News and Stuff

The doctor from the Montreal clinic called me on Sunday afternoon. I really like her and we've only had the chance to meet with her once. She called because she was told I was concerned about the eligibility of our donor since D. has turned 37. However, before we discussed that she asked me how I was and how the surgery went. She just wanted to make sure I was feeling well and stuff.

Anyway, I explained that I thought their age limit was 36 and that with D. turning 37 a couple of months ago, that was going to change things. After all, we aren't going to be able to proceed with the IVF until I'm fully recovered from the surgery. She told me that 37 is their age limit so D. is still able to be our donor. Yeah! She said they have the same success rate with 36 and 37 year old donors - 60% success rate, and a 50% success rate for on going pregnancies beyond 12 weeks. That to me sounds like pretty good odds. We talked about my surgeon's request that we not get pregnant for 3 to 6 months. She said she doesn't usually require longer than 3 months because she doesn't find it makes a huge difference. She's suggest that we discuss it with Dr. L. at our follow up next month and see what she thinks. La Docteur (she's also Dr. L. so I'm not sure how to differeniate) said that if we can begin the protocol in September with our cycles in September, then by the time we reach the time to do the transfer (and it's interesting, she mentioned transferring 3 depending on embryo quality) it would be about 5 months anyway. So this is all good news!

So I tell V. all of this and say that we should be able to move forward in September. He says "if...." and I say "I know, I know, it's if we have the money". I know he's worried about it, and we've got other financial committments as well, but I wish he would be less pragmatic and get excited about this kind of news. I know he wants this as much as I do. But I also know he doesn't want me to get hurt or be disappointed.

So how do we find/raise the money? I hate ads on blogs and websites, and yes I'm guilty of putting the google ads on my pages. But I figure if I can raise money by people clicking them, then that's a start. I've clicked the links myself and some of the pages are interesting. So if I get 1000 clicks, I can raise half the required money. :) Then I wondered if anyone has ever had a "jack and jill" type event to raise funds for something like this? I've thought about putting together a casino night, but for that we require money to invest in it to get the poker tables and stuff, plus we'd then have to "come out of the closet" to friends and family who aren't aware of our struggle and what we're going through. The amount of money required for the tables and dealers isn't huge, but I'm not sure I'm ready for family to find out. If I had a talent at a craft like Julie, I'd have a raffle like she did. But alas, I am not. So that leaves asking friends or immediate family for a loan. V. and I are quite capable of repaying that loan, but with other financial committments, saving that money (in a timely fashion) isn't likely to happen. So I'm probably going to have to bite the bullet and speak to my family. Not a conversation I'm looking forward to. Sigh.... At least I don't have to do that just yet.