The Mom Crowd

It’s easy to take being a mom for granted. For some women, the act of becoming a mother is not very easy and requires unconventional routes. I am friends with an amazing person who is trying to become pregnant through an egg donor. Her amazing spirit, positive attitude, and HUGE HEART has always been so encouraging to me. Everyone who meets this woman is instantly in love with her because she is one of the most selfless people I know. Due to the sensitivity of this topic, we are not disclosing her name, but please be inspired by the journey she is on right now to become a mom. Here is her ongoing story:

I was so excited on the day I threw away my last empty package of Birth Control pills…we were going to try get pregnant! That was over two years ago.

The first two months went by with no period. After several negative pregnancy tests I visited an OBGYN. Her nurse practitioner told me I needed to go home and draw a bath, light a candle, and read a good book in order to relax. Apparently that was going to do the trick. I left in tears. I knew my body – I had already been through one surgery to remove endometriosis – this was NOT normal. I think she must have somewhat convinced me that I was over-reacting because it was a few months before I went to another doctor. He ran tests, tried out a few drugs on me and made me take my temperature every day for about 3 months. He could never figure out when I was ovulating, and then he prescribed Clomid. When a couple of friends were mortified to hear that he wasn’t monitoring me via ultrasounds, I decided to move on to yet another doctor. He was a “Reproductive Endocrinologist.” I can’t believe I am actually here – only women who can’t get pregnant come here. Oh wait…that is ME! It sank in so quickly that I was actually “Infertile.”

The new doctor reviewed my records and decided to try the Clomid again, but assured me we would be monitoring the progress with regular ultrasounds. I took the maximum dosage of Clomid and went in about every three or four days for vaginal ultrasounds. As bizarre as it seems…you get used to the humiliation and vulnerability of the process. I was so hopeful every time I went in, but I only produced one very small follicle and it just disappeared by the next ultrasound. After a total of three unsuccessful rounds of Clomid, it was time to re-assess the situation. My husband and I went in for a long discussion which resulted in a very scary realization that I was having neurological side effects to the Clomid. OK…so no more Clomid. We were pulling out the “big guns”…injectables. But first, the doctor wanted to do another surgery to remove any new endometriosis and clean out my tubes. Six weeks after the surgery I started the injectables which run about $1300.00 for a cycle which lasts about 12 days. I was taking triple the amount of a normal cycle…you do the math. At one point I was injecting a total of 6 vials of FSH hormone injectables per day. I was a human pin cushion. We did five unsuccessful cycles, or months, of the injectables and I had officially baffled my doctor. He said my ovaries were “laughing” at the drugs.

“I believe you may have Premature Ovarian Failure, or POF. You can expect to start menopause in the next few years.” Although my husband and the doctor were both in the room with me, I felt completely alone and as though I had just been kicked in the stomach. How can this be happening to me? I’m only 34 years old! I had a burning feeling rising up through my chest and throat, but fought back the tears as I still had to pay, yes – I had to PAY to hear this news and I also had to still walk through the lobby of the fertility clinic that had become an all too familiar scene in the last year. The doctor went on to tell me about my options, but it was all just muffled sound as I sat there trying to understand what I had done to deserve this fate.

This was about the middle (so far) of our journey to becoming parents. It is difficult to explain the feelings that come along with the label “Infertile.” Isn’t it my job as a woman to carry a baby? Is my husband going to be disappointed that we may never have the opportunity to produce a baby combined from the two of us? Am I going to be forever resentful of my friends and family who easily became pregnant and now lead their busy “soccer mom” lives? Ugh – this is unacceptable. I am not going down without a fight! I have been successful at everything I have ever put my mind to. I put myself through college, landed great jobs, and married a wonderful man…why should this be any different? There are two very prominent things I have learned throughout this process – 1. I am NOT in control, and 2. People say the most amazing things. Along the way I have heard just about every anecdote from strangers, family and friends that you could imagine. “Just relax, it will happen”, “Everything happens for a reason”, and my favorite “Are you sure God wants you to have children?” A friend and I have joked about writing a book about what NOT to say to a woman when she is going through fertility issues, had a miscarriage, or had a child with a disability. Sometimes the best thing to say is nothing at all.

Once the reality set in that the only way I was going to become a mother was through egg donation, I hit the ground running. I guess I could sit around having a pity party, but I am not getting any younger and the situation is not going to change no matter how many tears I shed. Funny thing is, I now cry at the strangest times, especially when I walk by the two “guest bedrooms” upstairs in my house. I feel like I have let everybody down. It is a feeling full of shame and guilt that I cannot provide the joy a child would bring to the people around me.

One of my dearest and most up-beat friends agreed to meet me in Dallas at the agency that would provide the egg donor. As we sit at a large round table and I flip through big white plastic binders, my friend puts her hand on one of the pages as if to distract me and asks “What are you thinking at this very moment?” I tell her I cannot believe I am doing this. I am actually “shopping” for an egg. It is the most surreal moment of my life so far. There is no denying what is happening.

I picked out 11 girls, and the agency also gave me a picture of a girl that had just applied, but they did not have her written profile ready yet. I paid the agency a fee and they gave me copies of all the profiles I had chosen. On the ride back home, I read the profiles to my husband and I used a highlighter to note any “strikes” against her. Besides physical appearance, we were looking at family health history, education, and her answers to questions about the reasons for becoming an egg donor. We had narrowed the list to three girls, and I was still waiting on the profile that went with the picture the agency had given me. I emailed the agency requesting additional photos of the narrowed list of donors and also to request the written profile that went with the photos they had provided.

The following day was my birthday. I opened my email and the agency had sent my requests. I read the previously missing profile and then printed it out for my husband to read. I gave it to him and stood anxiously over him as he read it. He closed the profile, handed it back to me and said “Call the agency and tell them we have made our choice. This is her. ” I can’t believe it – that was my thought exactly! Happy Birthday to me! God had sent us this angel for my birthday. We were on our way.

We forked over a small fortune to the agency and had to sign many papers that would protect both party’s anonymity and also promise legal custody of any resulting embryos. Many people do not realize the financial expenses that come along with this process. The donor receives a fee, the agency receives a fee, we pay all of the donor’s doctor visits, medication, and since I chose a donor that lives in another city, we pay all of her travel expenses as well. I found myself separating emotions from business. Every time I stopped to think about it I broke down in tears. Some happy tears, and some tears of sheer terror. To this day I still wonder what the heck I am doing and wondering if this is the right thing to do.

All we had to do now was wait to see if the donor was available and then start syncing our cycles. She agreed and we both were prescribed several different drugs that would prepare us for the egg transfer. We were both suppressed (our ovaries were basically shut down so that they could be manipulated with drugs) and after both of us had an ultrasound, she would start on the injections that would produce follicles that would hopefully contain the eggs we needed…so we thought. That very day my husband went to the doctor for some pain in his lower abdomen. He had an inguinal hernia and we could not move forward until it was repaired. We had to start all over.

About two months later we arrived at the same point we left off with when my husband had the hernia. I went in for my ultrasound and everything looked great. My donor went in for her ultrasound and everything did NOT look great…she had a cyst on her right ovary. They could not start the stimulating hormones until it was gone. Another week went by and the cyst was still there. I felt like I was climbing to the top of a mountain only to be sent back to the bottom by an avalanche. Yet another week went by and she still had the cyst. My doctor called me and very gently told me the news. He said that if she did not agree to have the cyst drained then we should consider finding another donor. You have got to be kidding me. I refused to do this again – I knew I could not handle it. Luckily she agreed to have the cyst drained and we started everything back up again.

That is where we are as I sit here writing this story for my friend’s website. I am full on anxiousness, hope, and fear all at the same time. It has been the most emotionally, physically, and financially draining experience of my life. It has brought me closer to God and also brought my husband and me closer as well. There truly is a reason all of this is happening to me.