Pleasant Sunday

Well, it's been a while since I have had an update! Nothing major going on right now, this is the hurry up and wait portion of the show.. We did have a nice BBQ with Casey and her family. We grilled and ate and sat around and talked, it was really nice! We ate ourselves full and just really got to know each other a little bit better. IVF and infertility in general will REALLY test your patience, so it is a relief to just have a normal day of fun and relaxing in this crazy rollercoaster of a journey we are on!

Oh and of course we had a financial update as well, yay Ebay!

Lovely Day

So today has been pretty sweet so far. This morning I met up with Casey at her house and we went shopping, my FAVORITE past time! Her daughters birthday party is this weekend so she had to get some stuff for that and we also checked out a few thrift stores (I am SO addicted to thrift stores!). It was really nice and gave us a chance to just relax and talk and get to know each other a little better. We had fun asking each other what kinds of things we liked or didn't and it was funny to see each others reactions! We both don't like watermelon but she likes watermelon candy (YUCK!) she doesn't like CHOCOLATE! WHAT!?!?! Who doesn't like chocolate right?? I know, I know.. I was in shock.. We both LOVE salty foods (chips are AWESOME!).. And she doesn't like cherry flavored candy, reminds her of medicine (dude, seriously!?!) I told her I didn't think we could be friends anymore, HA! Cherry is my favorite flavor for ANYTHING sweet, right after chocolate.. Juice, cherry coke, you name it, it tastes better with cherry! But the craziest thing she said? She hates BACON..WHAT!! Everything tastes better with bacon y'all! So, yeah that was how our day went and it was just really nice and fun. Hope we have lots more days like this.. Next weekend they come to our house to meet the boys and we are grilling for them. So that's my update for now.. Oh and I made some more sales so a few more pennies in the baby fund "jar".. That's always a nice update.. =)

Setting the goal and reaching it - UPDATE

Nothing big to report, just wanted to update on our savings progress! We decided to break it down into little victories.. This is where we need to be for our Contracts and where we are:

OK, so MAYBE I AM on to something..

OK, so remember a few posts back I was asking if I could REALLY make this happen with eBay?  Heheh, well I started a new account on eBay specifically for our IVF/Surrogacy fund and lemme tell ya folks, in FIFTY (50) days, I have made 809 BUCKS! Now I know that's pennies in the grand scheme of things, but HOLY eBAY Batman! We Juuuust might be able to pull this thing off AND get tah keep our house! (I kid, I kid we are TOTALLY keeping our house... Anyway I will squat in this beyotch if I have too) But for serious y'all if I can keep this up through the New Year, that will put a MAJOR dent in what we need to have on hand!

On other fronts, nothing much new to report. Had a meeting with a lawyer and decided we are going to go with our first choice anyway so this one won't be getting the 2nd interview call. We didn't agree on a few things and in the end I want someone I feel is going to FIGHT for what I believe in and not just there to collect a check, ya know? So I have the retainer paperwork from our "chosen" one and now we have to send her a nice big ole check for $2500 bucks and she will email us the contract draft. Then the fun begins.. We go over it, change what we don't like and send it back. Get it back and then once it's all good we send it to Casey for her lawyer to look over. Since we already know what we do and don't want, we don't anticipate any of the back and forth that can go on. We were smart enough to hash out as many "what if" scenarios as possible face to face and surprisingly we all (hubbys included) agreed on everything!

The lawyer estimates we should start contracts in October or November since we aren't looking to start before the New Year (Well, we would if we could afford to but since we can't...) so That's where we are. Some time in the near future I will start a "we did that when? and it cost what?" outline so y'all can see how much it costs step by step and what we have to go through (each IVF step) in order to bring home "baby". That should be an interesting set of entries, ya think? After contracts the next step is testing and we estimate to start that in December and it's just blood work for us and a "swimmer sample" for J and then Casey's testing is more intrusive since she's the oven (look at her tubes and uterus and blood work as well) and blood work for her hubby too. After we are all cleared we get our schedule to start BCP (birth control pills) then I start the IVF stim medication. SO, that's the next step in the process for us. That will be after the holidays...

In the meantime, we are taking this time to get to know Casey, her hubby and their daughter. We want things to proceed nice and slow so everyone is comfortable and fully aware of the process. If you know me, you know PATIENCE is NOT my thing, so this is a big step for me... But I'm not complaining, 'cause it's giving me time to get as prepared as possible and it's giving me more time to work on this: Babydreams IVF FUND 
every little bit helps!

Laid Back Consult for my Egg Donation

I had my consult yesterday afternoon, with the recipient's clinic. Talk about laid back! If I was there in person, I think they would have offered me a massage or some chamomile tea! The consult lasted about 15 minutes and pretty much were the same questions that were on the new patient forms I filled out, but it was all good. We talked about my protocol and what would change based on my "advanced maternal age" (Dontcha' just love that phrase?) but let's face it in the world of makin babies, 36 is basically what 46 is to Hollywood stars..

So Dr. D is going to bump up my medicine protocol to match my age and then monitor me closely in case my E2 (estrogen) spikes too high so they can back down my stimulation medicine. To give you an idea of what it will be like here is a run down of an egg donation (from the donor's point of view)

• Birth Control Pills to synch the cycle of the recipient to the donor (this can be 3 wks or more of active pills only)
• Lupron (think of the needle a diabetic uses, injections in your stomach for about 2 weeks, this keeps you from ovulating) This is the baby of the IVF meds.
• After week 1 of Lupron, you are checked to see if you are suppressed (not about to ovulate) if so they introduce the bad mamma-jamma drugs, the actual IVF stimulation drugs. These are LONG needles that are either injected into your hip/thigh OR if you get the short straw into your BUTT yes think penicillin shot. Some meds have to be done intramuscular (or IM ) and well that's the broadside of my big ole big ole.. This happens for about 7-12 days, depending on how well you respond to the drugs
• Transvaginal ultrasounds along the way to check the egg growing (tube up your vajayjay
• Once they are "ripe" so to speak, one final BUTT shot of HCG (this is the chemical pregnant women produce that makes your EPT say yes or + or  2 lines, you get it.) to super charge the eggs maturation, kinda like the shot they give women in premature labor to rapidly mature a babies lungs.
• Retrieval - long metal vacuum attached to a long needle that is used to pierce your ovaries to retrieve each egg visible on the ultrasound (so think if you have 12-15 on each side, that's getting stuck 30 times) LUCKILY most clinic knock you out for this part. Some do just give twilight sedation or Valium (I don't think so for me buddy!!) So when you wake up you just feel crampy and want to take a nap.
• Your part is finished after that!
• Eggs are mixed with recipients husbands sperm and hopefully 12-24 hrs they get a call that all of their eggs fertilized and they have embryos! 
• 3 -5 days later 2-4 embryos are transferred to the recipient and hopefully they implant. About a week after that a pregnancy test is done at the Dr. office via a blood draw this is the BETA and lots more blood tests and ultrasounds follow if things went well.
 

And that folks, is how you make a baby in my world! 

So that's what I have to look forward to in this next few months, depending on when we get started..

I am going to update here each step of the way once it is underway so you can all cheer me on! I am hoping for at least 12-15 mature eggs so my recipient "D" has a better chance of having nice quality embryos at the end.  

Stay tuned for the Egg Donor Chronicles