Our IVF

First, I know I cannot have children on my own.  In spite of my family telling me that I can, I have the scientific proof to back that I have less than a 1% chance.  If I have a miracle baby, I have less than a 2% chance of carrying it to term.  This all has to do with the flow of hormones from my pituitary gland in my head to and from my ovaries.  In normal menopause, the two chemicals going back and forth between these organs slows down when eggs are no longer viable.  In my case, the two are just not working together and one will fire off too much one week and then it will switch the next week.  Not a single one of my extensive tests shows any type of pattern.  They just fire willy nilly.  So, without a true name for my crazy hormonal behavior they diagnosed me with peri-menopause (premature menopause).  These hormones are vital for not only conceiving a child but also maintaining a healthy environment for their survival. 

Now, say I did have healthy eggs and could get pregnant.  Well, I mentioned in a previous post, I have one too many spacers on my DNA chain to have a healthy baby boy. This new technology is amazing.  I can't remember the name of it at the moment.  For some reason it always seems to slips my mind.

So, our choices are either go through with the IVF, or look into adoption.  I will talk about our research in to adoption in another post.  That seems to be a very long story - and unfortunately just as expensive as IVF.  Right now, if I have the chance to bond with a baby by carrying it and it also share DNA with my husband, then I would rather try that first.  After much research, and long talks with Kirk, we finally came to the conclusion that IVF is our fist priority.  If that does not work, we will look further in to foster and adoption programs. 

Step one - take all tests possible to make sure you are a candidate for IVF.  Let me assure you that the costs of these tests are NOT included in the cost of the IVF program.  The good news is that most of them are covered under medical insurance.  However, once we truly enter the program, nothing further will be covered.  It is out of our own pockets as well as being able to use the medical spending accounts through work.  I think the decision to go through IVF was a no brainer for me.  It was the monetary part that caused us the greatest amount of stress.  And it is the main reason it took us over a year to finally go through with it. 

Step two - choose a donor.  I already explained this process earlier.  I am pretty sure we picked a good one.  She was not on the list the first time we looked and we were happy to see her.  We had a huge problem with the list of donors.  It was hard to choose one since we did not really like any of them.  Now, I am not saying this was the case, but it appeared that they were there just to make money.  Some even looked like they came from poverty and looked like they live a very hard life.  Most were not educated, and I kid you not - could not even spell or form a structured sentance.  I am a terrible speller so when I think someone is worse than me, I know there is a problem.  Several did not bother to fill out the questionaire about family history or answer questions about themselves.  And the cherry on top was the ones that posted ameture "sexy" photos of themseves. 

Our top 4 were decent looking young woman that were either highly educated or highly articulate.  All of them had some form of uniqueness to them that we liked.  Then we went down to our top three and it was a tough decision from there.  But the one we settled on as a top pick was a little gem.  She appeared to be a well rounded, carismatic and compassionate person.  Our number two pick was very comparable to #1, but she had blue eyes instead of hazel.  If # 1 was not available we would hopefully get #2.  #1 is ready and willing.  Our start date is hopefully this week.  She is supposed to start her cycle on August 3rd.  Once she does, we go to a strict calendar.  The whole process should take about 5-6 weeks. 

Step three - that is where we are at right now.  Once we start the process I will write more.  Please keep us in your positive thoughts and prayers.  We need all the help we can get!