psychological evaluation

it was over the phone this time. the psychologist lady asked me how i felt about the previous donation, and how my life was going, and all that. she said i'm now cleared. next step is medical screening. playing phone tag with the case manager. will schedule medical screening as soon as i get ahold of her.

its not a couple

the intended father is a single gay man! YES! finally.

i wonder who will be carrying his baby?

confirmation

i got a call that my selection has been confirmed today. i dont know who the infertile couple is yet, my file is being transferred to a case manager who will work out the details of scheduling screenings for me. blood work and all that. i'm guessing i'll get a bunch of blood drawn again. probably the same thing as last time. i have to tell my work i'll be needing time off.

i hope the donation happens soon. i'd rather do it before work gets really busy because of summer.

round 2?

i had a false alarm last month. somebody was looking at my profile but decided not to chose me. probably because of the goofy faces i made on the interview video. HA. i'm so embarrassed about that. i guess it would be a pain to rerecord that stuff. its hard enough updating my pictures with the agency.

but i think somebody is really choosing me this time. i got a call from my former case manager, she asked my availability and all that. she said that they're going to reassign me with another case manager for the infertile couple. i really hope they're gay.

its funny 'cause i was just recently thinking that maybe i wouldn't donate again. my husband and I want to have kids sometime before i'm in my 30s or definitely by mid 30s (i'm 26), and i was thinking about doing that within the next few years? and it takes a good 6 months for the cycle to get back to normal, and i wouldn't even want to try to conceive just after all those fertility drugs, so i'd want to wait a couple years. i dont want to be an older parent. the risks for baby and mama go way up after 35. i guess in the end if i ended up unable to have kids, we'd just adopt.

and then i was thinking - maybe i'll get back on chemical birth control (the pre-natal kind) now that my cycle is totally normal and predictable again - and then the egg donor agency called me to tell me a couple wanted my eggs. so that made up my mind. i love planned parents.

should i keep the second donation on this blog? or should i start a new one? i'm thinking i should add the second donation to this blog and just change the name to Egg donor, or something.

its crazy. kid #1 is still in utero. i hope someday he/she meets me. that would be neat. unlikely, cause they live out of the country, AND they wanted an anonymous donor.

i've been thinking a lot about Margaret Atwood's novel "The Handmaid's Tail" its about the future, when the feminist movement takes a nosedive and women are used for making babies for the infertile elite. except they're more like slaves, and they dont get paid. i'm going to read that again. I also want to read that book by that insane woman who donated too many times. 'memoirs of an egg donor?" or something? its not at the library. i'm not going to buy any books about some crazy gold digger egg donor. but i do want to read it.

14, 7, 1 result

turns out they retrieved 14 eggs. out of the 14 they fertilized 7 of them.
so they made 7 embryos. and the surrogate mother is pregnant now. i'm totally fertile. sweet.

I've been "republished" !

that is, I've decided to do it again, and gave the agency the 'go ahead' to put my profile back on the egg donor database as 'available'. I'll let you know when i get chosen by an infertile couple.

to be continued...

normal cycle - finally

i started my period again a couple days ago. my last period, just before all the egg donation stuff started, was on november 8th. so they delayed my cycle almost 2 months. about 7 weeks or so. crazy.

but, uh, yeah. i feel normal.
I'd like to do it again, but i have some plans coming up, like finals, and holiday visits to family and that sort of thing. so i'd have to tell the agency about my 'blackout' dates, as they call them. but i'm not sure yet what they are. the agency wants to hear from me, to find out if i want to be put back on that database as a repeat donor or not. repeat donors get paid 10,000.00! i could sell my eggs to put a down payment on a house!

it would suck to get chosen right away when they put me back on the donor database, cause i wouldn't have enough time to drink alcohol and have sex with my husband before having to stop for a month again. i wouldn't even have time to get back on chemical birth control. that would suck.

so i think i'll wait until december or january to go back on the database. that way i can get all the marital fun and social gatherings out of my system. i dont even drink that much, but being able to have 2 beers with a friend wasn't allowed, so now i can do that.
also, i'd like to do a little cleanse before donating again. all the medication i put in my body has been filtered by my liver and the bonding agents to stabilize medication can be hard on the body sometimes. i'd like to clear any residual medication chemicals out of my temporary energy stores. maybe like a master cleanse for a week. or a liver cleanse. the liver cleanse would be beneficial. maybe i could master cleanse for a couple days, to break down my temporary stores, and then start the liver cleanse to finish. maybe prime my digestive with a water fast and psyllium husk flush or something. really scrub my inner gooies.

wow. i cant believe i got somebody pregnant. i mean, i CAN, it just still trips me out. i feel so powerful. it feels good to make a wanted child. i'm pretty sure i was a mistake. so were all the kids my friends have. i wish more people would actually plan to have a kid instead of accidentally have kids. I wish abortions were free for everybody all around the world. i really do.

tax question answered

i just received an email from my donor coordinator about the tax question. she says i wont get a 1099 form because its not considered income. It is considered pain and suffering payment. so its not taxed. yaaay!

my check came in the mail yesterday

it was for the remainder of the 8000. its 7250. now i just have to figure out what to do about taxes. i've heard conflicting advice. some states dont tax donor reimbursements. some agencies in california claim donor fees, and in that case i'd receive a 1099 come tax time. i've also read donor fees count as 'other income' and that donor fees are compensation and not taxable.

So i wrote an email to my agency to ask how they deal with the tax thing. and I'll ask my mother-in-law, she does taxes for a living.

I've finished the progesterone medicine. did i mention it tasted like minty postage stamps? gross. glad i'm done with that.

I thought i felt some natural menstrual cramping this morning. hopefully i'll have my cycle soon, so i can be back to normal.

the egg donor agency set up a phone interview with me next week to ask me about how the donation went and find out if i want stay listed as a repeat donor on their website.

its been more than 5 days, i'm gonna contact the fertility clinic to see if my eggy weggies are fertile.

i just looked at my youtube instructional videos about preparing the fertility drugs, and most of my 300 views are from china!! thats cool. the egg donor channel i created for that is called squashflowers. but all the videos are in this blog somewhere.

recap

overall i would do it again.

i wouldn't do it during a school semester, cause in the last week and a half i didn't get ANY school work done, and i had to miss 2 weeks of classes for the ultrasound appointments. i'm behind on classwork and a little stressed out about my grades. i'll pass, but i'm not getting the most out of what i signed up for...

the worst part by far was the Menopur injections. the constant shots in the belly for a week with that big needle really bugged me. the stomach is so sensitive, and the pharmaceutical company doesn't recommend that you inject it anywhere else but there. so you have to alternate different sides of the belly button. ouchy. the needle was the largest out of all the shots you have to deal with for the egg donation process. menopur sucks. not at first - it takes a week to feel the full glory of it's suckiness - but it begins to hurt worse towards the end.

the HCG shot was no big deal. i really wanted to fail a pregnancy test, but i didn't get around to it. too late now. maybe next time?

the abstinence thing is hard. if you're not in a close relationship, then you will have it easier than us married folks. i think its making me crazy. i still have to wait until my cycle starts again before resuming a normal, healthy sex life.

i would want to have a child for myself before doing this a third time, because i'd be afraid of the heightened risk of ovarian cancer and health problems down the line with the drugs. but the catch there is, that by the time i'll be able to have kids in my life, i'll just pass the age requirements for egg donation. they only want your eggs when you're in your reproductive prime. thats all well, cause i would have served my time in helping other women.

i understand why they pay more for repeat donors. they probably scare a lot of people off.

DEEP THOUGHTS:
egg donation is no career path, but its a really nice thing to do, and it makes sense at an instinctual level. i've already spread my genes. my cavewoman psyche can die in peace when the time comes. i've even given my genes to a family richer than I, therefor practically ensuring the survival of those genes. its modern survival of the fittest. natural selection. if a world-wide catastrophe hits - like a comet, or nuclear war, or famine - its more likely a richer family would escape and survive the disaster because of they have more resources. right?

the retrieval

my appointment for retrieval was this morning.

i love anesthesia. best invention in modern science. besides cloning and all that...

so i checked in, changed into that silly gown thing. they gave me socks to wear, and put my stuff in a bag to set aside.
nurse took my vitals.
anesthesiologist came in, asked me my weight, put an IV saline drip in a vein in my hand, and injected some stuff into the tubing behind me. i started to feel a little buzzed. they took my vitals again. blood pressure, temperature, etc. then they walked me with my IV on a rack into the room with all the cool machines. by this time i was feeling a little disoriented and drunk. they helped me position myself on the table while they prepped the ultrasound machine and all that stuff. the anesthesiologist put more meds into my IV drip. i felt sleepy, they put the oxygen mask over my face, and the pulse and oxygen reader on my finger, and the doctor came in, and sat down, and thats the last thing i remember.

i heard the anesthesiologist's voice call my name a couple times, and i awoke on a bed in the recovery room. there was a big screen television with news. it was 20 - 30 minutes later. i was a little disorientated, but eventually i came to. i still had my IV drip, it was almost empty. i felt good. and then 10 minutes later i became aware of some cramping - like moderate menstrual cramping. the nurse let me know that was normal, and she offered me tylenol. i took it graciously. they took my vitals and went over recovery forms. they made sure i could use the restroom normally before letting me go with my ride home. they said there may be spotting. I havent had any. i feel crampy, though. my belly finally feels normal again. i can push on my ovary areas without pressure again. its nice to have my body back to normal.

the progesterone lozenges are supposed to taste like mint, but after suckin on one of those for 5 minutes, my mouth tasted like i'd been licking envelopes for hours. nasty. i have to take those for 5 days to convince my body to have it's cycle again. once i have my period, i can have sex again. yaaay! happy ending!

the shot made my butt hurt

in the middle of the night i remember rolling over onto the side where the shot was, and waking up cause its too sore to lean on.
this morning was the same. the whole hip and butt were sore.

feels better now. i dont notice it anymore, unless i lean on it.

i had a brief wave of nausea around noon. and i feel a headache coming on too. so i'm drinking lots of water.

i'm all ready to go to the hotel room. we're leaving in a bit. i'm not allowed to eat after midnight. and i have to wear loose fitting clothing, and no scented lotions for the extraction. its early in the morning, so i dont even get to eat breakfast.

if they have free continental breakfast at the hotel, i'm going to grab what i can and eat it after my procedure.

i remembered to pack my progesterone medicine. not an injectable thank god! they help regulate my cycle again. i have to take one tomorrow evening, and for the next 6? days.