Widget
I added a new pregnancy widget. Information at a glance!
Spilling the Beans
We told my circle of IRL friends about the pregnancy at a house party on Sunday. I wasn't sure what I was going to say, but I brought my U/S photos with us. After we had eaten and everyone was just relaxing and talking, I got the envelope and told them I had some photos to show them. I pulled out the most recent u/s pic, held it up for them all to see and just said, "Well, here's our baby at 14 weeks." There was some squealing. Then I started handing around the photos for everyone to see. My friends were sweet and congratulatory and the women wanted to touch my belly (which was fine with me).
The men shook my husband's hand. One of the women said, "I thought you'd gained some weight but I didn't want to say anything." Overall it went pretty well. We didn't say a thing about the embryo adoption or IF or miscarriages or any of that. It was too chaotic with too many people (including one question-asker that rivals my MIL) and I don't want to share all of the details with all of them anyway.
I also telephoned and told my younger sister about the pregnancy. When I described the process of egg donation (which is part of our story to the extent that donor eggs helped make our embryos), she zeroed in on the donor issue. She thought $10,000 - $12,000 would not be enough money to compensate someone for donating 10-20 eggs because such donation would surely hasten the donor's onset of menopause by that many months.
She reasoned that if women are born with all the eggs they will ever have, and she gives dozens away, her menopause will occur as many months sooner as number of eggs she donated. My sister was fixated on this. I don't think she's correct though, because I think we have immature eggs available long after menopause, but we lack sufficient hormone concentrations to mature those eggs. So I think it's an age/availability of hormone issue rather than an egg depletion issue. Anyone out there research this?
At any rate, my sister did congratulate me and was as excited as she is able to get over anything that doesn't directly involve her.
And More Names
Unbelievably my DH and I found TWO boys' names that we both like! This is a landmark achievement, I tell you. We are certainly not settled on it, but it appears that if we have a boy, he will have a name!
Trying to Wait
Finally, I must admit, I'm starting to get excited about learning the baby's gender. I listen to that heartbeat every day and I want to attach an identity to it. My son. My daughter. I want to know who is in there! We'll find out in 25 more days. Unless of course I get Dr. Green at my OB appointment on the 16th and can talk him into taking a peek!
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12 comments:
Yikes! Your sister is surely a compassionate soul, but has a crappy sense of timing. COuldn't she have waited until the phone call was over and googled herself some answers?
My understanding is that lots of follicles "try" every month, but only one becomes an egg. Fertility drugs just encourage all of that month's follicles to make a mature egg. Women are born with a jillion possible eggs, and lose them throughout their life - even before the first period. Let your sister know that she herself loses about 20 follicles a month!
Anyway, YAY for the name thing - it really can be stressful if it drags on forever and there doesn't seem to be a chance for agreement. (Yes, I know this from experience.) So two names is great - you can live with them for a while and see what you think over time. Good luck with some girl names - and with that sneak-peek u/s on the 16th!
Oh, I am so pleased that the telling of your friends went well. I agree that telling about DE would just have been overkill at that point.
Your sister sounds rather like mine-- singularly focused on her own thougts. But I am glad she was happy for you. I have actually read that some long-term egg donors do end up in menopause early which is why fertility clinics generally ask that egg donors have had their own children before donating. I think there is some dissention among researchers on this point though.
Yay for name agreement. Baby boy BWUB is not a great name to go to kindergarten with.
And I am utterly excited that you plan to find out the sex in advance. I simply do not understand people who choose to find out at delivery. The suspense would kill me!
oh so very happy to hear that you have shared the news. It is an amazing place to be, people are truly happy for you and want to be a part of it.
and yay for two boy names....can't wait to hear what you are having so very very exciting. i can't believe you are already in yoru 17th week, does it feel like it has gone fast?
oh and I am sure that I read that baby girls develop 7 million eggs in uetero, and by the time they are born they have 2 million that will be available so I don't think your donor is in any danger of running out :)
Glad you are telling peeps! I would have been that psycho asking all the questions at the party LOL! Excited you have some names! Can't wait to find out what they are! Hugs!
Reading this post just makes me happy.
I'm not telling anyone about our (surrogate) pregnancy for a long, long time, but just this morning I was thinking that L and I will never be able to agree on a boy's name. So many congrats on finding (omigost) TWO of them.
That's great that you got such a good reaction from your group of friends. you definitely deserve some squealing and support!!
Interesting question about the donor's egg supply as typically these donors are college age or early 20's, and have not necessarily had their own kids yet. But my worry would be more around the effects of taking the fertility drugs vs. the loss of 20 eggs.
But that does seem a little odd that your sis focussed in on that right away in this first phone call. I guess everyone's different!
Very exciting to find out the gender - looking forward to hearing all about it, especially since I've delayed my surprise! :)
I agree with Lorraine, doing IVF and recruting lots of eggs each time does not in any way put you into menopause earlier. All of those eggs would have been wasted during a regular, non-medicated cycle anyway. I too was curious, so I did some research and that's what I found. Isn't it interesting what people fixate on though, when they hear about things that they're not familiar with? I'm glad she's excited for you, but wish she would have not worried about the details until after your phone call.
Yay for a pregnancy ticker! It looks great on your sidebar and I like how it gives you lots of info on how far you've come and how far you have to go.
Well, you are definitely a step ahead of us as far as names are concerned! We've really not spent much time on it thus far and should probably start taking it a bit more seriously. I think we will probably end up taking a short list to the hospital with us and then deciding once we see her. I hope you get Dr. Green and you are able to convince him to give you a quick peek of your little one...I can't wait to find out what you're having!
Love the new widget and happy that you are "out"!
optimisticallyhopeful is correct about the egg thing. I asked (and read) about this awhile back. In a natural cycle, those "extra" eggs just disappear. They could not have been saved, or stored, or otherwise kept in reserve. So, essentially, all stimulated cycles do is try to mature all of the eggs that would be there anyway.
Oy! So much fun and goodness! I love friends, because they're the family you choose, which means they're more likely to react EXACTLY how you want them to. Your family is just that- family, and you have to love them no matter what their weird nigglings are. All systems go, people are happy, even if they ask weird questions that in truth, dont matter to you or your situation. If anything, it just means the donor is even more awesome.
Congrats on all the fun times!
Its such a common missconception that IVF will speed you into menopause quicker. It's just not true!
We grow a certain number of antral follicles each month - usually just one of those becomes dominant and is the one egg that is actually ovulated; the rest short of shrivel and those eggs are lost too. In IVF they try to make more of those antrals mature in one cycle, but the total number of eggs (mature, immature) lost is the same each cycle. This animation might help explain it better: http://www.fertilitylifelines.com/fertilitytreatments/assistedreproductivetechnologies.jsp
For the same reason you don't preserve your fertility while on BCPs - you still dump a bunch of eggs that don't mature each month even while you are preventing ovulation. Bummer because I was on the pill for 10 years!
I think that if someone decides to be an egg donor they are not doing it for the money. It is done normally because they understand the pain IF can cause. It's a hard one though because they've given you the ultimate gift haven't they?
How exciting to be telling your friends, I still get excited when I speak to someone who doesn't know and they notice the bump. Sharing the news always makes it seem so _real_ like a reaffirmation of the fact that it's really all happening iykwim :)
I'm so glad your sister is happy for you, how weird for her to be so fixated on the donor eggs though.
Lucky you finding two boys names you both like!!! I'm so jealous, boys names are so hard.
I can't wait until you find out the gender of your bubs, knowing if you have a little prince or princess is another of those awesome gooey-feeling milestones that can't fail to make you feel amazing.
I really have no idea of your sister is right or not but as someone who was seriously considering egg donation, that part wouldn't really change my mind anyways. Even if she is right.......so what? I still would have done it. To be honest, now that I am done and dealing with post-birth menses, I say BRING ON MENOPAUSE PLEASE. But that's another story.........
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