Quick and dirty

We had another regroup with Dr. S.  It lasted all of 7.5 minutes.  He answered our questions, but didn't offer anything more except to tell us that he thinks we are 'thinking clearly about this".

Here's what he told us:

• He thinks we will lose 1 to the thaw, that would have died anyways when we tried to thaw it for  transfer.  He didn't think we would lose many more on the next thaw, but didn't give us a number. 
• It will take 2 weeks to get the results of the testing. 
• When asked how many of our 10 embryos does he think will be normal?  He said he doesn't know.  He said that the sperm is a question mark here.  (But - let's be honest, the eggs could be questionable too, although admittedly less likely so). On average the donors have 20% abnormal embryos. (That's great news). 
• Should we look at 1 or 2 with CCS?  He still thought we should transfer 2 with my history.  (Interesting). 
• If we transfer 1 normal and we lose it we should start seriously thinking of a gestational carrier.  Ouch.  Okay. 

Someone asked for the ratings of our embryos.  Here's what we have:

10 embryos frozen. Eight were frozen on day 5 and two were frozen on day 6. The grades are: 4AA, 5BB, 4BB, 3BB, 2/3, 4AB, 4BB, 2/3, 6BA and 6BA.

I emailed the nurse and said we're going to go ahead with the CCS.  

Dr. S was the same as he always has been with us, he answered what we wanted to know, but didn't give us anything more.  I find that kind of annoying.   

Dad's here tonight and tomorrow,  so that's all I can write for today.   We're having a good time. 

Going for the kill?

Overkill... that was Dr. Schoolie's word for whether we should consider CCS for our remaining 10 embryos when we asked him a couple of weeks ago.

We were satisfied with his answer at the time, but I've had some time to think about it and now I'm not so sure.

I believe that knowing how many normals we have left will dramatically change how we proceed.

Scenario 1: No CCS, The original plan. 

• If I miscarried again, we wouldn't know if it was because of an abnormal.  
• It would be more difficult to determine when it would be time to retire my ute. 
• I don't think I have enough stamina left in me to go through any more losses.  Especially if the loss was due to an abnormal embryo, that never would have most likely never had a chance of making it.  
• I could have a baby on the very next shot, and save ourselves the cost of CCS.  Oh, to dream!  (10 embryos is $6,875 + $1,000 because they were previously frozen = freaking gag me.)  
• I would be seriously considering transferring 2 embryos at a time, at Dr. S's recommendation.   Having multiples and the complications and loss that could happen because of this scares the crap out of me. 
• My clock is ticking.  I can't stand the thought of doing this all for many more years.  Six years has been enough.  Miscarriages and FETs take time.  My body seems to get pregnant even when the embryos are abnormal.  Of course, I don't know this for sure.  Especially for our last cycle.  I am quite confident that my first two miscarriages (from our own IVF and the donor embryos) were because of abnormal embryos.   In all reality, to do 5 transfers with our 10 embryos would take over a year.  If more miscarriages or cancelled cycles were thrown into the mix, it would probably be double that. 

Scenario 2: CCS reveals all DE embryos are abnormal:

• This could happen.  This is us after all.  And Dr. S says there is a small chance of this because D has wonky sperm. 
• We would be devastated.  I don't even want to imagine this. We would have flushed a lot of money down the toilet on this DE escapade.   However, knowing this information would prevent us from:
• Throwing good money after bad.  Meds, lost wages, travel costs and FET costs.
• Emotionally, it would be less painful to get one big dose of bad information than have it spread out over many BFNs or miscarriages.
• Knowing this would save us a lot of time.  

Scenario 3:  CCS reveals some normals:  

• Dr. S said 3-4 normal embryos would be a realistic expectation when we started the DE process based on how many embryos we have.  
• We would know what we were working with.  How many transfers to possibly expect. 
• We would only transfer one at a time.  Less risk to me and babies. 
• We wouldn't have to transfer the other 7 abnormal embryos. 
• Less emotional heartache, especially if there was one or more miscarriages. 
• Financially, we could avoid the meds, travel, lost wages and FET costs for (maybe) 3 transfers? 
• Math: If we transferred 2 at a time, assuming all survived the thaw, we would be doing at 3 extra/unnecessary transfers.  FET is $5,005 costs, say $2,500 for meds (Lovenox is expensive), and $1,000 for travel.  These are low estimates that do not include testing that would need to be updated.  The grand total is $25,515 vs. the $7,875 cost of CCS.  
• Physically,  I would not have to take the drugs or have the side effects for those transfers.  Amen. 
• If I knew that I miscarried a normal embryo. 
• It is very important information to know, but not the complete picture.  I now know that 50% of early miscarriages are with normal embryos. 
• Knowing this information would be more difficult for me emotionally because of the implications using my uterus.  
• If I put all of the normals into my body and they don't work, I will have to face the music that I've done all I can do with my body and it's time to move on to something else.
• We could transfer a normal embryo and have a baby straight away.  (I'm ready for this, universe! Pretty please?)
• If we had a child from these embryos, we would know exactly what we had left (if anything) in the freezer.  If we didn't have anything left, but had one child, we might make the decision to end this journey hell trip there. If we had 2 embryos left, and we transferred them, I would of course have my hopes up for another child.   Knowing how many normals we have would give me a big reality check through the rest of this process if we were lucky enough to have one baby.  
• If we try some normals, and have one or more miscarriages, we may be able to transfer our last normal(s) into a gestational carrier (if someone I know will do it - don't think we can spring for the $100k for a GC). 
• Okay, you can have a good laugh here, because I am.  But if we had several extra embryos (ha!), we plan to donate them to another couple.  This is because we were recipients of donor embryos and we would like to pay this generous gift forward.  If I knew that I had say, only one normal embryo left, no matter how many kids I had I would just transfer it.  If we didn't CCS and had say, 4 remaining embryos, after our family was complete (again, I laugh at myself that I'm even writing this), I would probably be thinking of donating them.   Those last 4 could be all abnormals.  I don't want to give another couple abnormal embryos.  And, I don't want to be involved with donating any embryos if I can avoid it.  (PS- Did you know that to have the option of donating the embryos CCRM charges approximately an extra $750 in blood work - that was a nasty little surprise.)

Risks to the embryos:

• We are waiting to hear this from Dr. S during our second regroup on Wednesday. 
• Some of our normals might not freeze well a second time, or survive thaw at transfer time.  We could harm an otherwise normal embryo.

We have a lot of hope still tied up into these 10 little embabies.

We'll see what Dr. S has to say about all of this Wednesday.  I wonder if he'll change his tune?

What do you think? What have I missed?

First ultrasound, 7 weeks, 3 days

I had the ultrasound done at a hospital, where Dr. Highrisk is located.   I was worried about the technician not telling us right away what she saw.  However, when I was called back, we immediately had new problem.  They wouldn't let D come with me.  I practically begged for them to let him come with me, saying that we'd had 6 years of infertility hell and losses and I needed him there.  After asking the two different people that were helping me, both told me no, that it was "hospital policy".  I hate when people say "it's our policy".  When I was in the financial industry, I was trained that saying that to a client without further explanation equated giving someone the finger.  Surely this was a reason to make an exception? Unfortunately, they didn't think so.

So instead, I braced myself to be alone.

Right then, I'd wished I'd just went to our satellite clinic.  That would have never happened.

D said later that it felt like an eternity in the waiting room.  He said all he could think about was what he would say to me if there was no heartbeat.

When the nurse left me to get ready for the ultrasound, I decided I would try to help myself by slightly tilting her screen towards me, allowing me to see if I laid a little lower on the table.

As I was waiting, I thought to myself, "if there was ever a time for me to have a panic attack, this would be it".  My anxiety was through the roof.

The first thing she did when she came on was move the entire machine forward, so she could work, essentially making the screen completely out of my view.

I decided I would stare intently at her face.  I wanted to see if her expression would give anything away.   It didn't.  Then, she broke her silence and smiled and said that she saw the flicker of the heart, and then turned the screen towards me.  I'm not a public cryer, but tears started to flow down the sides of my cheeks.

Relief.

There was a heartbeat!!!

90 BPM and the baby and sac measured normally.  I can't remember what the measurements were because I was in shock, crying and trying not to break into a complete hysteria.

She asked me what Daddy's name was and she said she would go get him.  She said Daddy! My heart melted a little more and more tears came.

When she called for him in the waiting room, he said that he thought it was bad news and that I was a hysterical mess and they needed him to calm me down.

I knew he would think it was bad news, so the first thing I said to him was "It's ok.  There's a heartbeat." And then she showed him too.

At first I was worried about the fuzziness of the blob, but then I realized that the ultrasound machine they were using was not as advanced as I'm what I am used to.  The image was much less clear than our satellite clinic's, and way less clear than CCRM's.

After, we had a regroup with the doctor.  He was certainly not Mr. Personality.  I'm not sure what to make of him.  He didn't ask for a history, more than what the nurse took earlier.  He didn't have much to say, he just answered our questions.  When he answered us, he mostly just stared down at the papers in front of him.

When I asked him about weaning off my Lovenox and Aspirin, he didn't really have an opinion.  I was surprised.   He said there are no known risks to the baby and that it probably wouldn't hurt me to stay on it.  I feel that I am only taking it because of a) my sister's stroke and b) because I'm on tons of hormones.   Once I am weaned off the hormones, I may decide to stop taking it.   He says there's no weaning, that I can just stop it cold turkey if I want to.

He said he usually only sees people after four weeks when they are this early, but he kindly offered that if we wanted to come in more often, and it would help us be less anxious that he would see us in two weeks instead.  He said he would do the ultrasound himself.  We jumped on that opportunity.  Four weeks would seem like an eternity.

We're just letting this all sink in now.  This is new territory for us.  We've never been here before.  Never had a heartbeat.  We're feeling so very grateful and relieved.  This might really be it.

Decision & Update: Day 3

Just wanted to say thank you so much for all of your input on the 1 or 2 decision.  It means a lot to hear from people who have been in the situation. 

My heart wants to do two.  But my head (and the doctor) says to do one.  So, we are only going transfer only one.  If there was anything wrong with the embryo quality or my lining we would choose to transfer two.  Fortunately, (gratefully!, amazingly!) this hasn't become an issue.

We made this decision because we are scared of the risks, more than we are scared of having twins.   We have been the low/negative odds it seems with all of our infertility stuff and we don't want to risk it... this time.  Also, because this is our first attempt with donor egg, and the donor was 21 years old, we feel we should see what happens with one first. There's so much more that went into this decision, but that's the short version.

If this transfer doesn't work, next time we might try two.  But we'll see.  Hoping we don't need to make this decision.

It's 9:30am right now in Colorado.  We have 30 more minutes to wait to hear if we will be having a day 3 transfer.  If  we don't get a call, we're off to take a little trip for a couple of days.  

I look forward to commenting on all of your blogs soon - so much as been going on!  I've been mostly using my iphone and the blogger app for updates, and there is some kind of browser glitch between the two.  It makes me miss my computer!

DAY 3 UPDATE:

* We are doing a day 5 transfer. 
* We have eleven (!)  6-10 cell "very good" looking embryos.  They discarded one that stopped growing and two others are growing but not as well.
* Feeling happy and grateful! Off to Vail!

1 or 2

So today we met with Dr. Gustofson instead of Dr. Schoolcraft.

I am happy we met with him. He was so  personable. He even smiled-more than once!  Dr. S is just really laid back and kind of nonchalant. I've heard him described by another blogger as a cool cucumber, and I agree. Dr. G was laid back, but in a different, more warm way.  

Some key information from our visit:

- He says we have an 85% chance of a positive pregnancy test if we transfer two high quality embryos. 

- Transferring 2 has a 40-50% chance of twins.

- Twin pregancies have a 10-15% chance of complications, including lifelong problems or death for babies, due to the risk of prematurity. 

- Transferring 1 has a 65-75% chance of  success. 

- He recommends 1, however 1 or 2 is our choice. They only need to know 5 minutes before transfer. 

- 70% of couples choose to transfer 2. 

- The cost of a FET including our travel and meds would be between $6-8k.  

- Chance of a miscarriage is less than 5% with donor eggs. This doesn't change much with the intended mother's age. They don't see an increased risk of miscarriage because of my history with miscarriage (CCRM attributes them to embryo quality). 

- He said the risks of pregnancy complications don't increase dramatically each year. At my age (34), he said risks of pregnancy start really increasing in 7-8 years. 

- We asked about transferring 1 higher quality and 1 lower. He said they won't do that. This is because the research is showing if you lose 1 of the 2 babies then the remaining one doesn't do as well.  

We went in there thinking we'd transfer 2.   Now we're both on the fence.  The chance of twins and complications are much higher than expected. 

Looks like we've got some thinking to do over the next couple of days. 

 

Fertilization report

It's great news! 

Out 15 eggs, 14 survived the thaw. 

And then, with ICSI and IMSI, all 14 fertilized. 

We spoke directly with the embryologist which was nice. At our last clinic (and currently our satelite clinic) speaking with the embryologist was only by special request.  He said the likelihood of a day 3 transfer at this time is small, however we still need to be prepared for it. 

We are breathing a big sigh of relief to have jumped one more hurdle. 

Today, we meet with Dr. Schoolcraft to discuss the fertilization report and how many to transfer. We've always transferred two, with the exception of one time because that's all we had. 

Even though the embryo quality is (hopefully) much higher than the donor embryos and our own embryos we've used in the past, I think we will transfer two again. That is, unless we hear a very  compelling argument and recommendation from the doctor to do just one. Even then, I think we may still do two. 

Our next update on our embabies is Thursday. 

Confession

On the adoption front, I have a confession.

D is totally ready.  I am not.  We are pursuing it anyways.   We have gone through our interviews to update our home study.  We will soon be a 'family in waiting' with one agency.

I can tell I'm not totally ready because I don't have any desire to read the adoption books that are sitting on my nightstand or on my tablet.   I don't daydream about it, or read the internet searching for ways to bring our plans into reality.  Instead, I look up and read stuff on egg donation, and think about the emotional implications of a child being born from a donor egg.  I think about managing the grief of infertility.   Looking up adoption stuff rarely, if ever crosses my mind.

Adoption is the back up plan that I don't want to think about.  Because when we move on full steam ahead to this plan, it means that our last one failed.

I view our adoption plans, kind of like fishing.  If we don't start fishing there definitely won't be any bites.  Even if a perfect match were available for us, we'd never get it if we are not participating.  So right now, we're not casting our nets wide at this point.  We're just trolling, and if there was a bite, we'd be cautiously optimistic and hopeful.

What scares the shit out of me, is that we've now entered a world of negotiating social and medical histories.  Is two drinks per week acceptable to us, or 10? The social worker told us it's not a matter of if the birth mother drank, but usually how much, and for how long.  I'm scared of getting talked into a situation that I don't want to or can't handle.  And I'm scared of feeling guilty about not being able to give a baby with higher needs a home, despite wanting a child so badly.  It's a kind of grief that non-adoptive parents don't have to ever think about.

In our adoption meetings they talked about openness and how we would expect to manage a birth family relationship?  That part was easy, as we are open to a variety of contact and have had some similar experience with that in our embryo adoption plans (although I'd imagine that it would very different dynamics in a birth parent relationship).

The social worker asked, "Have you processed our feelings on lack of a genetic connection?" Yes.  Been there, done that.  Twice.

"How do you anticipate processing grief associated with the failure of our egg donation plans and/or not being pregnant or experiencing child birth?" Those my friends, are the questions the social worker didn't ask and are where things get very dicey for me.

I want this egg donor 'thing' to work out so badly.   Not being pregnant, controlling the gestational environment and giving birth would be a huge blow to me.

In our interviews with the social worker, I skipped the part about how I'm terrified to put another infertility failure under my belt.  I don't want to process any more grief because I feel like I'm at my limit.  Nope, not even a little bit more.  I'm angry and worn out.

We would get through it if this didn't work.  Right?  However it is terrifying to think about that possibility, as it seems like the Mount Everest of grief.

It would definitely would not be the smooth process of moving on from one kind of family building to another as I portrayed it to be.

So, I keep quietly hiking along with on our adoption plans.  Slow and steady.  Because who knows what is in store for us.

News and First Support Group Meeting

Straight away to our news! We selected another donor!  This time we chose a donor with 15 vitrified eggs from CCRM.

I feel good about the fact that she already has been through the stimulation process and we know what we've got in terms of the number of eggs.  We have eliminated the emotional and financial risks of being side-swiped with news that our donor didn't pass her work up (again) or worse, that she passed and then didn't produce a good number of eggs.

The donor's childhood pictures are really cute.  I like her medical history and the information she's written about herself.   She's 21 which is fan-freaking-tastic.  She's identity released donor too, which is important to me.  This means that when our child (please, please, please let this work this time!) is 18 years old, they may seek out the identity of the donor.   They will be given at minimum a name and social security number if the donor continues to be willing to do so.

This is different from what I was hoping for in terms of openness but I'm trying to come to grips with it.   I'm feeling desperate to end this IF misery.  I'm also feeling like I need to accept that things might not always be how I'd imagined them to be, and that can still be good too.  I'm hoping that if we were so lucky to have a child from these eggs that our child(ren) (please, please, please! One or gasp - more than one is such a dream) won't hate me for this decision, because they desire a more open relationship with their donor.

In a way,  no contact until 18 years old takes a big weight off us.  There's no pressure for us to maintain a relationship.  We've been in an open embryo adoption arrangement and it takes a lot of work and thought to do it well.  This time around, I was only hoping for a minimum level of contact from the donor, to express our thanks, to obtain relevant medical information, and to keep in contact with them so they may be available to answer the questions that the child may have one day.

I'm still trying to make peace with this decision.  In a way it feels like the first time that I've let my kid down.   I think that I would be the person who would want this kind of information if my parents used a donor for conception.  I hope my kid doesn't care, but want to be prepared if they do.  I don't know if I've done enough by choosing this limited level of openness.   I hope I'm not making a mistake and rushing into things.  If we waited we could have likely found another agency donor who was willing to be more open.  Gosh, I just don't know.  I think how I'm going to feel will depend on the how the child reacts to the information that they are donor conceived.  There's so much to process.

I'm so pumped that there are 15 eggs.  Sure, some of the donors we looked at had 20+ eggs, but I think this is perfect for us.

We've been given some odds from Dr. Schoolcraft and we've done the math.

With 15 eggs:

Updated April 2014 with actual results.  

How many will thaw?  14 actually did. 

93% are expected to fertilize with ICSI and PICSI (even with D's wonky sperm)
= 13.95 embryos.  We had 13 fertilize.

80% of those are expected to get to blast
= 11.16 embryos.  We ended up with 10 embryos in the freezer. 

60% of those are expected to make it to freeze or transfer
= 6.7 embryos.  We don't know yet how many will survive thaw.  So far we used our fresh 5AA. 

The doctor expects a 78-80% chance of pregnancy with a viable embryo. 

So for our purposes, I'm saying that we might have a shot with 6 embryos total.  If all 6 were transferred that would mean the doctor expects that 5 of those would result in a pregnancy.  Nope - this is incorrect.  My calculations were missing how many of the surviving embryos would be normal.  This brings our chances down even further.   I now estimate we may have a shot with 3 or 4 embryos. 

I'm not sure what the miscarriage rate would be after a positive pregnancy test with donor egg? Do any of you know?  Updated: 20% chance of miscarriage with a 20 year old donor according to Dr. S. 

Gosh, these seem like really great numbers.  We could actually have more than one child! Oh my, I really, really hope so.   I especially think it would be great for a donor conceived person to have a genetic sibling.

Oh, and something else.  In the big scheme of things is not important.  But, it's bugging me so I'm going to write it.  The donor has different coloured eyes than me.  Hers are hazel/brown.   D has green eyes and I have blue/green eyes.  I didn't need to have many physical criteria that are to be similar to me (height, weight, bust, face shape, etc) except I wanted her to be Caucasian (I didn't want strange people wondering/ questioning if I cheated on D when a non-Caucasian baby came out of my body, because we both are).  I really was hoping for a blue or green eyes because my family is known for their blue/green eye colour.  It's something that people comment on and often even say that they can tell we're related because of the shape and colour of our eyes.

When we adopted embryos we knew that they would likely have brown eyes based on their family tree.  For some reason, it didn't bug me as much then.  I don't know why it's bugging me know.

Overall, I know in my heart that when I look at my child it's not going to matter.  I just wish the feeling would stop nagging me though.   I suppose it's because I'm still mourning the loss of my genetics.

When I think of the adoption journey it helps me put this in perspective.  Things in the adoption world are so much more scary in my mind because of the exposures that many of the children have had while in utero.  Our social worker's words to us were, it's not IF the baby has been exposed to alcohol, but how much.  That freaks me out.  I've never been a parent, and sometimes I don't know how good I'm going to be at it.  Could parent a special needs child in a way that they deserve?  I don't know if that makes any sense at all, but it helps me calm my feelings on something so silly as eye colour.

********************

We also recently went to our first support group meeting.  It was a bit of a bust.  We traveled 1.5 hours (it should take under an hour to get there usually) in poor weather and fighting busy traffic to arrive just in time for the 7pm meeting.

Except there was no one there!

We had RSVPed to attend, and received a confirmation that others would be there too, so it caught us a bit by surprise.   We decided to wait awhile due to the weather, and hoped someone else would show up.   A few minutes later, the coordinator showed up apologizing for her tardiness.

She was very kind and we ended up talking with her for a couple of hours!  I kept trying to find a way to end the conversation and leave because it felt awkward to be the only ones there.  We learned about her experience with egg donation and her infertility history.   We shared ours.

I didn't feel any relief from attending.  But surprisingly, I think D did.  I forget that he doesn't talk about this stuff with anyone.  He said it was good to talk about it.  The next time we go, I hope he'll do most of the talking for this reason.

We will give it another shot in the new year.   We know that we won't be able to attend the next meeting,  but I haven't given up hope yet.

I'm not sure if the support group is going to touch on the things that are top of mind to me these days.  Which are:

1. Managing my depression associated with infertility
2.  Having some type of emotional plan for handling a negative pregnancy test after transfer (God - I hope I don't need one! But it scares the shit out of me to think of not having a plan.  D wants to live in the positive and feel the hope right now.  I'm too scared to make that jump.
3.  Making peace with our decision for a less open donor relationship.

Seriously?

Oh man.

Last night we got a call from the donor agency and they told us that our donor tested positive for an FDA regulated test, and would not be allowed to proceed with a cycle.   CCRM helped fill in the blanks today, and told us more specifically that she tested positive for syphilis.

We didn't see this coming.  She has already donated two times.

The donor agency will not charge us a fee for this, however we've burned the cost of the one day work up for the donor.  I don't know the exact cost of this, but I think it was around $4000.

I really loved everything about the donor we selected.  She was smart, musical, beautiful, had a resemblance to me and I loved what she wrote in the profile.  And, she was eager and willing to have contact with us in the future.

I'm feeling so thankful for the testing done, protecting me and our child from this.  I'm also feeling bad for the donor.  I bet that wasn't the news she was hoping for either.   But more so, I'm feeling bad for us.  More months wasted, more money down the drain.   Seriously.

One month and so many things

The past month has been a fertility whirl wind.

We got all of our requirements for the donor program met and are now eligible to accept a donor.

We also made a huge decision to pursue traditional adoption concurrently.  We found a social worker who was on side with this idea (phew!).  We've completed most of the homestudy update requirements and have an appointment early next week with an agency.

It's all moving so slow, yet it feels fast at the same time.  The CCRM donor database for caucasian donors has been very slim.  The first week I checked there was no one.  The second week there was one acceptable person (for me), but she got scooped before I could blink.  The third week there was only one person who had a partner who had herpes (no thanks). This week there was another herpes person (wtf, CCRM!) and another lady who had  22 vitrified eggs.  So we accepted the other lady.

This part of the process feels nothing like what I had hoped for. I was hoping for TIME to review profiles and I as sad as it sounds, I  took a little comfort  in feeling like I was upgrading in the beauty, IQ and medical history department.  It is my little consolation prize that keeps me (semi) sane about all of this.

After barking at D the entire way through the donor selection process (time lines were tight and we were not adequately prepared, password problems etc at the end - gah!) I felt like crap.  I don't know why it had to be like that.  I don't know why I had to be like that.

It certainly wasn't the moment that I had played out in my head.

To top it off we do not know if she is an identity released donor (because apparently CCRM doesn't think that's important enough to even disclose when selecting a donor.  Instead they just ask you to hit accept on a donor and ask questions later, as the donor can be declined later and put back into the pool.

When we reviewed the donor we selected last night I didn't feel good about the decision. There were some things in her medical and family history that made me uncomfortable.  And as small as it is, she didn't have blue eyes (like I do), which is really the only 1 physical thing I actually wanted.  D has hazel eyes and a donor with brown eyes, I feel opens us up to a whole bunch of conversations with strangers that I really don't want to have.

So today, we are declining the donor and I'm going to start searching for an agency donor.  I'm ready for the easy part now universe.  Do you hear me?  I'm done with this shit.

On the adoption front, I had a tremendously emotional week writing and re-writing our adoption profile.   Trying to balance a way to will some person to give their newborn child to me, without begging.  Which is basically what I want to do at this point.  

The adoption workers advise you to write "your child" in the profile instead of our child.  They also ask you to consider jointly naming the child and what degree of openness you are comfortable with.  As I wrote the profile I vacillated between feelings of gratefulness for this person who is going through this stressful time and might be willing to make our dreams come true.  And feeling f*cking mad.  Why the f*ck do other people just get to have sex to make a baby?

It seems so absolutely ABSURD to me now that  pleasurable activity could actually make a baby.
Because you know what?  My baby "making" activities (I'm referring outside of the bedroom of course, sitting by my computer, in my doctor's office and in the recovery room of a hospital) have resulted in nothing but heartache and disaster.

To top off my little rant, I have a story about my brother and his fiancé.  In August, I babysat their 7 month old nephew for a week while the Mom went back to work.  (Remember their surprise pregnancy?) She was in a pinch for childcare, and I was happy to spend the time with my nephew.  It was honestly a great week, and I didn't even get that big of a baby hangover from it.  They gave me a large gift card to a fancy restaurant to say thank you.  In my mind it was a very gracious gesture but totally not needed. Especially because my brother's and electrician and he had been doing some work at our house for free.

Anyways,  I thought it would be a nice thing if we shared the gift card together.  They told me they had never been to the restaurant.  So I suggested we go (at that time) in a month on a Saturday that happened to be her birthday and our anniversary.  I said we could celebrate our annibirthary! It would be fun.  They had lots of time to get a babysitter arranged and I suggested we could go later in the evening so she could put my nephew to bed (he goes to bed at 6:30pm).   Sounds perfect!

A week before, I text both my brother and his fiancé to see if we're still on and what time would be good for a reservation.   She says it sounds like fun and then says they have to get a babysitter and will get back to me.  I was like - huh? Isn't that why we discussed it a month ago, but I let it go.  Then two days later she texts me back and says "thanks for the invitation, we can't go but have a great time".   What the f*ck.

There are so many things that I wanted to write back but I didn't.  So I just wrote, "Oh.  That sucks. Sorry to hear that".  It was the best I could muster.  I make a little mental note that I will talk to my brother in person the next time I see him and ask him what happened?

I do bump into him and get my chance.  He first tells me they couldn't find a babysitter.  Umm- that's bullshit.  They didn't try and they live in a town filled with relatives and friends that I'm sure would be happy to come over AFTER HE'S ALREADY SLEEPING nonetheless and watch him.  Seriously.   Then I say, but I gave you a month's notice.  He admits they didn't make any arrangements.

Here's the kicker - I know for a fact that there are several people that could watch him.  The dinner was going to be paid for with the gift card (my brother knew that).  It was to a restaurant we both want to go to.    It's not that we are on bad terms either, we get along just fine.

I feel like many of my friends act like lame-os now that they've had kids.  Now let's add my family to the list.  F*ck. I'm so angry.

If you are reading this, I'm sorry you are because I feel like I'm just spewing venom right now.  I hope your day is going better than mine is.

Post-consult

I'm back. 

Colorado was great.  It was everything we hoped it would be.  I kind of felt like it was a fertility-wonderland, complete with a waterfall.  The staff were very professional and we felt that we got some new information.  I'm happy that we went.   

We still haven't made a decision on donor egg vs. trying our own egg.  Honestly, I'm still on the fence.  If money weren't an issue, I would 100% give an IVF with CCS a go for two cycles.  But, being real, money is an issue.  If we spend $60,000 (the rough cost of trying two IVFs) and don't end up with a baby I'll be feeling really depressed and kind of stupid.  The only reason why I prefer own-egg is because in many ways it just feels simpler.  No explaining one day of where they came from and no issues of loss for the child.   I suppose I just don't feel very confident in my parenting skills, because I haven't got the chance to practice them yet. 

It's funny to me how we are back to (almost) the same decisions that we were making over years ago when we decided to adopt the embryos.  

It's very frustrating and difficult to make these decisions. I just want to be done with this part of my life and move on to the part where I am a mommy. 

Some of the things I really liked about CCRM:

- They are organized.  Check in at the desk, have a test, check in again, have another.  We had back to back appointments all morning and things went very smoothly. 

- I felt Dr. Schoolie was kind and was honest with us about our options. 

- The staff seemed to be really well trained and experienced.  I liked that many of the technicians really took time to explain the procedure they were doing, and what they were hoping to see.  

Some of the things I don't like:

- They messed up on drawing enough blood for a thrombosis panel.  I had 16 vials of blood taken, and that still wasn't enough.   16 vials tops my previous record of having 13 drawn at once.  I wonder what my fertility-lifetime total would be? 

- They called me back and said that they doctor isn't sure about whether to recommend a laprosopy and tubal ligation for my left side.  It seems that my HCG showed some hydrosalpinx (sp?), but there was some spill (which means that there is no blockage) however they weren't 100% sure if there is a blockage or not.  Basically the doctor said it was my call on how to proceed with this.  After a few days of marinating on the topic, I've decided that this isn't enough information to make the decision.  I need a doctor's recommendation.  Isn't that what I'm paying  for?!?  I'm honestly a little flabbergasted that they haven't given me more information on this to make the decision.  Oh well.  I guess no clinic is perfect.  That's why I've called back for more information. 

I'll write more later.  I just wanted to break the silence, and get some of my thoughts out. :) 

The missing piece

I left my professional career for a few reasons. The main ones were because a) I felt like it was sucking the life out of me, b) I wanted to be a stay at home mom, and c) I was convinced that I needed only some time and (ewww, I hate to admit this),  a little less stress to figure things out a.k.a. solve our infertility problem, become pregnant, give birth and live happily ever after, the end.

What started as a one-year leave of absence from my employment turned into a resignation and four years gone by.   I’ve cherished a lot of the time that I’ve had.  And I've been through some pretty rough stuff too, including coming this.close to losing my sister to a massive stroke and helping her rehabilitate.  I’ve been able to do some things and learn about myself in a way that I don’t think I could have, had I remained in the rat-race.  At my job I was work-alcoholic fueled by coffee, anxiety, and positive reinforcement.  It wasn’t a pretty combination.

I spent a portion the last four years going back to school.  It started as something to do and a strategy to keep my grey-matter from becoming mush.   A few courses turned into a few more, and the next thing I knew I had signed up for a full year of classes to complete a degree.  I’m tremendously grateful for the opportunity to learn just for the sake of learning.  I think it might just be one of the greatest luxuries in the world.  I love learning.  I just wish more of it stayed in my head!

One of the first courses I completed was also one of the most valuable and fascinating. It was a class in positive psychology.  We studied questions such as “what makes a happy life?”  The professor taught us that this question is probably the wrong one.  And eudaimonic wellbeing is really what we should be talking about. 

A person could think of it as happiness = pleasure, and eudaimonia = human flourishing.   Eudaimonia is arguably made up of several things.  One of which is having meaning in your life.  

(This website provides a detailed explanation if you are so inclined.  It’s a bit of a read, but it is definitely faster than taking a course in positive psychology!

http://www.positivepsychology.org.uk/pp-theory/eudaimonia/34-the-concept-of-eudaimonic-well-being.html)

I often question why I want to be a parent.  Sometimes I think that maybe it is just a biological need, and can’t be explained?  I wonder, if I am just trying to fill this “meaning-void” with a little one when it could be filled with something else? Like maybe a different career?  I wonder if parenting is going to live up to my expectations? I wonder about my marriage. Parenting can be stressful. Will D and I get along as well as we do now, or will we grow closer in our new roles?

D and I agree that our search for parenthood is tied closely with our search for meaning in this life. I strongly desire the full-circle life experience that only parenting is able to provide.  I want to grow in my view of the world by seeing it through the eyes of a child.  Sometimes when the IF road becomes really rough, I wonder if I could instead find meaning in another life pursuit to compensate for a life that is childfree?  If all of the time, effort and money were spent somewhere else, would I have a better sense of wellbeing?

As we debate important decisions about OE or DE in our upcoming journey, I can’t help but wonder if it is silly for us (personally) to be chasing a genetic connection to a child?  Is it going to change the amount of meaning we get from being parents?  Nope.  Will it bring us less pleasure? Doubt it.  

Maybe for us DE is a better choice, as it has a higher probability of making us parents (and sooner)?