matched and waiting

We have chosen the embryos. There are seven of them, frozen in 2006. The eggs came from a 21 year old donor, cheerleader type from what I can tell. I got a fairly extensive profile for her, same one the donor family got when they were looking for an egg donor I suppose. female donor has blond hair and blue eyes, male donor brown/ hazel. No family medical history of concern. Female donor has a congenital heart defect, but its not genetic. The male donor is 5'5, female is 5'2. This batch as resulted in 2 live births. The original fresh cycle, and a FET a couple years later for the donating couple. I'm hoping that the remaining embies are decent quality, and that we get a couple to survive the thaw. These are probably the best quality embryos I can get my hands on, short of a fresh donor egg cycle. I will get the saline ultrasound a few days into my next cycle. My period is due next week. I have an appointment on the first of March for a pap and pelvic, and my new OB was nice enough to squeeze in all the infectious disease blood work (mind is 2 years old) and hormone tests that the New RE wants. My HMO says they wont pay for this blood work but the OB's there are sympathetic, and try to code things to slip past billing. This should save me about 600 dollars. Brian and I have an appointment on the 7th of March to get the psych consult done. NRCM wants a "report" from a psychologist who has experience with couples doing 3rd party reproduction. Shes never met anyone using donor EMBRYOS but that's not a great surprise, as there are no clinics in this state that do it. She does however know a great deal about surrogacy, sperm & egg donation. The coordinator says that I should be able to start birth control pills with my next period. We could cycle as early as April, but probably not until May. My grandmother used to own a condo at Lake Taho, and I know that area is beautiful, but Im not sure about Reno. It has a reputation of being a seedy gambling town.  All of the hotels I have looked at appear flea bitten and past their prime. I think most of my time will be spent resting at the hotel. A few days away from the kids and all the chaos with DHS. My mom and brother will stay with the girls.

Oh, I mentioned the new OBGYN. Mine has become a hospitalist (whatever that is) and is no longer seeing her patients. Nobody told me. I actually cried when I found out. This woman has been through all of this crazy stuff  with me, and I'm not sure how I can build that level of trust with a new doctor. My old OB had promised weekly ultrasounds in her office, should I become pregnant again. She was sympathetic, and thas is a rare commodity in the world of infertility and recurrent pregnancy loss.

The days go fast with 3 little girls at home. I can hardly keep up with my housework, even though I am a "stay at home mom". We are not at home very much. We have an average of 4 appointments a week, plus back and forth from preschool, play dates etc. I took the little one to lunch today, we like to do this while her sisters are at school. She ate pork wonton soup with Chinese greens, fried shrimp, and broccoli beef. Oranges and fortune cookie for afters. She pronounced the whole meal to be "yummy tummy", much to the delight of the matronly Chinese lady who runs the place. She got a pat on the head for that. Some days we go to the library. She is totally daytime potty trained as of last week. No coincidence that it was the middle girl's first full week of preschool. I simply had more time to devote to the little one and her needs. It is all working out pretty well, there is talk of reunification with mom, but that is a post for another day.

I wish Panamahat was here to help me micro manage this cycle a bit. She is good at it. Im still a bit green when it comes to more advanced treatments. I will have to update my infectious disease screening with my OB, and a pap and pelvic. Today I have been pricing out the cost of a saline ultrasound. Who knew it would be more expensive than the HSGs they have given me? im looking at paying about 600 dollars out of pocket, just to get some water squirted in my uterus. It's so weird calling aroung about this, looking for a bargain. Probably easiest just to do it with my RE, even if it costs a bit more than the imaging center across town.

The middle girl started preschool today. Shes a ray of sunshine, and I will miss her in the afternoons. Now I get to spend more quality alone time with the little one. we had a quick lunch out and then the library. She has her own card and we checked out some movies ( we have hundreds of books).

The lady at NCRM is sending the extended profiles for the embryos FED EX.. today. They should be here tomorrow!

Have any of you ever done a FET? What was the medication protocol, if you dont mind sharing?

the list

I got the list of available embryos yesterday. There are seven batches to consider. Two are off the list, simply because the male partner is asian. I wouldnt mind giving birth to a baby of any race, but Brian thinks it would make the whole thing more complicated. Our first choice.. the male partner was in his 40's at the time of the freeze, the egg came from a 22 year old egg donor. This is what I wanted so heres to hoping we can get those embies. both the male and female donor are quite short, like Brian and myself. there is also a stipulation that the receiving couple live outside of Nevada, so I think that gives us a good chance of being selected for these. The batch contains seven embryos, unknown quality at this point. there are decent second and third choices. I will update after we get matched.

we figured it out

I took out a 0% apr (for 12 months) credit card. We will pay half cash, and put the rest of the card, and just pay it off before intrest kicks in next year. brian is fine with it, but he says this is it. Failing this Demb cycle, we wont be trying any additional fertility treatments. He wants to give adoption through the state another few years though, and see how it works out. hes willing to do some more foster placments, Ive decided our next placement will only be what they call "legal risk". where they are fairly certain that parental rights will be terminated. The consultation yesterday went ok, at first the doctor said no, but then reconsidered after I reminded him that I not only have a recurrent pregnancy loss problem, but infertlity troubles too.

bump in the road.. is anyone surprised?

Brian and I did our taxes Friday evening. At H&R block, where we go every year because I cant be arsed to do them myself, and the whole thing frightens Brian. In England, they just take your money and that is that, no tax filing, as far as I know. My Employer withheld plenty of state tax, but almost no federal. I worked there for nearly a year, so I should have noticed on my pay stub at some point, but who really looks at those things? This has resulted in our tax return being less than half of what we needed it to be, what its been in all the years since we bought a house and started paying interest through the nose. This money was slated for the embryo donation. We dont have the cash to do it otherwise. So i still have my consult with the good doctor in Reno tomorrow morning, but what happens after that well... Brian said we will have to see where we are at in six months time.

I hate having no prospects. We arent going to adopt these girls, and Im already growing weary of coparenting with the state. We cant even get their hair cut without permission from their Mother. I think we will continue to foster in the future, but with "easier" placements. A single infant, maybe a toddler.

I am going to spend the next 6 months getting as healthy as possible. I dont know for certain that I have bad egg quality, its just an educated guess. the scale is down to 133 lbs. Im going to say 25 to go.

The transport is ALMOST taken care of. I dont really want to go into what I had to do to get it done, but suffice to say it was a pain in the ass from start to (almost) finish.

I took the girls to my Dad's house in the country last weekend. where we took advantage of some rain free days, walks and wagon rides to see the cows and look for the fox across the street. My dad and stepmom have custody of my 6 year old niece, Tatyana. She very much enjoyed the company of all three girls. I imagine it gets a bit lonely for her, living with two people nearing 60.

NCRM was a bit slow in getting my paper work to me in a format I could use, so I had to push my consult back to a week from today. No big deal. Right now, I am procrastinating.. should be phoning my RE to ask how he feels about monitoring my cycle before I fly to Reno, and also get my records sent over. Im afraid hes going to say no because we had a bit of a spat the other week, which ended in him finally agreeing to do injects/ IUI, after I accused him of only wanting to treat people who are paying for IVF. His first choice for me has always been donor egggs, Im hoping he will be excited and get on board for this Demb cycle, because it seems to be its the obvious second best choice. There are no clinics in Oregon with a donor embryo program proper, just two that have done it once or twice with a known donor. Im not sure if it has to do with Oregon law, but it seems like nobody here wants to touch it. No mattter, as NCRM has great stats and I have personally been in touch with several women who are currently pregnant after treatment there. Anyhow, I need my RE to monitor my uterine lining, Im guessing perhaps hormone levels as well (although I think my OB could do the second bit, and insurance would pay). I dont know what all is involved with a FET, but Im sure to be reading up on it soon.

I must clean the house before the elder girl returns from school, and the little ones wake from their naps.