Survey Says...

We had to complete a psychological evaluation before being approved to match with an egg donor. Apparently, the ethics committee thinks that's only fair since the donor has to pass one in order to be approved to donate. As frustrating as it is to submit to evaluation in order to be approved to even try (you adopting parents know what I'm talking about and then some), I was also a little glad to get a glimpse of how our donor would be evaluated, though I know there are different sets of questions for each of us.

The appointment was scheduled for two hours, but it ended up being more like two and a half. We decided that the first "test" must have been the bad directions we were given to locate the office. We arrived at the correct reception area only to be greeted by a sign telling us to alert the desk downstairs where we checked in that the office was un-staffed and they should let someone know we were waiting. This is in spite of the fact that our instructions specifically said to pass by the downstairs desk without stopping and proceed directly upstairs. The girl at the desk downstairs was equally confused and didn't seem to know our evaluator at all, nor were we on her list of check-ins for the day.

We did eventually get checked in and our evaluator called us to come back to the testing room. The first part of the appointment involved filling in about 350 scantron bubbles. The idea is to rate each statement either False, Slightly True, Mostly True or Very True. We did get to stay together and we had a good giggle over the questions, identifying control questions and speculating about some of the issues the test was designed to highlight. If they had cameras in that room to video us, it must have been entertaining! We each took turns doing hushed impressions of our hidden evaluator. At one point, my Hidden Evaluator noted, "Subject is a terrible snob."

After we finished filling in the bubble test, the evaluator came back in the room and asked us questions about our personal backgrounds and family histories. When she said we seemed quite well adjusted, Prof high-fived me and said, "Alright babe, we fooled her!"

She also told us a little about the process the donors go through, as she is the evaluator for them as well. She described them as falling into two basic categories. One group is young health/medical professionals who do not want children of their own, have an understanding of what infertility patients are suffering and see their own eggs as "going to waste". They tell her they aren't using their eggs, and someone who wants/needs them might as well benefit. The second group is young mothers who are so happy and grateful for their own children that they want to give someone else that same gift. Either way, the financial compensation offered by our clinic is low enough that the money is not a significant motivator for any of the potential donors.

The results took longer than than they told us (three weeks instead of one), but we finally heard back last week. We are officially cleared to move forward. One more box checked off!

Don't Ignore...

.. the fact that you were the result of your mother's one successful pregnancy

.. your weird menstrual cycles and crippling abdominal pain

.. the total and complete lack of any oops/uh-oh moments in all those years of haphazard BCP use

Don't ignore the signs. Learn more.

National Infertility Awareness Week
Resolve.org

Step One: Remove Cat From Bag

We did it.

We've now told our parents about our infertility, our diagnosis and our treatments. We've told them about our decision to pursue a donor egg cycle. They were unanimous in their excitement and support of the choices we have made.

And exhale.

My Mom's initial response was "Well you know, I had to take fertility pills to get you!" Uhhhh... I have no memory of this, though she insists she told me years ago. I was born when she was only 27. All I could think was... even if we had tossed the birth control in our twenties, we might still have been unable to conceive without assistance. I suddenly feel a lot less guilty for waiting.

Whoa.

The Other "Other Side"

Mali has a great post on transitions and the concept of success/failure within the ALI community. Specifically, as these apply to those living without children after infertility. As someone recently weighing this option against my current path to DEIVF (and fully aware that this may yet be my ultimate outcome), I appreciate her continued presence in this community.

Go read her post.

One Small Step

We had our Donor Egg consultation and I gotta say... we are pretty psyched.

The donor egg program at our clinic is a very small program that uses exclusively local anonymous donors. Because of this and due to the fact that this is not a large metropolitan area, they do not offer photos of the donors. Instead, our RE meets all potential donors personally and tries to make the best possible visual match after considering all of our stated preferences. He then presents the best match/es to us for approval. I continue to waffle about how this makes me feel... a little nervous at times and totally unconcerned at others. Prof actually prefers NOT to see a photo because he worries that the donor's face will stick in his memory where he doesn't want it. In the grand scheme of things the lack of photos is not a deal breaker, mostly because we truly trust our RE and I believe he will have our best interests in mind when selecting which donors to present to us.

When filling out the donor requirements form, we realized we're actually pretty flexible on the vast majority of physical options. First thoughts say the donor should look like me, but the more we thought about it we realized that even with my genetics in play, there is a surprisingly wide variety of physical traits that could express. As we considered the physical characteristics represented in each of our families, we realized that height, hair and eye color could be almost any combination and still fit in.

So, our only hard criteria are: college educated, proven fertility, light skinned Caucasian.

First step is a psych evaluation followed by a repeat of my HSG and some blood work that has expired. The whole process should take 3-6 months. The most amazing thing about it all is how peaceful I feel.