PVED is the Answer

If your questions are:

1. Can someone advise me on choosing a donor?
2. Will I love a donor egg kid as much as I would a biological one?
3. Should I transfer one or two embryos?
4. How do I deal with disclosing to friends and family?

The answer is PVED. Or more specifically, the PVED forum, which you can only access if you have eggs as dysfunctional as mine.

It's seriously the most insightful, knowledgeable, and supportive group I've ever come across, and I'm not even being sarcastic, because I'm never sarcastic! (Except for that last bit.)

PVED (pronounced "PEE-ved") stands for Parents via Egg Donation, and it was started by a DE mom named Marna Gatlin who wanted a community of other DE moms. A decade later, the site is visited by thousands of folks from all over the world.

Now, I'm not going to say that Marna is the most daintily mannered soul on the planet, because she isn't, but blech, who would want that? I need guidance and advice, and I want it from someone who's direct. But she is endlessly caring, generous, thoughtful, insightful, and reflective. She's a hardcore advocate for everything she thinks you and your family deserve based on her dozen years in the field - and she gives the best hugs!

This isn't my first uterine support group. They're all over the web, as you might imagine. But they're ... how should I put this ... OK, so I was a part of one on Facebook, and it was kinda supportive, but mostly it was bitter. Look, bitter is understandable. I was there, so I know bitter. But what I learned from bitter is that it's the armor you put on to protect yourself against sadness and grief. Bitter makes sense, but it's also not what's really going on. And it's ugly.

PVED makes you deal with your shit. Especially Marna. For example, I'd like to think that if Marna met the lady on Facebook who's still trying to conceive after 23 years and 37 miscarriages (yes, really), Marna would have a sit-down that woman. Personally, my hope is that the chat would include some sense-slapping, but that's just me.

So, I'm kind of addicted to this forum, mostly checking out people's responses to questions like Will I love a donor egg kid as much as I would a biological one? and Can someone advise me on choosing a donor?

PVED has answers, and they're really good.

Quotable Quotes: Anonymous Donor Sperm Daughter

A young woman who was the product of a sperm donation was interviewed about her experience researching her anonymous genetic father. When she was asked why she was pursing the search, she said something that struck me:

Parents grieve their genetic connection to their kids when they use sperm donors, and that's a natural part of the process. I think it's hypocritical for people to think that I won't also grieve my genetic loss, and looking for my biological father is a part of the process for me.

My commitment to doing an open donation is officially fortified.

Vegas Baby! Vegas!!

We've chosen a new donor, and she's so great. I love her.

Yes, it's probably early to use the L word, but she's my future children's genetic parent, so I can't help myself.

She's from Las Vegas and has Mexican heritage with strong features that give her a sort of Middle Eastern look similar to mine. She's worked her way through junior college, is bright, and is very driven in her career.

Most importantly, she's available and interested in being an open donor. She's even asked to see a photo of us, which was deeply validating to me. I feel like we're on the same page with what we're looking for and that she's as into this as we are.

In terms of her personality, I have to admit, I'm not 100% confident that she'll make the absolute best role model for my kids. She has a massive boob job and dresses a little like a stripper, but you don't inherit silicone or spandex, and her genes look good to me. Plus my kids will probably only meet her once in their lives, so I'm not worried.

I'm trying hard not to bond to her too much, because I know these things have a tendency to fall through at any step of the process, but I'm still excited.

Vegas Baby! Vegas!!

A Gene Pool 1400 People Deep

Out of the 60 or so in-house donors available through my clinic, there was 1 that I wanted to make babies with, but she fell through. Now there's none.

Part of the problem is that, while I had a lot of criteria to begin with, turns out there's a new priority that tops them all: she has to be available to doing an open donation, and this is uncommon at my clinic.

Which means I have to find an egg donor agency. Somehow, I didn't realize that egg donor agencies existed, which in hindsight, should have been obvious. I mean, there are sperm banks, so it makes sense. But even if I'd guessed about donor agencies, I don't think I would have guessed that there are hundreds of them.

It took a little sifting, but there was only one with all of the following:

• A navigable website with a user-friendly search engine
• A contact person who was responsive and whom I liked
• A minimum of 5 back-up donors that I'd be willing to use if one fell through (once you pay the agency, you don't get your money back, so you kinda have to use them)
• A high percentage of women who were willing to being known to the recipient couple

With a donor pool 1400 women deep, The Donor Source was the place. Except for the fact that using an outside agency is costing us a few thousand extra dollars (lalalala, I'm not thinking about that), I'm pretty happy that the first one didn't work out.

But my favorite thing about this place is that well over half their donors are willing to do an open donation, which makes me wonder what it is about their intake process that promotes that philosophy. It also gives me hope that the future of ED will move more toward open donations and away from anonymous. It's possible. But that's a whole other thing.

Alright, now that that's settled, off to choose a donor.

Donor Down

Our donor fell through.

A woman who I've been thinking about for weeks and whom I've been affectionately calling #4889 has left us.

The clinic gave us two reasons. The first was that they discovered that she has a medical issue that is exacerbated by hormones, so she can't cycle (although they allowed her to finish her first). The other reason is that the staff doesn't want to work with her again because she's a bitch. Both seem reasonable.

Oddly, I miss her quite a lot. It's amazing how much of a bond is formed with a woman whom I was never going to meet. I'd been thinking so affectionately of her because she was going to be the gen-mom of my kids, and this made me love her in some way. Not quite as a friend, and not quite as family. It was something else.

When I got the news, I called N whose response was, "Good. Now we can choose a donor who's willing to have an open relationship."

I love him.

The Psychology of Transference

Here are my clinic's statistics for taking home an egg donor baby (different from becoming pregnant, of course, which doesn't always yield a baby).

Transferring 1 embryo = 70%
Transferring 2 embryos = 80%

That's 14% percent better odds when transferring two, which isn't a huge difference, but it's nothing to sneeze at. The pickle is this: if I transfer 2 embryos, and the outcome is successful, there's a 60% chance that I'll be taking home 2 babies.

So, to help me figure out if I should transfer 2 embryos, the question on the table is, am I prepared to handle twins? Here are the arguments:

Twin Pros
Instant family
Kids have each other to play with
Twins are cool

Twin Cons
Pregnancy is harder on the body
High likelihood of premature delivery, linked to mental and physical complications
No sleep for the first three months and get very little for the next six
Twins are hard

The cons outnumber the pros, but that's not how decision-making works. You have to ask yourself what's in your gut: do I want twins? And my gut's answer is Yes! absolutely!! I really, really, really want twins! And even though I was afraid of the prospect at first, I've been watching YouTube videos about tandem nursing, and I'm totally ready for the challenge.

Especially because twins are so cool. I mean really, really cool. Everyone loves twins. Twins are so cute, and if you have twins, then people everywhere will stop you to tell you how awesome your twins are, because twins are so cool!

It was during a particularly long daydreaming session that involved a double-stroller at a shopping mall that it hit me: did I only want twins so that I could feel special? The truth was, Kinda. Yeah.

After years of infertility, I wanted to compensate for my uterine inadequacies. I was craving a level of cooing that would make up for all the attention I'd been missing. I needed to show the women who had effortlessly bred before me, "sure, you have kids, but I have twins."

It was ego and pride. It took me a while to figure that out, but once I did, I had to let the idea go. I wasn't willing to let pride win at the cost of premature delivery. Ego doesn't beat out health complications. Ultimately, there was no way I could allow the next steps of my fertility treatment be dictated by my emotional damage, no matter how cool twins are.

This means that (besides obviously needing to to schedule an appointment with my therapist) I'm committed to transferring only one embryo. It's the more rational decision, and the truth is that I can still give my kids siblings to play with; I would just need to build my family one child at a time like normal people do. Besides, even if I do transfer one, there's still a chance that the embryo will split, and I'll still end up with twins, and they'll be identical. Wouldn't that be cool?

Quotable Quotes: DE vs OE Child

I've been browsing a billion blogs, websites, and forums about egg donation, and I came across this thread:

Do you feel differently about your biological and donor egg children?

Good question, right? The woman elaborates that she and her husband conceived one child using her own egg, but they haven't had any luck with a second, so they're considering using a donor. She goes on to say,

I'm pretty much on board, but I'm worried that somehow I won't bond with the DE child, or that I'll consciously or subconsciously prefer my biological child and mess up my relationship with my DE child. I've seen lots of wonderful posts about how little the genetics actually matter once the child arrives, but I guess I need some reassurance in that regard or if that's not available, at least some candid feedback about the family dynamics that I might expect. Anyone have any feedback?

First of all, I'm completely in love with this woman for so articulately asking such a sensitive question, and I have so much admiration for her openness that it makes me want to cry. (My version of this question was ... well, ... uglier.)

Now, there were loads of knowledgable, wise, and compassionate responses, but this one was by far my favorite:

I have 3 kids - the two youngest via DE ... [and one] genetically related to me ...  I tend to forget that all three aren't via DE. In fact, just the other day, I was wondering if my oldest would ever want to get in touch with his genetic mom. And then I remembered that his genetic mom was, um, me.

How amazing is that?