What’s the right balance?

I have been wondering about the complexities of a DE situation.

Maybe shocking, but sometimes I wonder if it would be better if Mr BTC and I had a donor embryo. There are a few reasons why I think that, so let me try to explain.

Mr BTC has two grown up children, so he doesn’t have a reproductive itch to scratch. This is totally about me and what I want from my life, which in turn has morphed into what we want from our lives. So let’s get this straight, Mr BTC would not have ever gone down the trying to have more children route unless his wife/partner really wanted that.

I am scared.

I am scared that Mr BTC, without saying or meaning it, may make me feel like I am an inferior in the situation.

I am scared of not feeling an equal and always compensating for that.

And I wondered if having a donor embryo would resolve that in my head.

Now don’t get me wrong, I would love our child to have Mr BTC’s qualities, well most of them (!) and a donor embryo would be less removed from that, but I need to get my head around the fact that it feels like I am compromising yet I am not sure he would have done the same without a huge fuss.

Take this morning as an example. I mentioned to him that if we get enough embryos, I would like us to do PGD to see if there are underlying abnormality issues. I don’t expect any at all, but I would hate us to plough on regardless down the DE route if in fact it will never work as there is something wrong with Mr BTC’s sperm (due to vasectomy and then reversal some 20 years later). We would then still have time to switch to a DS situation (in terms of my age).

You would have thought I had announced I wanted a divorce with his response.

He was shocked and hurt.

WTF? So it’s ok for me to “just get on with it” (his favourite dismissive line), but would be totally different for him….when he already has children? Are you for real? I just get the feeling that he would be much more resistant to a DS situation.

Isn’t this whole process about having a baby? I feel we have conditions on it now, which make me feel like I am the on the outside, almost like he is getting what he wants without much thought about what it all means to me.

So what’s the right balance?

Ringing the changes

Maybe the black blog was bringing me bad luck. And frankly having a picture of a baby’s hand on my header was laughable considering I have never even come close to holding a real one of my own.

So it’s been ditched for a fresh new look.

A new start, hopefully in more ways than one.

I’m at a party!!!

Miracles, Hope and Love – I got ‘em

I have always wanted something that I could wear to remind me of our battle against infertility.

I didn’t want anything that screamed infertility, as I am quite private about it in real life.

The other week, I saw an example of something that would really work for me. It was on Bella’s blog. She received a bracelet from Tarah who has her own handmade jewelry Et.sy store.

So I got in touch with Tarah and she designed a bracelet just for little old me.

It has pomegranate beads, which are linked to fertility I believe. It also has the words ‘Miracles’ (self explanatory), but also links my past blog, ‘Hope’, because we’ve all got to have it and ‘Love’, twice, which represents Mr BTC and I.

It arrived today and I love it. I am going to wear it for a long time to come. I hope you like it too.

Me needs some help people

So things are moving fast. I now have my schedule from Dr Donor Egg and it seems like a breeze.

I don’t even need any ultrasounds before I go out there, my first one will be done by him the day after we fly out. Before we go I have one injection and then pop a few tablets and Bob’s your Uncle, we are ready to roll.

I wondered how I would feel when I got the schedule through. I saw it in my inbox and stared at it for a while. I thought I would feel sad, but I didn’t, I felt a little excited.

Now don’t get me wrong, I think I still have to work through some of my feelings. Take for example something that fell out of my mouth yesterday. I said to a friend that if we won the lottery I would cancel Dr Donor Egg and keep trying with my eggs. That’s what hurts most in a way, that my hand is forced by financial constraints.

I am getting there though. I imagine holding a newborn baby, and I know at that moment, and probably for the majority of time from then on, it won’t bother me one bit.

Then I think of actually having THE conversation with our child and it breaks my heart.

So it’s a bit of a rollercoaster but we’ll get there.

I have been thinking about immune testing the last few days and I am torn about having it done. Money is an issue at the moment and part of me thinks that if we end up with good quality embryos then it will work no matter what, so why waste the money that we don’t have? Then I have the opposite thoughts, the ones that tell me to do it, just to be safe.

I really don’t know what to do.

What would you do?

P.S It will cost somewhere in the region of £1500 ($2500).

Gulp

Dear Bee Cee,

I am about to create your treatment protocol. Please provide me with the dates of your last period and when you are expecting the next one.

Waiting for your response.

Best regards,

Dr Donor Egg

You know when you look forward to work on Mondays?

……no? Me neither, but today, was different.

I have a new study at home!! Now I can quite understand that you are not going to be excited as me, but I have to jump up and down and squeal in front of someone and we’re friends right?

So on Friday we had fitted furniture installed in the study and you may or may not remember that I work from home. So I spend a lot of time in this room and we decided to spend some of our wedding gift money on a new look.

So here’s a before and after:

Just humour me.

It’s time…

….to lose some weight.

I am fed up of all the IVF weight that has crept up and climbed on my back. Well, not just my back, mainly on the stomach and leg area if I am being precise.

I received a challenge from a friend on Monday, and if there’s anything to know about me it’s that I find it hard to refuse a challenge.

Basically, you have to take a contract out on yourself. No not the sort that involves blood, death and general messiness, it’s a website that you record your ‘commitment’ and then if you don’t hit your targets week by week, they take money from your credit card! Simple, but boy is it motivating. It’s also been quite fun, but maybe I am saying that because it’s only day 3.

Maybe this is something I will succeed in, because I am so over the failing thing.

Absofuckinlutely

“Go to the 8th floor and I’m at the Broadway bar lounge having an apple martini”.

Just reading the text made my nerves leave my stomach and reach for my throat.

I entered the hotel, took the lift to the 8th floor and stepped out. Such a lot of water had gone under the bridge to get to this moment. How had I ended up flying 3500 miles to be here at this moment in my life?

We saw each other, walked across the floor and as we hugged, the bond that infertility has brought to most of us, made us forget we had never met before.

New York with JJ was ‘fabulous’ and far too many stories to share and more importantly you’d be bored to tears, so here’s a few photos instead.

Holidays

Cuba was fantastic.

Such a  fascinating and unspoilt country. No advertising, no chains, no fast food outlets. The downside is that an average person earns £9 a month, they still get rations, and the government gets more or less everything. The economy is on its head. Doctors, lawyers and all the well educated give up their professions to become taxi drivers or tour guides as the good money is found in the tourist trade.

It’s amazing that this kind of culture still exists.

They are all excited about the propect of change and love B.arack. The biggest thing of all, despite all the poverty and tough lives they lead, they are all genuinely happy. It says a lot about our rat race and the effect it has on us.

 

 

No sooner am I back, I am going to New York on Wednesday morning to meet JJ. I get butterflies at the thought of seeing her for the first time! I am sure we will have the best 5 days. We’ll let you know how it goes.