update

Hi. I wanted to let you know that my new donor showed up for her appointment this week and my RE "absolutely LOVES her". She said she knew right away that she was for me when she saw her - she said she looks like me. She also said she was very sweet and smart. Looks like we got a good one. DH and I were torn between her and the one that flaked on us. I guess things have worked out like they're supposed to. Our donor goes in for her CD3 ultrasound next week. She's been on BC for 2 years so RE said if it seems her ovaries are too suppressed we'd take a month off to allow her ovaries to get working and take me off the drugs for a while. Either way works for me. I wouldn't mind a break. I'm on 16 pills a day (BCP, folic acid, wellbutrin, metformin, estrace), 3 shots a day (progesterone and lupron) and 2 patches of climara. It's been so long since I've felt normal I wouldn't know it if I were (if that makes sense). I'm very susceptable to cold sores, plus I'm a bit of picker. My complexion looks soooo bad. I sure hope this will all be worth it.

New donor

Well, old donor is definitely out. She failed to show up a second time for her appt with my RE. I think the agency was really angry and kicked her out of their program altogether, and rightfully so. Our second choice is really excited and is already scheduled to come in to my RE early next week. I'll keep you posted.

On a separate note, It's 10:30 on a Friday night and I am EXHAUSTED!!! DH is too. How the hell are we supposed to chase after one or two kids?

Game Plan

At lunch today, I told DH that if our donor doesn't work out by Tuesday, we're going with our second choice. He said, no, if the Agency is still non-responsive by Tuesday, we're firing her. I guess because we paid with a credit cared, we have up to 30 days to cancel the charge. He's right, but it would be real bummer to have to start over. It would be more of a bummer, though, to pay all that money for basically nothing. I mean, I could have put several ads in the paper myself for that kind of money. Shoot, I could stand outside Target for free! The thing is, I'm not nearly as upset with the donor as I am with the agency. I had suspected the donor might have been flaky when we chose her, but the agency assured us she wasn't.

I will keep you posted on both the donor drama and the mock cycle. Thanks so much for your support. I've seen two different therapists specializing in infertility, and I've gotten 1000% more out of these blogs.

Chris: I got a response from you today on a post I made on your blog. How did you do that? Does it just automatically do that when I post a comment on my own blog?

Perhaps it's not in the cards

DH and I are starting to wonder if perhaps babies just aren't in the cards for us.

First of all, we picked the donor agency we did because she did a good job selling to us how good they were at picking the donors and working with the doctors. Well, we were wrong. It appears that our donor may be a flake as she still has not made her initial appt with my doctor to get "approved". The agency has been totally unresponsive. I had to get DH involved (he's much better with conflict than I am) to remind them that we paid them a lot of money to "handle it" so we wouldn't have to...Now do your job! My RE is very good. I believe she really wants us to succeed - if not for our happiness, for her own ego. She says she's also tried to get in contact with the donor agency, but without success. I'm just not sure she really tried all that hard. While I believe my RE is very dedicated, I also believe she is overextended.

Second of all, my mock cycle is not going well. It appears that my body does not absorb estrogen well. I was taking estrogen to thicken my lining, but it got to 8 and is now thinning and my estrogen levels are low. If my lining doesn't thicken, it won't be able to sustain a pregnancy - donor egg or not. RE is looking at doing a liver function test. I've also added an estrogen patch to my protocol.

I don't mean to sound pissy, but please don't advise getting a new RE - her success rates are very high. As for getting a new donor agency, we've considered canceling the credit card payment to them, but we haven't found any donors with other agencies we liked half as much. Plus, all the donors for our current agency are in the local area.

Right now I'm in the "whatever" mode. I've just kind of shut down. If it works out, great. If not, well, shit happens. (In my case, as far as TTC goes, a lot of shit happens.)

Stay tuned.

We found our donor!

This was such a difficult decision. We told the agency our top two choices. They couldn't get ahold of our first choice right away, but they called our second choice who said she'd be "thrilled". Our first choice wasn't getting back to the agency, so we had pretty much written her off. Then she called - apparently she was out of town, and she's so excited about donating she's calling the agency every day. Our first choice had more of my facial features, but blonde hair, blue eyed. Our second choice had my coloring, brown hair and hazel eyes, but her features were more angular. Also, our second choice was putting herself through school and had a family friend who was a recipient. DH and I were split, but acknowledged either one would be fine. Today I decided to go with our first choice and we're moving forward. I just hope our child doesn't have blue eyes - I think my parents would get suspicious and I have no intention of telling them. I just hope our second choice isn't too upset.

Speaking of my parents - my mother is driving me crazy. Every time I talk to her she makes some kind of back handed comment/request for me to come out and visit. They live in Florida and I live in California. I know I'm the worst daughter in the world, but I just don't want to go. Besides the obvious that I'm still trying to have a baby and I'm not discussing it with them, my limit with my family is 3 days max. My mom ends up crying half the time wishing our family was closer and by the third day, my dad and I are at each other's throats. We all love each other very much, but do much better with a telephone...better yet, e-mail relationship. I hope that when I have children things will be different - I'll have something to keep me busy and we'll have something to talk about besides the same old conversations we've had for 20 years.

Gotta run....more later!