Fertile yet Infertile ?

Potential Donor #1

Thanks everyone for the thoughts on the trouble I’ve had with my friend C.

Incidentally I spoke with her yesterday morning.  She insists that she must have misunderstood, she thought I was saying that at this point we were only really still looking to have a child to save our marriage – a concept she is vehemently opposed to.  Now.  If all you ladies in the computer actually knew me – in real life, you would know this concept doesn’t even compute.  T and I are completely in love, meant to be together, adore each other and all that good stuff.  Though I admitted to us having rough spots, I never said anything remotely close to this.  So I don’t buy it – I think she realizes she hurt me, and pulled out the first excuse she could think of.   At the very least, I feel like I had my say.  And from here on I tread a little more carefully – well, a lot more carefully with C.  So – moving on.

The donor.  She’s 24.  She has three kids, is single and works as a medical receptionist.  She’s pursuing a degree in criminal justice.  She likes biking, reading, the outdoors, and the shore.  She’s not exactly what I would call descriptive or verbose with her answers to open ended questions, and her grammar and spelling skills need some work.  Her ethnic makeup pretty closely mirrors mine, and her physical description is similar as well.  Her medical history is unremarkable.  The only piece of medical information to raise an eyebrow is her maternal grandmother, who died of ovarian cancer at 63. 

So why do I feel so ambivalent about her?  Everyone I have told, including my husband, is excited.  I am not.  I am many things – scared, angry, sad, desperate to feel hopeful – but not at all excited.

Truthfully I don’t feel great about her answers to some of the questions.  It has nothing to do with what she said, but rather how she said it.  Her writing is immature, stilted, and has some grammar issues.  Though it may not seem this way from my writing here, I am somewhat grammar-obsessed.  My mom is an English teacher by profession, so while some of it comes to me naturally, I also had lots of reinforcement at home.  I made extra money after college as a freelance proofreader.  Everyone at work brings their reports and documents to me for editing.

On Friday when I talked to my friend B about the

Virginia

debacle, I also brought the donor profile with me. I laid out my concerns around the writing skills and lack of formal education.  She told me I was being silly.  I know for the most part she is right. 

This woman, the donor – she is 24, single and has three kids.  Her mother had her when she was 19.  Clearly, getting an education and writing lovely flowing, grammatically correct sentences are not at the forefront of her mind – she doesn’t have the luxury of worrying herself with such things.  Instead - she is a hard working single mom trying to raise three kids, who is also willing to give not only her time, but also her genetic material to help someone else build a family.  Why am I questioning her?  It actually makes me feel rather shallow.

I think I am scared.  Strike that – I KNOW I am scared.  What if this doesn’t work?  What if it does?  Am I ready to put myself back on this rollercoaster?  The questions, always with the questions in my head!

Ultimately I know – my objection to this woman, is that she isn’t me. 

Gosh, how I wish this were easier.

PS Is anyone else having posting issues with typepad?  I write my posts in Word and then copy the text to typepad for ease.  It seems to add mysterious hard returns wherever it wants sometimes!

Just a rambling post

So last night I had my first therapy session since our DE intake appointment.

First – she confirmed my feelings about the dumb-ass psychologist and her suggestions and ideas.  She especially liked this story, which I forgot to tell the other day:

Dr. D-A was talking about how to introduce the concept to our DE child from a young age - that he/she is different from other children, and not conceived in the traditional way, etc.  Are you ready?

She said we could talk about how we all know it takes milk, flour, sugar, and eggs to bake a cake.  Well sometimes, we want a cake but we don’t have any eggs in the fridge, so we go borrow them from our neighbor.  But in the end, the cake that comes out of the oven with the borrowed eggs is still OUR cake.

Do you believe this? 

In any case, I felt better after telling her about it, even more so when she told me it was one of the more bizarre things she had ever heard.

Second, we discussed how this appointment obviously makes the whole DE process more real to me, thus signaling the impending end of the concept of having a child biologically linked to me.  And she thinks it’s quite possible I’m just not mentally there yet, maybe I’m not ready.  She noted how I said “the form” (the one we have to fill out to get on the matching list for a donor) is still sitting on my desk in the same place I put it when we got home from the appointment.  And if I were truly 100% invested in this, I would have filled it out right away and gotten it in the mail.

I think there is truth to all of that.

I wish this were easier, that I could just switch gears without stirring up so much emotion.  But the truth is I am scared out of my wits.  I mean, so many what ifs are floating around in my head.  What if we go through all of this and there is no baby on the other end?  All that money, all that spent emotion and anxiety, and we still could have a negative result.  I could get pregnant and have a miscarriage.  I could have another chemical pregnancy.  I mean really now - pregnancy does not equal baby in my mind anymore.  IVF does not equal pregnancy either.

And just as scary – what if I do get pregnant?  What if this does work?  Then the questions – will we tell the child?  When?  Why?  And when we do, and this child is old enough to understand, what will it mean to his or her reality?   

I have a friend who e-mailed me today after I gave her the briefest summary of what’s going on in my crowded brain these days.  She said I shouldn’t get bogged down in the decisions, the what-ifs, the questions gnawing at me.  I should just fill out the form, send it in, and try to relax while we wait.

I know this – I need to shut out “the voices.”  But oh how I wish it were as easy to do in practice as it is to just type it out on the keyboard.

I'm back.

Yes, the silence has been deafening, I know.  I am not sure why I just couldn’t bring myself to write these past few weeks.  I would sit here and think “If I write, I will feel better.”  But then I would just immerse myself in some stupid television show, you know: that thing that does not require me to think.  I have discovered tv is a huge avoidance strategy for me.

I am going to try and write more regularly – for me.  I am so sure that it helps me process things, that it forces me to deal with stuff, makes me focus.  I just have to stop allowing myself to be so lazy about it. 

Anyway.

So . . . this week, T and I went to our RE’s office for our intake interview for the donor egg program.  We still haven’t ruled out another fresh cycle with my junky eggs.  But for now, I know I can’t.  Not now – maybe not ever.  But I am not ready to close the door either.

Overall the meeting(s) were okay.  First up was the financial counselor.  In one word: overwhelming.  When we accept a match, we immediately have to pay the donor fee ($5000) and her medical costs ($8600) up front.  HOLY CRAP is that a lot of money.  I felt my stomach just churning at the thought of writing such a check.  Not to mention said check would mostly be from borrowed funds – family, credit, etc.  Puke.

We then met with the nurse coordinator of the program.  She pretty quickly breezed through the process and steps required on our part.  First up is filling out a sheet of characteristics we want the donor to have.  We can indicate what ones are required vs. those that are just desirable.  The thing to remember here is that the more requirements we put on the match, the longer it could take.  The financial counselor told us a story about a couple who required their donor to have a Bachelor’s Degree in Eastern Studies.  It took them 4 years to be matched with a donor!  I am not sure the purpose of such a thing – as if that would mean that all offspring of this particular donor would necessarily have the same interests? 

Physically it seems to be a less imposing protocol than full-on IVF.  Lu*pron for a while to get me nice and suppressed, and as they start stimming the donor, they amp me up with estr*ogen via pills and patches to get my lining ready for implantation.  Only 3 or so early morning monitoring appointments over 2-3 weeks.  Oh yeah and of course PIO shots around transfer time – how could I forget those?

Our last meeting was with a psychologist.  As the week has gone on, the more I reflect on this meeting, the more I am angry about it.  Now, I am somewhat of a veteran of counseling sessions.  I started seeing a therapist shortly after I lost my second pregnancy – a little over two years ago now.  But this woman, Dr. W – she, just – she seemed CLUELESS.  I mean how do you expect a couple, a couple that has struggled with infertility and repeated pregnancy loss for over three years now – to just open up?  In one session?

Well one would assume she has strategies for this.  You know, being a clinical psychologist affiliated with a MAJOR METROPOLITAN IVF CLINIC?  I swear.  Some of her direct quotes:

“You two are so quiet – I don’t know what to say!”

“I must be a little off my game, a lot of my patients took time off over the holidays.”

“Well – you both seem so prepared for this, I don’t have much to ask!”

AND – my favorite

(said in a ho, hum, how’s-the-weather type tone)

“So – I have a question!  How DID you deal with losing so many pregnancies?”

Ugh.  The worst part about enduring this – I had to pay $225 for it.  Nope, not included in the $3500 registration fee to get into the DE program.

Anyway – at least we are over that silly hurdle.  So how am I feeling about this whole thing, you ask?

Ambivalent.  Stressed.  Pained.  Scared.

I have found myself doubting the whole concept.  For a few days this week, I felt awful.  I swear I was right back in that deep dark hole I was in after my last miscarriage.  All of the pain and the profound feelings of loss and emptiness – they were right there.  Hanging over my head.  I felt a weight on my chest I haven’t felt in a long time.

I hadn’t expected that.  I don’t even know what to do about it.  It has relented somewhat over the past few days – its not so crushing right now.  But it is still there.

We will work on filling out “the form” over the next week or so.  And we’ll keep talking about the concept of using a donated egg, and what it will mean to our life, to our potential child’s life.  And we’ll keep moving along this path.  I have to believe these feelings will start to fall away, again, in time.  It’s just that I can’t be carrying around this fresh-feeling wound forever – I have to be able to go back to feeling like its there (its always there) but more subtle - underneath the surface, more distant.

I feel like I must keep telling myself this, reminding my wounded soul of it, or I could just drown in the feelings, the sorrow - and not even let myself hope that maybe this is it. Just maybe – this is our way of finally being a family.  Me, T, and a little one I know I will love more than anything in this universe.

There is just so much fear wrapped around this whole thing for me. 

With that, I have to call it a night.  I have been writing almost an hour now and its time to get some sleep.  More on fear later.