DONOR EGG Tmt Thread... " Egg-heads"

[rhall00]

Hi ladies! I haven't posted in a while but welcome to all the new ladies. You are definitely in the right place and are in good hands. We used donor eggs since my eggs don't mature so it was our only option. I'm also in the US, in MA just outside of Boston. We were fortunate that we didn't have to get on a waiting list, just ad to pick a donor and then wait for testing and our cycles to match up. On our 3rd try, we finally became pregnant and I had little Cooper Henry on 3/21/09 after being induced in week 39. He is absolutely beautiful and is totally my little man, regardless of whose genes he has. I agree with Kelly that after carrying him for 9 months you are so attached and in love that nothing else matters.

We actually took a different route and decided to tell our friends and family about using a donor. We'll also tell Cooper when he's a little older since I don't think he'll understand at 2 weeks old. We just don't want to hide anything from him and will let him know how natural it is and that it doesn't change anything or how much we love him. But it definitely is a personal decision and I can see arguments for either way. The whole thing is such a tough journey, but the payoff is amazing and totally worth it! Best of luck to everyone out there, especially with those that are going in for treatment this week!!! My fingers are crossed for all of you!!

[sabi]

Chriss, gigi, KellyM, & rhall00,
Thanks for sharing your stories & advice. I appreciate it all. So glad to
hear the success w/de. I'm taking it all in... I truly feel uplifted after spending the weekend reading & responding to this thread. You are all
angels! Congrats all you lucky mama's!!

ladies, keep the faith our turn is coming!

Sabi

[summerbaby]

rhall00 - heartfelt congratulations on the birth of your son!! Thanks for sharing your story with us!

kelly - so nice to hear from you! How are the babies?

carolyn - hope you guys made it Prague without problems and got around okay despite the visit from Obama & friends! Will be thinking about you and your donor on Tuesday - best of luck with ER and the big fert. party to follow! Hope you guys get lots of nice embies. Sending you some more PMA and baby dust!

chriss - think I can sense a bit of mounting excitement that you guys are almost there -- Do hope you can cycle in the summer when you are off. Then you can enjoy the summer sun and return to work with a nice big belly -- That is my wish for you!

sabi - good luck with your appt this month! You asked about folic acid and a prenatal -- I do take both, as well as vitamin E, zink, selenium & magnesium. All were suggested to me by my RE and I've been taking everything for a while now. I also eat well and exercise. I found yoga to be so very relaxing, do hope you will enjoy it! In regard to Zita West, I read her Guide to Getting Pregnant more than once and liked what she had to say. It hardly has anything to do with DE, but I found her words to be very reassuring and always kept me in a positive frame of mind.

gigi - have fun trying "the old fashioned way"! Start eating your veggies and good luck to you!

Hi to jenB - hope you are doing well and that the sun is shining where you are!

I am well. Had a scare yesterday and was spotting blood, which the doctor determined was from the hormones irritating the cervix -- Not my favorite way to spend a Sunday going to the hospital, but all was fine in the end and the baby is, thank goodness, doing well and really starting to look like something on the "big screen". I am Rh "-" and was told from the beginning that if I saw any blood, I would need to get a shot, which they did give me. Just happy everything turned out well.

Have a great week, girls!
xx summer

[chriss]

Summer,
Glad all is well. I'm sure it can be scary at times. Keep positive.
I am rh - also. Tell me more about the shot, etc. And yes, I am feeling that it will be soon as well. Also... I've been taking prenatal with folic acid. You are taking additional folic acid? How much in total???

rhall, congratulations! Enjoy your baby! About the telling/not-telling... My DH feels the exact way that you do. He does not want any secrets from anyone. My mind is open and I change my thoughts on everything almost daily. I know for sure that we want to tell the baby, but not so sure about others. My main concern is how naive people are and judgemental. I don't want my child to be thought of or treated differently than any other child. So I am confused as to what to do. We have time to figure it out, but it helps when I hear perspectives from all sides. Can you tell me more about how people react, how you feel, etc???
This is a great discussion to have with real people, not just info from reading books. Hope you don't mind or feel like I am prying. This just seems like such a safe place.

Hi Carolyn, thinking of you in Prague.

Hi everyone. Its nice to come on to an active thread again. You've inspired me to write more. Thanks. It helps.

[wishfull27]

afternoon ladies - from a very sunny Prague

Have spent the day wandering round the city - its buzzing and very busy with a huge easter market - everywhere I look are people selling eggs - looks like we come to the right place!!!

accupuncture all booked for tom and then we will find out how many eggs were retriewved - am sooo scared but excited at the same time xx

Rhallo - congratulations on the birth of your son - we love success stories to spur us all on

Summer - sorry about your scare - the worry never stops does it - sending you some hugs down south .. now that we are on the same side of the sea!!!!

Chris - good to see you about so much _ i love it nowe the thread is starting to buzz .. your time is jst round the corner xx

Gig/Pooh/sabi - Hi ladies - thanks for the support and well wishes - your time will soon be here !

Love the debate on to tell or not - the only people who know about our IVF are my parents - they also know about using donor - at moment we are both thinking not to tell - but who knows that may change xx

Will let you know how we get on tom

love to all

carolyn xxx

[nicolamark]

Hi Carolyn,

Wow, Sunny in Prague!! Sunny back home too!! My brother also in Prague right now, i wonder if u've passed him in the town yet!!
Eggs is a good sign, i always think spring is the best time for IVF etc....
Im keeping my fingers crossed that u have a nice lot of eggs in your basket!!!
Is the Donor lady also going to use half the eggs? Will u have eqall collections?
Best of luck, and happy EAster. xx

[poohgirl]

Hi all, Sorry I wasn't on this weekend I took a break from the computer!

Sabi--Welcome! I guess I wasn't so upset about donor eggs, we just want to have a baby and how we get isn't the problem--I will have a gestational link with the baby and that is enough for me. Of course I am different and it is totally okay and normal to have some grief about the whole thing. Good luck! BTW I think you were asking about folic acid since it is water soluble you can't Overdose on it but it is a good idea to check with your doctor.

Gigi--sounds like you get another try with your own eggs--you never know it might work! Good luck!

Carolyn--I am happy things went well in Prauge and that you are or soon will be PUPO!!!!

Summer--sorry to hear about your scare but it sounds like it was small--who knew getting pregnant was only half the journey.


I am waiting on my donor to get her psych. screening which should hopefully be this week and then next week she gets her blood work and then she starts her lupron and birth control. Looks like will be doing this May/june--sabi we may cycle together!!!

Check this out no emoticons in the whole post---I am going through withdraw!

[summerbaby]

chriss - is DH Rh- or Rh+? Mine is Rh+, so was my donor, so the baby will also be Rh+. Even if we had conceived naturally, this would have been the procedure. The shot is something they actually give you as routine in the 28th week, or sooner if you have bleeding. It is a shot called Rhophylac. With - blood, you don't have anti-bodies and if your blood comes in contact with + blood, then it starts to fight against it -- which isn't a good scenario when you are pregnant. You probably knew all that already. sorry about that!
It was one of the first things my doctor talked to me about when I found out I was pregnant.

poohgirl - a break from the computer is a very good thing to do! Hope you did something fun!

carolyn - good luck to your donor and DH tomorrow! Looks like all signs are pointing to lots of eggs! Keep up your PMA! Enjoy the time inbetween ER and ET -- at least with this scenario, you don't have to recover from anything and reap all the benefits.

Nice to have some new company here on this thread! Looking forward to cheering everyone on!

Big hello to everyone reading these days,
xx summer

[gigi]

summer:

Your story is inspiring...I know you did IVF in the past but did you just do one shot at ED?? What is the book you are referring to in your emails called? I'd love to read something positive.


everyone: are there any books regarding ED recipients that you were told to read? We just sent our info to our clinic today so we officially start the wait list. Excited but nervous...knowing a little seed will be planted by someone out there. Our clinic only has annonymous EDs. Are your clinics annonymous for the most part? They told us that even if our child was to have something life threatening that we could not contact the donor...That is a little scary to read. So again that reassures our decision to keep it hush hush. I'm getting better with that decision knowing and believing that I would be the natural mother in most ways.

Good luck Carolyn. I love the eggs in the market story. That is certainly a sign for you.

[poohgirl]

hi gigi

My clinic is only annonymous donors too a I only know my donor at donor #34 it is a little weird but in someways it is good. I was a hippie love child, my mom was totally into free love so I never knew my birth father so we wouldn't have the whole picture anyways. BTW according to my mother I was the second immaculate conception At least I am in good company

I am reading a book I got from amazon "having your baby through Egg donation" By Ellen sarasohn Glazer and Evelina Wiedman Sterling. It is okay but a little preachy. I got it off of amazon. I am only a little way through it.

My clinic called this afternoon, the psychologist they use is off this week for "spring Break" so that pushes everything out by a week or 2 but not too bad, I hate this part I have no control over this and I so want to:).

[summerbaby]

gigi - you are right, I got lucky on our first cycle with DE. I am pretty certain that the same thing happened to both kelly and LuAnne as well.
It really gives you hope, doesn't it? Our clinic gave a 58% success rate, which was so much better than the 12% or less that I was clinging to when I was trying with my own eggs.

Like at your clinic, the donors at our clinic are totally anonymous and neither we nor the future child can contact her and visa-versa, which like you said, has its good points and bad points. At this point, we are not planning to tell anyone else about the DE part. You did bring up and important point and I do want to ask my clinic for advice about what to do about filling out things like medical history, right now it can only be one sided. I'll let you know what they say, if it is any different from your clinic. (But, I seriously doubt it will be!)

The book I read was called Zita West's Guide to Getting Pregnant. I found it really to be very straight forward and gave me the feeling that one day this would work for me.
Chriss read it as well and she also has good recommendations for books about having a baby via DE. I am sure when she next checks in she can post some good titles for you.

Congrats, by the way, on getting yourselves onto the waiting list!


poohgirl - sorry to hear about the delay! So much of this is about the waiting. Would have been nice to get some news this week, so you guys could also move on with your part! Looking forward to hearing in a few weeks that the appt was a great success and that she gets the all-clear!

thinking of you, carolyn! Hope you guys get a great fert. report tomorrow. When do they think transfer will be? Sending you lots of baby dust and PMA today.

HI to chriss, kelly, rhall00, jenB, sabi and everyone reading,
xx summer

[chriss]

Hi Summer,
I am rh- and DH is + Negative blood is more rare so I will most likely need the shot as well. I had the shot once before when I had a miscarriage @ 8 weeks. So I am familiar with it. I just never heard the part about having the shot early if you bleed. Seems like so many women bleed during beginning of pregnancy. How can they know the causes?

Pooh, I read that book and many others that I got on Amazon.

Gigi, if you have not already... just go to Amazon and search donor egg. There are about 8-10 books out there and I've read them all. All of them are pro DE. Many if not all of them are for telling the child but ultimately say that it is your decision. They base much of their ideas about this on studies with adopted children since DE is so new. I enjoyed reading them because at least I felt like I was doing something while WAITING.
The decision is up to each of us and DH about telling/not-telling.
Personally I don't believe there is a right or wrong. Whatever is best for the individuals.

I ran into my old Yoga instructor yesterday after not seeing her for about a year and a half. She knew I was going thru IVF (Important to let instructors know). And surprisingly, she herself was going thru it as well. SHe was 42 at the time and did not have a good response to meds. She had 2 eggs. She told me how lucky I was that I got more eggs, etc. I felt like it would never happen for her and that it would work for me because I am younger and have more eggs. I ended up switching gyms and lost touch with her. Well, when I saw her yesterday... she told me that she just had her baby a couple of weeks ago. It worked for her on the second try. I felt like I had been punched in the stomach. I wanted to be happy for her but I felt sick to myself. I don't like when this happens because I feel like a bad person. I couldn't help but feel once again that I had been cheated. Now I feel like I've taken a step backward because it brought up the sad feelings of not using my own eggs. I felt envious, mad, depressed, etc. And just before that I was feeling so good about using DE. I felt like I had finally gotten over the hump. Let go off my attachment to my own genes. After talking with my sister, I felt better. I know that DE is the right thing for me. It's taken time, therapy and work to get to a healthy place and just this one incident threw me for a loop. I feel so fragile. I am so happy to read that those of you who have your babies thru DE are happy, satisfied and amazed. You feel that it was meant to be and you are totally attached to your babies. I know I will get there because you prove it to me. I believe it will be that way for me. It's so hard right now tho because I am in limbo... wondering what will be. (And BTW, this instructor is not the only one who is in her 40's and getting pregnant right before my eyes. It's happening everywhere in my life as I am sure that it is happening around all of you)

You have found me at a bit of a low point girls, but I know I will climb back up and be strong. I know what is meant to be is meant to be. I know my time is near. Thanks for listening. I just had to get it out to you guys, the ones who know what it feels like. You are my support.

No sparklies today

[poohgirl]

Chriss I totally know the feeling. My husband's older sister (she's 43 now) has been pregnant 13 times and has 7 children, we avoid all family gatherings since that is when she tells people she is pregnant and I feel like the wind is knocked out of me. Her youngest is 9 months old now so she is due for another "announcement" at any time. It seems like the world is so unfair and you want to scream "why not me". But I strongly feel our time will come!

[wishfull27]

just a quick post as off out for diner shortly ...
Chris - keep the faith our time will be here very soon - hugs to you honey xxx

Well our lovely donor has given us 11 eggs - just hope as we speak DH stuff is doing its bit!! - on tenderhooks for fertilisation report tom .. will keep you posted xx
Love to all

Carolyn xxx

[poohgirl]

WOO HOO Carolyn!!!!!! That is awesome!!!! Good Luck!!!!!