How the First Nine Months Shape the Rest of Your Life

This is fascinating- a long read- but essentially gives a lot of the reasons that I went with IVF with donor egg rather than other options. 

How the First Nine Months Shape the Rest of Your Life

time.com | Sep 22nd 2010

What makes us the way we are? Why are some people predisposed to be anxious, overweight or asthmatic? How is it that some of us are prone to heart attacks, diabetes or high blood pressure?

There's a list of conventional answers to these questions. We are the way we are because it's in our genes: the DNA we inherited at conception. We turn out the way we do because of our childhood experiences: how we were treated and what we took in, especially during those crucial first three years. Or our health and well-being stem from the lifestyle choices we make as adults: what kind of diet we consume, how much exercise we get.(See 5 pregnancy myths debunked.)

But there's another powerful source of influence you may not have considered: your life as a fetus. The kind and quantity of nutrition you received in the womb; the pollutants, drugs and infections you were exposed to during gestation; your mother's health, stress level and state of mind while she was pregnant with you — all these factors shaped you as a baby and a child and continue to affect you to this day.

This is the provocative contention of a field known as fetal origins, whose pioneers assert that the nine months of gestation constitute the most consequential period of our lives, permanently influencing the wiring of the brain and the functioning of organs such as the heart, liver and pancreas. The conditions we encounter in utero, they claim, shape our susceptibility to disease, our appetite and metabolism, our intelligence and temperament. In the literature on the subject, which has exploded over the past 10 years, you can find references to the fetal origins of cancer, cardiovascular disease, allergies, asthma, hypertension, diabetes, obesity, mental illness — even of conditions associated with old age like arthritis, osteoporosis and cognitive decline.

The notion of prenatal influence may conjure up frivolous attempts to enrich the fetus: playing Mozart to a pregnant belly and the like. In reality, the shaping and molding that goes on in utero is far more visceral and consequential than that. Much of what a pregnant woman encounters in her daily life — the air she breathes, the food and drink she consumes, the chemicals she's exposed to, even the emotions she feels — is shared in some fashion with her fetus. The fetus incorporates these offerings into its own body, makes them part of its flesh and blood.

Often it does something more: it treats these maternal contributions as information, biological postcards from the world outside. What a fetus is absorbing in utero is not Mozart's Magic Flute but the answers to questions much more critical to its survival: Will it be born into a world of abundance or scarcity? Will it be safe and protected, or will it face constant dangers and threats? Will it live a long, fruitful life or a short, harried one?

Research on fetal origins — also called the developmental origins of health and disease — is prompting a revolutionary shift in thinking about where human qualities come from and when they begin to develop. It's turning pregnancy into a scientific frontier: the National Institutes of Health embarked last year on a multidecade study that will examine its subjects before they're born. It's also altering the perspective of thinkers outside of biology. The Nobel Prize — winning economist Amartya Sen, for example, co-authored a paper about the importance of fetal origins to a population's health and productivity: poor prenatal experience, he writes, "sows the seeds of ailments that afflict adults." And it makes the womb a promising target for prevention, raising hopes of conquering public-health scourges like obesity and heart disease through interventions before birth. (See why drinking during pregnancy is now o.k.)

The Origins of Fetal Origins

Two decades ago, a British physician named David Barker noticed an odd correlation on a map: the poorest regions of England and Wales were the ones with the highest rates of heart disease. Why would this be, he wondered, when heart disease was supposed to be a condition of affluence — of sedentary lifestyles and rich food? He decided to investigate, and after comparing the adult health of some 15,000 individuals with their birth weight, he discovered an unexpected link between small birth size — often an indication of poor prenatal nutrition — and heart disease in middle age. Faced with an inadequate food supply, Barker conjectured, the fetus diverts nutrients to its most important organ, the brain, while skimping on other parts of its body — a debt that comes due decades later in the form of a weakened heart.

When he presented his findings to colleagues, he was greeted with hoots and jeers. "Heart disease was supposed to be all about genetics or adult lifestyle factors," says Barker, now 72 and a professor at the University of Southampton in England and at Oregon Health and Science University. "People scoffed at the idea that it could have anything to do with intrauterine experience." Barker persisted, however, amassing evidence of the connection between birth weight and heart disease in many thousands of individuals. For years the idea was known as the Barker hypothesis.

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In time his idea began to win converts. Janet Rich-Edwards, an epidemiologist at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, deliberately set out to disprove the Barker hypothesis. "I was convinced that your current risk factors determine your odds of developing disease," says Rich-Edwards, "not something that happened when you were a fetus." But, she adds, "there's nothing like your own data to change your mind." Rich-Edwards analyzed findings from the Nurses' Health Study, a long-running investigation of more than 120,000 RNs. Even when she took account of the nurses' adult lifestyles and socioeconomic status, the relationship between low birth weight and cardiovascular-disease risk remained robust. "Similar studies have been conducted at least two dozen times since then," she notes. "It's one of the most solidly replicated findings in the field of public health."

As a journalist who covers science, I was intrigued when I first heard about fetal origins. But two years ago, when I began to delve more deeply into the field, I had a more personal motivation: I was newly pregnant. If it was true that my actions over the next nine months would affect my offspring for the rest of his life, I needed to know more. (See why smoking during pregnancy may lead to uncoordinated kids.)

Of course, no woman who is pregnant today can escape hearing the message that what she does affects her fetus. She hears it at doctor's appointments, sees it in the morning newspaper and in the pregnancy guidebooks: Do eat this, don't drink that, always be vigilant — but never stressed. Expectant mothers could be forgiven for feeling that pregnancy is nothing but a nine-month slog, full of guilt and devoid of pleasure, and this research threatened to add to the burden.

But as I began applying what I learned to my own pregnancy, I developed a very different perspective on fetal origins. The scientists I met weren't full of dire warnings but of the excitement of discovery — and the hope that their discoveries would make a positive difference. We're used to hearing about all the things that can go wrong during pregnancy, but as these researchers are finding out, it's frequently the intrauterine environment that makes things go right in later life.

The Power to Change Behavior

Take, for example, the prospect of maintaining a healthy weight. Americans are heavier than ever, and their weight gain begins ever earlier in life. Could it be that a tendency for obesity is being programmed in the womb? A pair of studies conducted by researchers at Harvard Medical School suggest that may be the case: the greater a woman's weight gain during pregnancy, one study found, the higher the risk that her child would be overweight by age 3. The second study indicated that this relationship persists into the offspring's adolescence. Compared with the teenagers of women who had moderate weight gain during pregnancy, those of women who had excessive weight gain were more likely to be obese.

Of course, children could share eating habits or a genetic predisposition to obesity with their mothers; how can we know the prenatal environment is to blame? Researchers have compared children born to obese mothers with their siblings born after the mothers have had successful antiobesity surgery. The later-born children inherited similar genes as their older siblings, and (research shows) practice similar eating habits, but they experienced different intrauterine environments. In a 2006 study published in the journal Pediatrics, researchers found that the children gestated by women postsurgery were 52% less likely to be obese than siblings born to the same mother when she was still heavy. A second study by the same group, published in 2009, found that children born after their mothers lost weight had lower birth weights and were three times less likely to become severely obese than their older brothers and sisters. (See if your pregnancy will predict postpartum depression.)

"The bodies of the children who were conceived after their mothers had weight-loss surgery process fats and carbohydrates in a healthier way than do the bodies of their brothers and sisters who were conceived at a time when their mothers were still overweight," says John Kral, a professor of surgery and medicine at SUNY Downstate Medical Center in New York and a co-author of both papers. Their metabolisms were, in effect, made normal by their prenatal experience — perhaps through a process known as epigenetic modification, in which environmental influences affect the behavior of genes without altering DNA. It may be that the intrauterine environment is even more important than genes or shared eating habits in passing on a propensity for obesity, Kral says. If that's so, helping women maintain a healthy weight before and during pregnancy may be the best hope for stopping obesity before it starts.

The science of fetal origins also offers hope to people who believe that heredity has doomed their families to disease — people like the Pima Indians of the Gila River Reservation in Arizona, who have the highest rate of Type 2 diabetes in the world. There is little doubt that the high incidence of diabetes among the Pimas, and among Native Americans in general, has a significant genetic component. But new research from a study that has followed a large group of Pima Indians since 1965 points to an additional influence: prenatal experience. During pregnancy, a diabetic woman's high blood sugar appears to disrupt the developing metabolism of the fetus, predisposing it to diabetes and obesity.

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Exposure to maternal diabetes in utero accounts for most of the increase in Type 2 diabetes among Pima children over the past 30 years, says Dana Dabelea, associate professor of epidemiology at the University of Colorado at Denver and an investigator on the study, and it may well be a factor in the alarming rise of the disease nationally. But it also opens a door to intervention. "If we could intensively control diabetic women's blood sugar during pregnancy," Dabelea says, "we could really bring down the number of children who go on to develop diabetes."

What's more, an understanding of the role of gestational factors in disease can change individual behavior, notes Daniel Benyshek, a medical anthropologist at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, who has interviewed members of Arizona's Native American tribes. He finds that those who believe diabetes is their genetic destiny tend to hold fatalistic attitudes about the illness. When Benyshek shared findings about the fetal origins of diabetes with tribe members, however, he noticed a different reaction. "The idea that some simple changes made during pregnancy could reduce the offspring's risk for diabetes fosters a much more hopeful and engaged response," he says. "Young women in particular are enthusiastic about the idea of intervening in pregnancy to break the cycle of diabetes. They say, 'I tried dieting, I tried exercising, and I couldn't keep it up. But I could do it for nine months if it meant that my baby would have a better chance at a healthy life.'" (See when it's o.k. to get pregnant after a miscarriage.)

The Impact of Air
The chance of a healthier life is what Frederica Perera is trying to give children in some of New York City's struggling neighborhoods. Perera, the director of the Center for Children's Environmental Health at Columbia University, became interested in the effects of pollution on fetuses more than 30 years ago, when she was conducting research on environmental exposures and cancer in adults. "I was looking for control subjects to compare to the adults in my study, individuals who would be completely untouched by pollution," she says. She hit on the idea of using babies just out of the womb as her controls, but when she received the results from samples of umbilical-cord blood and placental tissue she'd sent to a laboratory to be analyzed, she was sure there had been a mistake. "I was shocked," she says. "These samples I thought would be pristine already had evidence of contamination."

Since then, research by Perera and others has tied exposure to traffic-related air pollution during pregnancy to a host of adverse birth outcomes, including premature delivery, low birth weight and heart malformations. One of Perera's most striking studies got under way in 1998, when more than 500 pregnant women fanned out across upper Manhattan and the South Bronx wearing identical black backpacks, which they wore every waking moment for two days. Inside each backpack was an air monitor continuously measuring levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, a type of pollutant that comes from vehicle exhaust and is also present in the fumes released by cigarettes and factory smokestacks.

The monitors revealed that 100% of the women were exposed to PAHs during their pregnancies. After their babies were born, analyses of cord blood from the infants showed that 40% had subtle DNA damage from PAHs — damage that has been linked to increased cancer risk. Further analysis found that those exposed prenatally to high levels of PAHs were more than twice as likely to be cognitively delayed at age 3, scoring lower on an assessment that predicts performance in school; at age 5, these children scored lower on IQ tests than children who received less exposure to PAHs in the womb.

Investigations like these have prompted scientists to expand their list of populations that are especially vulnerable to pollution. "We used to worry about elderly people and asthma patients," Perera says. "Now we worry about fetuses." And efforts to reduce environmental toxins can make a measurable difference, she says. "Over the years that we've been tracking exposures, New York City buses have switched to cleaner technology, and restrictions have been placed on the idling of diesel buses and trucks," Perera notes. "As a result, we've seen the levels of pollutants in pregnant women's blood coming down, which means their fetuses are encountering fewer of these substances too."

The Sources of Stress

At the farthest edge of fetal-origins research, scientists are exploring the possibility that intrauterine conditions influence not only our physical health but also our intelligence, temperament, even our sanity. Evidence indicates, for example, that pregnant women subjected to starvation or extreme stress give birth to children with a higher risk of schizophrenia. (See pictures of maternal mortality.)

Schizophrenia is a complex disorder with many potential causes. But a study based on 30 years of case records from Anhui province in China strongly suggests that prenatal factors can play a role. In the mid-20th century, residents of that region experienced severe malnutrition during the famine that accompanied the Great Leap Forward, Mao Zedong's disastrous modernization campaign. Individuals born to women suffering from the famine were twice as likely to develop schizophrenia as those gestated at other times. Likewise, a study of the health records of more than 88,000 people born in Jerusalem between 1964 and 1976 found that the offspring of women who were in their second month of pregnancy in June 1967 — the time of the Arab-Israeli Six-Day War — were significantly more likely to develop schizophrenia as young adults.

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Catherine Monk, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Columbia University, has advanced an even more startling proposal: that a pregnant woman's mental state can shape her offspring's psyche. "Research indicates that even before birth, mothers' moods may affect child development," Monk says. "Can maternal mood be transmitted to the fetus? If so, what is the mode of transmission? And how do such moods affect fetal development? These are new questions to be asking," she says. "We're still figuring out how to get fetuses to answer."

In fact, Monk and her colleagues have gone some way toward putting the fetus on the couch. At her lab, pregnant women who are depressed or anxious and pregnant women with normal moods are hooked up to devices that measure their respiration, heart rate, blood pressure and nervous-system arousal, as well as the movements and heart rate of their fetuses, and then subjected to challenging mental exercises. All of the women show physiological signs of stress in response to the tests, but only the fetuses of depressed or anxious women display disturbances of their own. (See why antidepressants and miscarriages are linked.)

"This difference suggests that these fetuses are already more sensitive to stress," Monk says. "Perhaps that's because of a genetic predisposition inherited from the parents. Or it could be because the fetuses' nervous systems are already being shaped by their mothers' emotional states." Women's heart rate and blood pressure, or their levels of stress hormones, could affect the intrauterine milieu over the nine months of gestation, Monk explains, influencing an individual's first environment and thereby shaping its development.

The differences Monk has found among fetuses appear to persist after birth. And because basic physiological patterns like heart rate are associated with more general differences in temperament, Monk says, "it may be that the roots of temperamental variation go back to the womb."

It could even be the case that a pregnant woman's emotional state influences her offspring's later susceptibility to mental illness. "We know that some people have genetic predispositions to conditions like depression and anxiety," Monk says. "And we know that being raised by a parent with mental illness can increase the risk of mental illness in the offspring. It may be that the intrauterine environment is a third pathway by which mental illness is passed down in families." This kind of research, says Monk, "is pushing back the starting line for when we become who we are."

Back to the Future
Ten years ago, when Matthew Gillman, a professor of population medicine at Harvard University, launched Project Viva — a study tracking more than 2,000 Boston-area children since they were fetuses — he knew he wanted to explore the effects of childhood experiences on later health. "But David Barker's research had started me wondering: When do these experiences really begin?" says Gillman. "I came to think they begin before birth, and so my study would have to start there too." Already the project has begun to illuminate the fetal origins of asthma, allergies, obesity and heart disease, as well as the role of gestational factors in brain development.

There are more revelations on the way. This year, the first of 100,000 pregnant women began enrolling in the National Children's Study, a massive, federally funded effort to uncover the developmental roots of health and disease. Researchers are conducting interviews with the women about their behaviors during pregnancy; sampling their hair, blood, saliva and urine; and testing the water and dust in their homes. The women and their children will be followed until the offspring turn 21, and the first results from the study, concerning the causes of premature births and birth defects, are expected in 2012.

Another line of research is developing interventions aimed at preventing disease. David Williams, a principal investigator at the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University, is testing the notion that certain substances consumed during pregnancy can provide offspring with lifelong chemoprotection from illness. In Williams' studies, the offspring of mice that ingested a phytochemical derived from cruciferous vegetables like broccoli and cabbage during pregnancy were much less likely to get cancer, even when exposed to a known carcinogen. After they were weaned, the offspring in Williams' experiments never encountered these protective chemicals again, yet their exposure shielded them from cancer well into maturity. He predicts that one day, pregnant women will be prescribed a dietary supplement that will protect their future children from cancer. "It's not science fiction," he says. "I think that's where we're headed."

Knowledge gleaned from fetal-origins research may even benefit those of us whose births are in the past. "I always ask my adult patients what their birth weight was," says Mary-Elizabeth Patti, an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School and a physician-scientist at the university-affiliated Joslin Diabetes Center. "Patients are often surprised at the question — they expect me to ask about their current lifestyle. But we know that low-birth-weight babies become adults with a higher risk of diabetes, so having that information gives me a more complete picture of their case." Patti is researching how data about patients' birth weight could translate into tailored courses of treatment. (Can postpartum depression strike fathers?)

These possibilities may seem strange and surprising, but then the notion that we owe anything about our mature selves to our experiences during childhood was once considered preposterous too — before Sigmund Freud first pointed our attention to those formative years. With time and evidence, the idea that our health and well-being are shaped during gestation could also come to seem commonsensical. Perhaps our children, whose first snapshots were taken not in a hospital bassinet but inside a uterus, won't find the idea of fetal origins odd at all.

As for me, the baby in my belly for those nine months is now a sandy-haired toddler named Gus. Where did his particular qualities come from? Will he be strong or sickly, excitable or calm? What will his future hold? These are the questions parents have long pondered about their children. More and more, it looks as if many of the answers will be found in the womb.

Adapted from Origins: How the Nine Months Before Birth Shape the Rest of Our Lives, by Annie Murphy Paul, published in September by Free Press

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Surrender

It's been almost 8 years since I finally surrendered to my POF and decided to start a family using Egg Donation. I haven't written a post in so long- but for some reason this morning I was inspired. I had a dream that I got pregnant. Now- at age 41. No help. I am not really sure how I would feel about that if it were to happen. If you had asked me 13 years ago- my feelings were drastically different.

My husband and I just celebrated 13 years of marriage. I found out I had POF pretty much 2-3 months afterwards- I was 28 years old. Barren. Infertile. An emotional wreck. I went to doctors, acupuncture, psychics- I read everything I could find on the Internet. I scoured the forums on the POFSupport web page- grasping for a ray of hope. Knowing in my heart- that I would beat this. I would have my own child. I just had to. After a few years- I lost hope. I thought I was being punished. I thought God didn't think I would be a good mother. I drank. A lot.

I went to a support group for women with infertility about 4 years into this and it only pissed me off. I was with a bunch of ladies crying because they had 2 miscarriages. Or because they had 1 child and they couldn't get pregnant again- even though it had only been 6 months. There were a couple of women who really had no business having children. Their discussions seemed more about how they wanted a child - not how they wanted to be a mother (but that is another entry entirely). By the end of the 2 month support group about 50% of the women were pregnant. And within 6 months all but one of the ladies had gotten pregnant. Using their own eggs. I couldn't help but think - these ladies didn't really have a problem to begin with. Now me- I have a serious problem. There is no amount of counseling, meditation, relaxation or good nutrition that is going to help my ovaries start working again. Being in that group- listening to that crap for 2 months really put things into perspective for me.

I realized that this wasn't just about the end result- it was about the journey. I didn't want to do this by "any means necessary." I wanted to be a mom. All my inner-turmoil and self-hate for the last 5 years wasn't getting me any closer to where I ultimately wanted to be. If I wanted to be a mom- if I wanted to "beat" this Ovarian Failure- I would have to SURRENDER to it. 

I had to admit that I would NEVER get pregnant on my own- unless a miracle occurred. I could not allow myself to waste another day waiting on a miracle that may never happen. I had to stop reading all the posts on infertility websites and forums. I hate to say this - but somebody has to- there is a lot of false hope fostered on those forums. Reading all the posts can make you actually go crazy. If you really truly have what I have - Premature Ovarian Failure- and your ovaries are shriveled up at the age of 28- you are not going to "fix it." Your ship has sailed. Make new plans.

Its amazing the power you have when you finally admit that you have no power. This is not a revelation that is unique to me and my situation. But it's so simple and has so many applications- its worth repeating. SURRENDER.

To anyone who is reading my words and is going through something like I went through: don't waste your life on what-ifs and maybes. Surrendering is not admitting defeat. Admitting you are powerless against things you can't control can actually give you power over the things that you can control.

In my case- when I finally gave up the fantasy of getting pregnant on  my own. I took back the control. I made a decision to try IVF using an anonymous egg donor. I made a plan- I would try IVF 2 times and if I had no success I  would adopt. That plan gave me comfort. I knew that in the end - I would be mom and my husband and I would be parents.  We were extremely lucky and blessed that the IVF worked on the 1st try. I made a decision when I was pregnant that I would never look at my child as anything but mine - although she was conceived with a donor egg. And honestly- that has been the easiest part.

Which I guess brings me back to the dream that started me thinking. At this point in my life- I am content. No not just content. I am happy. I have a beautiful, sassy 7 year old. She is so much like me. She looks like her dad- but not unlike me. She is perfect. If I were to pop up pregnant after all this at my age- I don't know how I would feel. I guess I would hope for the best and love that child like I love Vivian. But the point is- I don't need that to happen. I am fine status quo.

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!

Here comes Baby!!!

So I called Mike and told him that the doctor wanted to admit me that night to induce me the next morning. I think he was more freaked out than I was. He had a terrible cold and was afraid about giving it to the new baby. But like it or not she was coming!! Because of the warm antibody problem the doctors really wanted her out of me. So I went home and packed a bag. That evening they placed a vaginal suppository to help with the dilation and effacement I guess. I also got a nice Ambien (sleeping pill) and got the last good night's sleep that I can remember. The next morning I went into the labor and delivery rooms and they started the Pitocin drip - I was going to try and be a hero and go without an epidural as long as possible. Hardy har har. More about that later.

So things progressed at what seemed like a nice rate. They started the medication at about 9am and I remember I was talking to my father at about 11 or 11:30am when my water broke. That was such a strange feeling. Not really like peeing yourself but close! And it felt like it would never stop coming out! There is a kind of funny story when my sister was having her daughter and her water broke- it was my mom, my grandmother, my sister and I in the delivery room and one of us mentioned that the amniotic fluid had a very odd but familiar odor to it. The doctor was in the room and said - "Oh yeah- it smells like semen." My 80+ year old grandmother them gets a funny look in her eyes and says "Oh yes that's what it is." To say I was mortified /intrigued to find out the grandma and grandad were still tripping the light fantastic is an understatement. I will remember that until the day I die.

But back to me- after the water broke I had a string of visitors I wasn't really hurting that bad, at some point Mike left with his sister to do God knows what and left me with my sister. At about 2pm I really started to feel it. They had checked me an hour earlier and I was dilated to like a 4. One hour later I was at a 9. I was really feeling it now and started to panic. No one tells you this but labor doesn't so much feel like period cramps- for me it felt more like I had to go poopie really bad- but the turd was 6 and a half pounds and pressing on my lower back. Not a pleasant sensation at all!! Mike was still gone- I thought - "that jackass is going to miss the whole thing if he doesn't get back soon." So I lost it- I tried a shot of Demerol and that did nothing. So I gave in and called in the anesthesiologist for my epidural. What a relief!!
Mike finally showed back up right as they are telling me its time to push at about 4:30 or 5pm. I pushed for only about 1 hour not too bad by my estimation. And out popped Vivian. Mike and my mother were in the room at least Mike was. My mom in her infinite bad timing decided that she needed to wash her hands 2 seconds before the baby popped out! I had been looking in the mirror and all I remember thinking was - oh my God look at the size of my Coochie! Not cute. Mike said that when Viv came out it looked like she was coming out of the Schlitterbahn ( a water slide in South Texas). She was so tiny- she looked so grumpy when she came out - kind of like her daddy when he gets woken up from a good nap. She immediately peed on the doctor and started screaming!! Yea!!
The whole thing felt so surreal - perhaps it was the drugs pumping through the epidural but I remember lying there thinking - oh my God what do I do now! She was so little and so loud and so REAL. I never thought this day would come. But December 29th, 2004 I became a Mommy!

Bumps in the Road- miscarriage scare, and what the hell are "warm antibodies?"

So things were moving right along- I had to take those damn progesterone shots everyday- not fun I tell you. The progesterone is oil-based and VERY thick- so it was a little like taking peanut butter injections- my butt was a mass of lumps and bruises- VERY attractive I'm sure. I felt fine otherwise though. So on May 13th we had the 1st of many sonograms and there was only one embryo in there with a very strong heartbeat. We felt very hopeful but even then i wasn't celebrating too much- I knew that so many things can go wrong! And wouldn't you know it on May 19th when I was only 5 weeks along I was at work and when I went to the bathroom I started gushing blood. I just knew that was it. I was miscarrying. I ran out of work and called my husband and my mother and told them to meet me at the doctor. They were going to take me in for an immediate sonogram. The baby was still okay with a very strong heartbeat. But there was a huge pocket of blood called a subchorionic hematoma which if it continued to bleed would cause me to have a miscarriage. The OB/Gyn (Dr. Fogwell) told me that I had a 50/50 chance of miscarrying the baby. Then told me to go home and try bed rest- although he also said that bed rest probably wouldn't make anything better. Bed rest was more like a psychological band aid- it makes you feel like you are at least doing something to help in a helpless situation. By the next day I no longer had the bright red blood - I was now just having a small amount of brownish blood- I took this as a good sign. Like I wasn't bleeding anymore- and this was just the old stuff coming out. I spoke with the nurse at my infertility doctor's office and she told me that I should try not to worry too much because this problem is fairly common after having IVF- she acted like it was no big deal. This made me feel a whole lot better after all the miscarriage talk from Dr. Fogwell. I had an appointment with a perinatologist (doctor who specializes in troubled pregnancies basically) the following day and they did a very fancy ultrasound. He (Dr. Patton) told us that the baby looked strong and that the bleed looked small and inactive. He told us our chances were great that everything would be OK! I even wrote in my little pregnancy journal that day " We feel better - but I will be happy when all the blood is gone and this 1st trimester is over . This kid is freaking me out!"
I have to mention my Aunt Carolyn gave me a little medallion and a novena card for Saint Gerard right around the time we were getting into this whole thing. Saint Gerard is the patron saint for mothers. I started saying that novena "religiously" (no pun intended) from the moment we started the IVF process. I think it helped. I really do. I'm not even a Catholic but a was praying that novena like a bonafide Catholic everyday multiple times a day.
After that scare resolved I motored along just fine- I really felt okay- I was not having any morning sickness to speak of- just a little heartburn. I wrote in my journal on June 4th (7 weeks along)- "Mom brought me to get maternity clothes today. Still feels pretty unreal (being pregnant). I'll believe it when I can feel it. I guess I'm paranoid or I'm protecting myself- But this is all very surreal right now. I'm sure after we get past this 1st trimester I'll feel more secure. We'll see."

They heard the baby's heartbeat with the Doppler on my mother's birthday (June 10th) and then they could start weaning me off the Progesterone shots- my 1st trimester came to an end on June 24th. I was still feeling so worried and I wrote alot in my journal about how I didn't "feel or look pregnant."
I found out on August 10th when I was 17 weeks along that we were having a girl. We were so excited-I felt like the pregnancy was now legit!!
Another weird thing happened at my 28 week check- when they did the regular labwork they found warm antibodies in my blood- the concern being that my blood would attack the babies blood and cause her to become anemic. Now we have to see the perinatologist once a week for a fancy sonogram to make sure she is okay- this is fine with me - I love the sonograms and seeing her moving around in there- it makes me feel so much better!!
Around 31 weeks along I started to have some horrible rib pain. I swear it felt like she broke my ribs. It was miserable for about a week and then miraculously it stopped one day. I assume she moved! Finally at my 39 week check they decided that she was big enough (6 1/2 pounds by sonogram) and decided that I should go in the hospital on December 28th to be induced- exactly 1 week early. I was freaked out this was real- I was really going to be a mom. Yikes!!

The Waiting is the Hardest Part- Embryo Transfer and waiting to see if we are pregnant

So its funny the things that you remember. You have to have a full bladder before the transfer- because it tilts the uterus just right or something- so I drank like a 44 ounce cup of water on the way to the hospital. I don't remember exactly but I think that they gave me something like a Valium or an Ativan to calm me down and then they brought me and my husband into the room to do the transfer. They told us at that point that we had 2 blastocysts and that they were graded at a "B" and a "C." My doctor asked if we wanted to transfer only one or both- I told him both without hesitation. I thought that if there were not "A" quality that if we put 2 in at least one would "take." So I was lying there having to pee like crazy and they let my husband - Mike- look through the microscope to see the little blastocysts that would hopefully become our children. They even took a picture which I attached to the previous entry.
They then placed a little rubber catheter into the opening of the uterus (cervix) and basically squirted the little critters into me. It was so fast. I was expecting to feel something "big" but really all I could think about was how bad I had to pee and how I didn't want to because I was afraid that I would pee the babies out!! They had my hips up on a pillow and wheeled me out into a waiting room and I had to lie there for about 30-60 minutes. I was freaking out because I had to pee so bad but wanted to hold it. Finally after the correct amount of time had passed they allowed me to go the bathroom on a bedpan. I remember thinking - even though I am a registered nurse and I "know" that it is physically impossible- but in my mind I really thought that I had "peed the babies out"- maybe it was the Valium. I didn't want to sit up and I definitely didn't want to walk or to stand up but I had to get to the car somehow- they wheeled me down to the car in a wheelchair and I quickly got into the car and laid down in the backseat. Again thinking that just standing up made the babies flop out. I was a wreck!!
When we got home I did not want to get up from the couch. I was so afraid that any movement would disturb the little guys from implanting. I just laid there thinking the worst but hoping for the best. They told me that I only needed 2 days of bed rest but I don't think that I got up for 3 days except to go to the bathroom. I also started on the progesterone shots which were quite literally a pain in the ass. At some point about 6 days after the transfer I started spotting- I thought that was it. I freaked out completely - I called the doctor and they assured me that it could be nothing- that it could be from the embryo implanting. When you have the procedure done they warn you against doing a home pregnancy test. They tell you that you go home and wait 9 days and then go in for a blood test to see if you are pregnant. That was the longest 9 days of my life. I was convinced that if hadn't worked because of the spotting that I had. So when the day came for the blood test I was expecting them to tell me that I was not pregnant.
I gave the blood in the morning and then went to work - I was working as a school nurse at a middle school at the time. I told them that I wanted them to call my husband with the results because I would rather hear the bad news from him than from a stranger. I got the call from Mike around lunchtime- I was pregnant and the "numbers" were pretty high which could mean that I had twins but we would have a sonogram to see at 5 weeks. I would continue on Progesterone shots daily and go in for weekly lab work to make sure that the pregnancy hormones were going up and the progesterone levels were right. So I was actually pregnant. I could not believe it. I was shocked- and so very very happy!!

And we're off!! Egg Donor contracted and meds started

After about 2 months (really 2 periods for me) they checked my uterine lining again and let me know that the lining was at the perfect thickness for an egg to implant. In the meatime the donor had been on numerous different medications to stimulate her egg production. For me at this point everything was very easy- I was only taking Estrogen except higher doses and then Prometrium to cause me to have a period. The donor was taking shots and having frequent sonograms to measure her follicles etc. They did keep us updated on "how she was doing". Since she was a "big girl" she wound up having to take more medication which is pretty expensive. Finally we got to the point where my uterus was ready and she had a bunch of eggs. So one day my husband went up to the hospital and gave that fateful sperm sample (no pressure) and the donor had a procedure to retrieve the eggs from her ovaries. We would up with something like 20 eggs to start with. My husbands sperm was put in the mix and now we had to wait for 5 days. Every day they called to let us know how our little embryos were doing. We started off with 20 eggs on April 15th. By April 16th only 13 fertilized. From there the numbers dropped everyday. It was a little disheartening! On April 17th we had 8 excellent, 3 good, 1 average and 1 poor little guy was discarded. The next day (April 18th) we only had 5 excellent, 3 good, 3 average and 1 very poor. I was really hoping for multiple embryos so that we could freeze some for future use. Oh well! By day 5 we only had 2 blastocysts and they grade them like A, B, C- these were a B and a B-. I was truly freaking out- I didn't understand how we went from 20 eggs to 2 blastocysts that were possibly substandard! I was a wreck- but the doctor assured me that many pregnancies result from "B" blastocysts. I wasn't convinced but what can you do?
On thing to mention at this point- the hospital I went to does a day 5 transfer- this means that they put the egg and sperm together and let them fertilize and grow for 5 days before they put them in the recipient (me!). In the past most transfers were done at 3 days. This is still done sometimes. My doctor explained to me that they have a much higher pregnancy rate when they wait 5 days because the embryos that last 5 days in the lab as very strong and viable! I think I had something like 8 embryos at day 3- so to go from 8 to 2 was very scary for me. I also to this day wonder if I had the transfer at day three - would it have worked and then I could have frozen some but I will never know!
So the day had come - we had 2 blastocysts my uterus was just right and it was our day of reckoning. We were gonna leave pregnant or brokenhearted!

Picking a Donor- what should I look for??

Choosing a donor was an adventure in and of itself. It is a very sobering feeling choosing the genetic basis for your future child. We got in touch with our local Egg Donation Center recommended by Dr. Rodriguez and they started sending us profiles of donors based on some of our preferences. I wanted someone young and with a good family health history ( no cancer or genetic disorders). Also getting a bunch I forwarded a picture of myself to the center and asked that they try to find someone with similar physical characteristics.
The profiles consisted of about a 5 page health history which also included a picture of the woman's face and her health history along with histories of her siblings, parents and both sets of grandparents. The histories were pretty comprehensive.
There were a lot of donor s that I could eliminate immediately because of their picture. There were others that I eliminated immediately because of something in their family history that bothered me. I was getting frustrated because I just wasn't finding someone that I felt good about.
After looking at about 30 of these profiles I was finally sent a few that I liked. I actually found 3 that I wanted to consider. It came down to a few factors at this point. If a girl was local she would be a lot cheaper- you pay any travel fees that the girl would incur. Also if she had already donated then she would not need certain very expensive lab tests that we would have to pay for. The final deciding factor was if she was available to donate in the time period that we were looking for. After all these considerations we wound up with only one that fit all the criteria that we had set. Getting a local proven donor could save you a few thousand dollars so it is significant! The cost not including all of her medication-was around $6000 and I believe that she got $3000 of that! So we got the contract and everyone signed it. She was local Available and had donated 3 previous times with 2 babies resulting. She was 21 years old and very pretty and 6 foot 1 inch! I thought that was cool because my husband is only 5'7" so a little height never hurt anyone!
We were set to start! My husband had to have a sperm count done and I had to have a "saline sonogram" done of my uterus to make sure that I didn't have any issues with my uterus that would interfere with carrying a child. Luckily both of these tests turned out fine. We were ready to start on this wild ride they gave me a calender and all I really needed to do was to take the hormones that I was already taking but just more of them and on certain days. Piece of cake for me - donor was the one that had to have the shots on the other painful things. It was really easy for me!

Talking it out: Therapy- what worked and what didn't

Around this time I finally got into some much needed therapy. I was so lost - I was mad at my sister, I couldn't get along with my husband for more than 1 day at a time and was still drinking and smoking like there was no tomorrow. I could not make a decision on what to do about having a family. On one hand I couldn't imagine living my life without a child. On the other hand - I was fighting with Mike so much - I wasn't even sure that our marriage would last - so why bring a child into it? I had to resolve some issues it really felt like my whole life was going out of my control.
My therapist really helped me work out my anger towards my sister. I had felt very betrayed by her when she was not approved for the egg donation- but I realized that this was a huge thing to ask of someone and if she was in the least bit uncomfortable with it - it would be best not to use her- I mean the ramifications would be too huge- everyone really would need to be 100% OK with it in order for it to work.
That being said- I had to now really consider using an anonymous donor. I initially thought that this would be too weird (like using my sister's egg wouldn't be?) but now that Tara's egg was out of the question our options were really getting limited.
I also through talking to my therapist realized that I was picking fights with Mike - just trying to get him to leave me. I still thought that he deserved a fertile wife. Someone who didn't have the reproductive plumbing of a 90 year old. I guess I thought if he wouldn't leave me of his own accord- then I would push him until he had no other choice. I always say Mike's either a crazy man or he really loves me- because he never left. He took the crazy ride with me. I decided that I had to stop picking at him - I deserved a good husband and he deserved a non-psycho wife. And we both deserved a child.
We spoke with Dr. Rodriguez after my sister was vetoed from giving us an egg - and he said that he really thought that we would be happier with an anonymous donor anyway. A lot of the uncomfortableness would be avoided. There would not be anyone to be uncomfortable around. Also when we asked him what the benefits to using an anonymous egg donor was as opposed to adoption this is how he explained it- and it made a lot of sense to us:
He told us that its kind of like you are adopting the egg. He said that there is more and more research that shows that many learning disabilities and emotional problems are related to/caused by lack of prenatal care. He told us that by me carrying the child I would have complete control over what goes into my body and therefore into the baby's developing body. You have no idea how the mother of an adopted child took care of herself during the pregnancy. Of course the other benefits are that the child is half Mike's and that I would get to experience a pregnancy. He also told us that the success rates were very good especially with a young egg donor and as long as I had no uterine issues. He told us that we could have up to a 80% chance of getting pregnant. That's not 100% but sounded a lot better that the 50-60% chance that I had been told before.
We decided to go for it. We had been married for 4 years I wasn't getting any younger we thought- its time to shit or get off the pot!

Around this same time my therapist encouraged me to get into a Mind and Body Group for infertile women. I was very hesitant to get into this group. I wasn't sure what I could get out of if. It is a very good program for women experiencing infertility problems - it uses a whole body approach to helping women achieve pregnancy. I thought she was nuts to refer me there because I could meditate and eat a raw diet until the cows came home and I'm pretty sure that my ovaries would still look like craisins. But I let her talk me into it. . .
I will say that I met a lot of lovely people in the group- some that I still keep in touch with- but I would tell other POF women that perhaps if you are looking for a support group -Mind and Body ( http://www.infertilitymindbody.com/index.htm ) might not be the best one for you. This program is really more for women who have a less severe problem. At times I felt very freakish because what was wrong with me was so different from everyone else. People were talking about IUI's and Clomid and laproscopy and other treatments that would never work for someone with POF. It was weird to feel so isolated even in a room full of infertile women. Although I will say that after being in this group I made a decision that I would try IVF no more than 2 times. I did not want to let infertility take up any more of my life. There were some women that had been dealing with infertility for 10+ years- doing multiple IVF attempts and inseminations and suffering multiple miscarriages. I felt so horrible for them. I thought that I needed to go into this with clearly defined limits of what I was emotionally, physically and financially ready to handle. For me I decided to use the old philosophy to hope for the best- but to expect the worst. I wanted so bad for this to work- but I didn't want to get my hopes up too much- that would be be such a long way to fall. . .

Me and My Raisin Ovaries- Alternative Therapies and More Bad News

I had a few sonograms during this time period and I never ceased to be amazed by some of the insensitive comments. Comments ranging from "My God this looks like a 90 year old woman's sono" to "oh my Gosh your ovaries are shriveled up like raisins." Yes someone actually said that to me. I can actually laugh about it now. But at the time it was akin to a knife in the gut. A sonogram of a woman my age should show plump juicy ovarian tissue ripe with follicles ready to release eggs and make babies. My sonograms showed ovaries so "shriveled" that they could not be visualized or so small and pitiful that they would garner "raisin" comparisons. I would inevitably walk out of the clinic in a state of deep and profound melancholy.

It was at some point here where I decided to try a more "Eastern" approach to dealing with my infertility. I had read about women who had regained their fertility by practicing yoga or by eating a special diet or trying different herbs. I thought - what could it hurt- I mean my ovaries can't be any more shriveled up.

I went to an acupuncture clinic- actually it was a school of Oriental Medicine in Dallas and I saw a student but was also seen by the faculty members. I was a novelty there. They obviously had never seen a woman my age dealing with the hot flashes and other menopausal symptoms I was having. I actually (probably foolishly) got off of my hormones and took some Chinese herbs -weird waxy pellets and some of the most disgusting "tea" that I have ever come across. I also had acupuncture every week. I will say that although it did not magically "cure" my infertility it was interesting and the acupuncture was strangely relaxing and it did lessen the symptoms a bit.

After a few months of that I figured this probably wasn't going to restore my baby making ability so I went back on my HRT and continued with the excessive lifestyle that I was becoming way too accustomed to. My marriage was in trouble. We fought a lot. I found myself picking fights with him about everything. Sometimes for good reason and sometimes just being totally bitchy. For some reason at this time I figured the time was right to talk about IVF.

We actually went to see our RE (Dr. Alfred J. Rodriguez- he is fantastic) and set up the psychological evaluation for my sister and us to proceed with the egg donation. My sister had since gotten married and when the time for the psych evaluation came they would not approve my sister to donate for us. I am not 100% sure why - although I think my sister had second thoughts and her then-husband (they are divorced now) apparently had expressed some reservations. So AGAIN I am completely devastated. I thought that the psych eval was going to be a formality but instead it made us completely rethink our plans.

I had initially thought that using an anonymous donor would just be too weird. That at least my sister had the same DNA as me so it was the next best thing to me. I had said that if I couldn't use my sister I wouldn't do donor egg at all. I HAVE HAD TO EAT SO MANY WORDS SINCE THIS WHOLE THING STARTED. I was back at square one. It had taken me 3+ years to convince myself that using my sister's egg wasn't too weird and now I had to convince myself that using a complete stranger's egg was the right choice for me. Once again I was consumed with doubts- is God trying to tell me something?

Living With Premature Ovarian Failure- What a Sucky Way to Start a Marriage!

So I got on the HRT and the Fosamax for my Osteopenia (low bone density)as well as Prozac for my ever darkening mood. My hot flashes were almost constant. It felt like there was a fire lit right at the base of my neck and my entire face and ears would become bright red - people would actually comment on it so I know it wasn't all in my head. I also had terrible vaginal dryness and my skin was dry and I was terribly constipated all the time. It hurt to have sex. I felt like an old lady. Actually my mother was 55 years old at the time and had just gone through menopause and her symptoms weren't even as bad as mine.

As the hormones started working the symptoms got a little bit better but they were never completely relieved. I got involved in an online support group for ladies with POF and got a lot of information that way. I decided to use Vivelle Dot patches and Prometrium as opposed to the Estrace and Provera. I felt a lot better on the patch estrogen than I did taking the pills. Not sure why- but they just seemed to work better. Also the Provera made me completely homicidal (not really but close) and the Prometrium was a little better. Still it was so strange being 28 years old and having to deal with all of this. I was self conscious about getting undressed at the pool etc. because I had the patches on I was afraid of what people would think.

During this time I started doing a lot of drinking. I was fighting with my husband constantly. I felt like God was punishing me- that there must be a reason why nature deemed me an unfit parent. I thought - okay my family history is a little strange but there are a lot of people with weird families that have a lot of kids. Why me? I questioned everything. I vacillated between wanting to have a baby and then thinking that if God chose to make me this way then I must not be meant to be a mother. I thought my husband deserved better- someone who could give him a family - someone who was more womanly. I was physically, emotionally and spiritually a wreck. I was drinking just about every night to dull my senses and my marriage suffered for it. For some reason which I still to this day cannot figure out- Mike stuck around. He must either be crazy or he must love me a lot or maybe a little bit of both.


My sister had offered herself and her eggs to us if we wanted to use them - but I was no where near ready for this. And actually she wound up getting pregnant herself a couple of months after I was diagnosed. She was so afraid to tell me - I think that she thought that I would freak out. But instead I remember when she told me I was so happy. I refused to be one of those infertile women who couldn't be happy for other people when they got pregnant or who would freak out around children and babies. I refused to live my life that way.

I was so pleased to hear that Tara (my sister) was pregnant- her circumstances were such that the father was not going to be involved in the baby's life (that's another story altogether)so I was really able to be involved with her pregnancy and then with the birth. I got to be in the delivery room and cut the cord when my beautiful niece Nelka was born. I felt and still feel very close to her- perhaps more so because of what I was going through at the time. At times it felt like just having a strong bond with my niece and being a good aunt would be enough and that maybe I could live without a child of my own. But the desire was still there. I just wasn't sure what to do yet.

I was working as an RN and most of my co-workers knew about my situation. I actually found out about my diagnoses at work- so most of them got to see my complete breakdown. So as time went on I would talk to people about my situation and my options. I remember one particular incident when I was speaking with a pediatrician I was working with and I told her I was considering using egg donation and specifically my sister as a donor. Her response was "God- that would just be too weird. That wouldn't even be your baby." I thought to myself you insensitive bitch. I had 3 options as I saw it- adoption, egg donation or living child-free. None of these options were ideal - of course I would rather have sex with my husband and have a child like everyone else. I didn't like my options better than anyone else- but for her to respond that way really struck a chord with me.

I was filled with doubt - I thought I was ready to use an egg donor- but maybe she was right- would it all just be too freaky. Would I screw up the poor kid - should I just leave well enough alone and enjoy my niece? I really retreated into myself more and started thinking that perhaps this lady was right and I just wasn't meant for motherhood.

Finding out. . .

I got married to my husband Michael on January 30, 1999. He was 30 and I was 28 years old and we wanted to start a family right away! I assumed I would have no trouble. I had always joked about my wide child-bearing hips. I never imagined that I would have trouble getting pregnant. I had been on the pill for years! Off and on since I was 16 but mostly on. I got off the pill on our wedding night and assumed I would be pregnant within 6 months. BOY was I wrong.
About 2 months later I still hadn't had my period and I was feeling really "weird" I was having hot flashes, night sweats, painful intercourse, I was as dry as the Sahara desert (everywhere and I mean everywhere)- I thought- Gosh- is this what it feels like to be pregnant? I was working as a nurse at a large clinic at the time and took a pregnancy test and it was negative- so I went to one of the OB/GYN's to be checked. I remember when she was examining me - she got a really weird look on her face when I was describing my symptoms and them when she was doing the vaginal exam- she couldn't believe how dry I was down there. She did some blood work on me
but just said she was checking my hormone levels.

Well- fairly quickly we got the results back and my FSH was 113 and my Estrogen level was almost non-existent. She said I had Ovarian Failure and that I needed to see a Reproductive Endocrinologist (RE). I was dumbfounded. I had a million questions - it this temporary, do I still have eggs, it this because I was on the pill, will my ovaries start working again soon? I mean I was on a time line and this was really screwing things up.

I made an appointment almost immediately with a female RE in Bedford Texas who will remain nameless- but she had the absolute worst bedside manner I had ever come across. We walked in her office and it was covered with pictures of her children at all stages of development. Now mind you this lady is an infertility doctor working with women who are having a hard time conceiving - I found this display of her fertility much too "in-your-face." So we sat down (I was with my husband and mother) and she looks at my lab work for a second, shoves a box of tissue towards me and says "your have no eggs, you will never have any eggs, your only options are getting on Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) and using an egg donor (ED). Here's a list of our prices for egg donation and IVF (in-vitro fertilization) and a prescription for Estrogen and Progesterone- let us know when you are ready to pick your egg donor."

I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me. I never saw this coming. Ever. I was devastated. Inconsolable. Wrecked. I looked at my husband of only 2 months and thought you poor SOB- I guess you wish you could get out of this right about now. He was wonderful- he just held me and said he married me for me and if we wanted children we could do whatever I wanted. Problem was I didn't know what I wanted - I was in major denial and would stay there for awhile longer.

I tried to find information about POF (Premature Ovarian Failure) online and found a really helpful website called www.pofsupport.org. I found out that this condition is not as rare as you might think and that supposedly 8% of women diagnosed with POF spontaneously ovulate on their own sometime in the 1st 3 years after diagnosis. I was gonna be one of those people!!
I saw one other Endocrinologist who actually spent a lot of time with me and explained things a little better. he ran some more blood work looking for anti-ovarian antibodies (antibodies that attack the ovaries and render them useless) as well as a couple of other tests to see if we could come up with a reason for the ovarian failure. None of the lab tests came back with any answers. But he did confirm my worst fears that this was permanent. I had basically gone through menopause and the chances of my ovaries starting to work again were slim to none.

So I got on the HRT and started to feel really really sorry for myself. I felt like an old woman, a biological failure, a freak of nature. . . I felt like there must be some reason that God had decided that I shouldn't be a mother. I must be a real piece of crap. These are the things that went through my mind. This was a major low point in my life complicated by the fact that my hormones were completely out of whack. I started pushing my husband away and drinking a lot. I felt hopeless and lost.