go on to genetic testing. She's almost too good to be true on paper (dad's at NASA, sister's a Rhodes Scholar, etc...), so we're also seeking some confirmation of her narrative., just to make sure she really is who and what she says and not trumping some of this stuff up. To clarify on this, we'd be fine if half of the stuff wasn't true, but if she was being untruthful, THAT would be very concerning. We'd like to tell our child real things about their donor, not some made-up fantasy.

Donor #3 (K) - Has great AMH, good FSH and E2, good but not stellar AFC, is now undergoing genetic testing. This is a boatload of stuff because she is half-Jewish. Her personality and interests are also not so similar to mine (she's an aspiring actress. I'd rather hide in the closet than be the center of attention any day)...still trying to figure out if that matters.

Donor #4 - Seemed like a great match on paper for my personality and interests and she is super bright, and young, and is already a mom, so we know she is fertile. Her dad committed suicide, so that was a bit nervous-making, but there is no other psych history in the family, so we decided we could deal with it...Unfortunately, she has decided she is not interested in donating at this time, so she is out.

So those are the back-up plans, and the back-up plans to the back-up plans. Sigh. Probably seems really weird if you haven't had a ton of miscarriages, but, well, we are weird and we have had a ton of miscarriages. It's so strange and almost out-of-body all of this, both the being pregnant, and the being sure it can't last, and the trying to be ready to take big alternative steps if we need to to move forward.

I wish I could tell you this all brought me peace, but it doesn't. I am a bundle of nerves right now. I am so trying not to get sucked into believing in this pregnancy and getting my heart stomped on again. Trying to not think about it, or not feel too much about it really. I just don't want to get burned again. I feel like with each loss I've lost a little piece of myself. I hope it's not permanent. I hope I don't have to lose any more. I hope that having back-up plans helps make things a little less risky. I don't know that it does, but I'm hoping.

Mo

Photo: Management Briefs

Click here to subscribe

And the psychologist sez...

Will and I met today with a NYC psychologist who specializes in infertility to discuss using my sister as an egg donor. We wanted to get a sense of  the issues we should make sure to consider that we might be overlooking.

We really liked this psychologist. Were impressed by her (and as a fellow psychologist, I can be sometimes be a tough sell). She was a good mix of smart and practical and just empathic enough without overdoing it, and she kept us on track when we started to veer.

Her bottom line was fairly simple, and she stated it a few times in case we were slow learners.

She said emphatically that barring a substance abuse issue or major mental illness in my sister, using my sister as our egg donor is an ideal next step, a potential solution to the very tough situation we find ourselves in.

She reiterated variations on this theme a few times throughout the meeting. That assuming that my sister is on board with this idea (and my sis is downright enthusiastic), and assuming Will is ok with it (he is), this is a wonderful, wonderful option.

How nice to hear. I'd half expected to hear the creaking sound of Pandora's box opening and of us being faced with cold, hard issues we'd somehow missed in our exhaustive attempts to think through every nook and cranny of this decision.

But no. The psychologist said it sounded really good (even with our faults and my sister's imperfections). And that it shouldn't substantially change our relationship with my sister.

Her take home message was that my sister's ability to donate eggs to us would be a gift, an amazing gift. And one that we might need to work a little harder on just learning to receive and say thank you for, rather than analyzing it and then analyzing it some more.

The psychologist gave us permission to stop all of the second guessing as well as my specific tendency to think I need to decide for Will and me and also somehow decide what's best for my sister, too.

The psychologist offered to meet privately with my sister when she's in town sometime and then meet with the three of us to discuss again as a group if we wanted. But basically, she gave us the psychologist's version of her blessing.

Still processing this, but generally it feels like a huge weight has been lifted off of my shoulders. Like we've been given approval to go ahead, and that I will not harm my sister by accepting her offer, or scar my child, or any other negative and scary outcome.

Feels like a big relief to get an expert's opinion that yes, this makes sense, that yes, it is a good idea.

Now let's just hope Marina can pass through the gauntlet of testing that faces her and come out the other side successfully.

Here's hoping.

Will and I at the psychologist's...
Can you guess who is who?

Mo

Click here to subscribe

What would you do in our position? The Denver staff weighs in

After E.'s karyotype came back and we learned we couldn't use her as our egg donor, I spent a long time on the phone with the genetic counselor in Denver.

We talked about the different paths in front of Will and me, potential frontrunner options being: transfer some of our normal embryos back into me since I'm on depot lupron and prepping for a transfer anyway, find a new egg donor - such as potentially my sister, or go straight to a gestational carrier.

The counselor and I mused about what a great story it would be to transfer our own embryos after this donor fell through and have at least one healthy child from the five embryos. That it would feel like it was "meant to be" that the donor fell through (a concept I don't so much believe in usually). It would be a really lovely ending to a harrowing four-and-a-half year story. Because those embryos are so precious and are basically irreplaceable, I thought of maybe putting in a couple of the more wonky ones, in particular, one or two of the day 7 blasts.

At some point in our conversation, I told the genetic counselor that she is one of the few people who truly understands the medical complications of our situation - my cancer history, the reality of having five frozen chromosomally normal embryos that may or may not be able to make a living child, and whether or not that would need to happen in someone else's body or not. I asked her, since she understands the nuances of our history, what she thought she might do next if she were in our shoes.

She said she didn't know. She also said she thought it was a really good question.

She said what she wanted to do was write up a one-page summary of our history, embryology reports from our blasts, and the options before us, and she was going to convene a meeting with the head of genetics (who also has a PhD in embryology) and Dr. Schoolie himself and let them talk about what they recommend, how they see the situation, etc.

I was so, so moved by this, nearly brought to tears. It's things like this that make me feel the Denver clinic truly has our backs. Our situation still stinks, but it is helpful to know this.

So they met, and then they got in touch. Everyone agreed that we face a tough situation with no obvious answer.

Forced to give an opinion, the head of genetics said she didn't know what to recommend, but felt strongly that if we wanted to transfer our normals, we should transfer the best two or three. Problem is, there are only really two good ones, the rest are not so hot. So it seems terrifying to risk them in my body when we don't know if I can carry a baby to term.

Dr. Schoolie said what I thought he would say (and what my rational side had already told me): nothing about our situation had changed. He thought Will and my idea of trying an egg donor was a very, very good one, one that could scientifically answer the question of whether I can carry a baby or not. Given this, we should just gather ourselves emotionally, pick a proven donor from their in-house pool, and run this experiment asap. (No problem!!)  Sounds good from a scientific perspective but misses entirely the fact that it is not so easy for us to find a donor we feel comfortable with. God help us, but we're skittish about this; it took months of searching through multiple agencies to find E. And...well, we know how that turned out. The sister donor idea, he said, was also not a bad one, assuming she is fertile enough and that it makes sense for us and our family psychologically.

Bottom line, there were no clear cut answers, but it was really great to hear their thoughts. Even more than this, though, it just meant so much to Will and me that they took the time to discuss our case and weigh in on it. This is one of those reasons why it would be very, very hard to leave the Denver clinic. They get that we are a tough case with potentially multiple reasons why conception and carrying has been such a struggle. Their medical care is excellent. And then on top of that, they really want us to succeed.

I'm not sure there is much more I could ask for from a clinic. (Unless maybe they could relocate to NYC. Now that would be pretty cool.)

Mo

p.s. My sister has passed the paper and phone screen...we are trying to get some of her bloodwork drawn locally as soon as possible and then get her in for a one-day-work-up. Fingers crossed.



Click here to subscribe

Motherhood as a shade of grey: could my sister be my egg donor?

Several of you guys are really good guessers! Much better than I was at this game! When I'd imagined the acceptance rate for egg donors at the Denver clinic, I'd guessed something like 20%, which I thought sounded really strict...but turns out is really lenient, or more lenient at least than the Denver clinic people are. So a shout out to those who guessed the true number: Only 5% of people pass the screening process to donate eggs at the Denver clinic. Kudos to Nikki, Strong Blonde, and Anonymous for their correct guesses.

Now, when I think about this 95% rejection rate, I wonder just who are these people who are applying? I fantasize that like maybe half of them really have no chance in the world of making it anywhere (sort of the medical/genetic analogue of someone with a C or D average applying to Harvard). Like maybe many of them are 37-year-old chain smokers, or were born with six fingers on each hand, or have parents or siblings with medical histories longer than mine... probably not, but maybe...

We've started looking at the Denver in-house donors, but seriously? Kind of slim pickings there. And then the photos of these women as two to seven year olds - 1987-1990ish vintage, usually small and dark and grainy - make it impossible to tell what each donor might have looked like as a kid, let alone get a sense of how their features ended up later. So we aren't ruling this avenue out and will keep checking back on Thursdays, but we weren't really drawn in so far, despite these women's obvious genetic, medical, and fertility superiority to me and the general population.

In the meantime, we are moving forward with my sister as a possible donor. She is 31 years old and single, and lives about four hours away. I'm going to call her Marina here, which is something I used to call her when she was about three years old, when her favorite story was Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid.

My sister looks remarkably, incredibly like me, including features, posture, mannerisms, voice. As in, when I went to see her while she was studying abroad in Europe, people in the neighborhood where she lived set eyes on me for the first time not knowing I was coming or even that she had a sister and said, "You must be Marina's sister." At her recent graduate school commencement, a professor came up to her and asked if her sister was there. She said she saw me from behind and heard me speak and just from that was absolutely certain that Marina and I must be closely related. We have even been asked if we are twins (although this seems like a stretch). Not in a while, mind you, but very heartening when you are 8 years older than your sibling. Probably tough for her to hear, though! We also share a similar sensibility, similar wry sense of humor, similar ways of speaking and moving through space and waving our hands in front of us when we talk. We aren't identical by any means, but definitely sisters through and through.

Perhaps having someone who is so similar to me physically and psychologically is part of what has made it hard to go the third-party reproduction or adoption route. I like this added connection, enjoying looking back through old family photos and seeing various family members' features reflected in ourselves and our relatives. You are guaranteed to share 50% of your sibling's genes, and our child (Will and mine with my sister's egg) would have the same grandparents, and same relations throughout the extended family, which seems good for the child from a "Who am I?" perspective. The child would in fact be at least 25% related to me and so if you think of relatedness and parenthood as a Venn diagram, both Marina and I would share relatedness to the child, which is a comfort to me, and seems like it wouldn't be so hard to adjust my mental image of what immediate family is and include her in the genetic parenting picture. Sort of a "motherhood as a shade of grey" rather than a black or white you're either the genetic mother or you're not.

Because she's my sister and will always be close in our lives, using her as a donor would also be more complicated than using an unknown donor. We would want our child to know from the beginning that Marina played an important role in bringing them into our lives and realize they might feel a stronger attachment to her for it than they otherwise might.

Which often feels wonderful, and occasionally feels a little scary. One of the scarier 3:00 am thoughts is: What if my child prefers Marina over me? She is after all, younger and definitely the cooler, more fun, more dramatic, more artistic, let-it-all-hang-out sister. I'm the overachieving, overresponsible, more subdued one (and who in the world would prefer that?!). Whether she donates her eggs or not, Aunt Marina is likely to be the favored Aunt. And I reassure myself that alas, my child would be stuck with me, and be rewarded with visits to Aunt Marina on a regular basis. I am joking about the "stuck with me" part. Mostly.

Marina has no children yet and is unsure if she wants them. We've offered to pay for her to do a cycle, freezing her eggs if she would like, and at least for right now, she is not very interested. She thinks if she does decide to parent, she'd probably like to adopt. Which is funny, right? That a genetic connection is so important to me and here she is likely able to have such a connection and really doesn't care? The world is an ironic place.

We've thought of using her as a donor since she approached us and offered us her eggs a couple of years ago, but I always held off because of all of my "What Ifs." Being the older sister, I worried that her giving us this gift might somehow cause her suffering later, or maybe she'd regret it, or maybe it would complicate our relationship in some negative way. We will explore all these areas with her and with a mental health professional, but somehow it doesn't seem so difficult to imagine anymore or so fraught with danger. Maybe opening our hearts to E. as a donor has made us more open to alternative paths in general, I'm not sure. I am sure that this seems the right path to take at this moment in time.

Here's hoping my sister can be in the Denver's 5% - or at least be deemed suitable to donate to me. They've already approved her family medical history, despite the fact that we all have six fingers on each hand and her older sister Mo has a medical record a mile long.

Mo

Click here to subscribe

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

Egg donor screening update

We received more news from the Denver clinic on our donor E's progress through the many layers of the approval process. Here's where she is on everything:

day 3 bloodwork (FSH, E2, LH) 

psychological evaluation (including MMPI-2) 

baseline ultrasound

physical exam

pap smear/breast exam

urine toxicology screen

blood typing and Rh factor

CBC/chem panel, AMH

communicable diseases panel (syphilis, gonorrhea, chlamydia, hep B, hep C, HIV I & II)

and genetic testing (karyotype, cystic fibrosis, fragile x, spinal muscular atrophy, and hemoglobinopathy)
So everything is done minus the day 3 bloods and her karyotype. We're getting there...this is starting to feel more real...

We actually had E's day 3 bloods drawn prior to sending her out for her one day work up, so we already know she will pass this with flying colors. I can't remember the exact numbers, but her FSH was something between 6 and 7, and her E2 was 15ish. So no worries there, although Denver won't accept this as her "official" day 3 results since it's not from their lab. Also, her AMH came back great at 4 (!) and her resting follicle count is 33, so we are really hoping she will have a great response. It's a help her numbers are so good since she is a first-time donor. Puts our minds a bit at ease about this part.

Unfortunately, E. was camping in a remote area when her period came (she's a big lover of the outdoors) and wasn't able to make it this month for her day 3 bloods (aargh!), so we have to wait until next cycle. Apparently, the Denver clinic decision makers are still thinking we can cycle in early December despite this...here's hoping!

Our donor's blood  type is A+, which means that if we have a child with her eggs, our child's blood type will not immediately identify him or her as not related to me. We didn't choose the donor based on this, but it is a relief to me that our child won't be "outed" in a junior high or high school biology class based on their blood type not being possible from the combination from Will and me. Reassuring to me that our child will be the one in charge of when and where and with whom they want to share this info about themselves. E's Rh factor is compatible with mine as well, so no Rhogam shots in my future, which is also nice.

The Denver clinic recently instituted a new procedure with egg donors in which they are offered the choice to sign documents giving their name, birthdate, and social security number to any resulting offspring on that child's 18th birthday. Our donor declined to sign this. I will find out more about why from our agency, but have to say I was disappointed. At the same time, I would not be so comfortable giving out my social security number to a stranger, so I totally get her reticence on at least that level. I asked the Denver clinic if she could opt to disclose name and birthdate without social security number, or maybe just the last four of her social security number, and they said no. Weird to me. If we were trying to track her down later, even the last four digits would help us determine which of several people with similar names is her but without leaving her feeling so exposed. I'll write a whole post soon on our desire for our child to be able to access the donor in the future as an adult if she/he wants to. It's a big deal to me/us.

So that's the update as of today. More soon on a bit about E. and why we chose her, as well as the relationship we're trying to establish with her (aiming for a semi-known donation...)

Mo

Click here to subscribe

More process...and finally a decision

...Continued from my last post...

Because neither donor egg nor surrogacy felt intuitively right, I began to think that I just needed to surrender and accept that I wasn’t going to have that feeling, that maybe this would be one of those times in life when you use your head, leave your heart and gut out of it, and jump.

And in signing on with a surrogacy agency we jumped. We had our plan. Or so we thought. Only thing was, the further we looked into it, the less comfortable I felt.

As surrogate profiles came in slowly, one by one, I looked at them in front of me and was just filled with fear. None of them had the information I felt I needed to choose someone to carry my child.

On the questionnaires, there was a single question that asked about the carrier’s religious affiliation. So one GC was “Baptist,” another “Christian,” another “Pentecostal.” But honestly, we don’t really care what someone’s religious affiliation is. I’d be much more interested in a Likert-type item, such as “How religious are you on a scale of 0-10?” [With zero being anchored as “I am not religious at all” and 10 being “I am devoutly religious, with thoughts of religion filling most of my waking hours.”] What would my ideal answer be? Probably somewhere between 0-7.

Everyone appeared to potentially be falling on the very religious end of the spectrum, although this was based on their personal statements more than anything. And this seemed a little comforting (maybe the religious ones would have more social support? maybe they'd feel more grounded?), but it also scared me a little. I was raised Catholic but am not practicing so avidly these days. Would it bother me if someone quoted scripture to me when we talked? (maybe) Would I get offended if someone tried to tell me that my cancer or our six losses were “God’s plan”? (probably) What if the person was so religious that they wouldn’t terminate if we had a terrible problem like anecephaly? We don’t want to terminate, of course. We want a child! But not one born without a brain. Watching something like that unfold, and being helpless to stop it, and actually going into significant debt to make it happen, sounded horrible to me. Unlikely scenario, I know. But we've been pretty unlucky in the past! Around and around in my head went all the What Ifs.

The GC’s lifestyle was also really important to me. I wanted to know what their diet was like, were they physically fit? How well did they take care of themselves? But there was a single item on the questionnaire about diet that read simply, “How would you describe your diet”? Choices were “Excellent,” “Good,” “Average,”…etc. Problem is, all but one of the profiles listed their diet as “Average.” And I was left wondering, what in the world does “Average” mean? Being Mo, I didn’t think good thoughts. I thought… "standard American diet…hmmmm…what are they eating? French fries? Kraft Macaroni and Cheese? Popeyes?! There's no nutrition in that!!" More fear.

The other thing that we realized was critical for us was the person being in a stable home situation. We didn’t want someone in the middle of breakup, or the stress of a new relationship, or trying to date, move in, move out, etc. while dealing with pregnancy. And unfortunately, things for the potential GCs didn’t look so great on that front either, but again, information was scanty.

What I learned reading all the profiles is that a lot of things I told myself I could get over and weren’t that important to me were in fact Really Important To Me. And that there was no way to glean this information unless I interviewed each of the candidates myself. Which felt overwhelming. And made me start to resent the role of the agency. We’d be going into great debt to compensate this person - and the agency - and yet none of the things that were most important to me were answered in a way that felt satisfying.

Add to that the seemingly strong possibility that the whole venture wouldn’t even work, because our embryos, albeit chromosomally normal, are not typically developing and may be unable to produce a living child….and, well….

I felt defeated.

Much bigger than this though, and more surprising, was the surging feeling of loss that overcame me. This rush of grief at the idea that I would never be pregnant again. I began tearing up when I saw pregnant women, thinking that I would never have that, never experience it, something I’ve fantasized about since I was a child now completely taken out of the realm of possibility.

And for what? When I thought about it, we actually don’t really have great evidence that I can’t carry a child. Two out of three REs we’ve talked to since the last loss have said chromosomes normal or not, there is likely something fishy with my eggs. We have the one chromosomally normal miscarriage. Which apparently happens sometimes. All the others that were tested were aneuploid.

So I mulled and mulled. All the while we kept reviewing GC profiles. The feeling of loss grew so strong that I found myself asking Will to promise that after we used our embryos with a surrogate that he would agree to us trying an egg donor cycle because it was just too crushing to imagine I would never ever get to be pregnant and give birth. I wanted to at least be able to try. 

Will, wonderful husband that he is, heard the desperation in my voice and said if it was that important to me, we'd find a way to do it. 

And then I started to wonder, if using an egg donor felt truly acceptable, why would we do things in that order? Why do gestational carrier and then egg donor? Wouldn’t it make more sense to use an egg donor first and answer the question of whether I can carry a pregnancy? If I can, no surrogate needed. If I can’t, well, then maybe it wouldn’t feel agonizing in exactly the same way. Maybe then it would feel like this is the way that it is, something more defined and real and therefore easier to accept.

At the same time, I had continued to read about and reflect on our two egg donor candidates. I’d had one take the Myers Briggs Type Indicator and the other one had taken it previously on her own. They both had excellent health histories, were both very smart, both had my skin tone(ish) and hair color. Both were extraordinarily verbal, avid readers, and into the sciences. One was a little older and proven, perhaps a little more intellectual. One was very young and not a prior donor, but enthusiastic, athletic, and grounded. One was a bit of a hippie who wanted to be a museum curator. One was a psychology undergrad now going for an advanced degree in mathematics. One lived in the South. One lived in the West.

I can’t say exactly when the moment hit, but one day there was a rather distinctive shift.

There it was, finally. The “right” feeling I’d been searching for and missing. It was here. I walked around for several days with this feeling wrapped around me, trying it on for size. Was it going to pass as quickly as it came? It didn’t. And it’s been a few weeks now, and it hasn’t. I wasn’t sure exactly how, but one of the egg donors had really become “the one" for me. The other one is really good too, don’t get me wrong, but something about the one we chose clicked right into place. And with the selection, so did my questions about being a mom of a child not related to me; those concerns now seemed remote and not so relevant any more. I felt actually excited about moving ahead with this donor and hopefully bearing a child from her egg.

Will had been checking in with me daily – ok, more than daily - and was in full agreement. We had a decision! Egg donor first, and then surrogacy if needed. If we need a surrogate, hopefully we’ll have some frozens left from the egg donor and can use those in tandem with our own frozens. They won’t be of the same origin, but that really doesn’t feel like it matters much anymore.

I don’t know exactly how it happened, but I feel confident that we will make one – hopefully big – happy family of whatever size, composition, order and method of arrival need be.

If things go well, we will have an egg donor baby around October or November 2012. One way or another, we can make a go of it with the Mo and Will frozen five after that. And the one thing I am absolutely sure of? All babies arriving on the scene will be loved and cherished however and whenever they get here. 

Mo 

Click here to subscribe

Deciding: the process

First things first - I am astounded that so many of you are out there still reading this blog after all this time. I am so touched - and a bit shocked - to see your comments. So, thank you for sticking with us. I know it hasn't been a fun read for quite some time, if it ever was. It means a lot that you're still reading.

I promised to try to convey our decision making process....it's been a long one...but here goes....

In terms of trying to figure out where to go after our sixth loss, we've had many options on the table as you know: gestational carrier, donor egg, donor embryo, and sometimes adoption (although adoption has felt like a whole other enchilada with different stressors, rules, and uncertainties, and therefore not the choice for us right now).

The two options that we've been most closely contemplating at this point in time have been using donor egg vs. using a gestational carrier with our own frozen embryos. And deciding between them has been more difficult than I can articulate. I think a lot of it has been due to the fact that we - and our doctors - still don't know what is going wrong. Whether there is something terribly wrong with our embryos (even when they are chromosomally normal) or whether there is something terribly wrong with my body, making me unable to carry a child to term.

We've been round and round and round the different options. I've been researching them, trying each different choice on for size, trying to find the option that seems like the right one to begin with. Typically, my decision-making process involves gathering scads of data to figure out what makes sense rationally and then waiting for some intuitive process to occur to narrow it down from there and feel confident in my decision. Will is much easier than me about all these things. He doesn't question things like I do, doesn't exhaustively research. In fact, if he'd been in charge of this decision, it would have been made long ago, more impulsively, and probably would have been to transfer our embryos yet again into me and see what happened. Problem is, I couldn't do that again, not with our track record. And once Will thought about it a bit, he agreed that it probably wasn't really a very prudent plan.

So in choosing between using a gestational carrier or a donor egg, I tried to get a sense of what each entailed, what we'd be giving up with each choice and how hard that might be, what we'd potentially gain from each choice and how cool that would be, how expensive (my oh my) and uncertain (sigh) each choice would be. I spoke with a couple of friends, I read everything I could get my hands on, I made pro and con lists, I slept on it, I talked to a professional about it. Problem is, even after exhaustive research, neither a gestational carrier with our own embryos nor an egg donor with my body stood out as "feeling" exactly right.

We perused surrogacy forums and databases. We even signed on with a surrogacy agency and had them start looking for a carrier for us. We simultaneously contacted our current and former clinics and got some names of egg donor agencies and began a search across the U.S. at several egg donor agencies with the parameters we thought most important to us in selecting an egg donor.

We narrowed it down to two egg donors at two different agencies. And we began looking at gestational carrier profiles that were sent to us.

And although none of the gestational carrier profiles seemed to be the exact right fit, we figured we would most likely move forward with a gestational carrier because it seemed to make the most rational sense to use our own embryos first..... Meanwhile, Will was ready to move forward with anything. He told me he'd be happy with either egg donor. And as we looked at each gestational carrier profile, he said he'd be fine with each of those as well.  As is typical of Will, he was ready to choose any and every option.

And me? I was scared to commit to any option. I kept waiting for the "right" feeling to come.

(to be continued)

Mo


Click here to subscribe

What makes a family?

I read and really liked this New York Times article called "Who's on the Family Tree? Now It's Complicated" about the ever-evolving concept of family with the burgeoning use of adoption and third-party reproduction and more fluid relationships among intimate partners.


I liked how one family described that they have "the family tree" and then they have "the day-to-day structure of the family" and the idea that some families now organize their family tree into two separate histories: genetic and emotional.


I also liked that thought is going into how this impacts teaching in the classroom. One teacher is quoted in the article as saying, “You have to be ready to have that conversation about surrogates, sperm donors and same-sex parents if you are going to teach the family tree in the classroom.” Which made me smile. I like to envision that by the time our child is old enough to be grappling with any of these issues that perhaps there will be so many other children through embryo donation, adoption, surrogacy, and the like, that it will not be a situation that will make them feel different or put them in an odd situation in a classroom...say, should they be asked to draw a family tree....or like in my sister-in-law's prep school biology class, perform a PCR DNA analysis on themselves and their parents (yikes! Hope those kids have already discussed their origins before this happens!) 


It's on our minds as we think about next steps: How do you make a family? How do you define love?


So passing along...in case this is of interest to you, too...


Mo


Click here to subscribe