Still on track with everything

Yikes! It's been almost 2 weeks since I've posted anything. I've been catching up on my reading today, having been without much internet access at my parents' lake cottage all last week. It was a wonderful week, though! Mr.Right was there for the long 4th weekend and then the pup (she's 11 months old now!) stayed with me for the rest of the week (along with my parents). Babygirl was kicking up a storm all week! I wasn't sure if it was because I noticed it more - sitting around more than when I'm home - or because she's just more active now. Maybe a little bit of both.

We had the talk with my sister and BIL last night. They were at the lake cottage over the 4th too, but obviously with my parents there and their two little boys running around we didn't get a chance to talk there. So, last night we were going to drive over to their house, but Mr.Right had a cold and our oldest nephew was going to be getting home later than usual (and therefore getting into bed later than usual) and we just decided it would make for a late night to start out the work week. So, we skyped. Yes, we live about an hour's drive from each other on either side of the city, but we skyped nevertheless. Actually, it worked just fine.

So, the upshot of the conversation seemed mostly to be a concern by my sister and BIL that *we* might feel obligated to go through with paying for an IVF cycle with my sister just because she continues to be willing to do so. What with my being pregnant (29 weeks, 1 day!) and it looking like we actually might have a baby at the end of September, they just wanted to make sure we were still really wanting to do this.

With anybody other than my sister, I might be inclined to take this as a polite, but backhanded way of saying that *she* really didn't want to do this anymore. But I know my sister: if she didn't want to do this anymore, I think she'd feel comfortable in just saying that. And my BIL too. And, as Mr.Right pointed out, my sister has been more than willing to do the follow-up consult with Dr.Dry, is already on birth control pills and is making plans for the last little things she needs to wrap up (getting her latest pap smear results faxed over to the clinic; having a phone consult with a lawyer about the draft donor contract we sent them for their review and input). And, presumably, she would be not going forward with these things - or, at least, dragging her feet on them - if it was really the case that she decided she didn't want to move forward.

So, as Mr.Right said, "leave it to your sister to be concerned that *we* might feel obligated to move forward." That's pretty much just who she is.

They also wanted to talk about a bunch of things that really weren't in our scenario set when we last talked all 4 of us together (when I wasn't pregnant yet - although, as Mr.Right pointed out - we probably conceived the next morning after we all sat together on the evening of January 31 deciding to go forward with this.) Like, we'll probably now have a baby genetically linked to both me and Mr.Right and how is a potential younger sibling going to feel when they find out they were conceived differently? I pretty much have decided that given the number of blogs I follow that have siblings from different avenues of conception and/or adoption, somebody out there will probably have some advice to share with us when/if we get there.

And, frankly, there's *always* something that siblings are aware of that they have/don't have compared to the other(s). For me, it was "why did my sister get pretty red hair (and curls too!) and I got this brown hair that nobody oohs and aahs over?" Or, "why did my sister turn out skinny and me fat?" and I know my sister wanted my straight hair. Ok, maybe these are not as big of an issue as, "why did my older sister get mommy's eggs and I got Auntie's eggs?" but I think they're concerns that are at least along the same lines. And who knows, at certain ages, the hair color thing (or the fat/thin thing) might actually feel more important to our child than where the eggs that made them came from.

I was actually more concerned in the discussion with my sister and BIL about whether my sister will feel like all her efforts will have been wasted *if* we somehow miraculously get pregnant with my own eggs again. Or - although this is really inconceivable (ha ha!) at this point - we decide not to have a second child after having a first (or if, god forbid, something happens to me that makes me unable to carry a second baby.) My sister didn't feel like her eggs would be 'losing out' :-) and really didn't think the imposition of injections/retrieval over ~ 14 days of her life was big enough to warrant feeling regret for having gone through this and then having us not use her eggs.

So, it looks like we're still on track. We're tying up some lose ends (that contract; fine-tuning the stim schedule) but we may be at retrieval as early as August 4.

I remarked to Mr.Right later last night that while I think we were both a little nervous and worried about the conversation last night I just marvel at how much less stressful the whole thing is given the fact that I'm pregnant already. I can just imagine how much more desperate I would have felt having this conversation looming if we weren't pregnant.

Anyhow, regarding that pregnancy: BORING! And I love it that way :-)

Went to the OB today and really didn't have much to talk about. We asked a question about tetanus and pertussis vaccinations and the answer was that I'd get a Tdap at the hospital after delivery. We said we might have more questions after our tour of the hospital tomorrow night and childbirth class (the express version) on July 30. Babygirl's heartbeat was 142 and I'm measuring (fundal height) spot on at 29weeks and a couple of days.

We have our monthly growth scan/cervix check ultrasound this coming Wednesday so we'll get to see Babygirl then. I can't wait!!!