Friday, October 23, 2009

I dreamed a dream

I have temporarily satiated my little sick doodle bug with banana chips so I have about two minutes to type up a blog entry. I think I'm ready to talk.

After getting the official news of my negative pregnancy, I purchased a bag of Reeses Peanut Butter Cups and proceeded to eat about half the bag myself. (Yes, I am one of those. Thank goodness I haven't had to face much adversity in my life, because I'm pretty sure I'd be obese if I did.) I was pissed. I was angry. I was bewildered and infinitely sad. How could four perfectly good embryos not implant themselves successfully into my picture-perfect lining? It just seemed---unfair. Was this just the lot of my family---to have to jump over multiple hurdles and endure heartbreak after heartbreak before getting to baby? I would think once would be enough for any family to endure.

Alas, the heartbreak continues. Two mornings ago, in the foggy, vivid dreaming between snooze alarm hits, I dreamed I was three months pregnant. I was rubbing my belly. I was so happy. I did not want to wake up.

The fear behind trying again is that we do not have a Plan B for Baby B. Our frozen embryos from S.'s successful IVF cycle were our next and only plan. Our donor is "temporarily" unavailable, but who knows what that means. His specimens could be released tomorrow, or never. I am afraid to call the Bank to find out, because quite frankly, last time a representative was so rude to me that I ended up hanging up in tears. (I have to say this is an exception to the way we usually interact with this particular bank, but it was a bad one.)

So, now what?? IF....we cannot get the same donor, but still feel strongly about giving Theo a bio sibling, S. would have to give me her eggs, but according to our nurse, that is crazy expensive. If we do have the donor, do I then go through IUIs, or consider pouring the expense into again having S.'s eggs? We just don't know. I suppose the starting place is going to be our bank. It is highly likely that we are his only pregnancy, but as soon as we reported it to them, he "sold out." We never got the chance to stock up.

Jeesh, I sound like we went grocery shopping.

But seriously. I know we will figure this out, but mustering up the energy to do it seems impossible right now.

It's just not fair.


7 comments:

Kim said...

I'm so sorry. I will say that the comment that your wife giving you her eggs is "crazy expensive" struck me as odd because the reality is it shouldn't cost any more than a regular cycle. It's the same process, for the most part, but with one person for the first half and one for the second. You would likely have to drug up like you are doing an FET to prepare your body, but having done the math on FET, when you are doing IVF, it's not that MUCH more. I would honestly inquire as the ACTUAL cost difference.

Good luck with whatever you decide. We have 4 embryos from our IVF cycle that resulted in our twins, and that's it. Our donor is no longer available and the other families who have conceived with him want to use the few vials that they have stored (which isn't many). If our FET(s) doesn't work, we don't have a plan B either.

Whozat said...

We used Shrike's eggs to get me pregnant, and I think it was a bit more than a regular IVF cycle, because of having to do additional screening (Shrike had to get the same mandated-by-law screening tests as an anonymous egg donor would have to have) but I think that was the biggest difference.

We went the "shared risk" route; I don't know if your clinic offers that.

Also, the donor sibling registry allows people to offer / request vials of sperm. It might be worth registering and checking to see if someone has some on hold that they are not going to use.

Good luck!

oneofhismoms said...

I guess some questions to ask yourself are, how important is biology? Why? And if it is important, why would a biological connection between the siblings be more important to you than a biological connection between you and one of them? I'm not trying to confuse you further. I just find such questions interesting, since I am so invovled in the topic of non-bio and non-gestational motherhood.

Sarah said...

It isn't fair at all. I'm so sorry. Good comments by PP. I hope so much for you. xoxo

Lyn said...

I'm so sorry. How frustrating, and also scary without a plan B.

Like oneofhismoms, I'd encourage you to think about what in particular about a sibling bio connection for theo is important to you, especially noting that you do already have a family where there is a strong non-bio bond.

As someone who "went second" in our family on the pregnancy front (like oneofhismoms), I'd like to remind you that it is OK for you to really (really really) want to get pregnant. It took me a while to understand that I wasn't undermining my relationship with our first child by wanting so much to carry a baby myself.

The dynamics around the second try, especially when switching uteri, are really complex and hard. Hang in there.

Anonymous said...

I'm only the sixth commenter, yet all these smart women have said more or less what I was going to.

I strongly recommend that you sign up for the DSR. Other people in your donor group may very well have vials to sell, and even if they aren't advertising, it's worth listing yourselves as 'want vials' and even posting a request to the group.

My partner had a strong committment to using the same (retired) donor, enough so that we bought six vials for my process. I blew through those, being slightly less fertile than we'd hoped. She ended up contacting other DSR families (with a bit of totally-confidentialtiy-respecting help from the DSR founder herself, as some of the people had gone inactive) and was successful.

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