Tuesday, August 17, 2010

When One Door Closes, Another Door Opens


It's been a long time my friends.

My apologies for not keeping up with the blog, but it IS a fertility related blog, and until now there has been little to report. As you all know, our last donor egg transfer didn't work...a complete and utter blow for both of us. Four perfectly good embryos from a 26 year old body, and not a glimmer of life. Since then I've been wondering WHAT IS THE POINT in continuing to transfer these quality embryos to me, if my body is just not up to the task? There IS no point...and my biggest fear was that I would potentially squander away the life of these 15 remaining embryos - my frozen little bubbies - on my busted up and pissed-off-at-the-world uterus. No. I won't do it.

My fears were only confirmed when we visited the doctor for our FU followup (for those who aren't familiar with the verbiage, yes, FU means what you think it does). He told us that my uterus was just not responding...that regardless of the textbook levels of estrogen in my body, my uterus wasn't budging...it wasn't thickening...and that there's really nothing to do at this point. Part of me was upset, of course, but a bigger part of me was relieved. I didn't really WANT the doctor to say, "let's throw another shrimp on the barbie!" And I really thought he would due to the fact that we have all of these embryos, but I would have needed him to CONVINCE me that there was something else to try...some other wonder-drug, or something drastic and hopeful. I didn't want to go through the motions, once again, only to be disappointed, ONCE AGAIN.

To be honest, I'm a little relieved for the closure. I knew it wasn't happening with my body...its fairly obvious at this point, and after 6 years of disappointment, 9 IVF's, 2 of which were donor egg and 4 surgeries later, I'm ready for the next option: Surrogacy.

GOD, can you believe me? I mean, what is wrong with me that I can't stop this merry-go-round, except it's not merry at all, it's shitty...I'm on a shitty-go-round. But I'm so determined and I can't quit now. How can I quit after 6 years of making this my ultimate goal? To everyone else it comes so easy, sure, but for me it has been a constant and unrelenting battle, and to give up now? I just can't do it people - it would be a waste of 6 years... I need to continue this path until I have absolutely ZERO options left.

But right now we have 15 frozen embryos, and would you believe there are women out there (with fluffy n' pink uterus's) who desire to carry a baby for people like us? Sounds like a solution to me.

So please cheer us on and give us your full support as we begin the journey towards surrogacy.

6 comments:

Kirsten, Chris, Jacob, Sarah & Evan said...

I'm thinking of you!! It's exciting to open a new chapter, and as you know, it worked perfectly for us, and our resulting miracle baby Evan is now three days old and hanging out with us at home......it can and will happen....just let the good times roll!!!!

Niki said...

I'm here from LFCA and wanted to send you well wishes on your new path! Surrogacy wasn't in my life plan 5 years ago when we began our ttc journey, but after 4 mc, death of our preemie son, a handful of IVF cycles, and a uterus that also wouldn't respond to massive doses of estrogen, we jumped on the surrogacy wagon. Our first attempt resulted in a m/c, but our 2nd attempt gave us our miracle twins, Liam & Silas. It was an unexpected ride, but one that's so worth traveling! I look forward to following your journey!

ks said...

I've been wondering how you were! So good to see you! I'm very glad to hear that you are not giving up and examining other avenues. You know I'll always be here cheering you on.

ks
(Please feel free to come back to the Green Girls and update. BBG's surogate just had her twins)

Dan and Marie said...

God and Julie Andrews could not say it any better.... "when one etc..".you should be able to hear us cheering from the states---yeah yeah and yeah....!!!

Jill said...

Hi! I saw your blog on another blog I follow. I just wanted to say good luck with your surrogacy journey. It is a wonderful option - I have 2 beautiful twin boys from it! Never, never, never, never give up! And, once the baby (or babies) are here, trust me, it doesn't matter how they got here...they are ALL yours!

Natalie Naomi said...

Just found your blog and have spent the last hour reading your journey. After 4 years and 4 IVF failures were looking towards surrogacy. Your happy ending and story has helped me have faith it is out there for me too.

Enjoy your new family.