The Blunt Optic

Ok heads up, people.  News just in this morning:

Cycle cancelled.  Donor overstimmed again on a half dose.  She feels crappy about it, so might be willing to try again (even though she said she didn’t want to, before the cycle began).

My feeling is that I don’t want her having to do this all again out of a feeling of guilt.  I also don’t want to waste my time and hers, (not to mention a whole slew of emotions) waiting until next school holidays, and trying again with no real hope it will have any other outcome.  If the doctor reduces the dose much more she probably won’t stim at all.  Bad luck?  Yep.

So.

I have two kind friends to have some serious conversations with.  DH isn’t ready to stop (I asked again this morning!) so if we want to continue, it realistically means a new donor.  I don’t want to think about going through all that process again just yet, it feels overwhelming.  But, realistically, the wait time is three months in itself, so we do need to get going on the counselling stuff ASAP.

Bright side: saving a shitload of money, which is great because our massive tax bill is due this month and it means we wont have to sell shares or draw on the mortgage to pay it;  I have not one but two beautiful people willing to donate their eggs to me; yesterday I met in person a gorgeous woman I’ve been in online contact with for a year.  I’m not going to break out the champagne just yet, but this is the closest I’ve come to feeling certain I have a surrogate willing to work with me.  [I probably wouldn’t have mentioned this for a while yet, but I figure we all could do with a bit of a cheer up!]

Thus there is the possibility we just crack on with that aspect of things, and try my genetically related embie in her.  In which case we need to get on with the counselling, psychometric testing and lawyer-wrangling ASAP.  First, though, I need to find a doctor/clinic I’m happy to work with.

But right now I need to go and have a jolly good cry.

My how time flies when you’re just going about daily life and not doing anything of particular note.

I think everything we’ve been waiting on has arrived (apart from the rain) which includes, and I know you’ve been holding your breath dear readers, the much anticipated second attempt at a donor egg cycle.  Yes, we are now officially on IVF #5.  Good Lord.  I honestly never thought I’d be involved in that many cycles, but then again, when I was starting out, I never really considered any alternatives to “all cycles go smoothly and end in embryo transfer” – kinda like I never thought it would take a long time to get pregnant, and then not ever stay pregnant.  Ah the realities…

So the reality is that IVF #1 had no normal embryos to transfer and IVF#2 had two normals which implanted then miscarried promptly.  IVF#3 was the first donor egg attempt that got cancelled due to overstimming and IVF#4 yielded one embryo of related genetic material but unknown genetic health (my egg) which is now on ice.

And here we are at IVF#5 (donor egg #2) already.  See how it becomes so easy to just rack ’em up?  Of course, you have to be able to fund such an expensive pastime, (is it a bit like being a heroin addict? Or would that be cheaper?) and I count myself lucky to live somewhere that happens to chip in for treatment – so we don’t have to hock my earrings, take out a second mortgage and sell our soul – but it DOES use up all our savings and keep our bank balance hovering between payday and zero most of the time. I’m not whining, just saying we’re at the wrong end of this business. LOL.

Anyhoo.  Here I am, on my first night, ensconced in the spare room of the ‘Mosman Mansions’, where my kind friends will give me bed, board and coffee for the next two weeks.  AND their wireless internet connection problems have been sorted out, so YAY.  Being the winter school holidays, when this family annually goes to Rottnest Island for a week, I will have the whole house to myself in the second week of my stay.  If I don’t manage to get my Grandfather’s memoirs all typed and edited by then, I never will!

Really I should get an ‘early’ night tonight (not technically possible since it is already almost 11pm, but earlier than if I stayed up until 1am playing bridge on my computer, for example..) because tomorrow is an early rise and shine so I can be at the barista course at 8.45am.  WOOT!  My family cleverly bought me a gift voucher to do this course, and I have come up to the city early so I could do it before the raging hormones got too firm of a hold.  So it’s coffee, cofffeeee, and more cofffffffeeeeee for me until lunchtime tomorrow.  Thank goodness I’m not the one producing the eggs – I’m sure that level of caffeine could not be a good thing!

No blood tests or ultrasounds until Wednesday, so just kicking my heels and trying to stay calm about what this cycle may or may not have in store for us.

Day six tomorrow.  I’ve already woken up with a couple of lucrin headaches this week, and the estradiol tablets (never had these before) seem to be making me extremely nauseated.  I gave myself a nasty bruise injecting yesterday, but DH reassured me it wasn’t technique, it was just sheer bad luck of hitting a little capillary.  Sigh.  There’s that luck again.

Let’s hope a little of the good stuff swings our way too…

*Nod to younger brother for stealing his idea 😉

Arrived

1. my Sigg drink bottles
2. my new baby nephew (!SO cute!)
3. the coffee water filter
4. the plumber (I think) – ETA: he arrived, but then left again without doing the job, and hasn’t called to say when he’s likely to return.  So, fairly typical tradesperson experience then.  People complain about doctors running late (and various other things) but at least they don’t walk out halfway through a consult.  Speak of the Devil- the plumber just phoned then to say he’ll be back tomorrow morning (today’s fiasco was due to an emergency callout).  And, come to think of it, I do remember DH walking out halfway through a consult, to deal with a car crash victim with a semi-amputated foot.  So I’ll say no more on the matter. (Unless I still don’t have a functional coffee machine by Wednesday afternoon)
5. reveg plants
6. the planting of the garlic

What’s with this sudden flurry of posting activity on this blog?  I have no idea, but I’ll go with the flow.  Why is it, also, that I can lie awake int he morning for an hour before getting up, and compose long posts in my head that I completely forget once I’ve had breakfast and sit down at the computer?  Instead, I think this is going to end up a bit more like a collection of random thoughts…

Things I am still waiting for right now

Spoke with the co-ordinator today, who didn’t seem to think it would be a problem to change C’s meds, so I am leaving it in her capable hands and hoping for the best.

I have also had a couple of new responses to my search for a surrogate. Which is very pleasing. But also quite draining to go through it all over again. Informing people of the process. Letting them know what the legal requirements are (such as being over 25 and already have given birth at least once) and then they reply that they don’t meet the criteria. Or we talk for a few months and then they tell me that their husbands say no. This is the kind of thing I want them to be thinking and talking about BEFORE they contact me.

On the website on which I have ‘advertised’ (using the term loosely as it is illegal to advertise for a surrogate here) I have left links to the RTC website where interested parties can look at FAQ’s to get some basic information. I have encouraged them to join some forums so they can get an idea of what surrogacy involves – this is NOT just renting an incubator, people, the situation could never be that simple. It is full of complex human relationships interwoven with complex human desires and emotional baggage. I want to say: “Dear potential surrogate – you really need to think about all of these things BEFORE you come offering anything to me.” I can’t be getting my hopes up with every new email, it’s too exhausting.

It’s a funny situation. Kind of like a job interview (where the applicant mostly has no idea of the criteria), but also kind of like a series of (online) dates, where you’re looking for ‘the one’ – the lifelong partner. So, not something you want to rush into, ya know? This here is a lifelong commitment, so the choice has to be made after a very thorough examination of all the aspects, and a building up of relationships needs to happen before such an important decision can be determined. This takes (a lot of) time and it takes effort, and it takes me baring my soul, and laying my vulnerability and dependency on the line to total strangers. This is not something I find easy. This is not like choosing a hairdresser, or someone to service your car. And when you think you are getting somewhere, and it turns out you are not, well I won’t say it is like (finally) getting pregnant and then miscarrying, but there are similarities I can assure you, and it IS another loss.

So now I have organised a proforma response to the initial email, attaching a PDF file of the application form and all the processes that have to be gone through; my own Q&A sheet so they can get an idea of what kind of relationship I want with a surrogate; links to the forums I suggest they join, and the link to the RTC website so they can get some basic questions answered before they come back for a second ‘interview’.  It feels a lot more clinical, but it also feels a lot more protective for me.

I haven’t written much about my surrogacy search, although I am about eight months into it now, primarily because I don’t want to jeopardise my chances if a potential surrogate were to read a post like this (you’d’ be surprised – my blog has already been found by potential surrogates. I have also given the link to others)  and think “well she’s a bit of a demanding and ungrateful bitch, isn’t she?”

But now I feel like I need to say how it is for me. I can’t hold back my feelings and ‘make nice’ so someone likes me, and I don’t piss them off. It’s like walking on eggshells, and it’s stressful and also somehow a bit dishonest. And I don’t want dishonesty on any level to be part of this kind of relationship.  Any surrogate who wants to work with me will have to be able to take me as I am, and accept that I am doing the best I can to protect my heart, which is my priority right now. And if they choose to walk away because they think that I am asking too much, then so be it.

Donor egg cycle is fast approaching and I am liaising with the nurse co-ordinator from my clinic re drugs etc today, and I find out that Dr Dickhead has put my donor on orgalutran as the suppressant this time. Why? Yes, she overstimmed with the gonal F dose last cycle, but what has that got to do with swapping the synarel for the orgalutran? Why not just reduce the gonal F dose? I don’t get it. Clearly, I am not an IVF specialist, but I do know that orgalutran has a habit of not suppressing enough, and then you can ovulate early (missing egg collection altogether). This has just happened to another donor friend of mine. Her clinic is putting her on lucrin instead this time. [Which is what I have always used, and has worked for me]. And the synarel worked for C last time, so why mess about with it now?

I had a good moan to the co-ordinator and for a bit of extra backstory I told her how Dr Dickhead had treated me in the ultrasound room last cycle. She was upset to hear he had behaved so badly, and totally on my side when I said that now I felt like I couldn’t trust his motives and that it was a horrible position to be in, to feel like a Dr might be deliberately vindictive towards you by changing medication to something that may well not work. I know that is probably a bit of an over the top response, but the fact remains that I don’t feel he has my best interests at heart and I don’t trust him. I hung up feeling heard by her, but not happy about the situation at all.

The fact also remains that my donor is not prepared to go through this again, so we need to be focusing on our best option, and not dicking around playing experiments with this cycle. I spoke with DH about it tonight when he got home, and he was pretty pissed off too. Said I should phone C and have her contact the clinic and demand to stay on the synarel. She agreed, but it turns out she can’t do that until Friday at the earliest, so I will have to make the initial call, and insist, with as much clout as I can muster, that he change his protocol. I can only hope the co-ordinator hasn’t already sent out our drugs in today’s post. She doesn’t work tomorrow so I can’t talk to her till Thursday, and who knows when she’ll be able to speak with Dr Dickhead – and whether she’ll be able to change his mind. At the end of the day, although the patient is paying for the service, they don’t seem to be in charge of the show. Funny that.

It is a bit too late to swap clinics now, though how I would love to! The wait list for other clinics would just be a total pain in the arse, and I know C wants this over and done with ASAP. But I feel pretty sure I won’t be working with them again.

The other day, a friend I have known for about a year, who lives in my town and whom I met at painting class, offered to be an egg donor. She seemed quite serious about it, but you never can tell until you get down to the nitty gritty. Anyway, I guess it is another option if this all doesn’t work out. Which should be reassuring, but in some ways it is worse – complicating matters by giving me more options. I know that sounds ungrateful, and that I’d be looking a gift horse in the mouth, but I feel so fed up with the whole process. The thought of dragging myself through the counselling thing again, and another three month wait at the end of that. Shit. But if I didn’t take up the offer, would I regret it? Very likely.

Anyhoo, that is neither here nor there right at this point in time. But something I may need to think on in the very near future. Plus the whole find-another-surrogate thing. God I wish I’d started TTC at 28 instead of 33. Maybe I’d have been at this point at 35 instead of 40. I’d still be just as mentally and emotionally exhausted, but at least my body would be in a better position to cope. Tick tock tick tock.

…..So anyway, how’s that for more of a hands-on approach??

At 3am the deafeningly loud crack and rumble of thunder woke us bolt upright. The house shook for quite a few seconds, and we wondered for a moment if we had been struck (we hadn’t. And nor had any nearby trees, thank goodness). DH leapt out of bed to yank the phone cords from the wall so our computers didn’t blow up if it happened again. Then the rain absolutely pelted down, and the wind howled, and it took me forever to drop back off to sleep.

We awoke at 7am to perfect calm, and 7.5ml in the rain gauge (which even such a small amount, at this point in our driest winter for a long long time, is a godsend) and blue skies. So we cheered because we got some rain, AND our truffle hunt booked for this morning wasn’t going to be a schlepp in the rainy mud. We have had to wait 3 years to do this tour (for one reason or another), so you can imagine our delight at a fine day.

90% of the tour was pretty much waffle, but the other 10% (where you get to go out with the dog and sniff around under trees, digging up the lovely black things with your bare hands) was fun and very instructive. We asked lots of technical questions because we are growing our own crop and want to see what environmental conditions we ought to be creating at our place. By lucky happenstance we met a visiting Hungarian expert and DH picked his brains over lunch. The Hungarian was very doubtful we could get the white Italian Alba truffles to grow here (but we are giving them a bash anyway, along with the more common, and cheaper, black variety). [I am going to try and organise a trip to Italy and call it research and see if the accountant will let us write it off as a tax deduction!] I think we have decided to hunker down and make this venture our retirement fund. We can sell directly to the Truffle Co, which would make life very easy.

Having learnt our lesson at previous truffle lunches, DH and I shared one entree and one main, and we were STILL too full for dessert. The main truffle hunt lady (Fran) sent us home with the smallest truffle we found that day (just under a gram) which was cool. Not sure what I will do with it. Might infuse some honey.

We learnt some new things about soil preparation and conditions, so before we plant the 17 extra trees I bought last Friday, we will get the plot ripped and limed by a local contractor. That is DH’s job to organise. He has also prepared a soil sample to send off for testing, so we can be more accurate with supplementation. Plus he is booked in to meet with the accountant next week. No flies on us.

My job is to lock in a date/time for the plumber to come around and fix our leaking pipe issue that is causing us not to be able to use the coffee machine. (Quelle Horreur!).

And so, despite setbacks and disappointments, life goes on.

My (potential) surrogate has officially pulled out. I am disappointed. Why am I not surprised?

Last one, I promise. You’re on your own now…

I watched Tim’s DVD So Live quite some time ago, and at some point I forgot about the length of time that a few of these songs can stay stuck in my head. This one in particular is quite viral. But at least it will get rid of canvas bags, which my brain, in any moment of free space, has been singing since Thursday.