Negative tests this cycle, which I’m not super surprised about because due to sickness and travel days we hit fewer GOF days in our window than usual.
Despite not being surprised, it’s hitting me hard emotionally this time. There have been several moments this cycle when I was looking at Swan with admiration and just wishing I could see traits of his echoed in a child, and feeling heartbroken that we’ve been so helpless at making that happen. I wish I had money for donor eggs but instead I’m poorer than I’ve been in years, and there’s nothing I can do about that without throwing away the career I’ve been working towards for the past five years.
I had a conversation with my friend who had offered to donate her remaining embryos to me. She doesn’t remember the exact number, but believes it’s 11–13, untested, which would almost certainly be enough for two kids, even giving my clotting disorder reducing my chances at a live birth. Surprisingly to me, my clotting disorder and hostile uterus do not seem to be deterring her from her offer. She said she’ll do a deep dive with her husband and her therapist to make sure there are no hidden weirdnesses in general, but there are no weirdnesses from my condition.
She did say that I should be aware of her and her kids’ diagnoses. I already knew that her twins had issues from being born premature. I think they were 7 weeks early and weighed 3 and 4 pounds. I knew that her son was diagnosed with ASD when he was 3, and she told me that her daughter was just diagnosed with ADHD at almost-5. Her daughter’s therapist had my friend also get a neuropsych evaluation and she was found to also have ADHD and very borderline maybe-ASD. As far as I’m concerned, these things are not a problem…I’m aware of many similar traits in myself, for one, and I think my friend is an amazing person. Swan seems a bit more skeptical, however. (Maybe he was hoping that his genes would dilute some of my weirdness?) He’s also not thrilled that both of the kids have needed glasses since they were very tiny. (Again, though, we both need glasses and have worn them since school age, so IDK what he’s complaining about there…)
I know that the risks of all these things, including the vision issues, are driven up by the prematurity, and the prematurity was almost certainly caused by the fact that they were twins, and they were twins because the doctor recommended transferring two embryos. My friend has vehemently advised me against doing that, and so I don’t think I would. (It would be weird to me to take her embryos but not her advice!)
I also know that we have a little time to decide? If we were to not use our genetics, it just comes down to how late we’re willing to become parents. I know Swan has said no later than 50, and he’s 46 now. I would like to be done by 47, and I’m 41 now. I guess we could keep trying naturally through these 2 super broke years while I’m getting my hours, effectively trying to win the lottery. Then when our financial picture changes a bit, we could go ahead and do transfers of donor embryos? Like #1 when I’m 43 and he’s 48, and #2 when I’m 45 and he’s 50? That doesn’t seem impossibly old. Swan’s BIL was 50 when his sister’s youngest child was born a couple of years ago.
Lots to think about. Lots of grief and hope and logical puzzling.
(relief)