CD2

So, it's CD2. It's hard not to keep track each month of what cycle day I'm on. It's now part of my everyday existence. What's the date? Oh, then it's CD__.

However, today it makes a difference!!! We're cycling again!


This is going to be a long post.


Sorry I haven’t mentioned this before, but V. and I wanted to keep it quiet until we actually had something to say. And we apologize for not saying anything to anyone IRL.

On May 23rd, during all my running around to get everything we needed for my FIL’s party on the 24th, we got a call from the clinic. It was a call I never expected to get, at least not so soon. I’m just getting ready to run out to pick up the guy doing the cooking from our local train station. V. grabs the phone and picks it up on speaker. The caller identifies herself as from the clinic. I don’t know who this is and think it’s their finance department as we have a small balance owing. She asks for me even though V is on the phone. (It kills me that they only speak with me. :) ) Anyway, he passes over the phone and while still on speaker I say hello. She then says "Hi Pam. We have a Canadian donor". I am speechless. Ask V. I was dumbfounded. I think my response was "really???" She laughed and asked if she’d caught me by surprise. I told her I was speechless. I really was lost for words. In any case, she booked us to see the doctor on June 6th to find out about the donor, costs etc. She did ask if we were going to do a shared cycle. V. said "not if we can afford not to" so we went into the meeting hoping that it wasn’t going to be cost prohibitive.

Basically, when it comes to choosing a donor, we aren’t very picky.

So, we fast forward to June 6th. We had our meeting with the doc. We ended up waiting 3 hours to see him because, for some reason, this day he chose not to see patients in between his scheduled retrievals and transfers. So we finally sit down with him for about 20 minutes. He reads us the information on the donor and being a local donor we aren’t allowed to see a photo of her; makes sense. She is 24, 5’2”, brown hair/eyes, slight to moderate build, fair to moderate complexion, Caucasian, athletic in her youth and plays volleyball now, she was an A student in high school and has gone on to complete nursing school and become an RN. She has 3 young children of her own. So as he’s reading the physical description I’m essentially hearing a modified description of me. Apparently when she became available, those who knew us at the clinic immediately thought it was a great match (we’ve yet to actually complete the recipient parent application form or give a photo) which is why we heard from them so quickly. Funny thing though, her mom is 49 which is only a year or two older than me. ;) Oh, and one more thing...her favourite movie is “Sound of Music”. Anyone who knows me (us really) knows I love musicals, stage or screen. And Sound of Music is one of our favourites. When we were told that this was her favourite movie, V. and I just looked at each other. It just seems like she is meant to be our donor.

So, now we had to determine if we could afford to go ahead with this. We really wanted to and she’s donated before so we’ve got the “proven” thing on our side. Her last cycle they got 12-13 eggs which were split between two couples. One got a positive on their fresh cycle. The doctor mentioned that he would up her meds to see if he could get a few more eggs from her. We would really like to do an exclusive, rather than a shared, cycle this time so that we maximize our chances of having children. So now we had to sit down and crunch numbers and see what we might be able to do. We had to let the donor coordinator know in the next two weeks. She was going to hold off on actively looking for a second couple until we let her know what we want to do. If we are able to go ahead, the cycle will likely be August/08.

A week later and we got the financing for the cycle. This is amazing!!! I sent an email to the donor coordinator to let her know we were good to go and to find out what our next step is. I asked her for an estimated idea of a cycle calendar so that we know when we need to pay for the donor’s meds, and then subsequently when the estimated date for retrieval might be so we have an idea about when the balance is due. With a local donor and an exclusive cycle, I think we’ll be getting more info on the donor’s response to meds once things get going. At least I hope so. Anyway, I’m now waiting to hear back from the clinic about our next step. Hopefully she’ll know a rough date when we are going to be starting.

The donor coordinator has acknowledged we’re going ahead. She’s going to start planning the protocol for the donor and get back to us with a “tentative” date for retrieval. The only thing that might throw a curve ball into all of this is that V. is scheduled to get his wisdom teeth out (yes, all of them) on August 12th. Hopefully retrieval is before or at least a week later. I’ve got to go in on my next CD2, about two weeks from now, for the usual round of tests and to see the doc to plan things.

And that brings us to today.

It’s CD2. I was in for the usual bloodwork, ultrasound, collection of the consent forms and payment of the drug deposit for the donor. The donor coordinator is on vacation until the 4th, so I am to give her a call when she's back to check where the donor is in her bloodwork, and if we’ve got a protocol calendar. Meanwhile, I start birth control tomorrow and continue until told otherwise. Oh, and we are doing an exclusive cycle. So all her eggs are ours.

This is soooo coool!!!