June 2013 ICLW

It always amazes me how quickly a month flies by and it is time for ICLW again.

For those new here from ICLW, here's a quick round up of where we are.  Babe and I have been married for almost 11 years, and had been trying to have a baby for almost 9.  We tried clomid, IUIs and also 4 rounds of IVFs without any success.  We were originally diagnosed with unexplained infertility but was later told we are not able to conceive due to crappy low quality eggs.  Last year we started our process to adopt internationally and then later decided to pursue embryo adoption instead.

We are working with the National Embryo Donation Center (NEDC) to adopt our embryos.  Last month we flew out to Knoxville, TN to meet up with the staff there and had our initial appointment and mock transfer.  We were given some profiles of donor families that met our preferences for us to select embryos from.  About 2 weeks ago, Babe and I selected 2 families.  Both donor families accepted and approved us to adopt their embryos almost immediately!  We are so happy and excited about this!

Just yesterday, we had a phone meeting with our counselor regarding our Open Donation Agreement (ODA).  I will write about this in another post.  That's where we are right now.  I hope you stick around and follow us as we continue on our journey to grow our family via embryo adoption!

Moving Along

Our donor families approved us to adopt their embryos on Monday.  On Tuesday, we mailed a check for the Open Donation Agreement (ODA) fees to the National Fertility Support Center (NFS).  The ODA is a contract that both the donor and recipient families sign agreeing that we will maintain communication if a child is born from the embryos adopted.  It includes such things as:

• Information of the child born (name, sex, date of birth, etc.)
• Types of information to be communicated (medical info, development progress, etc)
• Frequency of the communication that will take place and for how long
• Method of communication - email, letters, phone calls, texts, etc.
• Medium of  communication - through NFS, licensed adoption agency, attorney, 3rd party or directly between families.
• Whether there will be direct contact in the future between families and genetic siblings.

NFS' roles is to help with our embryo adoption plan and education, preparing us for openness, negotiating of our ODA with the donor families, and to support us through the embryo adoption process.  We have an initial meeting over the phone with Debbie, the counselor at NFS scheduled for next Friday.  She will help us with the mediation process for the ODA.  After this, we will also have phone meetings with each of the donor families.

Today, I spoke with the Briova, the pharmacy that will be providing us with our medications for our September transfer.  NEDC works with Briova as they are supposed to be the cheapest ones around.  Unlike our previous IVF cycles, this time around our insurance company does not provide any fertility coverage at all.  The cost of the meds will be mostly be out of pocket, adding up to around $345.  Here is the approximate breakdown of the cost of the drugs:

• Lu.pron - $129
• Es.trace - $195 (for 60 tablets)
• Progesterone in oil (PIO) - $20 (for 4 vials)
• Va.lium - $0.42

Fortunately, because we are doing a FET (frozen embryo transfer), we will not need any drugs that stimulate follicles to produce more eggs.  These stims cost thousands of dollars!  I was quite surprised at how expensive Es.trace is.  This is most likely because NEDC requires that the brand name drug be used instead of the generic.  That's more than $3 per tablet, and I have to take 2 - 3 per day!  Not sure how long I will need continue taking it after the transfer though.

What has everyone else paid for meds?  

Approved by The Donor Families!

We have been approved by our donor families!!

I was excited to receive an email from Angie, our patient coordinator at NEDC this morning that both of our donor families have accepted and approved us to adopt their embryos!  We are so excited!

Not only that, I received a second email from Angie with 2 photos from one of the families.  They have a set of boy/girl twins - the first photo of when they were babies, probably newborns, and the second as toddlers, probably around 3 or 4 years old.  These twins were born in 2009.

I also found out that both sets of embryos from the 2 families were frozen in 2008, and the children were born a week from each other in 2009.

Our next step is to work on our Open Donation Agreement.  A counselor from the National Fertility Support Center will be contacting us and the two donor families to begin our mediation process. This is the step where Babe and I will come up with an agreement with each family on, among other things,  how much communication we will have with them, what information will be communicated, as well as how the communication will take place.

We are so grateful to God that both families have accepted us, and also so quickly.  Since we just sent the email with our decision to NEDC on Friday morning, I was worried it might be awhile before we heard back.

Now we look forward to the Open Donation Agreement process!

We've Decided!

Last night, Babe and I sat down and went through all the donor family profiles.  8 open adoption families and 10 closed adoption (anonymous) families.  At first I thought there were 12 anonymous donor families, but there were only 10 that were sent to us.

As I mentioned in my other post, there were already 2 open adoption families that I was pretty comfortable with.  I didn't see any other families in the closed adoption ones that really interested me, but there was one I would have been OK with.  I would still prefer to have an open adoption.

Babe went through all the profiles again and handed me 2 profiles that were his choice.  Guess what?  They were the very same 2 open adoption families that I picked too!  Thank God!!  I was so worried we were going to disagree and would need to have a heated "discussion".  I'm so glad we are on the same page!  At first, my first choice family was his second choice, but he changed his mind quickly and on his own.  I guess I would have been OK with either choice, but I'm glad he changed his mind.

So now, we have chosen 2 families, with a total of 8 blastocysts.  I emailed Angie the patient coordinator at NEDC with our decision.  She emailed me back this morning that she will email our profile to the 2 families to approve.  I hope we hear back with a decision soon!

This is so exciting!  Please pray that the donor families would like us and would give us the privilege to adopt their babies.

Also, I am working on questions and answer for my FAQ post.  Please send me more questions you would like to ask about me, our journey or embryo adoption.

Questions for Me - FAQ

image from http://www.moneykingboomers.com/frequently-asked-questions/

I am thinking about writing a post about embryo adoption, our journey and just in general about me.  Kind of a "FAQ" post.  If you have been following my blog, you would have already read quite a bit about me.  But I also wanted to provide more info about our infertility journey (including our IVF treatments), our adoption journey, embryo adoption, or anything else that you have wanted to know.

So, here's your chance to ask a question or two.
  Why can't I have a baby?  
  How many rounds of IVF did I do?
  What kinds of medication did I go on?
  Tips for medication?
  Why decide on embryo adoption? 
  Is embryo adoption really adoption?
  etc....

Anything goes.... unless I'm not comfortable answering it.  But I'll let you know.  I'm in the process of coming up with some questions myself, so go right ahead and ask.

I'm excited to see what everyone wants to know.