Egg Sharing Program - Would you do it?

Denise Everett-Keene is able to see exactly when the sperm connects with the eggs through this monitor in a lab at The Hugh Wynter Fertility Management Unit at the University Hospital of the West Indies in Mona, St Andrew.

Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/UHWI--baby-factory--gets--700-m-expansion_11455333#ixzz1vcQj7NPq

I read this article about a week ago which mentions a clinic in Jamaica that offers an "egg sharing program" that is in such high demand that they are expanding their clinic.  The egg sharing program "allows older couples who are having difficulty conceiving, to receive healthy eggs from younger couples who are in need of fertility procedures, in exchange for their footing the bill for the donor couple's treatments."


I instantly got excited and wished that B & I could do it.  Well, I suppose there is nothing stopping us from looking into it, but I instantly wondered if it was that safe to do this there rather than in the U.S.  I started wishing that I could find such a program in the U.S.  But then I suppose it would become political and people would get all up in arms about.  


I've read recently about Indian surrogacy and how many people think that Western couples are exploiting poor Indian women.  But there is another side to that argument.  Some say that these women are getting money they desperately need for the their families and helping to share the joy of parenthood with another couple who needs help.

Couldn't this egg sharing program be seen the exact same way (on both sides of the argument)?

Then I started wondering, would I want a child of mine being raised by someone else?  What if the other couple's procedure worked with my egg, but mine & B's did not.  Then they'd have my child and I wouldn't.  Could I live with that?

Then I came across an article about egg donation: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/14/infertility-egg-freezing_n_1515792.html, and remembered that a lot of young women donate their eggs as a way to earn money in college.

I started thinking, what if I donated eggs a few times to earn enough money to do IVF in a few years?  Then I wouldn't have to worry about the risk of the other people getting pregnant with my eggs while I do not (like I might in a shared egg program).  And, I'd be helping another family struggling from the same hardships that B & I have been going through.

These programs prefer proven fertility, but it is not required.  And from what we can tell, our issues are probably male factor infertility (I have a clean bill of health on every infertility test I've ever had).  The programs do have an age limit though, so I'd have to hurry if I want to do it.  And I think they require a lower BMI, but I've kicked started a new effort to shed the extra lbs already. So maybe this could be an option for us in a year or so if we are not pregnant naturally (meaning B's surgery would have been successful!).

When I mentioned it to B, his first concern was that if I take all those hormones and give up all those eggs, it might jeopardize my fertility for us in the future.  Valid concern.  And since I'm 30 now, my eggs and time are both dwindling.

A shared program would probably combat that issue if could donate some of my eggs during the same cycle that we are using the rest to do IVF.  But do we have to go to Jamaica to do it then?  Maybe some more research in a year or two would be a good idea.  

Best to focus on the results of B's surgery for now and hope that we get pregnant naturally I suppose.  But I can't help but worry that time is running out for me if we need to consider other options.  I'm such a planner (and a worrier) and want to be prepared.  I don't want to look back and wish "if only we had...."

So now I'm wondering, how many others out there, who either are now or have in the past experienced infertility would consider something like this?  Either an egg sharing program or a few cycles of egg donation to earn money toward their own ART expenses?

Peeing on a stick at work again

I decided to be part of a study that tests the accuracy of home/portable body fat percentage testers, and in exchange I got a free scan with a DEXA machine which not only is the Gold Standard for measuring body fat percentage, but can also tell me things like my bone density and other important stuff... which I'll learn more about during my follow up appointment in a couple days.

What a DEXA machine looks like

I was mostly interested in joining this study to get this scan because last week I kick started a new weight loss initiative in effort to lower my BMI so that B & I will have the optimum set of circumstances for conception once we can start trying again in July... and also so that if we need IVF down the road, I'd qualify for some of the shared risk programs that are out there (more on those some other time).


Anyway, before I could get my scan on the DEXA done, I was required to take a pregnancy test due to the low amount of radiation I'd be exposed to during the scan.


Really?


REALLY?


I just can't escape being reminded of my infertility during any random, completely unrelated activity in my life, can I?


I still track my cycle every month and knew that I'm in the fertile period, so there's NO WAY a pregnancy test would have a positive result right now.  How humiliating and degrading to have to go into a public bathroom stall in a university building, and pee on a stick... again!  I used to do this a lot with OPK tests, but at least then I was hopeful and optimistic.  This was just awfully depressing.


Of course it didn't show a positive result - like I've never had that happen before [insert eye roll here].


Then we were able to move forward with the scan which was actually kind of neat.  I got to see my full body skeleton x-ray when it was over, and I learned there is a difference between BMI and body fat percentage.  It made me think of weight loss, obesity, and health in a whole new light, which I intend to blog about in my other blog (about healthy lifestyle and current topics of interest to me): queenofshibas.blogspot.com.


Like I said earlier, I go back later this week to learn about the results of my scan, and I'm thinking that what I learn can hep me to make the best health choices I can and hopefully not just lose weight (in effort to improve fertility) but also to improve my health overall... which has so many more benefits, especially if I ever do become a mom!  :)

I feel like I should explain something

We haven't announced anything officially yet (like on FB), but B and are in the process of buying our first house together.  Actually, it's this house, the one in the photo above!


We put in on offer at the end of March, and it was accepted the next day despite two other competing offers!  The night before B's surgery in early April we had our inspection, which went extremely well.  We did radon testing in the basement and the levels came back .1 higher than the safe level, so we spent a week or two negotiating back and forth and in the end, they agreed to split the cost of installing a certified mitigation system, which we will roll into our closing costs.


We meet with our mortgage lender later this week to finalize the paperwork and settle on a closing date, but we already put in notice with our landlord that we'd be starting to move out by July 1st at the latest.  We're keeping the apartment through July so we can take our time moving in, but for all intensive purposes, we hope/plan to be moving in to our new home around the end of June!


So...the reason why I feel like I have something to explain has to do with money.  I've spent four months blogging about the cost of infertility and talking about how hard it was to walk away from our planned IVF cycle because of the ballooning costs of it all... and here we are buying a house only a few months later... out of nowhere.


You see, B and I had planned to figure out the baby stuff first, then get safer cars, hopefully take another trip to Europe for his 40th birthday next year, and when all that was figured out, then start saving for a house - someday.  The house thing was on the ten year plan, not the two month plan.


So what happened?


The IVF saga happened.


If you'll remember, we pressured ourselves into trying to afford IVF before we had planned for it and way before we were financially ready.  Because of a misprint on a health insurance partner's website, they were willing to honor a severely discounted rate for me... but I only had a couple months to get it done.  Well, we hadn't thought we'd resort to IVF until we'd exhausted all other options, in two to three years maybe, but certainly not anytime soon.  


But when a chance in a lifetime like this comes around to get such a cheap rate on such an expensive procedure with such a better chance of helping us realize our dream of having a baby, well, we couldn't pass it up.  We had to try to take advantage of the situation.  So we spent the months of October, November, December and the beginning of January scrambling to beg, borrow, and steal the money we'd need to bring to the table for this discounted IVF procedure.


By January we had a weekend-long discussion about whether we could really do it.  No, actually it was whether we really wanted to.  We'd had to take out a persona loan of $7500 to cover the amount we'd be using from our FSA Health Spending Account because they only pay for medical procedures after the fact, not before.  We were planning to max out both of our credit cards to cover the cost of the medications we'd need.  We wiped out our savings on previous test & procedures and were living paycheck to paycheck.  It was a bad idea and it was all too much.  And none of it was a sure thing.  There was a very high chance that the meds would be even more expensive if my body didn't respond the way it should, or there could be other complications... and of course there was a 50/50 chance it wouldn't work anyway and then we'd have all that debt and nothing to show for it.


So we made the decision not to go through with it.  And then something kind of miraculous happened.  The Monday after we decided not to do the IVF, B's HR lady at work told him that the company hadn't processed the FSA Health Spending Account information yet for the year, and asked if he was sure he really wanted to have that much taken out of his paychecks...


He lowered it down to the cost of one IUI (about $1300) and had her cancel the rest.  Now we were really digging ourselves back out of the hole that the IVF drama had created!


We talked about paying off that personal loan of $7500 with itself too be rid that too.  Only we decided to wait and do our taxes first because last year we'd had to pay in $2000 and we might need it to pay our tax bill again this year (we'd pay off the rest with what was left and just pay off the remaining $2000 in about 4-6 months).


Turned out we owed money again.  $1300 this time.  Huh, just realized that's the cost of an IUI cycle.  Ironic.


Anyway, we were so mad at our lot in life.  We are two working individuals without a house or kids so of course our tax bill will be high.  Thing is, WE'VE BEEN TRYING TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT THAT LACK OF KIDS THING!  Ugh.


So the thought occurred to us, if we have no control right now over the kids thing... why not buy a house?  Thats something we can do to help lower our tax bill next year.  And it's still a buyer's market, with historically low interest rates.  Seemed like now was the perfect time to make this investment...


Plus, in the back of my mind, there were actually some fertility related issues to consider as well.  If we do have to do IVF down the road (if B's surgery wasn't enough for us...), at least the whole "saving up for a downpayment on a house" thing wouldn't be getting in the way of saving for IVF.  And if for ANY reason we wound up adopting, I'd think having a home for the child could only help us.  And finally, and this one is probably the least important but stuck with/stung me the most: a certain family member who shall remain nameless made the comment in a long list of reasons why should not do IVF (during that bitter weekend when we were ultimately deciding on our own not to go through with it anyway), that we should concentrate now on "creating a life for a child" and that the child would just come after we took care of that.  


Completely ignorant and insensitive.


This person wanted us to work on taking care of ourselves first, buy a newer & safer car for B, and buy a house. Then, and only then, think about a child.  This person didn't understand that time is ticking against us on that last milestone and that it won't magically (or through karma or whatever) happen just because we've got all our other ducks in a row.  But anyway, in the back of my mind I kept thinking throughout all this house-hunting stuff that at least this person can't make any more comments about "creating a life for a child" if we have to/choose to do IVF later.  And really, we probably won't be discussing our plans with this person anyway.


So, we chose to use that money from the personal loan to put down a downpayment on a FHA loan!  We'll be able to pay it off very quickly, and once that's gone our mortgage will be much less then our current rent, so we'll be saving money every month on top of the tax break we hope to get next year!  All money that can be saved up for other important things to consider in our future ;)


In the end, it really feels like everything happened the way it did because it was supposed too.  None of this house business would have ever been possible without all that IVF crap.  It's a very bright silver lining.  And now, not only has it all distracted me from my sadness and depression from our infertility, it is also lending me nothing but hope & opportunities to think about for a long time to come.  This kind of positivity is EXACTLY what I needed right now.  This all couldn't have happened at a better time.


We've been working through a non-profit agency that does mortgage counseling which I receive free access to as a benefit through my work.  This company has been amazing and helped us to find special loan programs out there in our city, which we couldn't have found on our own.  They also helped us find our AMAZING realtor too.  The whole process could not have been more positive.


And so between the meetings with this non-profit, our realtor, house hunting, putting in offers and counter offers, dealing with inspectors and negotiations, we've had a very busy Spring this year!  Now we are just waiting for things to be finalized and can't wait to move in around the beginning of July... 


July.


That's when we find out if B's surgery improved things for us and we can start trying for a baby again.  I think between the busyness of planning the packing, the move, the cleaning & unpacking, the decorating, and the house-warming parties... we won't really have much time for dwelling on the TTC process again for a quite some time.  But we'll be able to enjoy our summer knowing that we have nothing to think about but hope and possibility for a while:)


July.


I can't wait for July!

Maybe things haven't changed so much afterall

OK, so back in March, I wrote a post claiming that a "change" had occurred.  You can read the original post here: http://inconceivablestory.blogspot.com/2012/03/change-has-taken-place.html, but the point of it was that I was trying to say that I wasn't so sad all the time about my & B's struggle with infertility anymore.  I was even trying to come up with justifications for the idea that it might be better to live "child-free."

So, the truth is, I don't think anything was changing inside of me, and I don't think I'm ready to accept the idea of a child-free future at all.  You see, five days after I wrote that post, one of my best friends emailed me to tell me that she is pregnant again - with her second child.  So she'll have two kids, ages two and under, before B and I are able to conceive our first.

I wept. 

I couldn't help it.  I wasn't upset with her of course, I was just sad for myself.  You see, when this friend announced she was pregnant with her first child, B and I had not been preventing pregnancy for a while, but we had not yet decided to "try" for a baby yet either.  

A couple months after she announced her first pregnancy, B's and my one-year wedding anniversary rolled around and I graduated from grad school with my second master's degree.  It was finally time for my life long dream to come true.  We started trying for a baby.

By the time my friend's first child was born that Fall, she asked if I had "the itch" yet.  I told her I've had the itch since I was about twelve, and that B and I had been trying and were just waiting for that special month to arrive when we'd have the good news we'd been waiting for!  

Of course, in the back of our minds, B and I were already wondering if something was not quite right.  We'd only been "trying" for three or four months at that point, but before that we'd not been preventing for a year, ever since the wedding.  And I'd been off of birth control for medical reasons for about eight months prior to that... with many months of not being careful.  So really, we wondered, why hadn't we gotten pregnant yet?  Just lucky we hoped...

For months after my friend's baby was born I'd spend several days a week visiting her and her baby.  It was great timing because I was finally done with grad school, in my first real job, and finally had free time like a normal person!  Plus, I was able to get the baby fix I needed on a regular basis.  Her child was the most beautiful being.  She was such a good baby, and to this day lights up my world every time I see her.  The best way to describe her is as a perfect little blessing.  And now, as she is getting older, it is such a delight to see her growing and learning.  

So anyway, I spent a great deal of time with this friend right before and ever since the birth of her first baby.  She was such a considerate and thoughtful friend and always asked me how things were going with our own baby making efforts every single month.  Somehow she'd always ironically call on the the day I'd gotten my period.  Oh well, I'd joke, another month of drinking and banking sick time at work for my eventual maternity leave!

By midwinter that year, B & I still were not pregnant and we really started to wonder if there was something bigger going on that we should know about.  For young healthy couples they usually say to wait for a year of unprotected sex before testing for infertility.  But since we'd already been having unprotected sex for over two years (though we'd only been actively trying to time things out for about 6 months), B started getting tested... just in case.

It's best to get the male tested first because it's much less invasive than the female infertility workup.  It's best to rule out male factor infertility first, before you begin poking and prodding the female partner.  In January of 2011, we got our first analysis results back showing that B could potentially have low counts.  But it was January, and we are in the upper-midwest, and he'd done it at home, taken it outside to drive to the clinic, and delivered it to them about half an hour later.  We decided that there were too many variables and we'd get a second opinion.

In April that year we went to the only urologist in the area that specializes in male factor infertility - Dr. J.  B's sample came back slightly better this time, but still just on the cusp of the border between the range of what's "normal" and what's a problem.  We had another sample sent away to a lab out west somewhere... the only one in the country that tests for DNA fragmentation to see if that was our problem.  Again, he was right on the border between normal and the problem zone.

All this meant that B's swimmers could be the reason we hadn't conceived yet, but the evidence wasn't conclusive.  Dr. J did notice that B had varicoceles which could be causing his lower counts, but even that wasn't conclusive as many men get them who don't suffer from infertility.  He suggested we keep trying for 4-6 months and if we had no luck, try an IUI, which should give this counts the little extra boost they needed.  So we started up all the female infertility tests on me in the meantime (just to be sure there wasn't anything additional on my end to worry about while we were trying naturally), which continued throughout the summer.

We were still hopeful that there was nothing wrong, but as each month went by with one negative pregnancy test result after another, eventually my friend stopped asking if this was finally the month.  Instead she started asking how the testing was going and if we knew anything new that could help us.

That summer we did learn that I had a blocked fallopian tube, which sent me into a panic at first, until my OBGYN reminded me that I should still have a 50% chance of getting pregnant because most women ovulate from each side every other month.  Anyway, they were able to go back in and open it up and it's been open now for 10 months and guess what? Still no pregnancies.

Anyway, I've blogged before about all the testing and IUI's and it all ended with B having varicocele repair surgery last month.  Since it takes a man 90 days to produce new sperm, we are now in a waiting period.  We can't test to find out if the surgery improved B's counts until July, so no thoughts of trying for a baby until then.

Apparently, a good percentage of men who undergo this surgery see improvement after those 3 months!  Of those that don't, many of them will see improvement within about 6 months.  Of those that are left, some will have improvement within a year, and a few within two years after the surgery.  

So, we're hopeful about July, but shouldn't get our hopes up too high.  Or, maybe a better way to think about it is that we shouldn't lose all hope if the counts don't improve because there may still be a chance for things to get better down the road with a little more time.

So that's where we are at with the whole TTC thing, and that's the update (for now) on what we know about how B's surgery went.

But what does any of this have to do with my friend telling me she's pregnant and/or me saying things haven't changed so much after all?

Well, my point is that this friend telling me she was pregnant again kind of burst my bubble.  It brought back all the happy hopeful memories of when B and I first started out on our journey toward parenthood.  It reminded me of times when friends having babies was just exciting, not bittersweet.  But it also reminded me how long we've been TTC.  It reminded me of where we started out and all that has happened along the way to bring us to where we are today.

It made me think about the fact that she'll be done having kids before I even start.  Any of our hopes to be pregnant together were thrown out the window.  It made me wonder what it will be like to be going through the baby phase once all my friends are done with it and reclaiming their bodies, sleep, and free-time.  It made me think that once again I was behind all my peers in "life" (committing to a serious boyfriend, getting engaged, finishing school, buying a house), but this time not by my own choosing, and it made me feel sorry for myself.

I know I had written that wonderfully optimistic post about how something had "changed" inside of me and that somehow now other people's pregnancies weren't bothering me as much.  I do think that is still true, but not because something inside me changed.  And to be honest, my friend's being pregnant didn't "bother" me.  The reason it made me cry is not because she is pregnant again (because of course I'm very happy for her, and told her that immediately...and honestly truly meant it), but because it triggered emotions about myself that I hadn't been feeling for a couple months.  But again, not because anything had profoundly changed inside me to make me feel differently.  Rather, I think I was just distracted.

Distracted by B's impending surgery.  Distracted by work.  Distracted by the warmer weather and exercising the dogs.  Distracted by the biggest financial decision that B and I have ever made together....

Distracted by the process of buying our first house!

Stay tuned for more to come on that soon :)

A week spent caring for other people's children

Yep, I spent a little over a week doing daycare for 6 kids from ages 4 months up to 6 years old.  After the first day of it, I went to visit Mom in her hospital room and she asked if I was managing ok… given my sensitivity about babies and kids right now.

The truth was, I didn’t have too big of a problem caring for other people’s kids despite the fact that we’re trying so unsuccessfully hard to have our own right now.  Believe it or not, the 4-month-old baby was the best part of the whole thing.  You’d think that would be the hardest because it’s so close to the one thing I want most right now.  But I guess I’ve just always loved babies and kids and going home to my Mom’s and helping with (or in this case… doing it solo) daycare still feels good, like I’m getting my “baby fix.”

For me, caring for and spending time with children is not like hearing about other people brag or complain about their children on Facebook.  It’s completely different when you are doing something active with a child, and you know you are doing something important, or valuable, or needed.  When you are making a difference, really helping, you connect with the child and it’s not about you.  It’s not about what that child’s parents have and you don’t.

Rather, it's about what that child needs right now and what you can do about it.  And like everything else in life, practical experience teaches you, and you learn how to be better in the future.  I figure my life-long-learning experiences with children will make me be the most amazing mother someday, when our time finally comes.  I mean, how many other women have had THIS MUCH experience with kids before becoming a parent themselves?  Plenty, I’m sure (teachers, nurses, daycare providers, etc), but not many that I personally know of in my peer group – so I’d like to continue believing that this makes me special and I’ll be a super-mom because I so-patiently-waited for such a long time. J

Anyway, it gives me comfort and satisfaction to connect with a child.  I feel validated when I successfully soothe a child, make them feel better, or teach them something.  I feel like I am right to want a child of my own.  I feel like I will be good at being a mother someday.  I feel like all this wishing, hoping, frustration, angst, despair is all worth it.  Because in the end, this is something really important to who I am.  And after all this time and after all these hurdles… it’s still who I want to be.

That, and rocking a baby to sleep always has been and always will be my favorite thing to do, ever.

World Turned Upside Down

Only about a week and a half after B's surgery, I had to leave town and he was on his own for all the household responsibilities, including 3 daily walks with our two dogs.  He was in pretty good shape by then and was quite the trooper.  He did a great job of taking care of himself and our "life" when I had to unexpectedly travel out of state for nearly two weeks.

I was getting ready for work one morning (actually I was getting ready to drive about an hour away to attend a library conference) and I received a phone call from my sister.  She asked if I’d seen the texts she’d sent me during the night and I said no, I must have slept right through them.  Turns out my mom had gone to the hospital and had emergency surgery overnight!

My mother is diabetic and gotten a small scratch on her finger a while back, but it had healed over and scabbed just fine.  One day, she noticed that her finger was starting to feel achy, so she thought she’d better keep an eye on it.  The next morning it was starting to look a little red, but as she does daycare in her home, she couldn’t really do anything about it during the day but ice it during the children’s naptime.  By the end of her work day, the redness had spread all the way down her hand into her arm, so she knew she’d better go get it checked out.

Long story short, after being turned away from two urgent care clinics, she was admitted to Mayo Clinic with a severe staff infection and had surgery that night to cut out the infection.

My mom spent a week in the hospital and had a second surgery while she was there and a third one after she’d been home a week or so.  The entire time, her family took turns driving her to the hospital for follow ups, administering antibiotic infusions at home, cooking healthy meals for her, taking care of her house and yard, and here’s the kicker… doing daycare for her.

In my next post I’ll talk about what that experience like for a woman struggling with infertility.

B's Surgery Update

How things can change in a month and a half!  Last time I wrote about our specific infertility story, B was in the OR undergoing his surgery.  I’m very happy to report that the surgery went well.  Afterward, Dr. J came out to tell me that B had done well and that the varicoceles had actually been much larger than he had realized from the previous physical examination.  This is a good thing because larger veins = higher improvement rates (normally).

It’s been about five weeks since his surgery and the patient is doing well.  He was very sore and achy for the first week or so.  In fact, he still gets kind of sore if he moves in the wrong direction sometimes.  But overall I’d say he’s recovered remarkably well.  He did wind up taking one extra day off work, but within about 10 days, he was resuming all activities as normal… he had to.

Stay tuned for my next post on what happened in our family shorty after B’s surgery!