First Trimester Down

THAT's hard to believe... We had our scan last week followed by some blood work. I've waited to post since we didn't get our actual results till the blood work came back. All appears to be well! Our risk for Down's and Trisomy18 is low and my midwife was very pleased.

The scan took about thirty minutes and involved lots of different views of the inhabitant from different angles. We saw two arms, two legs, a little facial profile, a little brain and even some fingers. There was a lot of jumping around going on as well, which made me wonder how I could possibly NOT be feeling it. But I'm not. The tech took all the necessary measurements and gave us a couple of pictures to take home.

The big topic of debate around here now is... when do we go public? The parents are bugging us weekly about when they can start telling people. Statistically, at this point things are probably going to be just fine. Being part of this community has given us far too many glimpses of ways that this COULD go wrong even now, and it's hard to trust the statistics after all we have gone through. On the other hand, this will be our only pregnancy and it would be nice to enjoy it. It would be nice to let our parents enjoy it.

Further to that debate, is the question of how much to share when we do go public. I feel pretty strongly that NOT sharing the fact that we used donor eggs would be doing a disservice to other infertile couples. I wouldn't want to distress any infertile friends with our announcement. I also don't want to perpetuate the myth that women can just up and get pregnant at my age when most can't. We agreed before we stepped onto this path that we didn't ever want our use of donor eggs to be perceived as secret or shameful, because we don't want the child to feel ashamed. The tricky bit is that once that information is out there, we can't get it back.

So yeah... debate ongoing.

PSA: Stopping vs Quitting

PLEASE NOTE: This is NOT an announcement of the outcome of our cycle (beta results in a few days). It is simply a subject that has been weighing on my mind in recent weeks.

Apparently, it has to be said. Stopping is not the same as Quitting.

It is a subtle difference, but an important one. Quitting implies action ceased due to frustration or fear of failure. Stopping implies action ceased due to desire, an educated decision or strength of conviction.

I knew going into this DEIVF cycle that it would be our last, no matter the outcome. Our hearts and our wallets are exhausted. This was part of our decision making process going into the cycle... do we have the reserves to get through even this one more? We decided that we did, but that it had to be the final attempt. Half way through the cycle, I had the realization that indeed, I do not have the heart to do this ever again. In the card we wrote to include with our gift for our egg donor, I thanked her for giving us the opportunity to find peace no matter the outcome. And that is just the thing. This cycle represents our limit. We can move into our future knowing that we did everything we could. We will not look back and regret stopping here. Of course, a negative result or another loss will be heartbreaking without question. But we can find peace.

In this community, those few of us who resolve our infertility journey by choosing to move on child free are often rather frightening to those still in the trenches. They see only "giving up" without the release of a future that was chosen. They offer support in the form they themselves still need: encouragement to keep trying, keep looking for answers, get another opinion. It is well intentioned, but misplaced support.

What we really need, when we reach this point, is for the community to wish us peace with our choice. We need respect for the strength it has taken to make that choice. We need to not be ignored, just because our situation makes people uncomfortable. We also need to remember that resolving this journey without a child does not invalidate the years of struggle and the experiences we have had. We can be a resource to those still struggling. We can be an inspiration to those who are questioning their reserves.

A-Feared

I'm so scared that this will be another one of those cycles, where just enough goes RIGHT before it all goes wrong... leaving us feeling like we really should dig just a little deeper and give it another shot. Funny. It only rarely occurs to me that things might only go right, and then that little voice says, "Yeah, sure. I've got a bridge you might be interested in as well."

This time last year, I was processing the fact that my ovaries were out of the game. We spent nearly three months debating the decision between walking away and getting on with a childfree future versus one last hurrah with donor eggs. Ultimately, the whole point of moving to donor eggs was to reach a place where we wouldn't feel like we should have done something more.

I'm afraid of the cycle failing, but being left feeling like there's more we could try.

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.

Why Didn't We Do That Sooner?

I suppose the truth is, we did it when we were ready in our hearts and not before. Thank you so much for your comments and tweets of support. It was an intense week, but a decision has been made and an appointment has been set for next week (OMG how fast did they get us in?!) to start the DEIVF process.

I just need my job to lay off with the crazy stress so I can actually soak this in...

One Week (Points to Consider)

I hate those stick figure collections people splash all over their rear windows, but yesterday they served a valid purpose. Prof and I went out for a coffee and pulled up behind one of these on our way home. Prof sighed and said, "I think about the kid thing all the time". Which got the conversation started. By the time we got home, we had acknowledged that we BOTH think about the kid thing pretty much constantly. To distraction. I knew he thought about it too, but somehow I didn't realize he thought about it as much as I do.

To recap, we have established that we are NOT afraid of:

• Using Donor Eggs to conceive
• Losing our relationship to Parenthood

And lo and behold, our thoughts and fears are still running along the same lines:

• Kids are expensive and we're just making ends meet as it is.
• DEIVF kids are even more expensive. Where does that money come from?
• This world is an ugly, scary place in which to launch a tiny little loved one.
• Our lifestyle would have to change dramatically (like you have NO idea how dramatically).
• How do parents get it all done?
• What if we hate being parents?

I think that last one is the real question here. The thing we're really afraid of discovering about ourselves after it's too late.

There's a piece of this puzzle that we can't see yet. I've seen a million and three comments about how everything changes once that baby arrives... specifically how new parents' attitudes toward their own offspring took them by surprise. Without any offspring of our own, we can't see the shape of that puzzle piece to know how it's going to fit into our existing picture.

So standing in the kitchen and tossing all of that out there, we came to two conclusions:

• If we don't do this because we're afraid of A/B/C, then we let the fear win and that's not our style.
• We're not getting any younger and this isn't going to get any easier by postponing it. We need to make a decision and move forward one way or another.

So Prof has proposed an idea. We will have a brief discussion about our thoughts on the subject every evening this week. Next Sunday, we will make a Plan. We even shook on it.

Ongoing Debate

I have reached a point where I accept that no matter what our eventual decision, no matter what our eventual outcome... there is no possible future in which I do not always carry with me some sadness and some resentment regarding my experience of infertility and my perceptions of the fertile world at large. I'm not saying I will be mired in grief and depression for the rest of my life, but this sadness and resentment is part of me now, sort of a household item. I'm looking forward to the time when it's packed in a trunk in the basement, rather out on the coffee table in the living room though.

If someone could wave a magic wand and guarantee that if I had sex with my husband, there would be a baby... I would do it. So why am I debating whether or not I still want to pursue further assisted reproduction, when I know that the treatments aren't my hang-up? Good question.

In Which I Apologize

For not posting more often and in greater detail about the mental contortions I am going through in the process of considering donor egg IVF versus choosing a childfree future. I feel like there are so few of us in this community who reach this branch in the road, that I ought to do a better job of representing the experience. Suffice it to say that things are difficult to articulate. And all very repetitive at any rate.

However.

My BFF came for a visit at the end of February. We hadn't seen each other in over a year and it was wonderful. I had been a little nervous because she told me last Fall that she and her husband were going to start TTC#2 in December and I was dreading a surprise announcement. To be honest, I wonder if they are trying again so soon after their first because of what she's seen me go through. She is only a couple of years younger than I am and she's no dummy. I was worrying needlessly.

We went to breakfast her first morning here and had long heart to heart about where we are/aren't with treatments and I gave her a quick rundown of the realities of donor egg IVF and some background on our consideration of a childfree future. As always she was interested, respectful and supportive. We also talked a lot about her experiences as a first time mother, all cards on the table. She didn't have it easy and unfortunately, she didn't have anyone nearby to provide a reality check, so it was probably harder on her than it needed to be. I feel sad about that... only that I couldn't be that supportive outside observer because I wasn't there day-to-day.

Her second morning here, we were sitting at the dining room table with our morning coffee and chatting. She took a deep breath and told me she'd been laying in bed thinking while she waited for me to wake up. She had decided that she wanted to talk to her husband about donating her eggs to us after she was done with Baby #2... if we would want them.

I almost fell off my chair.

I suspect my immediate response was a little lackluster, if only due to the shock. How fucking cool is THAT?! Realistically, it will probably not be feasible. But damn, she's awesome. I've talked to Prof about it and he is open to the idea, so why not feasible? Well, she is already 37 and she still wants to get Baby #2 first. That could put her at my current age before she's ready to start. Her husband may not be OK with it and that's totally his prerogative. Since we aren't blood relatives, there might be actual medical/biological impediments - I have no idea. My clinic might not go for it for any number of reasons.

But she had the idea. All on her own. She was already like the sister I never had. If I got pregnant using her eggs, we would be even more like family than we already are. It would amazing.

You know what? Even if I don't get pregnant using her eggs... it's still amazing.

Issues, I Haz Them

On Twitter a few days ago, I likened myself to a spoiled brat of a three year old, stomping my feet and wailing "Why meeee? Not Faaaair!"

And that terribly mature thought brought me up against a hard wall of realization. This may well be the first time in my life I that haven't been able to achieve what I set out to do by dint of hard work and perseverance... perhaps the first time I've needed to confront my motivations and the true strength of my desires.

Am I using my fears and ambivalence about parenthood to paint a child-free future into a rosier picture, just so that I can tell myself it was what I really wanted all along? Is it any wonder that I now doubt myself and my ability to be a good parent, faced with the first major failure of my life?

WTF (do we do now)?

We had our WTF follow-up for the most recent failed (un)IVF cycle earlier this week. There is no more tweaking the protocol. We've tried both agonist and antagonist with the maximum dose of stimulation and DHEA to boot. The upshot is we've thrown everything we can at my ovaries and they simply failed to respond. My ovaries are cut from the team. My overwhelming feeling about this is relief.

The RE was very kind but clear. We won't be doing another cycle with my ovaries. He laid out the standard next-step options (donor eggs, foster/adoption, childfree) and gave us some information on our clinic's DE program. He let us know that if we wanted to go with DE, there is no need to hurry. The clock is effectively stopped as far as success rates go. You might even say, the clock would be wound back in time.

Prof and I have discussed all of these possibilities in the abstract over the last year, and we are in agreement that foster/adoption are not right for us. Our decision now is between donor egg and childfree. There are pros and cons to both and we will need some time to work through our feelings about them before we know which way we want to move.

I also had my first meeting with the infertility therapist this week. It was really just a get-to-know-you sort of session, background stuff, but I liked her and I hope that she will be able to help us find our way through the decision making process in front of us.

We have some thinking to do, some decisions to make.

I am OK. We are OK. We will BE OK.

IVF The Remix (Conversion)

For those of you not on Twitter, my Monday morning monitoring revealed only TWO viable follicles at 22mm each and estradiol holding steady below 200. Basically, fuck all.

My clinic has a 4 follicle minimum for IVF retrieval, so they recommended to convert to IUI. When I explained the situation with my FSA money, they gave me the option to move forward with IVF if I really wanted to. But. The success rate for IVF with two follicles versus IUI with two follicles is the same. Obviously, IVF comes with some risks that IUI does not have. It is surgery and there is no guarantee that they will actually collect the eggs.

There is no chance of another IVF cycle this calendar year. I called the FSA administrator and they confirmed that if the procedure is not performed before December 31, 2011, I WILL lose the money in my FSA. So we are now poring over the eligible expenses list to see what we can use the balance to purchase.

This was our choice. And we chose the IUI. As badly as I want to close the book on this process and as heartbreaking as it is to essentially get cancelled again... this feels like the right decision. Silver lining: No PIO and we get to have sex as soon as the IUI is done.