How did you wrap your head around donor egg?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Donor egg may be in the cards for us. We were first adamantly opposed but I'm coming to terms that there may be no other way we can have another child with my eggs (bad bad DOR and 35yo).

How did you wrap your head around this option? Did it meet your expectations? Was it super expensive? How did others treat you when you told them? What will you tell your child about his/her genetics? THank you in advance.

Infertility is a process where I ended up re-drawing the line in the sand several times. I cannot pass on my genes, but I still want a child. I felt guilty that maybe I let down my family of origin, but in the end, I love my DH and want to have his child. So we did DE. Even though we got a bunch of PGD normal embryos with DE, none of them stuck so far, we did 3 transfers of singletons. I am hoping at least one will stick eventually. If not, maybe do another round of DE and try a surrogate, which I still haven't quite wrapped by head around...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Donor egg may be in the cards for us. We were first adamantly opposed but I'm coming to terms that there may be no other way we can have another child with my eggs (bad bad DOR and 35yo).

How did you wrap your head around this option? Did it meet your expectations? Was it super expensive? How did others treat you when you told them? What will you tell your child about his/her genetics? THank you in advance.

Infertility is a process where I ended up re-drawing the line in the sand several times. I cannot pass on my genes, but I still want a child. I felt guilty that maybe I let down my family of origin, but in the end, I love my DH and want to have his child. So we did DE. Even though we got a bunch of PGD normal embryos with DE, none of them stuck so far, we did 3 transfers of singletons. I am hoping at least one will stick eventually. If not, maybe do another round of DE and try a surrogate, which I still haven't quite wrapped by head around...

so sorry to hear... did your RE have any ideas as to why PGD embryos arent sticking?

[Anonymous]

I started my infertility journey not even wanting to do an IUI because it felt so invasive. One IUI, two failed IVF cycles later and I am in the DE process now.
We thought about adoption, but I wanted the experience of carrying a child, the control over the maternal environment, and frankly the money back guarantee that my clinic offers. Having my wonderful husband genetically related is a huge bonus.
This might sound whack (maybe not to dog lovers), but I kept thinking about how much I love my dogs and how nothing could make me love them anymore...so how in the world after carrying a much wanted child for 9 months could I possibly not fall madly in love with the baby? Again, that might sound weird to people, but it was part of my reasoning, and this is my experience.
I won't say that I haven't had momemts of sadness thinking that the child will not have any parts of me, but the feeling of joy I get when I imagine holding a baby surpasses those feelings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Donor egg may be in the cards for us. We were first adamantly opposed but I'm coming to terms that there may be no other way we can have another child with my eggs (bad bad DOR and 35yo).

How did you wrap your head around this option? Did it meet your expectations? Was it super expensive? How did others treat you when you told them? What will you tell your child about his/her genetics? THank you in advance.

It took me about a year to wrap my head around DE. After 3 failed IUIs at 41 (complete waste of time and money), a very kind nurse gently mentioned donor egg. And I just burst out crying. I said I could "never" have "another woman's child." I had 2 more (failed) IVFs, and I quit trying. I was going to have an only. After a year of trying to come to grips with that, I slowly started to warm up to the idea of DE. I talked to my husband about it and he never had opposition to DE. I was open to the idea of adoption, why not DE? The baby would be genetically 1/2 my husband's. By the time we made the appt with the RE, I was 80% on board with the idea. I did a lot of research, did a lot of soul searching and we moved ahead several months later. We did the SG shared-risk program -- i think it was about $35,000. (we drained savings.) My first cycle failed, which was a huge shock because DE is the answer, right? We chose a new donor -- young and proven! -- and I wasn't optimistic -- we transferred 2 morula. And I was pregnant! And I had a beautiful baby girl 2 years ago.

We didn't tell a whole lot of people. Our families don't know. Only about 3 close friends. When I was pregnant and when she was born, I was 100% about telling her about "her story" at an early age. Now I'm wavering. I will tell her one day, but I don't know when. As part of the DE process at SG, you go to a counselor and discuss this issue.

Best of luck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:35 seems a bit young to do donor egg. Even though you have DOR, the eggs you do produce will probably be high quality. Do your IVF protocols start with birth control pills? If so, this is over-suppressing you. I would consider trying a protocol that does not start with BCP's before moving onto donor egg.

What types of protocols are those?

Estrogen priming protocol and natural cycle IVF are the two I know of.

[Anonymous]

We tried for 4 years for a second baby- it was torture- I just could not handle doing another IVF with my own eggs. It took a while to wrap my head around donor eggs, but I read a lot (check out PVED.org), talked to a friend that had gone through it, and just felt that starting the adoption process was too overwhelming to take on after everything we had gone through. We chose a donor after a couple of months of looking and pondering it all. First cycle was ectopic. Second was BFN. Third cycle worked and we now have a 1 year old. He's amazing. Best decision we made and we feel thankful every day that we have this miracle baby as part of our family. Our older child is 6 and is just in love with him.
It feels SO overwhelming and all-consuming when you start the process, but I promise it gets easier. Good luck!

[Anonymous]

I'm not sure...after so many losses, IVF for years, we just wanted a sib for our other child. There was no end in sight for the heartache we had been thru so it seemed like the sanest decision. We went with a donor and had a baby, best damn decision we ever made, we love this child so much, I can't even imagine not having her in my life. We have another donor embryo, and we didn't plan on having 3 but I really want to transfer the embryo because of how much we love #2.

[Anonymous]

Any donor egg mothers have children that are now teenagers or older? I’m interested in how older children process the news that they are not genetically related to their mother.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Any donor egg mothers have children that are now teenagers or older? I’m interested in how older children process the news that they are not genetically related to their mother.

My understanding is that a lot of it depends on how the news is delivered and when. Most encourage early, open discussion with DE children. I also understand from the counselor that DE isn't like adoption, in that the child won't feel a loss of their birth parents or abandonment, and that the tendency is for DE children to be more curious about possible siblings than feeling disconnected to their birth parents, assuming they don't feel betrayed by the fact that DE was kept secret from them.

Unfortunately, the only teen DE kids I know personally don't know that they're DE (at least I think that's the case) so I can't talk to them about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm not sure...after so many losses, IVF for years, we just wanted a sib for our other child. There was no end in sight for the heartache we had been thru so it seemed like the sanest decision. We went with a donor and had a baby, best damn decision we ever made, we love this child so much, I can't even imagine not having her in my life. We have another donor embryo, and we didn't plan on having 3 but I really want to transfer the embryo because of how much we love #2.

Did you do donor embryo or donor egg?

[Anonymous]

We had our first DE child when I was 32. I think it took me almost a year to come to terms with the fact that an OE child wasn't in the books for me. Then it took me 3 months looking at profiles before I found a donor I was satisfied. That all being said, I love my child more than I could have ever imagined. I occasionally have a slight ping of sadness that she doesn't look like me (which could happen with a genetic child) but I have more joy than anything else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We had our first DE child when I was 32. I think it took me almost a year to come to terms with the fact that an OE child wasn't in the books for me. Then it took me 3 months looking at profiles before I found a donor I was satisfied. That all being said, I love my child more than I could have ever imagined. I occasionally have a slight ping of sadness that she doesn't look like me (which could happen with a genetic child) but I have more joy than anything else.

how much all told did it cost? even if i get past the emotional part, i'm worried that it will be cost-prohibitive

[Anonymous]

42-year-old. 3 years of struggle. Will not consider donor eggs, would rather be childless.

[Anonymous]

I would think at 35, you still potentially have a good egg in there. We went through approx 50 eggs before we got my son. I was 29 at the time when I got the DE speech after 2 horrible rounds of IVF (no blasts) and got pregnant 2 months later spontaneously. That speech was almost 4 years ago and I just found out I'm pregnant again spontaneously. My AMH was 0.36 in Nov so low AMH and multiple IVF failures isn't necessarily a death sentence.

I also know someone who had a similar diagnosis as me- endo, DOR who chose to use DE several years ago when she was 31 after 1 bad round of IVF. 3 months after she delivered that baby, she found out she was pregnant, spontaneously.

I personally wouldn't use DE until you are absolutely sure your eggs are worthless and/or 37+.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would think at 35, you still potentially have a good egg in there. We went through approx 50 eggs before we got my son. I was 29 at the time when I got the DE speech after 2 horrible rounds of IVF (no blasts) and got pregnant 2 months later spontaneously. That speech was almost 4 years ago and I just found out I'm pregnant again spontaneously. My AMH was 0.36 in Nov so low AMH and multiple IVF failures isn't necessarily a death sentence.

I also know someone who had a similar diagnosis as me- endo, DOR who chose to use DE several years ago when she was 31 after 1 bad round of IVF. 3 months after she delivered that baby, she found out she was pregnant, spontaneously.

I personally wouldn't use DE until you are absolutely sure your eggs are worthless and/or 37+.

Congrats!! What did you do after the 2 IVF cycles? You just tried naturally?