I got the 6 vials of sperm I wanted reserved. If you order 6 you get 20% off and free storage at the bank for a year. I won't need any until my June cycle but that is an added bonus in case ... craziest of crazies ... I get a BFP this or next cycle. If not, it is good to know that it is stored safely and that if anything goes wrong it is the bank's fault and they have to deal with it, not me. Plus I'm relieved that I'm stocked up on sperm until and including my November cycle. So nice not to have to deal with them for a while. ;-)
In other news, nothing much going on this cycle. It is possible I ovulated but I don't actually know. I've been taking my temps orally as well and I've been continuing that. It seems like I did have a temp shift but who knows. And with progesterone suppositories I can't judge anything based on CM. I've got leakage all the time but especially at the worst of times like getting up from the table after a farewell lunch for a colleague. Nothing like feeling the progesterone ooze right then.
I am super happy it is the Easter long weekend, or as I'm calling it this year the Canadian Federal Election Advance Polling Long Weekend. lol I don't have much that I have to get done this weekend except for my taxes and some cooking so I think I might just cast my vote this weekend just to break the monotony. Oh, and I get to start it off with a new episode of Vam.pire Dia.ries and by picking up a Synt.hroid prescription. But I am annoyed the stores are closed tomorrow. Why can't I buy groceries tomorrow? Why???
Showing posts with label donor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label donor. Show all posts
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
What Didn't You Understand?
I really don't know what is wrong with the reps at my sperm bank. What is so hard to understand about 'please hit reply all so that I get your reply at work tomorrow'??? Honestly, can this woman not figure out what this means?
Yesterday, they had 6 washed vials of backup donor #2 available. The other backup I was looking has no vials currently available but more will be arriving next week. I've had crappy luck with donors leaving the program, donors selling out within 24 hours, etc. that I thought I'd better jump on this one. I told the rep last night by email that I wanted those 6 vials but I didn't need them until June and wanted to know about my storage options.
I kept checking my junk mail folder at work today. Nothing from her. But I had a couple messages about the upcoming law society bencher elections in there. When I got home I checked my email. Sure enough, she replied before 10 am and requested that I fill out the order form (which isn't even a form!) and she'd hold them until the end of the day! OMG! What didn't she understand about my request to copy me at work? My message was only 2 sentences long so she couldn't have gotten lost in my prose.
I wrote back saying politely that if she had copied me at work like I had requested I could have ordered everything this morning. If those vials are no longer available I might just complain. If their services weren't so desperately needed this company would go out of business ... quickly.
Don't even get me started on their crappy unsearchable website.
Yesterday, they had 6 washed vials of backup donor #2 available. The other backup I was looking has no vials currently available but more will be arriving next week. I've had crappy luck with donors leaving the program, donors selling out within 24 hours, etc. that I thought I'd better jump on this one. I told the rep last night by email that I wanted those 6 vials but I didn't need them until June and wanted to know about my storage options.
I kept checking my junk mail folder at work today. Nothing from her. But I had a couple messages about the upcoming law society bencher elections in there. When I got home I checked my email. Sure enough, she replied before 10 am and requested that I fill out the order form (which isn't even a form!) and she'd hold them until the end of the day! OMG! What didn't she understand about my request to copy me at work? My message was only 2 sentences long so she couldn't have gotten lost in my prose.
I wrote back saying politely that if she had copied me at work like I had requested I could have ordered everything this morning. If those vials are no longer available I might just complain. If their services weren't so desperately needed this company would go out of business ... quickly.
Don't even get me started on their crappy unsearchable website.
Monday, April 18, 2011
Where For Art Thou O?
Yep, my O seems to be missing. No, not that one. Or the magazine by the same name. I'm talking about this month's ovulation. It seems to be nowhere in sight. I'm very worried.
According to my blood work I had an LH surge on Friday meaning ovulation soon. The clinic always does the IUI the day after an LH surge which works out roughly to 24 hours later. On Saturday, I had my IUI. Not long after that I noticed that my CM dried up. That's usually a very reliable clue to me of ovulation. My pelvic pain also went away. I had sharp pelvic pain Friday night but it was gone on Saturday. I got excited because I thought this meant that at least I O'd this month. I was still worried about timing, though, thinking that my egg might not have made it past 12 hours.
Yesterday I took my temp at the regular time. It went up 0.1 degrees F and thought that was odd but wasn't worried. This morning? My temp actually dropped 0.2 degrees F! OMG! I took my temp orally first and it was up 0.8 degrees F but my oral temps are all over the place, hence the switch to vaginal temping. I redid my vaginal temp ... twice ... and it was 0.1 degrees F down from yesterday's then 0.2 degrees F down.
I called the nurses and left them a message telling them that I might not have ovulated based on my temps and I'm worried. I want a progesterone test to confirm ovulation. Okay, I don't know if I ticked them off or something but I got a message back (of course, they call while I'm in a meeting) and the nurse just doesn't seem to understand what I was saying. She said I had a surge and it was too early to test. (Flashback: the last time I requested confirmation of O because of spotting issues the nurse, same one I think, was a bit snotty in saying there was no way I couldn't ovulate with an LH surge. Honest to god ... they really don't know my file ... I have PCOS and an LH surge means O is NOT guaranteed like in 'normal' women.)
I thought I was clear. I said I had a surge on Friday, IUI on Saturday and I haven't yet seen a temp rise 2dpIUI. This has never happened before. And I was supposed to start progesterone today which I refused to do because it will give me a false temp rise tomorrow. I want a blood test to make sure I ovulated especially since I have a follow up with my Dr. on Monday. If I didn't ovulate my Dr. needs to know this so she can add whatever drugs I need to make my first Clo.mid cycle a success which for me at this point simply means ovulation. I'm very ticked off at the nurse. What is so hard to understand about "I don't think I ovulated, I want a progesterone test"?
And today I've been experiencing increased pelvic pain on the right side again. I swear I need to take an ovulation test at home to see if I'm still pre-O. Why is this so difficult?
On the positive side, I might have found a new donor. Of the 20 whose profiles I requested, I received 19. I also wanted to know the vial and count numbers because I'm not attaching myself to a donor only to find out he has 1-2 vials left. I think the rep is a little annoyed with me. But hey, if your company provided better information off the bat on your website like Xy.tex does most of my issues wouldn't be issues. So, of those 19 I excluded 7 who have no reported pregnancies. My bank's website missed 4 of those, i.e. only 3 were listed as having no reported pregnancies. Okay, so now I'm down to 12 possibles = 10% of the original 114. I excluded 4 more because the donor's physical characteristics are so different from my family's any child who looked like the donor wouldn't fit in at all. Leaving me with a whopping 8 donor profiles to look at = 7%. Of those 7 there are 2 that stand out including one that I had looked at originally but was overshadowed by my 1st donor choice.
I'm sending off an e-mail tonight to request #'s on my top 2 of this bunch of donors and hopefully there will be 6+ vials available for both so I can make a good choice. And this time I won't waste even 24 hours. If everything is in order I'll be placing an order for a new donor on Wednesday.
According to my blood work I had an LH surge on Friday meaning ovulation soon. The clinic always does the IUI the day after an LH surge which works out roughly to 24 hours later. On Saturday, I had my IUI. Not long after that I noticed that my CM dried up. That's usually a very reliable clue to me of ovulation. My pelvic pain also went away. I had sharp pelvic pain Friday night but it was gone on Saturday. I got excited because I thought this meant that at least I O'd this month. I was still worried about timing, though, thinking that my egg might not have made it past 12 hours.
Yesterday I took my temp at the regular time. It went up 0.1 degrees F and thought that was odd but wasn't worried. This morning? My temp actually dropped 0.2 degrees F! OMG! I took my temp orally first and it was up 0.8 degrees F but my oral temps are all over the place, hence the switch to vaginal temping. I redid my vaginal temp ... twice ... and it was 0.1 degrees F down from yesterday's then 0.2 degrees F down.
I called the nurses and left them a message telling them that I might not have ovulated based on my temps and I'm worried. I want a progesterone test to confirm ovulation. Okay, I don't know if I ticked them off or something but I got a message back (of course, they call while I'm in a meeting) and the nurse just doesn't seem to understand what I was saying. She said I had a surge and it was too early to test. (Flashback: the last time I requested confirmation of O because of spotting issues the nurse, same one I think, was a bit snotty in saying there was no way I couldn't ovulate with an LH surge. Honest to god ... they really don't know my file ... I have PCOS and an LH surge means O is NOT guaranteed like in 'normal' women.)
I thought I was clear. I said I had a surge on Friday, IUI on Saturday and I haven't yet seen a temp rise 2dpIUI. This has never happened before. And I was supposed to start progesterone today which I refused to do because it will give me a false temp rise tomorrow. I want a blood test to make sure I ovulated especially since I have a follow up with my Dr. on Monday. If I didn't ovulate my Dr. needs to know this so she can add whatever drugs I need to make my first Clo.mid cycle a success which for me at this point simply means ovulation. I'm very ticked off at the nurse. What is so hard to understand about "I don't think I ovulated, I want a progesterone test"?
And today I've been experiencing increased pelvic pain on the right side again. I swear I need to take an ovulation test at home to see if I'm still pre-O. Why is this so difficult?
On the positive side, I might have found a new donor. Of the 20 whose profiles I requested, I received 19. I also wanted to know the vial and count numbers because I'm not attaching myself to a donor only to find out he has 1-2 vials left. I think the rep is a little annoyed with me. But hey, if your company provided better information off the bat on your website like Xy.tex does most of my issues wouldn't be issues. So, of those 19 I excluded 7 who have no reported pregnancies. My bank's website missed 4 of those, i.e. only 3 were listed as having no reported pregnancies. Okay, so now I'm down to 12 possibles = 10% of the original 114. I excluded 4 more because the donor's physical characteristics are so different from my family's any child who looked like the donor wouldn't fit in at all. Leaving me with a whopping 8 donor profiles to look at = 7%. Of those 7 there are 2 that stand out including one that I had looked at originally but was overshadowed by my 1st donor choice.
I'm sending off an e-mail tonight to request #'s on my top 2 of this bunch of donors and hopefully there will be 6+ vials available for both so I can make a good choice. And this time I won't waste even 24 hours. If everything is in order I'll be placing an order for a new donor on Wednesday.
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Donor Stats
So, I gave in and ordered full access to donor profiles for three months. I just sent off an e-mail and requested 20 profiles. I'm really hoping someone in there will be a good option because if there isn't I don't know what I'm going to do past May.
About a week and a half ago I decided to download the list, which is not searchable for important things like CMV status or Open ID. There is just a long list that I had to print out. Not helpful. But I digress. At the time there were 114 Xy.tex donors listed. I decided to figure out who was 'available' to me based on things like CMV status, Open ID, and basic physical characteristics such as eye, hair, skin colour and height. Here is what I got.
I decided to drop my height requirements to 5'10" just for the purposes of ordering profiles. But that didn't help much because that only opened it up to 4 extra donors leaving me with 20 to consider.
And since I'm now left wondering WTF about my own donor's abilities to create a successful pregnancy I'm only going to choose a donor who has proven pregnancies either as a donor or with his own children. Of the 20 profiles, 17 have children of their own, successful pregnancies as a donor or both. I'm back down to 14%.
I requested all 20 profiles just to make sure I didn't cut anyone out that might be a better fit overall but I don't want to choose another unproven donor. And from those 20 I have to weed out medical and other things I'm not interested in. I refuse to introduce things like Alzhe.imer's or uterine, breast or ovarian cancer since there is zero history of that in my family. And I don't want a donor whose family includes diabetes or other related endocrine disorders thanks to my PCOS. I don't want to give my child more than the already existing 50% chance of inheriting PCOS.
Just looking at these numbers I get annoyed. Then add to that a short but annoying phone call I had with my mom today I'm just ... annoyed. She asked me if I'd have news by this upcoming weekend. At 7dpo? Really? Oh, she's heard about those '6 days earlier tests'. Yes, I have a bunch of them upstairs and I refuse to use them. 6+7=13 not 14 anyway, and my LP is almost always 14 days. Besides the '6 days earlier' refers to 6 days before your expected period. So that pushes it out to 15 dpo. Count back from that and the earliest I should start testing is 9dpo. I told my mom that the average implantation happens at 7dpo and that it takes at least 2 days for the hormone to show up in your body at a detectable level. So no, I won't know anything this weekend. Sorry to spoil Easter for you.
Sheesh! You'd think that as a woman with 4 pregnancies and being a lab technologist she'd have the slightest clue.
About a week and a half ago I decided to download the list, which is not searchable for important things like CMV status or Open ID. There is just a long list that I had to print out. Not helpful. But I digress. At the time there were 114 Xy.tex donors listed. I decided to figure out who was 'available' to me based on things like CMV status, Open ID, and basic physical characteristics such as eye, hair, skin colour and height. Here is what I got.
- Of the 114 donors listed, 47 have medium dark, dark blonde, blonde or red hair and a mix of eye colours (green, blue or brown) that would work with me and my family. That is 41% of donors listed.
- Of those 47, 40 are Open ID. That is 35% of the donors listed.
- Of those 47, 23 are CMV-. That is 20% of the donors listed.
- There are 22 donors who are both CMV- and Open ID. So just under 20%.
- However, of the 22 donors who are both CMV- and Open ID only 16 are also 5'11" and taller. And I come from a tall family so that is why a tall donor is required.
I decided to drop my height requirements to 5'10" just for the purposes of ordering profiles. But that didn't help much because that only opened it up to 4 extra donors leaving me with 20 to consider.
And since I'm now left wondering WTF about my own donor's abilities to create a successful pregnancy I'm only going to choose a donor who has proven pregnancies either as a donor or with his own children. Of the 20 profiles, 17 have children of their own, successful pregnancies as a donor or both. I'm back down to 14%.
I requested all 20 profiles just to make sure I didn't cut anyone out that might be a better fit overall but I don't want to choose another unproven donor. And from those 20 I have to weed out medical and other things I'm not interested in. I refuse to introduce things like Alzhe.imer's or uterine, breast or ovarian cancer since there is zero history of that in my family. And I don't want a donor whose family includes diabetes or other related endocrine disorders thanks to my PCOS. I don't want to give my child more than the already existing 50% chance of inheriting PCOS.
Just looking at these numbers I get annoyed. Then add to that a short but annoying phone call I had with my mom today I'm just ... annoyed. She asked me if I'd have news by this upcoming weekend. At 7dpo? Really? Oh, she's heard about those '6 days earlier tests'. Yes, I have a bunch of them upstairs and I refuse to use them. 6+7=13 not 14 anyway, and my LP is almost always 14 days. Besides the '6 days earlier' refers to 6 days before your expected period. So that pushes it out to 15 dpo. Count back from that and the earliest I should start testing is 9dpo. I told my mom that the average implantation happens at 7dpo and that it takes at least 2 days for the hormone to show up in your body at a detectable level. So no, I won't know anything this weekend. Sorry to spoil Easter for you.
Sheesh! You'd think that as a woman with 4 pregnancies and being a lab technologist she'd have the slightest clue.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
I'm Not Wasting a Test Tomorrow
Change in plans. I will not be testing until Saturday ... if I even get that far.
I woke up this morning to another temp drop. My temps are quickly trending downward toward my cover line. And I woke up with a raging headache, the kind of headache that signals to me that AF is right around the corner. It is almost always, i.e. 99% accurate. And nothing helps it and it's made worse by the fact that I can smell EVERYTHING. I just have to suffer through it and hope it goes away after 24 hours, and if not 48. I know my body. This cycle is over.
And of course, today would be the day that stomach cramps show up for the first time in years. Happened some time in the late afternoon and they were seriously painful until about 15 minutes ago. It has to be something that I ate but I don't know what caused it.
All I can say is that I'm really disappointed this month. After a m/c this cycle looked so good, complete with what seemed to be an implantation dip. Based on 3 cycles of information and physical symptoms I'm absolutely convinced that sperm is meeting egg and I'm even getting implantation but nothing is sticking. I don't know whether I'm the problem, the donor is or we both are. I've only got 2 more vials of this donor left. I did another cruise through the donor listings tonight and I still don't see anything I'm interested in. In fact, the number of Xy.tex listings for Canada just keeps dropping.
I just want to be pregnant. And I want to be pregnant before June so I, at the very least, have something positive to focus on when my nephew is born. I do not need yet another reminder from my younger sister about her abundant fertility and my lack of it. And I'm tired of being used by my sister so she can feel better about herself, to soothe her inferiority complex. Hey, look at me. I can have kids, I can have biological kids, I can produce grandchildren. Who cares what you've done with your life? As long as I have kids and you don't I feel okay. Ugh! When did my sister lose her mind?
If only I could just hide out in the house for the next week.
I woke up this morning to another temp drop. My temps are quickly trending downward toward my cover line. And I woke up with a raging headache, the kind of headache that signals to me that AF is right around the corner. It is almost always, i.e. 99% accurate. And nothing helps it and it's made worse by the fact that I can smell EVERYTHING. I just have to suffer through it and hope it goes away after 24 hours, and if not 48. I know my body. This cycle is over.
And of course, today would be the day that stomach cramps show up for the first time in years. Happened some time in the late afternoon and they were seriously painful until about 15 minutes ago. It has to be something that I ate but I don't know what caused it.
All I can say is that I'm really disappointed this month. After a m/c this cycle looked so good, complete with what seemed to be an implantation dip. Based on 3 cycles of information and physical symptoms I'm absolutely convinced that sperm is meeting egg and I'm even getting implantation but nothing is sticking. I don't know whether I'm the problem, the donor is or we both are. I've only got 2 more vials of this donor left. I did another cruise through the donor listings tonight and I still don't see anything I'm interested in. In fact, the number of Xy.tex listings for Canada just keeps dropping.
I just want to be pregnant. And I want to be pregnant before June so I, at the very least, have something positive to focus on when my nephew is born. I do not need yet another reminder from my younger sister about her abundant fertility and my lack of it. And I'm tired of being used by my sister so she can feel better about herself, to soothe her inferiority complex. Hey, look at me. I can have kids, I can have biological kids, I can produce grandchildren. Who cares what you've done with your life? As long as I have kids and you don't I feel okay. Ugh! When did my sister lose her mind?
If only I could just hide out in the house for the next week.
Monday, November 15, 2010
2-for-1 Post
In order to prevent any new reader who stumbles across my blog from thinking I'm a raving, bitter lunatic I thought I should post something new and more positive. Today we have a 2-for-1 post.
Donor Sperm Ordered
After careful consideration of all the, er ... options, I made my choice on the weekend. I knew immediately upon reading the donor's profile that he'd be the one but I read through quite a few others to make sure I had a couple backups. I placed my order by e-mail on the weekend and got confirmation today. The vials will ship on November 22nd direct to the clinic. At $700 a pop (yes, you read that right) I only ordered 3. Yeesh, I need to earn more overtime to pay for the next round.
I'll post on how I went about choosing the donor at another time. I haven't come across a lot of blog postings about this but those few I did I found informative. What I can share with you is that the donor has brown hair, hazel/green eyes, is 6'0" and has a mixed English/Dutch background. Chances are my child will inherit my brown eyes anyway. And the background is close to my family's which is German. My goal was to have the donor blend as much as possible with us. He has one sister and a good medical history. I specifically excluded donors with a history of diabetes (because of my PCOS) and a lot of cancers, particularly ovarian, endometrial, and breast cancer since we have absolutely no history of that in our family. He's also smart and ambitious, which seems to run in the family. And most importantly he's an Open ID donor.
I Told My Boss
Well, okay not the real bosses, i.e. the Minister or the Prime Minister. lol Nope, I told the brand new supervisor for our team. I was really hoping to not have to tell anyone at work and was even getting pretty crafty with planning my travel. I have the perfect plan to do my required 1 week of travel a month during the 2 week wait to distract my brain. But pressure is coming from on high to add to our workload and I can't commit to any more than that 1 week a month. And seeing as how I've been a go-to traveler for the past 21 months someone was going to wonder what the heck was going on. Not to mention my frequent absences from the office for appointments and tests at the clinic.
So I took advantage of our supervisor's request for our availability for extra travel starting in January as the opening. I became very nervous and I think my heart started pounding a little too fast. Yes, I did remember to take my thyroid meds last night. Everything is fine. My supervisor has a friend who had to go through fertility treatments to have her daughter so she's understanding of the fact that this can be a very involved process. I'm starting out with unmedicated IUIs so I have lots of leeway in terms of changing things up and adding meds. But I told her that I'm glad to go unmedicated for now so that at least for a few more months I don't have to deal with fertility drug induced hormones. Pretty important in my job seeing as how I deal with historic child abuse cases.
She's fine with my 1 week a month of travel as that meets my job requirements and she'll always ask me if there is anything else I am able to pick up. If not, no problem. I'll keep her updated on my schedule as the weeks I predicted being available January through March are already a little off thanks to what seems to be a 26-day cycle.
I can officially classify today as a good one.
Donor Sperm Ordered
After careful consideration of all the, er ... options, I made my choice on the weekend. I knew immediately upon reading the donor's profile that he'd be the one but I read through quite a few others to make sure I had a couple backups. I placed my order by e-mail on the weekend and got confirmation today. The vials will ship on November 22nd direct to the clinic. At $700 a pop (yes, you read that right) I only ordered 3. Yeesh, I need to earn more overtime to pay for the next round.
I'll post on how I went about choosing the donor at another time. I haven't come across a lot of blog postings about this but those few I did I found informative. What I can share with you is that the donor has brown hair, hazel/green eyes, is 6'0" and has a mixed English/Dutch background. Chances are my child will inherit my brown eyes anyway. And the background is close to my family's which is German. My goal was to have the donor blend as much as possible with us. He has one sister and a good medical history. I specifically excluded donors with a history of diabetes (because of my PCOS) and a lot of cancers, particularly ovarian, endometrial, and breast cancer since we have absolutely no history of that in our family. He's also smart and ambitious, which seems to run in the family. And most importantly he's an Open ID donor.
I Told My Boss
Well, okay not the real bosses, i.e. the Minister or the Prime Minister. lol Nope, I told the brand new supervisor for our team. I was really hoping to not have to tell anyone at work and was even getting pretty crafty with planning my travel. I have the perfect plan to do my required 1 week of travel a month during the 2 week wait to distract my brain. But pressure is coming from on high to add to our workload and I can't commit to any more than that 1 week a month. And seeing as how I've been a go-to traveler for the past 21 months someone was going to wonder what the heck was going on. Not to mention my frequent absences from the office for appointments and tests at the clinic.
So I took advantage of our supervisor's request for our availability for extra travel starting in January as the opening. I became very nervous and I think my heart started pounding a little too fast. Yes, I did remember to take my thyroid meds last night. Everything is fine. My supervisor has a friend who had to go through fertility treatments to have her daughter so she's understanding of the fact that this can be a very involved process. I'm starting out with unmedicated IUIs so I have lots of leeway in terms of changing things up and adding meds. But I told her that I'm glad to go unmedicated for now so that at least for a few more months I don't have to deal with fertility drug induced hormones. Pretty important in my job seeing as how I deal with historic child abuse cases.
She's fine with my 1 week a month of travel as that meets my job requirements and she'll always ask me if there is anything else I am able to pick up. If not, no problem. I'll keep her updated on my schedule as the weeks I predicted being available January through March are already a little off thanks to what seems to be a 26-day cycle.
I can officially classify today as a good one.
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