My infertility butterfly moments………
My first laparoscope Oct 2003 : Somehow your first lap is embraced with a mixture of fear, anxiety, sadness and hope.I felt hopeful that ‘this is it’. They are gonna fix whatever is wrong with me and then I will be on my way to motherhood. The reason for my lap was the extreme pain I experienced after coming of the pill. It increased every month until I could NOT go to the loo as it was simply too painful. My mom then marched me off to a FS that came highly recomended. He immediatly suggested the procedure. I was sure he was going to find endometriosis, but I expected it to be removed ….and then we move on Right! To my horror it was stage four and was all over the place. The news was delivered to me and from that moment everything changed. I now knew that this was not going to be as easy as it was suposed to be. We had only been trying since April, and looking back I feel that we never even had a ttc honeymoon period. It seems like we just went straight into it. No ovulation kits no charting nothing, just BAM! You are infertile.
My second IVF May 2005: Okay so my first IVF was devastating, but we still had funds for a second. Going into my second my FS told me that this go would give us a clearer picture of my egg quality. If I got a BFN we had to decide if we were going to try another route. This was based on the fact that my previous FSH was 15. So off I went to test my FSH and it was 11. Yay right! Not good but not 15. We stimmed and we made the huge mistake of naming the dominant follie ‘eggbert’. Egg retrieval gave us 7 eggs of which we were left with one embie. This was a sign!!! Eggbert was the only one to suvive and this must mean that he wanted to be our baby. Needless to say BFN. The devastation we felt was enourmous. We mourned my eggs. We mourned Eggbert!
Putting our name down on a donor list July 2005: Sureal, hopefull, scared. These were some of the emotions I was feeling. I could not believe that we were going this route. This was a turning point. If I thought I felt anger before it was nothing compared to this. Something so huge had been taken away from me. There would be no ‘Oh she has your eyes’. My hubby took it just as badly. He desperately wanted to protect me and understand what I was feeling. I soon realised that it was something that I had to make my peace with in a very personal way. I had to meet the beast, give it a hug and invite it into my home.
My first donor IVF June 2006: Nearly a year after putting our name on the list we got the call. Getting the call to say that you have been matched with a donor is like winning a super dooper prize. You can’t believe it the moment has come……and you have been picked. Of course at this stage of my life I was just carrying on as normal. So still drinking and smoking. I stopped smoking as soon as I got the news and cut my drinking down. Hubby and I still felt guilty though…… Were we healthy enough! So onto Dischems website we went and proceeded to purchase every single vitamin possible to help with conception. We went to bed early and tried to calm ourselves. For some reason I felt greatly disturbed during this cycle. I spent lots of time crying……….and crying……..and crying. I remeber telling my best friend that I was in this state because I could not face the possibility of this cycle not working. Looking back it was probably the reality that the beast had moved in and made itself comfy on my coach with control of the remote! It was difficult to have……NO STIMS…….NO ER. Another woman was doing it all for me. But on I went. Ultimately the cycle was a bust.
Reading the very angry blog of a donor concieved adult (Early 2008): Earlier this year I stumbled on the blog of a particularly angry donor concieved adult. She had discovered she was concieved using donor sperm at a late stage in her life and was exceptionaly angry about this. At first I was hurt and angry….but when I calmed down I realised that she had SOME truth in what she was saying. I do not agree when she calls the infertile selfish and spoilt and tells us that we can never love our children enough or that we love them too much. But she has not been through what we have been through so how could she understand. I do agree when she says that a DC child has the right to know the circumstances around his/her conception. This changed my aproach to donor conception completly. I went into it thinking that we could just ‘ignore it’. Now I am not so sure.
Stay tuned for more……
A Love Beyond Measure 
July 21, 2008 at 2:43 pm
Hello from ICLW! Although I don’t have any experience with Donor Conception, I do believe that how your children handle the truth about their conception is all in how you teach them as they grow up. Good luck with your future ventures!
July 21, 2008 at 2:47 pm
Thanks Jill I believe that too. I used to be very scared to tell my future children……now I am less scared LOL.
July 21, 2008 at 4:21 pm
I agree with Jill, Sian. I truly believe its all in how the child is raised and from when the truth is told to them. Having been down the donor route myself, I know how tough this decision is. My DH was TOTALLY against telling the child and I worried about this approach a lot as in my heart I was concerned about what the recpercussions would be should they ever find out.
July 21, 2008 at 8:00 pm
here from ICLW –
while we are ttc and will be doing IVF in the spring/summer of next year, i don’t have any experience with the donor route either. i agree with the others though, how you raise the child and what you instill in them will have an impact on how well they accept things.
July 21, 2008 at 10:07 pm
It’s amazing how the butterfly moments of our lives change; what we once feared, we now accept, only to be faced with new fears with more lasting impact. Hopefully one day we can accept those, and maybe even look back on them with detachment, or even fondness. I hope so anyway.
I’m here from ICLW.
July 21, 2008 at 10:21 pm
Hello from ICLW. I afree too, how you deal with the facts is how your children learn to deal with it. If it was you would you rather know or find out accidently? Whatever they are your children, and the genetics don’t really matter as to whether you love them or not.
July 22, 2008 at 12:05 am
I am a gestational surrogate and have been a part of the online surrogacy and egg donation community for several years. I’ve also seen rantings of children born through ED and surrogacy. I agree with Sharon’s viewpoint – how the child is raised and his/her parents’ timing of telling and when they tell makes all the difference. A close friend of mine has a daughter via IVF/ED and she has a completely open relationship with her donor. It’s important to her that her daughter knows how she came to be right from the start. I’m not saying that’s the right way to go for everyone, but it is another way to handle ED.
July 22, 2008 at 3:12 pm
Thought provoking post Sian… Like the others have said, I also believe that how your child reacts to the news depends largely on how they are raised and how open your relationship is with them… Timing is also crucial, you can’t tell them before they are old enough to understand it, but you also don’t want to wait too long… *sigh*
What matters most to me is that they know they are loved beyond genetic material and that they are the light of your lives – which I know your kids will know…
Eagerly awaiting the next butterfly moment, the one that ends in a BFP and a healthy live baby 🙂
July 22, 2008 at 4:19 pm
I need to understand why nine months gesation matters so much to you and why you want anyone’s child, not a childs from the partner you love.
July 23, 2008 at 12:17 pm
A long and hard journey.
And still going strong…DE and whot not!
I can only but admire your resilience.
July 24, 2008 at 4:57 am
Here from ICLW. Thanks for the insight into DEs. I may be needing to go that route myself soon, so good to hear about it from someone who has made peace with that beast!
July 27, 2008 at 2:08 pm
Here via ICLW. We are using donor sperm and if I do get pregnant we are planning on being open from the beginning. There are so many different types of families and we live in an urban area w/lots of said familes around us. Unlike me, my husband was not as comfortable w/the idea of being open and I was forced to give him an ultimatim in that if we weren’t open I wanted to return to adoption (we were badly burned which is why we decided to try DI). It was such a difficult decision and I know my husband feels pain at the thought of not having a bio baby. Kinda ironic because I could care less about being pregnant or having a bio baby. I just want to be a mom.