Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Starting

This baby quest has consumed my life. Don't get me wrong, I cannot wait to finally see that plus sign on the stick and deliver a healthy baby. It is getting to that point that is making me crazy.

A little history for you. I am a 37 year old divorced woman. The divorce was official last October. I didn't have any children with my husband, but was pregnant twice and lost both the babies....one very early in the pregnancy and the 2nd when I was in my 11th week. I was absolutely devastated. Even my ex telling me he wanted a divorce was not nearly as horrible as losing my babies....which could be a sympton of why the marriage didn't work. My mom calls my ex "the rat bastard". I don't want this to be about him at all, so I hope to not mention him too much ever.

After dating for awhile after the divorce, I realized that I want a child more than I want a relationship. I am smart enough to know that settling on someone isn't worth it, I don't want to have to share custody of a child, so a quick little jaunt to the local bar of desperation didn't appeal...so I thought "why not?" and spoke with my ob/gyn about getting pregnant on my own. I absolutely adore my ob. He is supportive, caring and fabulous. The first time I met him was after my first miscarriage. I originally asked co-workers who their wives used. One recommended this woman in a practice, so I made an appointment with her. Before I could make it to the 6 week appointment, I started spotting then lost the baby. When I went in for a checkup the next day, my dr of choice was busy. So I waited and waited until a nurse finally asked if I would see a different doctor - a man. I originally only wanted a female. I have had female drs since one REALLY bad experience at Planned Parenthood when I was younger. But I was a wreck and just wanted this appointment over, so I agreed. It was one of the better decisions of my life. When the dr walked in, my first thought was "oh shit, he is freaking hot!". But after he sat and talked to me for awhile, I could totally get past his beauty. Don't get me wrong, I still think he is hot and fabulous, but he is just such a good doctor, I don't dwell on it.

So, we discussed options and he gave me the sites for a couple sperm banks. Now, if there is one thing in life I love, it is shopping. Shoes and purses especially. But this shopping was so surreal. I was shopping for half of my future child's dna. Did I want straight hair or curly? Thick lips or thin? Medium toned skin or fair? Did I want the donor to share my physical traits? Or did I care if they were completely different? It was utterly overwhelming. I finally decided that the best way to start weeding guys out was to read their profile, staff impressions, etc and ask myself one important question: "Would I sleep with them? " Crazy, but it helped.

After weeks of searching, I thought I had found my perfect donor. He had dark, curly hair, green eyes, medium skin and a thin, straight nose. He seemed to be a good mix of social, smart and athletic. I didn't want super smart or super athletic...just somewhere in the middle. Plus, to my shame, I was swayed by the little "staff observation" comment section for donor 1957. "...has a lean, athletic build and is very attractive. He has perfect skin and amazing light green eyes." Now, I am not excessively vain, but how wrong of me is it to want to give my future child as much of a head start as possible? So, I bought as much of his sperm as I could.

I had 4 attempts where I would take Chlomid, then get a shot to stimulate ovulation and have an IUI done. None worked. When you are trying so desperately to get pregnant, the two weeks between the procedure and when you period could start are torture. Am I? Aren't I? Should I move this couch? Do anything physical? It is horrible. I think it is worse because of my history of miscarriage. Even though doctors tell you that nothing you did caused the loss, I will always feel responsible. Obviously I must have done something to cause the death of these babies, as it was my body that did it. So that makes me even more frantic to try and do everything correctly.

So, after 4 attempts my beloved doctor told me to move on to a specialist....where instead of taking chlomid and having mild hot flashes, I will be taking hormone injections daily and having major hot flashes and mood swings. Joy. And to make it better, my fabulous donor has a non-compatible CMV test result. Which my beloved dr didn't ask about...evidently, that is some question only a specialist asks. So not only do I get to move on to a dr I don't really know, I now must start my donor search ALL over again. And lose well over $1500, since I have 5 units of my fabulous donor in storage.

I don't know anyone else who is in my situation. One friend experienced difficulty in getting pregnant, but she is married and was lucky enough to deliver a wonderful little boy. My sister-in-law, whom I absolutely adore, can get pregnant when my brother sneezes in her direction. So I am turning to the web....sharing my thoughts and feelings. Hopefully it will help me to express some of my feelings.

But I have NEVER done this before - I finally broke down and created a myspace page, but only because I was totally pressured. It is completely barren (he he, kind of like me) with no frills. I hope to play with this to see if I can jazz it up. We shall see.