And we're off.....bye bye, my own eggs

Here we are, again.  But there's no going back this time.  There's no last, did-it-on-our-own just before moving on to donor egg embryos. This is it.  I'm starting birth control pills on Saturday.

In some ways it was a relief.  My past few cycles had been 23 or 24 days long and, as usual, my body decide to eff with me and make this one 26 days long - just so I might get my hopes up that we'd actually pulled off another miracle.  It is a relief, though, to get on with it.  To get the HSG, mock ET, bloodwork, mammogram all scheduled within the next 21 days. [Oh yeah, and just for good measure, an appt with my OB/Gyn for a biopsy of 2 white spots she discovered while doing my annual exam/pap test this past Tuesday - yay for me :-/  ]

Since E can't go with me (no children allowed) to the HSG and mock ET, it was weighing on my mind about how I would get it all scheduled within the the 2 mornings/week that we have a babysitter.  But, as soon as it became CD 1 an hour or so ago, I got on the phone with my clinic and got everything scheduled.  Even scheduled such that I can still take E and the pup to my parents' lake cottage in 3 weeks.

I can't tell you how many times a day (like, every second of the last 2 days) I spent thinking - what if I'm pregnant with my own eggs again?  I so thought I was done with all those mind games.  A lot of the time it would lead me down a road of fantasizing about having another child with my eggs and what a great 'story' it would be about how my body responded well to pressure/deadline (i.e. with the threat of going to donor eggs the very next cycle.)  On the other hand, I did also worry that any pregnancy with my eggs might also lead us down the not-genetically-viable path again - given my age (42 next week!) and history.

So, here we are.  And, really, it isn't even that great of a shot with the 5 frozen embryos we have which were made with my sister's eggs.  They were frozen on day 1 so we really know nothing about their quality.  The plan is to thaw all 5 and see what we get.  We can re-freeze once if there are enough to re-freeze.  We've had the discussion about how many to transfer (if there are any to transfer), but we're going to wait and make a decision based on what the embryos look like.  I'm pretty terrified about having 2 embryos implant and then losing both just based on the difficulties of twin pregnancies (and a twin pregnancy at the age of 42 - although I had a super-healthy pregnancy at the age of 41).  I'd rather transfer one at a time and not run the risk of having no take-home-baby.

At the same time as I'm finding myself revving up all these fertility-procedure obsessions, I do sometimes remind myself:  we already have our miracle.  And she's enough.  Even if nothing works out (and we've already told ourselves we would probably try anonymous donor egg if none of the embryos from my sister's eggs works out.)  We have a beautiful, gorgeous daughter.  Yes, we'd love to give her a sibling.  I'd love to be pregnant again.  I'd love to parent another child - who inevitably (and not because they won't be from my eggs) will be different - as siblings always are - and will present different challenges to us as parents.

For all the pain we went through getting to this point, I really am grateful that I can approach this round of fertility treatments from a much different perspective now.  But I'll never forget how desperate I felt the first time around.  And I realize that for many out there, that desperation continues.  I am truly lucky that we are where we are.

Our miracle is 8 months old today: