hopeful update ...

I can't believe it's been almost 5 months since my last update. When I last posted, I mentioned that we were trying to decide between using an anonymous egg donor and a dear friend who offered to be our egg donor. We ended up choosing to use an anonymous donor. So, we met with Dr. Nash in late January to get the ball rolling. We were disappointed to find out that we were going to be on a waiting list through his office until at least August (at the very earliest) to be matched up with a donor. I was pretty frustrated that he didn't mention that at our appointment in November, so that we could have gotten on the waiting list then. The other option was to go through an egg donor agency in Cincinnati, but that would have added an additional $5,000+ to an already very expensive medical bill.

So, we decided to go back to Dr. Schmidt, our first reproductive endocrinologist. He's the one we were with from 2010 until we decided to use Heather as our donor in late 2011. He is an amazing doctor, and I absolutely love his nurses and staff. We met with him in mid-March to discuss using an anonymous egg donor. It was so nice to see him and be in his office again. I always felt more comfortable there. He said that they had several carefully and rigorously screened egg donors ready, so we should be able to start within a few months. He also mentioned another option of embryo adoption. Couples who have used IVF to conceive and had leftover embryos to be frozen end up completing their families and adopt out their remaining embryos to couples who want to have a baby. I looked into some of the agencies that do this, and while the cost would be less than using an anonymous egg donor, the process is pretty complicated and extensive. These agencies treat the embryos as a child, which means the process is like that of a child adoption. There would be extensive applications, social workers making home study visits to our home, and on and on. That is one of the reasons why we aren't interested in adopting right now, so we decided not to pursue that.

The nurse who is in charge of the egg donor program at Dr. Schmidt's office emailed us several donor profiles in mid-April. Each profile is a 10-page questionnaire filled out by a donor. It gives physical info like height, weight, hair and eye color, bone structure, etc. It also provides extensive detail on medical/social/psychological history for the donor and her blood relatives. Towards the end of the profile is a section where the donor writes why she would like to be a donor and gives her sentiments to the potential recipients of her eggs. That section made me cry for each donor. They wrote some very touching and kind things. So, Brian and I sat down and looked through the profiles several times. It was difficult to decide which one to choose because they all looked great. We finally decided on one and contacted Dr. Schmidt's office in late April. Sadly, she wasn't available because she had just been chosen by another couple earlier that week. So, we went back to the profiles and chose another donor. Sadly, she wasn't available because she is getting married this summer and moving out of state. So, back to the profiles we went. By that time, a few new profiles had been added. We chose one of them, and as the saying goes, "third time's a charm"! :)

We are moving forward with this donor, and we are cautiously hopeful (truth be told, I am as excited as a little girl on Christmas morning, no matter how hard I try not to be) that everything will work out. She is young, very healthy, and her ovarian function is perfect. So, we have every reason to believe that she will respond very well to the ovarian-stimulation meds and produce some beautiful, healthy, high-quality eggs for us. I mentioned in a previous post that I am not going to share specifics on this cycle the way I did with the cycle Heather and I did last year. As much as I loved all the support and love surrounding us during those early days, it was too sad and difficult to have to share the sad news with so many people when I miscarried. So, I will just say that we are well on our way to preparing for this IVF cycle, and I am wishing and hoping that we will have some wonderful, amazing, joyful news to share by sometime this Fall. Stay tuned ... :)