And if it works...

I've been a little hesitant to write about this round of treatment. I'm nervous. Really nervous. Amazingly excited and hopeful but at the same time completely freaked out. I am back to feeling normal again, my depression is under control, my every waking thought isn't about how desperate I am to have a child. I am risking putting myself back in those dark places, but I guess that's the trade. I've always been happy to make the trade in the past, but with each failure it is harder and harder to convince yourself that it is worth it. We should be cycling in the next couple of weeks as long as my body cooperates. We are starting with the oldest embryos (from the early 00's) as they need to be used before the ten year restriction kicks in. It's a long shot, but it's the only shot we've got. And if it works...

It's been a while

So I've been an absent friend of late. The last couple of months were quite difficult but I am definitely on the other side of that now thank goodness. Easter is upon us, and it's been a great reminder to me to reflect and appreciate all the great things I have in my life.

We've been on a bit of a rollercoaster of late. We were offered some embryo's in South Africa by a lovely lady, but due to the restrictions over there on donor limits, we were unable to pursue that further. Then I received an email from another lady through this blog who offered to be my egg donor. What a generous offer! But that started getting me worked up about having to deal with fertilisation and what happens if something goes wrong. Plus all the counselling, waiting periods, and putting somebody else through the hell of IVF just for me. To be honest, that last bit affected me the most. I don't want to put anyone else out to help me, especially considering our rate of failure. It just wouldn't be worth it to me, because we know that it always ends in abject failure.

But we had a little miracle happen on Wednesday. Every second month I call our clinic to check on our progress in the waiting list for donor embryos. Each time we get the polite no, nobody has brought their forms back, or no embryos are currently available. I don't pin my hopes on these calls, but it's progress of a sort.

On Thursday I got the same response followed by a 'but'. That one word gave me hope. The clinic coordinator said that she has three single embryos (ie from three separate couples) that she keeps aside as a back up in case somebody else's embryos don't thaw out. They have been now offered to us to use one at a time! I don't know much about these embryos at the moment, we are being sent out profiles on them next week, but I do know that the age of the females at the time the eggs were retrieved were 31, 32 and 35.

We have to attend counselling again as this is different to previous treatment as I will not be genetically related (obviously) to our possible child. Counselling is booked in for next Thursday, and hopefully in a months time we can proceed with our embryo transfer! I can't believe it! I have been walking around with this dopey grin on my face for the last couple of days, just so excited that this has fallen into our lap.

I'm starting to come back to life.