Donor Conception General Chatter # 9

[Malyna]

take care of yourself Joy - do what your body needs to do - if you need to have a sleep, then have one and then have one for me!

Alex is going great guns, I'd like to say he is a quiet and contented bubs BUT everytime I say that he does the opposite.

[blizz]

Hi all, I am soooooo slack, I haven't been anywhere of much lately and have been neglecting BB badly, hope everyone is still travelling along Ok? I send me love to all and I will be checking back in soon to have a proper catch up,(will post photos of my extremely fast growing off spring shortly as well, can you believe Paige turns 3years next month and Gus is just about to reach 7mths....way too scary)
how's your little man Tarkine??? hope everything is great, Gus is calling will catch you later, Allie xxxxxxx

[SeaChange]

Hey everyone,

Also have been very busy. I am actually getting very frustrated with the lack of balance in my life.

Suddenly had an epiphany at work the other day about how much our SD has actually put on the line for us. I felt like rushing out and giving him a great big hug.

Still trying to sort out work crap so that everything is out of the way for a new cycle after our tax cheque comes back next term.

DH and I have also decided to go on a mini and a long holiday this year. Down to Canberra for the long weekend and then down to Tasmania and Melbourne in July (hint hint to those people living there - I'll PM you in the next few days with the details - for those in Melbourne I'm going to set up a meet up thread).

Hope everyone is travelling well!

[futuremum]

Hello everyone long time...

I did a final cycle with Monash went great, better than all 5 cycles with previous clinic no luck in transfer because the lovely Professor Kovacs can't make me 25 again but he did get way more fert. eggs than ever before.

I have one frozen to try then donor for me

[blizz]

Future mumma,
I will keep everything crossed for you hon, and send you all the positive vibes I can throw your way,
Allie xxxxx

[futuremum]

Thanks Allie

[Lissie]

Hi Girls,

Not been around much lately - hope you are all well and happy.
Futuremum - good luck with the frostie hope it works for you.
I have been on the waitlist for donor embies for 2yrs now and am not feeling really confident that it will happen but i am always hopeful at the same time.
I wish you all luck in your journey and hope like hell that you all get the chance to be mothers.

[futuremum]

lissie!!

I hope you don't have to wait too much longer for your donor embie and I really hope you get to be a mummy too

[Malyna]

Lissie and future mum

Blizz

[Lieve]

Hi ladies,

Was nice to open up this thread today and see there's been a bit of activity..I've been very slack, but.. a lot has happened in the past 5 months. Dh did some more tests and they haven't been very promising, so we're now actively pursuing the donor path. DH's friend who we asked has said yes (he's such a beautiful person and I wonder if he'll ever really know what it means to us), so now he's starting to get some testing of his own done before we arrange to fly him out to Melbourne for counselling, deposits, etc. It's quite exciting, and it feels like DH and I have come such a long way since we were initially told we would most likely have to use a donor almost 12 months ago. It feels like a really good option for us, and it's amazing how all the things I used to think were important (genetics, having a mini DH, etc) are so insignificant now when all you really want is a family and a child to love. And I'm blown away by how supportive everyone we tell is, they're as excited for us as we are! So, we're in a good place...it just takes so damn long and that's probably the most frustrating part, the whole quarantining for 6 months. Oh well, i believe paid maternity leave comes to Australia in 2011!!!!!

It's good to hear you're all well ;
- Can't believe the babies, Alex and Angus are already so many months old;
- Joy - gosh not long to go, wow! Hope, despite the tiredneess, you feel great!
- gargy - I can't remember if i already know this but is your donor a friend? I'll love to meet when you're in melbourne by the way.

xxxx

[Malyna]

Lieve - great to hear that things are moving along for you. 6mths does seem like a long time but it will pass very quickly.

[sh2863]

I am 45 with a biologically conceived 2 year old daughter - who is our our own DNA - and I am 9 weeks pregnant with a donor egg.
Becuase of the difficulty in obtaining donor eggs in Australia because of the laws that do not permit anonymous donation, my husband and I decided for a number of reasons - to come to a business arrangement with a US agency and a US reproductive centre to help us create our longed for 2nd and hopefully 3rd child. One thing I first want to say, is that it is not as expensive as you are led to believe, and that the process is protected with legal contracts for both the donor and recipient. I exchanged letters with the beautiful 30 year old girl who donated her eggs to us, and the doctors at the reproductive centre in Los Angeles who treated her for her cycle, said to me that she was just a charming, funny, lovely girl - who saw her donation as a way of doing something for someone else. The total cost of the agency fees (that included the fee to compensate the donor, the legal fees for both the donor and us the parents was AUD $10K) this also included travel expenses, a geneticist consultation and the agencies programme fee. The costs for the straight IVF for the donor mother + drug costs for both me and the donor, plus anaesthetic costs for the transfer totalled AUD $18K). Now I totally realise that this may be out of the ball park for many people, but I know of Australian women who supposedly have donation from women that answer their ads in Australia - who end up paying the same amount of money in compensation - even though it is supposed to be illegal. For us? Sure our child will not be able to meet their biological mother - because that is the request of the donor - not me. But we do have it written into the contracts that if for any medical reason on both sides of our families (donor and recipient) that they or we need to contact the donor again, we can do so in a protected fashion via the US agency. In total my donor provided us with 21 eggs - 15 of which fertilised. I had 2 transferred and 1 embryo has taken. The whole experience has been extremely professional and wonderful. From the moment we decided to go down the egg donor path using a US agency, to now - it took 3 months from sign up - for me to get pregnant - and let me assure you, after 11 rounds of IUI and 3 IVFs and 3 miscarriages using my own eggs - it has been a joy and so EASY to go down this path. We have already spent more than the amount it cost to go through the US donor process - doing the Australian IVF options. If only we had done this first!!! I know a lot of people may disagree with what we are doing - but heck - its great news for us as a family - if anyone wants to contact me separately about what agencies to approach or find out more information - I am happy to answer any queries.

[MsPink]

sh2863...I would sooooo love to speak to you..as you have not posted 20messages yet i cannot PM you..

if I gave you an email would you contact me??

Thankyou sooo much for your story..

[wouldloveabubba]

sh2863 - I would like to speak to you as well. Thank you for sharing your story

[SeaChange]

Hi everyone!

Well a dryer that decided to die meant no travelling to Canberra

Tarkine - I will get there eventually Hope you and your little man are going ok!

Futuremum - hope everything is going well with the frostie.

Lissie - hope you hear something soon.

Blizz!

Lieve - yes our donor is a friend of ours. I was just walking with a colleague at work and then suddenly realised how much he had done for us. Just something random - completely unrelated to the conversation with my colleague. We are heading to Melbourne in July so I should see you then - I'll be placing the info in the meetup section soon.

sh2863 - nice to meet you.

Not much going on for me on the IVF front - possibly going again towards the end of the year. I'll keep you posted.

[sh2863]

Thanks to the women who have wanted to get in contact with me further to learn more about the donor egg options - based on my own experience. Because I am new here and not sure of the protocols etc - I apologise in advance if I am breaking the rules - BUT - if you want to speak to me privately about my experience - so that it might help you, you can contact me via email (please PM Gargy for my email address)

All my best wishes to those mums who are out there who are exploring the donor egg options.

[SeaChange]

Hi sh2863,

I am one of the Moderators on Belly Belly.

Generally we don't allow people to put private email addresses on here - what I will do is take the address from the post and PM it to wouldloveabubba and Miss Pink for you.

If anyone else wants to get in contact with sh2863, could you please PM me and I will give you her details.

Thanks.

[MsPink]

SH2863..sent you an email yesterday...

please check your junk mail just incase..thanks