Surprisingly, the nurse didn't call me back all week. That's the first time that's happened. I don't know if she got busy and just forgot or if she didn't call because she doesn't have an answer for me - maybe she hasn't even looked at or started working on my file yet. Regardless, I'd just like to get some idea of when she thinks we may be hearing something, so I can quit worrying about it all the time. If she'd just tell me that I shouldn't expect to be matched for six months, then I could go ahead and get on with my life for the next six months rather than wondering every day when we are going to get started.
I hate having absolutely no control over this process. So, in my attempt to assert some control, I went back over the donor list online and made a few changes to my top choices and e-mailed them to the nurse today along with a nice note wishing her a Happy Valentine's Day and thanking her for all she does. I don't know if that will get me anywhere but at least I felt like I was doing something...
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4 comments:
Hi - found your blog on Hope Springs Infertile, sorry you are having all these problems with DE. I am just starting my 2nd DE cycle, so I will offer you my brilliant insight into what's going on.
I agree with Brenda that the clinic hasn't contacted you because they have no news, at least no good news. I will tell you that my first cycle it took a YEAR from when we started with the RE til we got a donor. I had actually just done a workup at a far away clinic, and of course the original clinic called right after I racked up $1500 in testing. *sigh*
That is unusual, hopefully your clinic will not have you on ice that long. The way mine works is they match recipients with donors every 2 months. They run a cycle every 2 months also, so all the ERs and ETs happen in a 2 week period every 6 weeks. Once they match you, if you pay the donor fee you get to see the profile. If you don't like the profile AND there is another donor available you MIGHT get to see another profile, but only if another recipient takes your rejected donor. If I knew then what I know now...But this is the only clinic for 300 miles, and we have paid for 3 IVF cycles up front, so I feel stuck.
The option you might want to consider is finding your own donor. Of course she will still have to go through testing through your clinic, but if they don't have anyone now (and often those lists are not made up of "ready to go" donors). One of my IRL friends who has a DE baby (about a year old now) actually found a donor through Craigs.list! Don't know how I would feel about doing that, but it worked for her - they are planning to use the same donor for a sibling within a year or so.
There are also donor agencies you can go through, probably more expensive than the clinic but maybe worth checking out. FYI, the second donor cycle my clinic actually had several available donors to match me with, so it just depends how the chips fall.
If you don't get a date from the clinic, I would just proceed with life and join your team or whatever, and then adjust if you need to. As a professional musician this has been really hard to schedule gigs, because they can never give you definite dates! But so far it has worked out for me (gig-wise, sadly not baby-wise!)
Sorry this is such a novel - hope you have good luck and they call with donor news soon! Please call once a week until they tell you something; someone COULD squeeze ahead of you in line if they bother the staff enough.
Thanks for sharing your experiences, Jill! It helps so much to hear what others have had to deal with. It's hard when you don't know what to expect and you feel like you have no control over the whole process.
Thanks for the comment on my blog - I should tell you that we do know people who did DE in real life, and the resultant girl looks EXACTLY like her mom! It is crazy. You would never guess they weren't genetically related - she looks much more like mom than dad. Keeping her in my mind has helped a lot, because of course I love to look at my son and see how he looks like his cousins, and I wonder if I'll miss that if we get lucky this time. But D doesn't look like ALL his cousins, and maybe new baby will look a lot like daddy's side of the family (or mine, who knows?!)
Riley, I just saw your comment regarding genetics on musicmakermomma's blog and you ripped my heart out (unintentionally, of course) when you said you lost your mom from cancer when you were 20.
I just burst out into tears. I lost my mom 1.5 years ago to cancer too and my hands are just like her hands. I miss her so much and I HATE that she will never meet a precious little one I bring into the world.
Although I've been so unemotional and practical about using donor eggs, when you put it in that context, I know exactly what you mean. YES, if my future baby had my mom's hands or her beautiful smile, it's true that it would have been so special for me.
Thank you for sharing and much luck to you. :)
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