Eggs!

Out of the blue, this journey is headed in yet another direction. On Valentine's Day, I received an email from a friend. A YOUNG friend, a friend who has been like a little sister to me for the past 12 years. She was offering to donate eggs to me! What?!?!?! I reread the email several times and then walked around in a daze trying to process the whole idea. It came as such a surprise to me.... it's such an understatement, but I was overwhelmed. I couldn't even respond to the email, I waited until I could call her when I left work that day. We talked, I talked with my doctor's office, her and I emailed back and forth and she even filled out the donor application, but I needed to sit down face to face with her to be sure that SHE was sure. After all, this is HUGE. I spent the rest of the week looking for any information I could on egg donation, especially via a known donor. And yesterday we had our face to face. Any issues or concerns were quickly talked through and decided upon, and even better, we are BOTH so excited at moving forward with this. I still think I'm in a bit of shock.

Using an egg donor was not something I gave any thought to, even though it's the first thing the doctor had recommended back in August after all my test results were in. It wasn't logical to me; I already had to use a sperm donor, so why try to find an anonymous egg donor too when I could move straight to donated embryos. But this was different. Instead of some mystery person that I just had a paper profile on, this was giving my future child the opportunity to have a whole other extended family. Not being able to use my own eggs was hard to accept, but in many ways, this takes away much of that pain. She still has to go through the screening process and be approved by the doctor, so until then, I will maintain some cautious optimisim, but inside I am giddy over this. And regardless of the outcome, I feel such gratitude and love towards this young woman and her amazingly generous offer.

Not pregnant and time for a break

I am officially NOT pregnant from this last IUI, so it's closing that chapter of this book. Sigh.

This morning the nurse gave me a copy of the profile/medical history for the Indian embryos. I told her about my vacation the end of March and the desire to start this next process after coming back in April, so in the meantime I can call or email them weekly to see if any other embryos have come through.

CMV

I'm so confused. My CMV test came back negative. However, after two conversations with the nurse, it seems I really misunderstood the doctor when we talked about this because it's not that I CAN'T use CMV positive embryos, rather I just need to know there is a slight risk of them transmitting the virus to me. This virus is no big deal for normal, healthy people, but when a pregnant women contracts it for the first time, it can cause issues with the pregnancy.... anything from miscarriage to birth defects. No studies have been done to show that a women can or has contracted it from a transferred embryo, but they have to state there is a chance. Soooooo, I went from thinking it's a black and white issue and now we are back in this gray area. But right now ALL the doctor has are these embryos. I've already decided I will take a mini break and wait until April to move forward with this, but I don't want to wait indefinitely in the hopes that MAYBE they get some other embryos that happen to be CMV negative.

thoughts for today...

I had a snow day today (and another one tomorrow!) which is a nice little bonus break but at the same time left me lots of time with my thoughts. I checked out a number of books on infertility... basically any book that had "embryo donation" in the index, and have been perusing through them today. Yes, I'm a freak. But this one thing I read especially spoke to me...

"It"s important to realize that ending fertility treatment aimed at producing your own biological child is yet another loss. Sometimes, if you jump too quickly, you may bypass the need to respect and grieve how THIS chapter in your reproductive story ends. Yes, this can be painful and sad, but you need to reflect and accept this loss in order to move forward."

There is something about reading it in a book that allows me to feel like, ok, it's OK for me to feel this way! I have a dear friend who has a child through embryo donation, and she couldn't love him anymore if he had come to her in the "traditional" way. Knowing that has always helped me to see this as a viable option, but it has also made me feel guilty for feeling so sad that my eggs are "too old." My head knows I'll embrace this whole-heartedly in hopes to take home a baby, but right now my heart hurts. This book talks about rewriting your story, and I feel like I already dramatically have by deciding to do this alone. I wasn't prepared to have to rewrite this much of my story I guess!

Sooooo, as things stand right now, I still have the pregnancy test on Monday. This past Monday I had my progesterone test and at the same time they drew another vial of blood to test for CMV. Apparently it is a virus that the vast majority of people have been exposed to, but if newly exposed when pregnant it can create problems. The embryos the Dr. has available are all CMV+, so I need to be CMV+ too. The results should be back tomorrow (I hope!) and for once I'm wanting to come up positive for a virus. :)