no soliciting!

If you are a doctor or clinic or whatever, please refrain from leaving me comments. I will just trash them. I have a doctor who's opinion I respect, and he is completely familiar with my medical history. Please don't waste your time and mine.

Thank you.

the power of positive thinking

Ok, so, I keep getting asked "what will you do it if doesn't work?"

C'mon people, give me a break.

It IS going to work, I've come to far for it not to.

And what kind of thinking is that anyway? What answer are you expecting me to give you?

Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

I want it to work, I'm hoping for the best. I just really don't have the time or energy to prepare for the worst, to worry about what if it doesn't work, that just isn't productive for me.

The power of positive thinking.
The power of prayer.

Please, stop asking.
It doesn't help me to force me to think about that.

I remain hopeful.
I remain positive.

eleven years

Eleven years. In August, it will be eleven years that we have been trying to have a family.

1 billion clomid cycles
2 IUIs
5 med-only cycles
3 miscarriages
2 years of trying to adopt

I can't help but think about how my life is about to change. Most of my friends have only known Julie-trying-to-have-a-family. They don't know me any other way.

I've forgotten what normal Julie is like. Eleven years is a long time.

And now I wonder what it will be like to live my life not trying to have a family.

What will it be like to actually have what I've waited eleven years for. What will I be like. I will have a child to totally focus my attention on, so I will have something to do with all the energy and time I've been spending trying to have a family.

There is big change ahead, and I'm excited. I'm ready to get on with my life!

update

I’m happy to report the embryos arrived safely today!

ps to today's first update

I will say one thing, having to wait 4-5 months has given us plenty of time to think about this and talk about it. And we have. And we still feel this is the right thing for us. We feel so blessed to have such awesome donors.

I personally feel that I am getting everything I could have dreamed of. Two years ago I mourned the loss of ever carrying a pregnancy to full term. I will now be blessed with that opportunity and I still cannot believe it. When we turned to adoption, early on we decided we wanted an open adoption because we wanted our children to know where they came from, after talking to several adult adoptees, we realized and appreciated how important it is for people to know where they came from. So we will be able to give our child(ren) the gift of knowing where they came from.

We have had 4+ months to consider our child(ren)'s family tree that will have FOUR main branches, rather than just two.

I take comfort in knowing we are right where we are supposed to be, and I hope what we have been through over the past 11 years will help us to be the best parents we can be.

I do look forward to the day we meet the donors and their children, though I know I'll be a blubbering fool. I have had contact with the donors through email and text messaging and I find myself saying "thank you" A LOT and it just never seems adequate. How do we ever say thank you and convey our deep appreciation for this incredible gift we've been given.

Ok, I've succeeded in making myself cry now, time to go :)

update

Just heard from our lab that the embryos should be here next week - in plenty of time for an August transfer. Yay!

update

Unfortunately, we have been told we've missed a July transfer. This has happened because someone dropped the ball and paperwork did not get where it needed to be in time for us to have a July transfer.

This is beyond frustrating for us.

We have done everything in our power to get things done as quickly as possible, but this is not as important to everyone else as it is to us and the donors.

Whether it is adoption or embryo donation, it has been a difficult lesson to learn that this process is not as important to anyone else as it is to us (except, in our case, we are extremely fortunate to have donors who done everything humanly possible to speed up this process. This process is extremely important to them as well).

I wish someone had told us at the start "you can expect the paperwork portion of this process to take 4–6 months" or something like that, but we were told in March that we'd be able to have an April transfer... then a May transfer.... then June...... then July....... and now August......... It's extremely frustrating to be dependent on other people to follow through.

I want to be here for my child(ren). So each month that slips away now means one less month later in life that I will be here for my kids. People keep saying we are closer to having kids than we've ever been before. But that doesn't comfort me. I want to be pregnant NOW so I can be here as far into the future as possible.

It's so frustrating to have your life and your child's life at the mercy of other people. And I know, it is difficult for people who have not walked in our shoes (tried to have a family for the past 11 years) to understand. I wish they could begin to understand how important this is to us.

And all this is assuming the first transfer works. It could be months before a transfer works and we are pregnant. Time is extremely precious . . . to us.

As with the adoption portion of this blog, it's been my hope that others can learn from our journey, and have a feeling for realistic time lines, among other things.

Time is not on my side.

update

Mailed a mountain of paperwork to our lab today. They will store and handle the embryos.

Ok, NOW I'm getting excited!!!

update

Today I received the finalized legal agreement. Yippy skippy!

Let's hope for smoother sailing ahead!

update

All the t's have been crossed, all the i's dotted. We are now waiting for the final copy of the legal agreement from our attorney.

When we receive that, we send a copy of it to our lab, along with a bunch of other paperwork, a fee for one year of embryo storage and a $900 REFUNDABLE deposit for the dewer (special container) the embryos will be shipped from the west coast to the east coast.

Once our lab is happy they have everything, they will contact the lab on the west coast and make the arrangements to have the embryos shipped!

Our lab director says he hopes we can have a transfer in JULY! Wooo hoooo!!!

Fingers, toes and eyes crossed!!!

this is a marathon, not a sprint

One of our current favorite shows is Gavin and Stacy on BBC America.

Funnily enough, in a recent episode the couple found out they have a problem having children, after trying for over a year. Gavin has low sperm count. As they sit with the doctor who is telling them the news, she tells them to "remember, this is a marathon, not a sprint."

I wish someone had told us that 11 years ago (or even 6 years ago when our problem was finally given a name).

This is a marathon, not a sprint.

These will be my words of advice to anyone who wants to have children and is either waiting to adopt or having ART of some sort. This is a marathon, not a sprint. There is no rushing, pace yourself.

This is a marathon, not a sprint. It's what I now tell myself every morning when I get up.

happy thought!

I just remembered!!!

My paternal grandma made me two baby quilts when I was in college! I think they are at my mom's house. I hope they are safe and sound because I'm planning to use them!!!

from NYT

Modern Love
Open Adoption: Not So Simple Math

I WANTED my son to become the kind of person who appreciates the beauty of the world around him, so I smiled when, at 6, he asked to borrow my camera in case he saw “something beautiful.” ...

Click here for the rest of the story.

mother's day

It's a very difficult day for me. It has been for some years now.

Hopefully next year it will be a HUGE celebration in our home!

eleven years

Eleven years is a long time to wait for anything.

Eleven years makes the 2ww seem like CAKE!

I have never worked towards or waited for something for eleven years. I went to college for 6 years, the longest I've been at a job is 7 years . I don't think I've ever even lived in the same house for 11 years. I have, however, been married for almost 14 years :)

The longest gestation period for a mammal is that of the African elephant (Loxodonta africana) with an average of 660 days, and a maximum of 760 days. Dude, I so have you beat.

This time has been kinda surreal. One minute I'm just so overjoyed at the idea of being pregnant, and being a mom, the next moment it seems like a far away dream I may never reach.

I'd given up hope of ever having a baby shower or having the privilege of naming our child. Now I'm almost afraid to let those thing back into my mind. To dream of having a baby shower, of naming our child, of hearing the first words, seeing the first steps.

I talk to the embryos almost daily. What can I say, I'm a nut, if you hadn't figured that out by now... I tell them how long we've been waiting for them, and of all the places we've searched for them. I tell them how much they are loved by so many already. I tell them of their funky family tree that will have many many branches.

I cry and cry. I am overwhelmed.

update #372

The legal process of transferring embryos from the donors to us is proving to be much more complicated than I'd ever imagined. But then our whole journey to be parents has proved to be much more complicated than I'd ever imagined.

I am trying to keep my eye on the prize, but some days are more difficult that others.

The donors continue to be more supportive that I ever could have imagined.

Our RE says this has been one of the most difficult situations he has ever been involved with. Leave it to us to have things be complicated.

There are some meds I that that I cannot take while pregnant so I have been weaning off those, of course with some difficulty.

We began this process in February, and here it is May. We'd hoped for an April transfer, but now May isn't looking good either. Maybe June.

For those of you considering private embryo donation, be sure to ask your attorney what is involved and how long you can expect the legal side of things to take. We never never imagined it would take this long. Our legal agreement is over 12 pages long and contains items we never imagined we'd have to think about. After seeing our RE in March, and talking to our attorney, we assumed it would be taken care of in a matter of weeks, not months. We just has no clue what was involved.

I turned 45 last week. My age is a matter of concern for me because I want to be around for my child(ren) as long as possible, and I'd like to be around to see our grandchildren.

And still, I wonder about the state of adopting from foster in our country. What is wrong with that system that after two years and nearly 100 inquiries, Chris and I were not able to adopt. Why? Why were we never chosen. What will become of the children waiting in foster care.

So much on my mind. I just want a family, yesterday.

forever learning on our journey to become parents

The waiting continues. Our attorney went on spring break so it took longer for her to draft the agreement and there are still a few blanks to be filled in.

Little did we know we would be faced with questions such as who will get the embryos should my husband and I get a divorce. Not really something we'd given any thought to before now.

In addition to our legal agreement with the donors, we also have a legal agreement with the lab where the embryos will be kept.

Who knew?

Nothing about our journey has been easy, yet I'm still surprised when something takes longer, doesn't happen when I think it should, etc.

One of my friends is really concerned about me being pregnant at my age. I tried to explain that a large part of the risk of being pregnant at my age has to do with the old age of the eggs. I am not getting pregnant with my old eggs, I am getting pregnant with 33-year-old eggs that have already been screened before they were fertilized. Therefore, a lot of the risk has been removed. Yes, there is still some risk when one is of "advanced maternal age," but it is significantly lower when using donor embryo created with the eggs of a 33-year-old woman.

I have been on prenatal vitamins for 11 years now, so I'm well prepared in that respect! And I've been caffeine-free for ages now in preparation for pregnancy.

We have a crib from a family member ready. We will be the third family within our family to use it, and we are very excited about that!

And yes, we do realize how very, very, VERY lucky and blessed we are to have these donors in our lives now and forever. They have already become like family to us. It's so much more than I ever dared dream for. I still pinch myself on a daily basis. I hope my body will come through for all of us and carry a baby (babies?) full term, but, no pressure.

As with the adoption leg of our journey, I am sharing this with you, dear reader, in hopes that you will learn something from our journey. Maybe someone reading this will decide to donate their embryos to another couple unable to have children. Maybe this will simply cause you to walk around with a big fat smile on your face for the rest of the day :) Who knows.

Feeling closer to my child(ren) every day!

update

We are still in the paperwork phase.

We’d really hoped to have our first transfer in April, but it looks like it will be sometime in May as the legal end of things is taking longer than we’d hoped.

That just gives us another month to prepare (or at least that's what I keep telling myself!).

not “going Nadya”

Rest assured we will not be having all 14 embryos transferred at one time.

Why do people ask that? Good NESS!

always with the waiting

Ok, so, it's CD12 today. For FET, I will have to start Lupron on CD21 (April 16).

We are currently waiting for our attorney to draw up the legal agreements to transfer the embryos into our possession. After everyone has signed off, the embryos will have to be shipped to our lab.

It's not looking good for an April transfer, which I'd really, REALLY hoped for.

But, miracles do happen, so I'm not giving up hope yet!