I realize my last entry was in October '22. Fast forward 5 months and we are now almost the last week of March '23. It's been almost a full year from our Egg Donor news. Since October, I could have sat down and given a bunch of micro-updates along the way, but I'd rather given entries with more substance. Here's what been happening:
Coming back as a follow up to [this] entry concerning the tentative "timeline" that was strictly a guess-timate at the time. Ironically, that loose timeline was dead-on accurate!
So since Part 1: The Egg Acquisition, we have ordered, received, thawed, fertilized, embryo created, and refrozen. They call this whole timeframe and process The Hunger Games (because the attrition rate of your eggs is mind blowing). Here is a run down of our stats.
Over the last few days, I had a very nice email update from my Nurse Coordinator, saying that the Egg Donor {referred to as "Mia"} had her submitted Genetics Profile crosschecked with Otters. There is no issues what so ever, so we are Golden! She outlined a few more of the next steps, and I was very relieved.
I had a smidge of .... not quite impatience... but, like... I had an "In The Dark" vibe going for a hot minute. I don't need hard facts, I just work better with less surprises. It's really hard when -for right now- the point of contact is literally me. Trying to get these different facilities to communicate together.
Ya girl is always on the lookout for a cool side hustle. The less "overhead" the better. I have my little Etsy Shop which is the epitome of Passive Income. And here lately, since I'd consider myself somewhat Tech Savvy, I've also registered over at Rev.com to be a "Closed Caption-er" for training videos and YouTube, etc. (hello, side gig while I'm on [hopeful] Maternity Leave!) From my research, there is apparently a pretty long waitlist to get selected, but I'm not quitting my 9 to 5, so I'm totally cool with the wait. If it comes sooner than later, even better! The test sample and quiz they gave you was pretty fun, too!
Just hung up the phone from the Psychologist. We have our Pre-IVF session scheduled for Wednesday, July 13th. I had my Mammogram last week. Unfortunately, it was my first one ever and they warned me well in advance that First-Timers are routinely called back for more images since there is nothing to compare it to. As expected, I was called back. My follow-up for more imaging is the day before our Psychology appointment. So both items will be checked off next week!
WOW. So a lot of ground has been covered. I'll just jump right in.
In March, my Invitae results came back, I was 100% clear of all Genetic Disorders. There was a few other labs that the fertility doctor ran also, and that's where the big bomb was dropped. The "short & sweet" version is that my Cancer history & the related Radiation obliterated my eggs. Essentially, I will kick out a "shell" of an egg, but there's either no yolk, or what is there, is fried.