And we're off and running!

Argh! I've been neglecting my blog. Time to update quickly:

It was a wonderful evening with my sister and BIL last Thursday night discussing my sister's offer to donate eggs. We were pretty sure the offer still stood, but, of course, wanted to give them every opportunity once hearing a bit more detail from us to say no. It was a very easy conversation, mostly filled with details and logistics, and lots of reasonable thought. I swear, the psych people are going to be blown away by how non-dysfunctional my family is, how amazingly emotionally mature my sister is and how incredibly realistic she is about things.

We actually didn't leave with, in our minds at least, a definite yes. We didn't want to push them to give us an answer that evening. We saw each other again on Friday afternoon at my parents' house and through the weekend until Sunday when we all drove home. So, Mr.Right and I were discussing on Sunday afternoon whether I should contact my sister this week and just say we wanted them to take as much time as they needed to discuss and just let us know whenever.

[side note: Lest you think my life is all positivity (ha!), in the intervening weekend, I had a bit of a tough time. We spent the weekend with 7 kids 5 years old and under (my nephews and my cousins' kids) and even though I wouldn't have done anything else or given the weekend up for the world, it was just hard. Mostly, I think because I just kept thinking about how by next Christmas when we get together again things probably won't be that different from this year. That is: I won't have a child with me by next Christmas. Yes, if any of this donor egg stuff actually works, I *might* be pregnant (or might not), but I won't be at the family gathering with a child of my own most likely.]

But, before I could do that, my sister emailed me yesterday to give me dates in the next few weeks which she would have free to go to an appointment with our doctor! So, in retrospect, I think they probably left last Thursday's conversation thinking they had said 'yes.'

I emailed our nurse yesterday afternoon to give her and our doctor the heads-up that we had decided to pursue using my sister's eggs. And this morning I called to make an appointment. Unfortunately, the earliest he had available was Jan. 19. But then it turned out my sister couldn't do that day so I called back this afternoon to reschedule. And miracle of miracles!!! Our doc had a cancellation for this Friday afternoon! And my sister had already said she would be willing to take a half day this Friday if we could get an appointment. Unfortunately, Mr.Right won't be able to join in the appointment because we were supposed to drive Friday morning to a work-related meeting he has Friday afternoon and Saturday about 4 hours drive away. He'll still go, but obviously I'm staying to go to the appointment with my sister. But, he's ok with that. I figure that our doc will mostly want to take my sister's history and talk to us about how we'll proceed.

Anyhow, it's exciting that things are moving forward! I absolutely know that there's a large chance something will go awry along the way (it always does in the realm of infertility, doesn't it?) but at least we're moving forward - and with some speed!

I could go on - and probably should at some later date - about the actual details of our discussion with my sister and BIL. It was really interesting, but none of what was said was really very surprising. We talked about a lot of scenarios, wanting to make sure each other were comfortable with dealing with them, e.g. what if we don't do PGD and the fetus turns out (via CVS test or NT scan) to be genetically abnormal: would they be ok with us terminating (again)? And what if we needed to 'reduce' in order not to have triplets? And what if the child was born, but ended up having some chronic illness or disability: how would they (and really my sister) feel? These are all questions that will be asked of us again in the counseling session, but it was really good to air the questions and to the extent that we could each answer them, know that we're pretty much on the same page about everything.