Just for fun

Grover doet spoof op Old Spice Guy | Flabber

So you have POF? What are you gonna do next?

I have received a few emails from women recently diagnosed with POF. I think that if I could give any advise it would be this:

Don't waste too much time feeling sorry for yourself/thinking "I'm gonna get pregnant and beat the odds"/"my husband deserves better"/"I'm less of a woman"---you know all the things you feel when you first get diagnosed. I beat myself up for 5 years!! I was miserable. I made my husband miserable.

Take the time you need to grieve for the loss of your chance of having a biological child. This is truly devastating. You need to acknowledge it and grieve as you would for any other loss. But don't let it take over your life.

Everyone if different- you know yourself better than anyone else. Give yourself a time frame and STICK TO IT! If you want to see if you can get pregnant on your own (they say that 8-10% of POF-er's can spontaneously ovulate- ??) give yourself 1 year. One year to grieve and to see if you can get pregnant without help. I would say during this time start a savings account- a serious one.

You are not going to feel like it but after a year of having POF start considering other means of having a family.

When I was diagnosed I realized I had 3 choices: Egg Donor-IVF; Adoption; or to live childless. I didn't like any of these options. I thought I would never be able to love an adopted child or an egg donor child as much as one of "my own." There were times I truly thought I was being punished and that God didn't want me to be a mother. You can make yourself crazy with this disease- DO NOT LET IT CONTROL YOU! TAKE BACK CONTROL!

Decide what option is best for you and your significant other- financially, spiritually, emotionally, physically etc.- and start taking the steps to make it happen.
What are your fears right now? What options do you feel like you have? What can you do given your diagnosis to STILL make your dream of having a family come true?
A great weight will be lifted from you when you start taking positive steps toward starting your family. Although you may feel helpless and hopeless right now- there is a light at the end of this tunnel and if you truly desire to be a mommy- you will be one. You will. Period.

Saint Gerard- Hey, it helped me!

I was just asked about how I handled the horrible time between the embryo transfer and the pregnancy test. Well I am really a pessimist. I was convinced I was not pregnant. I was making plans for the next IVF cycle. I was protecting myself.
My aunt is Catholic and before I started the whole IVF thing she gave me a medallion for Saint Gerard and a card with Novena prayers on it. He is the saint of motherhood and infertility. I said that novena every single day from the time the eggs were retrieved until the day I went to the hospital to have Vivian. I don't know if it helped. But I think it did. It eased my soul.
You might try it if you are going through the craziness of IVF or other infertility treatments. There is something very comforting in it!
Here is a website with more information. http://www.saintgerard.com/stgerard.html

Concerns about picking an egg donor!!

I got this email from a lady I have been talking to about egg donation- I wanted to share her concerns and my comments. . .


Hi Rebecca,
Thanks so much for your reply. We had our appointment on Friday, we left the office a bit nervous but overall feeling optimistic. Then when we got home and started looking at the pictures of the donors... total meltdown. I kept thinking "they aren't me"... All these old feelings came flooding back. Stuff I thought I had gotten past. Then I proceeded to think counter productively; about expenses. I started asking myself questions like "what if it doesn't work?" "What it I regret this particular donor?" "What if it does work and something goes wrong during the pregnancy?" etc. This lasted a little more than an hour.
Today I feel better, but I feel sort of stuck. Sorry, I probably make no sense. I'll do my best to explain... I think I feel scared of going back into the donor site. It sounds silly, and part of me is screaming into my ear to just get over myself. Is this all normal?

My reply:

Absolutely!! I had to look at about 100+ donors before I found some that I liked. Its a major freak out and soooo abnormal finding part of the genetic make up of your child as if you were shopping for a used car. It took me a long time to get past that! If you stick it out you will eventually find the right donor.
Like-have you been house shopping lately? When we were I thought that we would never find a house. Either I didn't like that floor plan, not enough storage, bad location- nothing was coming together- until one day when we looked at our current house and when we walked in-it felt like home. Well that's kind of the feeling you will get with the right donor.
As far as that money- yes it is outrageously expensive! But adoption is expensive as well. What if it doesn't work- well you have to mentally prepare yourself for that. We decided going in- we are willing to give this 2 tries. If it doesn't work - it wasn't meant to be- we will try to adopt. We got lucky and it did work on the first try. If it hadn't- I would have been devastated- but I was willing to try one more time.
What if something goes wrong in the pregnancy- I had 2 pretty major scares- I started bleeding like a pig when I was about 9-10 week into the pregnancy and thought that I was losing the baby- I prayed my butt off and that wound up okay. Then 28 weeks into it the blood tests showed that I had warm antibodies in me blood and that they might attack the baby's blood and she might have to be given in-utero blood transfusions. Again- that wound up to be nothing- but both things freaked me out completely!! There are so many things that can go wrong in a pregnancy! There are so many things that can go wrong with a child. Again- you have to come to peace with this. If you use a young donor with a clean family history there should be very little fear of Down's or things like that associated with older moms.
I feel your pain- girl!! Been there done that! Change the way you are thinking about this or you will never get through it. Remember- this is only one small but very important part of your future child. The donor will never meet you or your family. All she really needs to have is clean health and mental histories (at least for genetic linked things) and a kind face. What else is important to you? We wanted someone with a little height because my husband's family are all shorties. We wanted someone smart and pretty. I wanted a girl that if I was put up next to her someone could imagine that we could be related somehow (like cousins even).
Again let me reiterate- once you get pregnant and have your baby- you will rarely if ever think about the donor again. So all this crap that you are feeling - although normal- amounts to nothing in the end! You will have a beautiful little baby that you will raise. You will be their mother- not the face on that donor page. She is only one tiny piece of a enormous puzzle that will make that child who he/she will be.
How that helps a little!

To Anyone Thinking About Egg Donation!

I was asked some questions recently by a woman that is preparing to go through the egg donation process- here is my reply to some of her questions- it may answer some other people's question's as well. . .


I just want to let you know that you don't need to be scared- at least not about certain things! Like when I was going into this whole thing I was terrified that I would not look at the child as my own- since I did not produce the egg- I thought that it would be too weird and that I wouldn't be able to live with it. I couldn't have been more wrong!!!!
I rarely think about the donation. Well except lately, because we are thinking about doing it again. I mean from the moment that they heard her little heartbeat with the Doppler I felt such a connection! I think that the experience of pregnancy is so awesome and I thought that I had been robbed of that experience. The donor enabled me to experience the coolest feeling on earth. I don't tell just everyone about the egg donation- because some people just don't understand. How could they? Our options are weird at best.
If you are going to do this you have to decide that the egg is only one part of the puzzle. I have talked to my daughter about this from the time that she could talk. I tell her that Mommy wanted a baby and that I didn't have all the right pieces to make one. I tell her that a nice lady who we will never meet gave us a wonderful and amazing gift- the piece that I was missing to make the baby! I tell her that the doctors took a piece from daddy and a piece from the lady and put it in mommy. Then Mommy made the baby grow! I compare it to a plant or baking a cake - things that she can understand. She is only 3 but she is so smart- she asked me if we could meet the lady that helped us and I told her no - that she wanted to give us a present without us knowing who she was- like a secret Santa- she seemed to understand that. She is totally fine with it. I mean I carried her, nursed her, stay up with her when she is sick. . . I am her mother. Just as you will be your child's mother. That egg- its only an egg. You will make it into a baby. Your love will turn that baby into your child. I don't look at Vivian and think about the donor. Neither does my family. She acts just like me . She looks a lot like her dad- but not unlike me.
I would say things to look for in a donor- youth!!!, someone who looks similar to either you/your family/ your husband/your husband's family, clean from psychiatric illness and any genetic linked disease (certain cancers for sure), successful past donation is good but not necessary, local to you is cheaper!, available in your time frame. I would narrow your choices to 2-3 and then see who is available and go from there. Our donor was not our 1st choice- but obviously it wound up OK.
The 1st thing you need to do is find those 2-3 donors that you like. Then they will do a psych screening on you and your spouse and make sure that the girl you want is still available. From there you start preparing your womb!! They will give you a calendar and tell you what to take and when- usually Estrace and Prometrium or something similar- there will be different doses on different days- they will want you to have at least one good menstrual period before the transfer if not two. They will do a "saline sonogram' (inject saline into your cervix- uncomfortable but not horrible) to check if your uterus is the right thickness. Once your uterus is the right thickness (at the same time they are doing things to the donor to prepare her for the retrieval) and the donor is ready- then they schedule her retrieval day and your transfer day will be 5 days later. That is nerve racking!! She starts off with a bunch of eggs and they put them with your husband's sperm and then the waiting game starts! We went from 20 eggs to only 2 viable blastocysts on day 5!! Thank God one took!!

Basically we were told by our wonderful doctor (Dr. Alfred Rodriguez in Plano Texas- the BEST!!!) that if the uterus is good (which they can make sure it is) and the donor is young (21-24 preferably) there is no real reason that you can't get pregnant. He has a 80-90% success rate- although he thinks higher in favorable cases like I just described. It was nerve racking! Don't get me wrong. We had spotting and bleeding at times and I was convinced that I would not carry that baby to term- but it all worked out!! You are in for the ride of your life- but whatever it takes- it is totally worth it!!!

Update- thinking about number 2!

I have not written anything in awhile. So here is the latest with our little family! Vivian is almost 4 years old!! Time flies when you are having fun! She is the coolest little girl ever. Really she is a rock star!! I am seriously thinking about number two at this point. She isn't a baby anymore, I just turned 38, my DH turned 40. . . We need to poop or get off the pot!
My only misgivings are of course the expense; what if it doesn't work; what if it does work and we have a multiple birth (yikes!); what if they aren't as fabulous as Vivian. . .
About a year ago we were seriously considering IVF again and contacted the agency to see if our donor was still available. Well through a series of events we had signed up to have her donate again and then apparently she got married and moved out of the area. Then something weird happened. She was in the process of getting an updated medical history and apparently her father had been recently diagnosed with Muscular Dystrophy. So of course I freaked out and wanted more information. This turned into a big problem and a lesson learned as far as donor pregnancies go. Of course the whole time we are going through the donor agency and the reproductive endocrinologist's office and are not speaking with her directly. I'm sure a lot was lost in the translation. We found out that her father went in to see a doctor due to pain in his leg/hip and was told he had a form of MD. They also said that her father is over 300 pounds and that he had a lot of old football injuries and that was what they thought this was. I looked up everything I could about this condition and I am really not convinced that he was diagnosed correctly. But in the meantime the donor got freaked out and decided that she would not donate eggs again. I was pretty upset for a lot of reasons. I wanted a sibling for Vivian that was from the same egg donor- but this is not to be. Also I was freaked out that Vivian could possibly develop MD.
There are so many unknowns with Egg Donation. I spoke with the Egg Donation Agency and asked what their policy was on notifying couples if donors have changes in medical histories. There is no policy, apparently. So in a case like this if we had not been trying to use this donor again we would have never found out about the possible family history of Muscular Dystrophy(MD). This is a little alarming. But I guess if you think about it- with adoption you wouldn't know about any changes either.
I can only pray that the donor's father was misdiagnosed and that Vivian will never have any problems but there are no guarantees in life.
This be itself will not prevent us from using Egg Donation again. I mean we really didn't have very many options and I believe that this was the best thing for our family.
I will say it again and again- I NEVER THINK ABOUT THE EGG DONATION- unless for instance something like this comes up. On a day to day basis I forget that she is anything but mine mine mine. She acts like me and looks like her father. She is an amazing little person and I am so lucky to have her.
We have already started the discussion with Vivian about the way she was conceived- at least to the best that her 3 year old mind can understand. I found a couple of books (see above pictures) which really helped to open up the dialog between us. She understands that a "nice lady" helped me to have her. That I was missing a piece that I needed to make a baby and that she gave us the piece that we needed. She asked if we could meet the lady to thank her and I told her that she was like a Secret Santa- that we didn't know her name or where she lives- but that we could thank God for her in our prayers. She seems totally fine with this. Of course as she gets older the questions will get harder but I feel like talking to her about this now and making it just sort of "matter of fact" will prevent any hurt feelings later on.

On the Radio

I was in the Winter 2006 edition of Conceive Magazine in the "A Family is Born" section. I was then asked to be a guest on the internet radio show in February. HERE is a link to the webcast of that show- just more of what this blog is about!

Also I wanted to make sure that everyone knows that they can feel free to contact me- if you are going through the same thing or have any questions- I will respond to any comments ASAP. Thanks for taking the time to read my blog!