All's Clear

Sonogram this morning went well. Everything looks fine and I start my birth control pills today. Tentative retrieval date is October 5th, but probably I will go on the 4th. Last time was the only time I didn't trigger a day early and I'm sure that's because I was taking my shots at 2 or 3am instead of the middle evening (it was dissertation writing time, after all). This time, I'm going to make sure we go early by taking them earlier in the day. I have people coming on the 6th, so going a day LATE is not an option. The 5th will be ok, but the 4th, which is what I expect, will be even better. That will give me a full day to recover if I feel crappy like I did last time.

I'm just good. Period.

Ok. So nay two hours after my last post, my period started. Tomorrow I'll be heading in for the sonogram.

This is good. I'm going to the beach next weekend, and it would have ruined everything to have my period then. I don't do tampons. At all. Every couple years I reconsider, buy a pack, and try it. The feeling of that thing up there gives me exactly the same feeling as nails on a chalkboard. Dry cotton rubbing on my internals. Ick. I'm giving myself the willies just thinking about it. SO, beach weekend is saved. YAY!

Examining my schedule, I could have a retrieval on October 5th or 6th. It couldn't be over the weekend after that because I have people coming in to visit. If the 5th or 6th won't work, I'm going to request a start of the stims on the 6th (so no sonograms over the weekend), and then a retrieval on the 15th or 16th. I should have a schedule tomorrow, and that will be great.

Documentary

I have had the pleasure of interacting with Cat Ashworth as she makes her documentary film, Beating the Biological Clock. It is about women who choose to get pregnant through egg donation, and it follows three of them through the process.

She sent me a link to her website (http://beatingthebiologicalclock.com). Among the clips on this page is a look at one of the doctors at my clinic, Dr. Z. This is your first look at just one of the many men who have seen me naked.


p.s. Still waiting on my period to get started on this donation. I have looooong cycles off the pill, and haven't been off it enough since high school to know whether they are regular or not. I'm feeling the twinges that suggest maybe today - update soon.

The Babies

I have done 6 donations so far. Assuming the average 27% rate of multiples, there should be about 8 babies. So I've put together this photo montage.

Dating and Donating?

First off, thank you all for your supportive comments on the last post. It's always nice for people to wish your ex's penis to fall off :)

I have no plans to date for quite a while. I'm very happy not dating. I am very happy to be by myself, not worrying about accommodating anyone else for any reason. But looking to the future, like the next year or so, I assume there will be dating. I don't envision 12 months of celibacy.

I wonder about how the egg donation thing comes up. It's obviuosly not a necessary first date topic, but at what point should that be introduced? Once they start coming to the house, the syringes all over the place would probably look suspicious. Even if well hidden, the frequent doctor visits and whining about puffy ovaries would give it away eventually. My intuition is that it would just naturally come up before the point where it would affect sex or anything. I am curious about the average male response. My husband was supportive and in favor of it, though he didn't really show any interest in the details (I go "Honey, I have two follicles that are 37, and one of them is like a cucumber - it's like 27 X 5!" and he goes "Oh.").

Any insight into what I should expect?

Two(2) More

When the phone rings at my house at 9:30 in the morning, there are two possibilities:

1) Someone is about to incur my wrath for waking me up, or
2) I've been picked for another donation cycle

Today was one of those #2 days, AND I wasn't just picked for one cycle. I was picked for two. I'll do one, take a month of birth control, and then go into the second. Ah...just like the old days. I have absolutely loved these few months with no birth control pills, but I have also missed the people at the clinic and the whole process. Plus, what glories this will do for my newly independent housefund.

Newly independent housefund, you ask? Yes. I was thinking about posting about this, but held off because I don't think I had the energy. I'm getting divorced. My husband moved out last weekend, and the divorce will be finalized in a couple months. Sort of ironically, the main reason for the divorce is chidren: he wants them, I don't. We had agreed *well* before we got married that we weren't going to have kids. Then last week he tells me that he SAID he didn't want to have kids hoping that I would eventually become "more human" and want them. Fucker. I have tried to keep the whole thing as amicable as possible, and he will probably still be driving me to the office for the actual retrieval, but the whole thing is messed up. My totally uneducated guess is that there are probably 8 children out there that came about from my eggs (maybe more), and yet I'm getting divorced about the same thing*.


In any case, I now have my very own house fund (though diminished by half), and these egg donations will do a lot to make that better. SO, the status is that my last period was June 25th, I'll probably have my next around August 30th (I have long cycles), and then start in. That also means more regular posts are in the not-too-distant future :)




*Note: I think this is one of his main reasons, but I really just think he also wanted his own, independent life with no one to answer to. So I count this kid issue as a big reason, but not the only one.