Four days ago, I woke up to a voicemail from my fertility doctor providing the results of the PGS testing done on the sole embryo that survived long enough to make it to that stage. Results were abnormal. Another cycle was a bust. On the plus side, the results were ready after one week rather than the promised 2 weeks. On the non-plus side (other than the fact that it failed again), since the call was a week early, I wasn’t in the “look-at-my-phone-every-5-minutes-to-see-if-they’d-called” phase and my phone was on mute when the doctor called, which meant I had to schedule a follow-up call and wait two more days to discuss the results and next steps.
I had lots of questions for him: Why did we only get 2 eggs when I had so many more good-sized follicles? Answer: it’s most likely (because nothing in IVF is ever known for sure) that those follicles contained non-mature and/or extremely poor quality eggs that disintegrated upon retrieval. Is there anything that can be done to improve this? Answer: Not really … as women age their egg quality is reduced and my eggs have apparently reached the useless stage in their lifecycle. Given that we’re once again on the 3-IVF cycle attempt plan, what does he recommend we do next? Answer: Donor eggs. The chances of getting a good embryo with my own eggs is infinitesimally small, and while we can keep trying, we have a much more likely chance of success (but in no way guaranteed) using donor eggs. The doctor gave us the name of the Donor Egg Coordinator at their office and said to give her a call if that’s what we want to try next — they’re able to convert our 3-cycle IVF cycle plan into the one-attempt-with-own-eggs-and-then-try-donor-eggs plan.
Well.
You know how in the end of the last Marvel Avengers movie (and if, somehow, you don’t know the ending of Infinity War and are holding out to see it on DVD or something, skip to the next paragraph to avoid spoilers) when Thanos snaps his fingers and people just disintegrate into ash that floats away? That’s what happened to my visions of a future mini-me.
And then my brain started to go into overdrive. If we go the donor egg route (and it works), would I be able to love a baby the same way as if it were genetically related to me? Given all the people I know who were adopted, who have adopted, or who have used donor eggs, I know the answer to that question for them is an emphatic yes. But would the same be for me? If we go the donor egg route, does the donor have to be Jewish in order for Judaism to recognize the baby as Jewish without a conversion ceremony or would the “Jewishness” be passed down from me because I’d be carrying the baby? Did my poor nutrition and bad habits in my teens and early 20s cause my crappy egg quality? If I’d eaten more fruits and vegetables, would things be different? If I had better exercise habits, would I be googling everything I can find about using donor eggs to get pregnant? Are we working with the right set of doctors? Would someone else tell me something different or would we end up right back where we’re at anyway? And why does just about every tv show I watch currently have some kind of pregnancy storyline in it right now?
I’m fairly certain I do not have it in me to do another round of IVF and inject myself with all those egg-stimulating hormones that make me feel like crap physically, emotionally, and mentally, which means using a donor egg would be the way to go. I have a call into the Donor Egg coordinator to get more information about the program, next steps, etc, and hope to hear back from her on Monday. And then we have lots of decisions to make.