Show me the donors!

We had our first counseling appointment at our IVF clinic 2 weeks ago.   Scout got the time wrong and almost didn’t get there in time … but thankfully she did in the end J  The counselor got our names mixed up right from the start and continued to call us by each others’ name for most of the session despite numerous corrections.  It was a weird process.  She initially asked what we did for a living and then asked Scout how she thought she would handle having a child LOL.  I imagine that question was probably for me but since she had us so mixed up I was more than happy for Scout to let her in on the fact that we already have two girls and have a pretty good idea of what we’re in for.  After that she pretty much talked ‘at us’ for the rest of it.  She asked about what kind of donor we were looking for and if I had an issue with conceiving a child with the sperm of someone I didn’t know, but apart from that the rest of the conversation was really just her explaining the donor program, how many donors they have, how many we would get to choose from and other random information about how they recruit donors.  She gave us an information pack and sent us on our way with some forms to fill in and bring back for our next session.  It was a bit strange, and not what I would consider to be counseling but it’s all part of the process I guess.   The best bit is we get to see the donor profiles next time we come in!  J  Apparently they have a waitlist for donors at the moment so when they do offer us some profiles it will only be a small selection to choose from … probably 3 tops.  It’s a little disappointing that we don’t get much choice – especially when we look online and see all the donors you can choose from overseas.  But the unfortunate reality is there isn’t many Aussie donors around and you can’t import sperm into Victoria without jumping through some pretty impossible hoops, so this is our only choice if we want to get our hands on some sperm! 

After our counseling appointment we had a financial session with one of the patient liaison officers who pretty much flew through the fine print of how much we could be up for and how to pay it.  She basically sat us down, hit us with the figures and sent us on our way again as quickly as possible.  We already had a bit of an idea about how much it was going to cost us, so it wasn’t too much of a shock, but it was confirmation that this is going to be a very costly adventure which is going to challenge us financially.  Knowing how difficult this is going to be for us financially makes it even more annoying that we can’t access Medicare for help because we don’t have a diagnosis of infertility.  If I had a male partner with no swimmers then I would be eligible for a Medicare rebate on at least some of these procedures, but because I have a female partner (also with no swimmers – clearly) we don’t get anything.  So this whole thing is going to cost us a whole lot more than it would if we were a heterosexual couple.  For all we know – we may actually be infertile, but since we can’t “try” on our own for 6-12 months to see what happens, we will just have throw money at trying to find out.   I know I shouldn’t complain too much though … At least it’s legal for us to access the services of an IVF clinic in Victoria now!  Hopefully we will get lucky and get pregnant before we go broke J

So … we have filled in our little ‘Donor Recipient’ forms and are all set to find out what donors we get to choose from tomorrow!  I keep telling myself that whatever donor we choose will be the right one for us regardless of the limited choice.  As long as we ‘like’ as least one of the donors, I’ll be happy.   Scout says she doesn’t care who the donor is as long as they can get me pregnant LOL.  There won’t be any photos and the information they provide is pretty basic, so essentially we’ll be looking for someone who just sounds good on paper.  If I was to come up with preferences, it would probably be someone with blonde hair, blue or green eyes, who isn’t too tall or short and has a good medical history.  Someone with a personality and interests’ compatible with our family would also be good but I doubt we will get lucky enough to get someone that fits all that criteria.  Too be honest, that’s really just the ideal, but we don’t really want to have too many expectations cos it’s likely we’ll just be disappointed if we do.  When there's only a few to choose from, we can't be too picky.  I’m just excited to be finally finding out our donor options.   I hope our Nan’s in heaven whisper in the ears of whoever is pulling up our selection, to make sure we gets some good ones!  The clinic have charged their sperm donor management fee ($1725) to my account today so I guess that means we have offically purchased sperm we need for at least 2 IUIs! Can't believe we finally have access to the stuff we need to make this happen :)

No fish and failed the ultrasound but the girls are back in town!

Weekend away was great.  Nice to get away and just do our own thing.  We left at 4.30 in the morning because Scout wanted to be up there and fishing by 8am.  Unfortunately 45mins into the drive she realised she'd forgotten her wallet so we had to drive all the way home again to get it!  So after an hour and a half of driving we arrived back home and then set off again lol.  Anyway, in the end we had our rods out and lines wet by 9.30 which I thought was pretty good.  Found some great fishing and camping spots but didn't manage to catch much.  Scout got one nibble the whole weekend and while I managed to get 4 fish on the line - one got off right as I was bringing it in, one snapped off close to the edge before I even got a look at it, another I reeled in but it was only a small carp and the last one took my whole rod!  The one time I left it for a minute to go get my chair and when I turned around it was bending over and then flew off into the water!  Fortunately I managed to grab it before it completely disappeared into the depths.  Scout nearly wet herself she was laughing so hard :)  We lost alot of bait, one hard lure, a few soft lures and had a close call with our yabbie trap and my rod but all in all we had lots of fun just hanging out together.

Only fish we caught all weekend and it was a lousy little carp!

Scout trying out her new lure on the Murray River :)

The girls got home yesterday afternoon and love their new rooms :))  They both seemed very happy to be home.  I had to work for the morning and then went in to have the Levovist test at the ultrasound clinic in the afternoon.  Since the girls had arrived home at 1.30pm and my test was at 2.30pm, Scout had to stay home to wait for them while I drove into the city for the test.  I was alittle nervous about it as I'd read that it could be alittle painful and naturally I was also worried about what they might find.  In the end it was a bit of a waste of time and left me with alot of cramping and no real outcome.  They did a normal vaginal ultrasound which was all fine but then when they went to put the catheter in for the dye they couldn't push it through my cervix.  The speculum they used was a plastic disposable one that was painful in itself before they even started poking and prodding and clamping and trying everything under the sun to get the catheter up there.  After about 5-10 mins I was starting to feel really hot and faint and in the end they gave up.  I almost fainted when I went to get up and they had to let me lie down for 10-15mins to recover.  I left feeling pretty upset and generally unwell.  I'm so disappointed they couldn't do the test, so now it looks like I'll have to have a laproscope to determine my tubes patency.  My FS is away on holidays at the moment so I will have to wait till our appointment on the 7th to find out when she'll do it so I'm alittle bummed that this means things will be further delayed.  I'm also worried about how much the surgery will cost.  Time will tell I guess.

Anyway I got to come home and catch up with our beautiful girls which made up for things.  They seemed very happy to be home and have our attention, and we were both happy to have our little family back together again.  Scout and I also had a reading with a clairvoyant over the phone last night which was interesting.  Lots of positive things forecast but unfortunately she didn't say much about our tcc journey which we were hoping to get some insight on.  She did however say that our little one should be on the way by the end of this year.  I hope so!

Today I have been feeling generally unwell and alittle faint for most of the day.  I'm still spotting from yesterdays procedure, but nothing to worry about.  Think I just need a good night sleep tonight.  Tomorrow I have to work in the morning and we go into the city again in the afternoon for our first fertility counselling session and consult with the financial people about just how much this journey is going to cost.  Hopefully that will go better then yesterdays little experiment :)

Last weekend of being footloose and kid free :)

Survived my first week back at work. I wish I could have taken more time off but I kinda need to save my holidays in case I them later on ;)). We still have one last weekend of being kid free before the girls come back from their dads though, so we are heading off early tomorrow morning for a fishing trip along the Murray River. We spent most of my time off just cleaning up around the house and sorting out the girls rooms. Charlie has been asking for her own room for awhile as Jazzy keeps her up at night talking, singing, crying and arguing in her sleep. Hopefully they will be happy with the new rooms we've created, but it will be interesting to see how they cope sleeping in a room on their own!

Apart from sorting things around the house, we went to visit a few of our friends for new years etc. Scout has told a number of people in her family that we are going to start TCC this year but I haven't really wanted to say too much to anyone incase we jinx it. Since we were visiting our closest friends who we haven't seen in awhile, we decided to let them in on it also, and amazingly enough we discovered that one couple we visited has also been going through the same process for the last few months! They are even using the same clinic as us! We were pretty excited to discover that they are in the same position as us right now, but also alittle freaked that using the same clinic means our friends could potentially be looking at using the same donor as us.  How freeky would that be?! I haven't quite processed that one yet. Unfortunately the excitement of discovering our friends were also TCC was somewhat tainted by hearing that they had actually gotten pregnant after two IUIs last year but had a miscarriage and are currently recovering from a curette. We were both so sad for our friends who were really putting on a brave front by being so supportive and excited about us just starting off on our journey. I guess more than anything it really highlighted for me just how long, stressful, painful and expensive this journey could be for us. As much as I want to get excited about the possibility of getting pregnant, hopefully some time in the near future, I don't want to set myself up for a big fall ... And I also don't want to see my friends have to go though this kind of loss again. Hopefully we'll both have some luck in 2012.

Anyway - we have a great weekend ahead that we plan to make the most of ... and a very busy week next week with the girls coming home, my ultrasound, our first counselling / financial appointments and a clairvoyant reading to boot!  It's going to be interesting :)