Times, they are a changin'

So we've made some changes over the past week.

As you may recall when we started this whole donor process in August/05 D. was 36. However with all the delays we've had, it's now 18 months later and D. is a month shy of 38. But of course, now we've got the funds and we're able to move forward. There's a big difference between 36 and 38 from a reproductive position. Right after I had the surgery last July I received a call from the doctor in Montreal. Because we had the 4 month wait following surgery it was going to be 13 months from our first meeting before we'd even be allowed to try again and I was concerned at that point that D. was going to be 37. Here she gave me the statistics for their success for 36 and 37 year old donors. If you look at them, it looks pretty promising. Fast forward to today. Normally they don't accept donors over 37 but because we were already patients, they were willing to consider D. However, D. needed to get in for retesting and ultrasound as I said here. Well according to what D. told me the doctor (not ours) who had done the ultrasound deemed her viable. However, our doctor after reviewing the results this past week felt we need to know that D. wasn't as good as we were led to believe. Her ultrasound was "decent" but could be better. Obviously this couldn't get better unless we used a younger donor. She indicated that her eggs were old by donor standards, there was a greater risk of miscarriage and birth defects, and a greater risk of failure, plus a reduced response to the meds than a younger donor. At the time all this comment did was depress me because I'd been concerned about this since last year and we really didn't feel we had any other choice.

However, during my conversation with the donor coordinator she indicated there had been a meeting that week between them and a clinic in Toronto that dealt with anonymous donors. She had some pricing information, gave me their website and said to think about it. V. and I talked about it and at first we thought that we really couldn't afford to change, but there were some other "issues" going on that we needed to take into account and discuss. We decided that I would contact the clinic and try and get more information from them so we could make an informed decision.

Five days later, several phone calls with the Coordinator at the local clinic, another extensive conversation with the Matching Coordinator at the American agency, and a lot of discussion between V. and I, we reached a decision. As much as we love D. for what she's done for us so far and what she'd be doing once the cycle started, we just couldn't continue knowing that our odds for success were less than we were initially led to believe. We have decided that we are going to change clinics and go with a younger donor to greatly improve our chances of success. And because their small bank of Canadian donors has a 12-18 month waitlist, we have made the decision to use an American donor. We're also going to be doing a shared donor cycle which means that we will share the eggs retrieved from our donor with another couple who also selected her as their donor. As donor eggs/IVF especially with US donors can be very expensive, it is more cost effective to do a shared cycle. And because a younger donor will have younger eggs, better chance at fertilization success, lower risk of miscarriage and birth defects, we've got a better chance at succeeding. We also have better odds of having embryos available to freeze for additional tries.

So that is where we are right now. I'm waiting for the referral letter to the clinic from the old clinic. I've requested a copy of our psychological assessment for the donor agency, I've told both clinics we're making the change. Once we get the referral letter I can get an appointment for us to begin and get cracking with V. on choosing a donor. We've already got the package for Intended Parents which has the necessary forms we're to complete and return to the US agency. Once we do this (after we get our referral appointment) we will start to receive donor profiles and we will be able to choose our donor. Oh yeah, the funding requirement has changed. What a surprise. Not!

Lots going on.