back to nature

About donor eggs-- here's the real deal:

My first choice is to use my own raw materials for this procreative endeavor.

If money were no object, I would already be at CCRM most likely, trying like hell to make eggs on my own for however many cycles it takes -- we'd get pre-implantation genetic testing (PGD d for diagnostic? diabolically expensive? ) until we got something normal or proved that there is nothing normal left.

Considering my age, and being realistic for a moment about statistics, I absolutely know donor eggs is the way to go. BUT, there are two big buts on this one- but#1, it is friggin expensive, and I am not sure we can afford it ever, and we can certainly not afford it now. but#2, I am just not ready to consider it since I am still *quite* attached to trying to use my own materials.  I fully realize (and am mad about the fact) that I have a limited window for my own stuff, maybe the window is already closed. But my clinic and most clinics want you pregnant with your own stuff by 43 or they are done with that mode of inquiry.  I am 42 1/3. So, I will play this out until next february. And, by the way, if you asked me to express why I've got such a strong attachment to this idea you'd find me strangely inarticulate. I end up answering something like this: I just want to do it this way, I just do. And so does my darlin.

And we do not need to decide right now: Donor eggs do not have the same time limit as my own body--most clinics will work with you until you are 45, so I have a little tiny bit more leeway. And for me, it is not a race to get a baby as soon as possible no matter what, the race, the rush is because I want to use my own materials assuming I have anything good to work with and I am fully aware of running out of time.

Donor embryos is another option we've talked about and I think I even may have talked about it here- much more financially do-able, but much less "choice" about the who and the where-- embryos available for donation are made by folks like me-- older folks who have been having trouble conceiving, so all of the statistical benefits of using younger eggs from young donors are not usually carried over to donor embryos. And up here in NH, there is hardly a surfeit of embryos waiting for a home. Not that it is critical to anything, but there is also virtually no chance for our mix of ethnicities unless we go much farther afield. For example, one major group down in Tennessee is apparently just awesome for helping match donors to recipients, but requires certain criteria that we do not meet. 

We started to explore adoption-- like donor eggs it is very expensive-- but unlike donor eggs the cost can be spread out a little-- but the process-- gosh, it is not measured in two week waits, but in what feels like invasion and judgment and the process can take years and filled with waiting, hoping to be chosen, uncertainty and the potential for heartbreaks too.  We just are not ready to face that whole process yet either.

So for now, we are doing what is best for us.  Hate the statistics of chromosomal abnormalities for eggs as old as mine.  And hate how hard it is to just get and stay pregnant. But, for us

this is the right thing for right now.

what I'm thinking now about this cycle:

my body is clearly doing all it can do, a yeoman's job-- lots of follicles, my period came, E2 nicely suppressed, bbt chart acting normally-- so, I'd like to think it is possible we could succeed even without technological intervention. Why not? (shhhh, don't burst my bubble with ugly statistics, I know they are hideous).

So, in order not to go insane, I am trying to think of this as a fine option, a back to nature option, a ordinary people do it this way every day sort of option and I am trying like hell not to feel as if I am missing out on my one and only big follicle count.  And if this cycle works? Great. (Ok, more than great!!!) If not? I have meds for next month. Gosh darn.