[Kay]

Kristen- I'm with you and everyone else 6 is a great number. I am sure there are many women who would give their right eye to get 6. You are sittin pretty, on your way to a BFP.

Bethany- I am so glad you are right behind us. It is good news it worked out the way yu wanted it to for your shots. Yipeee another soon to be PG lady.

Kay

[Kay]

kandygurl- I read your post on another thread when you found out about your issues. I was so touched, but I also wanted to reply to you to really consiser DE or embryo adoption. I didn't because I know sometimes you just need time to work through stuff. Now here you are inquiring.
This is a personal decision and I know it is not without some greif over you not using your genetic material. You do need to work through that.
I personally decided that the end result I wanted was a baby to love and raise and having a biological was secondary.
My DH and I adopted three children and then came back and revisited the IF possibilities. We did an embryo adoption which sadly resulted in an ectopic. Now we are in the middle of a DE cycle. I am very excited about the possibility of having a child.
I know this is a lot to process. I would be happy to answer any questions for you. I hope whatever you decide brings you peace and joy!
Kay

[Kay]

Good news on our front. Our donor won't be retreving until Wed. instead of tommorow. This means my transfer won't be until next mon. and not on my DH birthday. I think God is working it all out for us!
Kay

[chantalTTC]

Yeah, Kay! I admire your attitude (taking it as a positive instead of being disappointed it's a day later - what a trooper!). It is very cool how it all worked out. I'll be praying your donor has a smooth ER on Wed - one step closer to being prego :-)

Thanks for your kind words. I know I need to stay positive. Like another lady said, it's a shame they even tell us the # of follies/eggs. If they'd told me there were 6 and all six are developing normally, I would have been just fine - lol. What a rollercoaster!

[Kay]

It is a rollercoaster! I guess we need to decide whether we are going to be scared to death or enjoy the ride. I think mental attitude has a lot to do with going through this with sanity. Remind me of this in one week when I start my 2ww! LOL
Kay

[BabySteps]

Kristen, I am not sure if you read my story about our embryos..... 20 eggs were retrieved, 15 fertilized, 10 were good quality on day 3 and on day 5 only 3 made it to blast. The RE was really shocked and so were we. I really thought we had 10 going into the transfer so my heart just sank when we were told we only had 3 left and one was fragmented and probably would not survive the freeze and thaw.

We decided to transfer all 3. Instead of being happy after the transfer I cried because we had none frozen and I was worried it would not work on the first try and then where would that leave us? The donor was young, has 4 children of her own and been a successful donor before with the recipients getting pregnant.

I know it is easy for me to say but I really don't think you should worry yet. I have read many stories simular to ours about DE and the girls did go on to get pregnant.

Sometimes the embryos just stop dividing for some reason. I don't think it has anything to do with the sperm because my DH's SA was perfect. Try to rest up for the ET. Sending big hugs and positive thoughts you way

[bd711]

Kandygirl - I'm so sorry you're going through such heartache. But know that each one of us here understands. It's heartbreaking to hear from a dr that the best route to actually bearing a child is to have the eggs donated. It's such a shock and takes a long time to digest.

One small advantage of donor egg is that we don't need to make that decision right away. You can keep trying to conceive naturally, and several years down the road you can reconsider donor egg. The age cutoff at most clinics for it is somewhere in our mid to late 40's. So, although all of us want to be parents already, know that that option is not the time bomb that so much of this infertility journey seems to be. It also raises the potential for raising the funds necessary to do this expensive process.

I also want to add in that doing donor egg gives you the opportunity to have a child that is genetically your DH's. DP and I obviously don't have that option, but that also meant that we went through this in 2 stages - the first was that our child would genetically be only one of ours. That struggle led us down lots of interesting paths for thought on how to do this. But none of them prepared me for how it would feel if our child was genetically neither of ours. I have to say, after doing the necessary soul searching, it's entirely clear to me that whatever child we're blessed to have some day will absolutely be both of ours wholly and fully.

Good luck with this. We all know it is not an easy thing to consider.

[bd711]

Kay - I'm so glad that the ER got pushed back. Now you can really enjoy that party, with your little secret waiting for you 2 days later!

Shelley - Are you out west? You and I seem to be the latest ones on these boards! I'm in Northern Cal. You?

'Night all. B

[BabySteps]

Kay that is great news about you ET being on Monday!! Now you can enjoy DH's birthday and you will have a great beginning to the week!

kandygurl, deciding to use an egg donor did not happen over night for me either. I went from taking a break from the idea of ever children, then after some changes in my life I began to look into adoption..then into using a surrogate. By the time I had all my fertility tests done again (a few years after the 1st set) I was thrilled to hear that my uterus was still good and I was a canidate for ED. Then we found out my uterus was not perfect. I had a bicornuate uterus (heart shaped, increasing chance of miscarriages) so I had an operation to correct that...

I have been all over the map on this one and it sure did not happen over night. The journey is still a roller coaster. I went from fearing I would never get pregnant to fearing I will lose my precious ones. Life is funny that way. I also feel as if I spent half my life trying not to get pregnant and the other half trying to get pregnant!!

Take the time you need to heal and accept not having a biological child. My thoughts and prayers are with you and your DH during this time. I know how devastating it can be.

[chantalTTC]

Shelley, thank you very much for your encouraging words and reminding me about your personal journey. You certainly are a success story!

Bethany - you said it so well...this child will absolutely be yours and your dp's, without a doubt!

One thing to consider, Kandygurl...it could be semantics or just a way to make me feel better... I like to think that this child will be genetically my dh's, but absolutely biologically mine, too. After all, without my uterus, my blood, the nutrients my body provides, my breastmilk, etc., this child would never have the chance to come into this world. Thinking about it that way comforts me somehow - maybe it will bring you some peace, too.

Kay, tomorrow's almost here... Are you excited about the ER? You're going to get so many great eggies! I'm excited for you!

[BabySteps]

Originally Posted by bd711

Shelley - Are you out west? You and I seem to be the latest ones on these boards! I'm in Northern Cal. You?

I am in Southern Cal. I always seem to be the last one on the forum. Many of the girls are out east, I think?

[chantalTTC]

I'm in Denver, CO. Though I was born in Inglewood, CA (ya, ya, I know...apparently it was nice in the early 70's), and spent half my childhood in Northern CA... I miss Cali!

[chantalTTC]

So, question for you girls - similar to what Kay posed re her dh's birthday... I was just given free box seats to the Coppelia ballet Saturday night 7:30 (my dh is friends with John Caulkins, whose mother is Ellie Caulkins of the "Ellie Caulkins Opera House" ). I would really love to go, since these are such great seats and I've never been to the ballet here... It will be the day after my ET. I could be picked up in a car, driven to the door, sit in my seat and be picked up at the door again... As I replied to Kay, I want to avoid doing anything that could affect implantation or my perception of it after the fact. I'd be sitting instead of lying down for a few hours - what do your REs say about sitting vs. lying down?

What do you think?

[Kay]

Kristen- my RE says bed rest is not necessary the next day. I was only warned about heavy exursion and lifting. This is tough though, because you don't want anything to blame yourself for either. I did read on line that more and more REs aren't recom. any kind of bedrest. Up to you girl, but I don't think it would be harmful.

New problem for me...... DH is sick (day before sperm retreval) and has had a slight fever. Oh what terrible timing. RE said it should be ok, but we won't know until he gives sample tomorrow. STRESS!! We are going to use ICSI so this should help, but still for us please.
Kay

[chantalTTC]

Thanks, Kay - that's great perspective. Sorry for the extra stress on you and your dh the day before the ER...I'm sure he feels badly for the timing. I think you'll be perfectly fine. The sperm sample he'll give tomorrow was created 3 months ago and because you're using ICSI, the embryologist will choose the most viable sperm.

Hang in there - my thoughts will be with you tomorrow!