Reflections

I am taking up a "homework challenge" from Keiko at Hannah Wept Sarah Laughed to review some of my old and beginner posts and reflect on how I've grown and changed during this infertility struggle and journey.  I was basically diagnosed with POI/POF around age 26 and fully diagnosed at 27.  I was devastated and I used to feel irritated or bitter toward women who were older than me and were able to get pregnant.  My initial diagnosis was the darkest time I can recall in my life.  I started this blog about a year after that diagnosis.  Sometimes I wish I would have started it right from the beginning to really see the changes in attitude but I was definitely in no place at that time to be able to share that pain and insecurity with anyone.  I felt like a failure.  I felt like a disappointment.  I felt betrayed by my own self.  Anyway so I can't share with you the worst part of my travels but I'm sure it mirrors a lot of what many infertile people may feel.

As to reflections of posts that began my blogging.  I noticed a lot of gratitude for my husband and I can never express enough how much his support got me through.  I wouldn't claim he's the only person who could have or would have pulled me out or gone through it with me but I think he was the best person for the job.

I also look at the things that I was so worried about missing out on with children.  I was worried about not sharing looks and eye color and genetics.  Of course that is such a normal thing to be sad about initially but it honestly never crosses my mind anymore.  I think of how beautiful my daughters are and how much I love them and I can't imagine why those things mattered so much.  I realize these are the after thoughts of someone who has been lucky enough to be where I am and in no way consider it wrong for other's to mourn that loss.  But I really can tell you that it is such a null and void thought on this side.  I also worried about my feelings being less connected or attached to my kids based on the missing genetic link.  I couldn't be further off base with this worry.

One of my favorite posts of reflection was this one regarding "normal".  I was so wrapped up in being normal for the first year of my diagnosis and hoping and praying for miracles to happen and for us to conceive on our own that I missed out on a lot.  I'm glad that we had time on our side.  I'm actually glad at this juncture that I wasn't diagnosed during attempts to conceive and instead that it happened before I was even married.  It taught me about true love.  It helped me to grow and learn (and for us to save a butt load of money) before we pursued our donor egg in-vitro attempt.  It was actually a blessing in disguise even though I felt it was such horrible timing then.

So I end with a quote I still love today:
My darling girl when are you going to understand that being normal is not necessarily a virtue...it rather denotes a lack of courage. - Practical Magic-

No one who is required to go through great measures to achieve their dreams of a family can really say it's the "normal" route but it's the route we're given and we're all courageous for taking it on in whatever fashion we do.  So props to all of the infertility community out there and for all of your amazing courage.

Article about Donor IVF

I found this article through following a blog which linked to another which had this posted on their site.  I found it interesting and explanatory of egg donation and other methods or ART where a donor is needed. 

Myths and Reality of the “Donation”
from the online booklet – OOCYTE DONATION, By Cara Birrittieri, Mary M. Fusillo, RN, BSN, MS, and Georgia Witkin, PhD

You probably learned the following in your high school biology class, but most of us need a review to dispel many of the myths around baby making and making a baby with a donated egg. 

To create an embryo that will grow into a healthy child, you need genetic material from two different gene pools. The combined genetic material instructs the developing fetus to become a boy or a girl, tall or short, have curly hair or straight, blue eyes or brown.

Myth number 1
Fifty percent of the genetic material is delivered by a sperm cell. Most men think their sperm is carrying their own characteristics. This is the first myth. Actually their sperm is carrying genetic material from their entire gene pool (parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc.). If the particular sperm that delivered the genetic material for your baby is carrying DNA for characteristics expressed in the father or sperm donor, the baby may resemble him. If, however, that particular sperm is carrying certain characteristics from great uncle Harry for a little girl with curly blonde hair and blue eyes, his daughter may look nothing like him with his straight dark hair and brown eyes. It’s the luck of the draw. Each sperm cell carries an entirely different combination of genes from the man’s ancestors.

The same of course is true for eggs or ova. Any given egg can contain genes from any group of ancestors — those that resemble the woman donating the eggs or those ancestors who look nothing like her. That means the genetic material in a donor’s egg may give instructions for a child to develop with very different features than the egg donor herself. (This has important implications when choosing an egg donor, which is discussed later). Once the two sets of genes combine, another step determines which traits will actually arise in the developing fetus and child. When the genes come together they all interact, some turn on and some turn off, so in reality, there is no telling which gene will do the instructing, and who your child will act like, look like, or sound like.

Think of a family that you know. If each genetic contribution in a child were an exact duplicate of their parent’s genes, all the girls and all the boys in the family would be clones of one another. The fact is that each egg and sperm contains a different combination of genes, and each time they unite a unique individual is created. That is why within the same family there might be some tall children, or short, some brown hair, or blond, some looking like one parent, or some who look like neither. Indeed, the only exception to this rule is identical twins. Their genes are identical because a single embryo splits in two, duplicates and develops as two people with the same genetic makeup. Everyone else has his or her own genetic combination or code. This is also why genetic testing is so accurate.

Myth number 2
Now here’s the part that may surprise you. Although this medical procedure is called “ovum donation,” the recipient does not receive someone’s egg in her uterus. This belief is another myth. Once the genetic material from the sperm and the egg has melded, the work of the sperm and the egg is done. The combined material duplicates itself and two new cells are created. The material duplicates again, and now you have four new cells. They double and there are eight. Soon there will be a ball of new cells — the beginning of a new human being (an embryo). When a woman gets pregnant on her own, this duplication process begins in the fallopian tube. When a donor egg is used, it happens in the IVF laboratory and the embryo(s) are transferred to the recipient’s uterus when it is about the same size it would be coming from the fallopian tube. It is that ball of cells (embryo), not someone else’s egg, which hopefully implants into the recipient’s uterine wall and begins to grow into a fetus.

Myth number 3
Perhaps the greatest myth surrounds pregnancy. Many believe the uterus is simply an incubator. Nothing could be further from the truth. The most important aspect of all pregnancies — including egg donation pregnancies — is that as the fetus grows, every cell in the developing body is built out of the pregnant mother’s body. Tissue from her uterine lining will contribute to the formation of the placenta, which will link her and her new child. The fetus will use her body’s protein, and then she will replace it. The fetus uses her sugars, calcium, nitrates, and fluids, and she will replace them. So, if you think of your dream child as your dream house, the genes provide merely a basic blueprint, the biological mother takes care of all the materials and construction, from the foundation right on up to the light fixtures. So, although her husband’s aunt Sara or the donor’s grandfather may have genetically programmed the shape of a new baby’s earlobe, the earlobe itself is the pregnant woman’s “flesh and blood.” That means the earlobe, along with the baby herself, grew from the recipient’s body. That is why she is the child’s biological mother. That is why this child is her biological child.

Many recipients ask, “Is the baby actually my flesh and blood?” Not literally. No baby is really its mother’s flesh and blood because the truth is that every fetus builds its own flesh and its own blood. Still you might wonder, “If it was my own egg, wouldn’t the baby then have my blood?” No. The baby might inherit your blood type, but would still be making its own blood, just as it makes its own skin and hair texture, and nails and teeth. Besides, with or without egg donation, the baby might have inherited his or her blood type from the father’s gene pool. Think of it this way: every baby is a complete, self-contained, unique human being. You will meet this person when he or she is born. To try to sort out the genetic contributions at that point is like trying to break a cake down into flour, sugar, water, and yeast after it has been baked. It is now a cake, no longer separate ingredients.

Hope is a choice...

I have been staving off the reaction to be scared for a while. I have been putting things to the back of my mind and not worrying about the outcome. I've been telling myself that the outcome doesn't matter. But now as I feel like we're actually going somewhere and things in the next few weeks will determine the outcome...I'm scared. As I was sitting this morning preparing and organizing my pills I just had this feeling of fear. Fear that this (possibly) one time chance wouldn't work. That something might go wrong or that my body might act up at an inopportune time. I felt worried to the point that I was teary eyed. It's possible that we may never see two lines on a pregnancy test or I may never know what it's like to carry a child and give birth. It's possible for everyone to not have this happen but I just feel especially vulnerable in our current circumstance. I hope it does happen. It seems like sometimes hope is the only thing we have control over. I sent an article to my friend with POI about hope and one of my favorite quotes is this:

"Hope is not based on the ability to fabricate a better future; it is grounded in the ability to remember with new understanding an equally difficult past...Hope is not some kind of delusional optimism to be resorted to because we simply cannot face the hard facts that threaten to swamp our hearts...hope remains, nevertheless, a choice."