dreams Archives - Egg Donor Angels

A Christmas baby :)

so we’re almost 34 weeks but looks like our little tiger is going to be a Christmas baby 🙂

It’s been a struggle keeping my high blood pressure under control and I’ve just been at regular Dr’s appointments, scans and totally exhausted. Last week whilst really sick with the flu/virus my gp expressed his concerns, so off to our Ob; Dr Pardey I went the next day with a hospital bag packed and here I still am waiting to see how long we can let our little one “cook” before he pops out into our world 🙂 I have pre-eclampsia so it’s just a waiting and balancing game to let tiger grow a bit more but keep him and me healthy.

I’m in hospital till he arrives and probably for some time afterwards so I can heal and they can monitor my blood pressure and keep it stable as well. We think it’s going to be this week but…. its day by day…

He’ll probably have to spend some time in care as he’s a wee bit early so his first Christmas will probably be in a hospital but as long as he’s safe and healthy that’s the main thing.

We’ll update everyone with any news as soon as we can, thanks for your support xox

Transfer done, now the 2ww xox

It’s our last full day in Cape Town and whilst we are looking forward to going home there is a tinge of sadness to leave this beautiful city and the friends we have made along our journey xox

Our egg donor gave us some wonderful eggs and we ended up with 2 fabulous quality embryo’s to transfer and 6 in the freezer 🙂

Transfer was Monday and all went wonderfully and we are now in the 2ww nervously… each step is so very hard, its the decision to use an egg donor or for us to do another cycle after our last miscarriage and negative, it’s the process of seeing if your egg donor is suitable then the cycle begins and are they responding and well and will you get good quality embryo’s that give you the best possible chance xox

Its the egg collection and how many fertilise, then how are they going at each stage and how many embryo’s you have and what quality they are…

Then of course once you’ve done the transfer it’s the waiting, listening to your body and each twinge and symptom brings about “could we be pregnant?”… the hormones play with your body and your mind as does the emotions of the whole journey… your hopeful and you want this so badly but you also know there’s always that risk/chance its not going to be successful….it’s a numbers game… you do everything you can to ensure the best possible outcome, acupuncture, Chinese herbs, endo scratch, hysteroscopy, vitamins, supplements and so the list goes on..

I know many of you reading this will relate either doing your own IVF with your own eggs and doing IVF using an egg donor… it’s a roller coaster of emotions and whilst you try to “not stress” and “not think about it too much” and “relax” you know your mind is there in that place xox

I will do a future post about Cape Town, what to see and do as it is a beautiful city and the people are lovely xox

We have done some further sightseeing, we did Kirstenbosch gardens, Moyo restaurant for Mother’s Day, Simons Town, Bree Street and the famous Mount Nelson Hotel High Tea. Every day we have done a lovely walk along the bay and have had a great time with Liam playing in the playgrounds. We found a great children’s playground along the waterfront that’s fenced and gated with a track for him to ride his tricycle around and a swing, slide and climbing stuff.. he’s loved playing and riding his trike and it’s been wonderful having this family time… Liam’s made many friends, he just loves to people watch and he’s so friendly smiling and chatting to the locals…

We got to catch up with some friends we’ve made here previously and that was lovely, though not enough time and we hope that when we bring Liam back when he’s older we will have more time to spend with them.

I’m nervous to write anymore about our chances of success or if I think we are successful, I plan to do a home pregnancy test probably around day 8 or 9 just before bloods and even just writing that makes my heart skip a beat…

To those that are thinking of going overseas, don’t be afraid of doing this, so many are going and are successful, it’s not as scary as you think, most clinics are as good as Australia/the USA, are reasonably priced and the success rates are very good… and I’m happy to chat to you about it …

I’ve been wearing my Mum’s heart locket here with a photo of her and Dad in it so she’s with us and my lucky elephant from a good friend… and of course all the hope and good wishes from our friends xoxox

Fingers and toes crossed we are pregnant with a sibling for Liam… chat soon, love from us xoxox

We’ve arrived in Cape Town for our new cycle xox

We arrived on Saturday night exhausted and spent Sunday just relaxing and settling in again… After a crazy week at home in the lead up to coming here.. typical of us to have so much going on at any given time hehehe but that’s just who we are xox

Yesterday I had my lining scan and it’s looking great.. our donor also had her scans and everything is looking good, phew!

It was lovely to see Dr Matabese and Danelle at Cape Fertility again, such gorgeous people and they make this journey much easier and nicer xox

We met a couple of lovely recipients in the waiting room, a Mum and Daughter that were actually on our flight on the way over.. she made me cry when she said “I just want to be a Mummy” xox I remember her Mum as she kept smiling and chatting to Liam as he crawled up and down the aisle on the plane… such a small world when you see people that were on your flight at your clinic and find out that they are on the same journey.. I hope she gets her dream and hopefully she will join my groups as I think she’ll be a great support on there xox Of course in the rush I can’t remember if they said their names, argghh I hope they get in touch, I gave them an Egg Donor Angels card so hopefully they will..

The other couple were from the USA and were doing a transfer, I’m hoping they will join my groups as well, this journey is so hard and it’s so nice to have others to chat to that totally get it xox

Tomorrow is egg collection for our donor so everything crossed… today it’s a beautiful day here and I’ve just spent a few hours on Egg Donor Angels so it’s time to do something as a family..

We’ve done most of the tourist things here but are going to do some again especially with Liam.. might go and see the white lions today, Liam will love that.. and we haven’t done that yet..

I will do a post very soon of the things to do in Cape Town and the surrounds for those that are considering coming or are coming here xox

Will do an update tomorrow as soon as we know something xox

After holding our breath for almost 9 months, here he is finally, our Egg Donor Angel conceived little boy is here xox

Hey everyone, sorry it’s taken me so long to post our news and updates 🙁 Life has been a wee bit hectic lately and several times I’ve tried to do this post and thanks to my computer crashing have lost what I had written…. but I’m back and ready to make this happen lol.. xox

So, let me introduce Liam James Heron, our little miracle boy xox, born Friday 26th February at 8.57am at Nepean Hospital weighing 2.93 kilos and measuring 47.5cm.. he’s now 5.44kg and 59.5cm.. and growing lol. Thanks to the awesome and divine team at the University of Sydney Nepean clinic, that’s Maree, Sarah and yes you too Tracy, you all made our pregnancy and the birth so much more special and we can’t wait to go again and have you looking after us.. after that we hope to catch up and stay friends xox

So after a crazy plus year, losing Mum, dealing with settling her affairs and a family member causing major issues and conflict, dealing with our clinic not freezing our embryo’s properly and losing all 11 of them, trying another donor cycle with the devastation of it not working, making the decision to go to South Africa for our egg donor angel and then to find that our donor didn’t respond well and we had one little good quality embryo but it’s ok, that embie was Liam and we are soooo happy he’s here.

We can’t believe he is and whilst every parent has those “first” moments and “wow” moments, ours are just huge and overwhelming..

The pregnancy was good considering my history, I remember my first appointment with Maree, it was hours going through my history lol and then chatting heaps to Tracy about my passion with Egg Donor Angels and just infertility etc. And our first appointment with Sarah this year where we spoke to her about going back to South Africa for a sibling for Liam in November.. she was amazing and said “I understand why” and supported us.. as crazy as it seems..

So you might ask why when we have our little boy.. well we are older parents and we won’t be around for as long as some parents for Liam, our families aren’t big and aren’t getting any younger lol like all of us.. we have amazing friends whose children are going to be like family to Liam and of course my beautiful and amazing cousin’s children will be fabulous cousins to him and guide him along his paths as well.. but we both always wanted more than one but we also want Liam to have a little brother or sister that he has by his side for the rest of his and their lives.. when we aren’t there xox

So we go back to Cape Town in November to go again. Our donor has done another cycle for us… we were discussing doing another one with the donor agency and with the IVF clinic when they contacted us and said that the recipients had pulled out of a cycle with her and would we like to use Shane’s frozen sample/sperm and do the cycle.. we knew we wanted to go again so we thought oh well lets do it now.. so we have 1 fabulous embie, 2 really good ones and 2 not so good in the freezer waiting for us and we feel confident that we will have another successful pregnancy from this.

So my pregnancy, I loved being pregnant even with the high blood pressure scares, the terrible reflux (I already have awful re-flux from chemo but this made it much much worse if possible lol), the swelling and the pain in all my scars and my side from the breast cancer etc. .. but it was all worth it, even the last month where it was hard to sleep and do anything lol…….

So our wonderful team booked us in for a C section on the 26th and as that day rolled around we felt nervous but also surreal that it was real and happening.. I felt sad that he was not going to be safe and warm in my belly but sooo excited to meet him as well.. everything went well, Tracy looked after Shane wonderfully and me prior to delivery and then Liam and she was the first one other than the gorgeous Sarah that delivered him to hold him… and check him out.. it was a weird feeling not being able to feel or move my lower half, gosh I’ve always had empathy for invalids but I can sort of relate to it for a short time anyway.

We all got to cuddle him and have skin to skin time in recovery and then in our room and then Marleen (Shane’s dads partner) and Shane’s Mum came to the hospital and got to meet him as well. As I didn’t know if I would be able to breast feed, the midwives suggested we do a “line feed” for him.. basically using a syringe and a line and feeding him through the tube/line on my nipple.. it worked well and Shane and I managed to prepare and to it on our own and I even did it on my own own lol several times.. it was nice to know that I had that considering everything.. that was done on the breast that didn’t have the cancer in it but had a reduction as it was dare I say cheaper to have it reduced and get a smaller implant than get a larger implant in the cancerous breast.. our government doesn’t consider breast reconstruction after breast cancer necessary, apparently it’s elective.. but that’s another story and passion of mine to change xox

The hospital was great, Liam had some jaundice and had treatment, the worst part of it was the little eye mask he had to wear and he hated it.. but it was necessary.. we went home on the Monday night, Shane had to work that day.. and as we packed up and got into the car with Liam loaded up we had to stop and take a breath.. oh my we both said, he’s real and he’s hear and oh they are letting us out of here to look after him.. yikes.. lol.. but it was fine…

We went back a few days later for a check up and I asked them how to check to see if I had any breast milk, we hand expressed and as some milk came out we all cried for joy… so I am able to do a mix of bottle and breastfeeding to him.. which is great as I get that contact with closeness with him but Shane also gets to bottle feed him and have that closeness as well… we get the best of both worlds.. I’m so pleased as he would have gotten the colostrom as he was on my breast quite a bit with the line feeding and he’s getting nutrients from both options.. win win I say 🙂 xox

And yes I am exhausted, tired, sleep deprived and as I wander up the hallway at all hours of the night in my routine, put my pillows up, get the bib, get my feeding pillow, go the kitchen, prepare and heat up the bottle.. all I can say is oh wow he’s here.. Some nights I manage to unpack the dishwasher, sterilise his bottles and fill them with kettle/boiled water.. some nights, I post and comment on Egg Donor Angels Facebook groups and some nights I fall asleep holding the bottle feeding him.. and just cuddling him..

I’m trying to stay on top of Egg Donor Angels but some days are just filled with Liam and stuff.. though we have been out and about quite a bit, we got to catch up with one of my gorgeous donors from my site in the city, so Liam had his first train ride, we’ve been shopping and to lunch and dinner with friends, we’ve had lots of visitors including my self adopted Dad, friends and another wonderful donor from here as well to name a few.. we’ve been on a car club run in the XY and I’ve started walking with him and Scoutie the dog.. oh and I’ve joined the local new parents group.. and yep already mentioned Egg Donor Angels lol…

So now I’m going to put up lots of photos as I know you all want to see them and I hope to do more posts and especially on our next stage of our journey, the next little one.. yayyyy we can’t wait.. as nervous as we are.. and know we will be holding our breath again for the whole pregnancy.. it’s all worth it..

And maybe I’ll write a book about this whole journey and for awareness.. I’m thinking the title along the lines of “holding our breath waiting for our miracle egg donor baby” or something similar but definitely with “holding our breath”.. as the whole pregnancy, we just couldn’t get too excited as we knew we had to get to the end and see him before we could..

Oh and the name.. well we hadn’t really decided on any, it only took us 3 weeks to finally decide lol.. I think we just couldn’t make that decicsion till we met him and till we knew he was here safe and sound.. and then we were looking at an African name that meant “long awaited” but it wasn’t correct.. and then any African names we looked at were too hard to pronounce for us Aussies.. so we both liked Liam and James so that was it.. though if it’s a boy for the next one, and I keep saying it is, I actually already have a name, not one that we had for Liam, one I have chosen after he was named.. it’s a name from a TV series from my childhood and I always loved it.. just only thought of it recently.. if it’s a girl the next one well.. I had some names picked out years ago but sadly I’ve forgotten them.. but I’m sure 3 weeks after he/she is born we’ll decide lol again..

Thanks for all your support, love and just everything, to those still on the journey let me know what we can do to help you achieve this, to those that have helped us, thank you so much, we love you all xoxox

Dianne, Shane, Liam, Scout the dog, Sooty the Cat and the chickens xoxox

Liam tonka trucks 240316 (5) to use smaller

Liam tonka trucks 240316 (2) to use smaller

So it’s been a while……sorry :(

Gosh I’m sorry it’s been a while since I have written anything, I hoped to do it regularly but a wee thing called breast cancer just got in my way.. plus all the usual day to day stuff 🙂 I hope to get back into it more soon…

Thank you to everyone for all your support and patience, I have tried where possible to approve ads really quickly and reply really quickly but there have been days where I have just been too sick to do it 🙁 and it’s also been very difficult to do it from a hospital bed.

It’s been a crazy 2 1/2 years, since my diagnosis, I have had a mastectomy, FEC90 chemo x 4 sessions every 3 weeks and that was crap (nausea, vomiting, exhaustion, mouth ulcers, lack of appetite, hair loss and much much more), I was admitted for a week plus to hospital for low white blood cell count and infections after this first chemo, then I had to have a port put in as my veins collapsed in my arm and they couldn’t get a vein for the chemo, I then had another chemo taxol weekly for 12 weeks and that too was crap 🙂 (absolute exhaustion to the point I couldn’t walk or move, I lost my toe nails and my finger nails went extremely brittle, I lost feeling in my toes and fingers and it’s still as bad today which potentially no fix in site.. and again much much more), then I did radiation every weekday for over 4 weeks and that gave me a lovely tan, well actually really really bad sunburn with blisters… I also started a therapy called Herceptin through the port for a year as I was HER positive, I then had my reconstruction and 5 weeks later was rushed to hospital with massive infections and pain and subsequently had to have the implant removed.. then about 4 weeks later the wounds opened up and I had two lovely holes in my side where I could see inside myself :)… so my specialist got me to have them dressed daily for weeks, then sent me to Prince of Wales hospital daily for hyperbaric oxygen treatment to see if that would heal them, that was fun from Faulconbridge in the Blue Mountains on the morning train to Central railway station then by bus to Randwick and back home again in the afternoon… when that wasn’t working after 12 weeks, they did a CT scan to find that I had Osteoradionecrosis, a rare condition where the radiation and infections had caused the tissue and skin and some of my ribs to die… so they I had to have a lat dorsi where they took skin, muscle and tissue from my lower back and pulled it through to my front to give that area circulation and skin to heal…. but wait there’s more 🙂 so then once that was healed I had the expander put in, another surgery, and then they inflated it slowly to stretch the skin out and then finally about 7 weeks ago I had the implant put in… so we are on the home stretch, yay!!

Sorry a boring lot of detail and I am sure I have forgotten lots of extra treatment and stuff…. but that’s the quick snapshot 🙂 of course there were weekly/daily specialist appointments, lots of pain and exhaustion and so much more…

So the great news for me is that my egg donor angel did another cycle whilst I was still going through treatment and we have 11 snow babies on ice waiting for us. I have just had full scans and yes am cancer free, yayyyyy, we are full steam ahead on doing a cycle and a transfer.

This Tuesday I have a d+c to clear my uterus of all those nasty chemo drugs and other chemicals… then my body will heal whilst we go away to Melbourne to visit family and once we return we will do our first transfer, sometime around the end of September.

It’s been a long, exhausting and emotional journey for us and I hope that our dreams will now become reality and this Christmas I can celebrate knowing that the next one, we will have our own family.

So what about you?? I have had lots of wonderful news whilst going through all of this of babies being born through couples meeting their egg donor angels through here and lots of couples and egg donor angels currently going through the process. Some sad news where the cycles haven’t worked or the couples have decided to not continue looking 🙁

I am soooooo very excited, every week this site is growing and more and more wonderful egg donor angels are placing ads or contacting couples offering to help, when I started there were so many of us looking and not many angels…. but now we are getting the word out there about egg donation, infertility we are getting many more successes., thank you to everyone for this and please keep spreading the word xox

I was in Springwood at my local shops the other day and typical me, found any opportunity to talk about egg donation and Egg Donor Angels and infertility, that I was chatting to a shop assistant and she said if she had know years ago after having her children, she would have donated her eggs…

But the most important message I had for her was to be aware of her daughters fertility and as they get into their thirties to get themselves checked out and if they aren’t ready yet or haven’t found the right one yet, freeze their eggs…

When we are young, we are told “don’t get pregnant”, “go on the pill”.

At school, we learn the basics of reproduction but no one teaches you about infertility and its conditions and how age affects it and how our fertility starts to decline after 35…. I am not saying all young women should get pregnant or have babies earlier, everyone is different and each person needs to do this when they are ready… but I want every girl/woman to totally understand how it all works, the issues and even the simple thing of how ovulation works…

Well that’s it from me…I would love to hear how you are going..

xoxox

Ok… Deeep Breaths

Woke up this morning with a brighter outlook after yesterday’s appointment.

We saw our IVF Dr and after this round of blood tests and ultrasound, he say’s there’s nothing that should stop us from having a successful pregnancy, yay!! Some minor immunity issues but when we do our next cycle, he will give me something to help that.

I still have to do a uterus biopsy, was meant to do it yesterday but stopped my progesterone pessaries last week as they came from a different compounding chemist and I had a reaction to them 🙁

He said my donor has good ovarian reserve for her age, looks like she got my share for the family 🙂

So it’s looking like sometime in March, my donor has a few commitments over the next month or so and we need to get everything sorted at the clinic as well as my biopsy to cover all our bases.

Since the last miscarriage, I stopped talking about having children, it was just too hard and even if I did, it wasn’t “when we have children” or “our children/child” it was “if”. Last night I felt I could have the dream again, might take a few more times to get there but…..

Re this website, I am getting some great feedback thank you xo And thank you to those of you that have advertised and that have enquired about being an egg donor angel xo

As some of you know or have read, I used to charge a small fee to advertise on the site but I have stopped that as I only had a few people willing to pay and in turn I spent hundreds and hundreds of dollars on advertising for a donor for them. As much as I am passionate about this, I can’t afford this kind of money, sorry 🙁
… so I dropped the charge on my site and now I just promote the site and the potential recipients where I can, the only cost to me is my time and that I am not earning money from my business when doing it, if that makes sense?!
In doing this, the potential organic egg donor angels to the site has reduced and the site is mainly attracting the ones actively searching for this.

I would love your feedback on the site and in particular costs, would you prefer it to be free or would you consider paying a fee to advertise on this site, where we can then pay for advertising for your search for your egg donor angel?

I personally in my own search for our egg donor angel paid for ads in many places. The one thing I wanted was a quick and immediate response and something that was quick and relatively easy. I know we all have busy lives and for some of us it’s harder to get online, scouring the internet and sites posting and responding to forums and conversations. While this approach is free and offers some fantastic support networks however it is also very time-consuming. Yes we are focused on realising our dream of having a family but sadly life must go on with or without this dream and importantly we need incomes to pay for the dream as well.

I would love your feedback on this, either comment on this here, or drop me a line at diannej@eggdonorangels.com.au

Here’s to 2012 being the year of realising the family dream for any of us on that journey xox

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Another Christmas without our own family to share it with… when does this heartache stop…

Sorry to start the post on a downer but I know many of you will know these emotions and feelings……

Sadly we had another miscarriage, this time we knew by the second blood test, my HCG levels dropped signficantly so I stopped the meds straight away. The great news is my donor is going again for us but it’s going to be a few months due to personal commitments and we have moved to another clinic. I will do a separate post on this later as finding and researching a clinic is really important and knowledge is powerful in this emotional process.

Since then I have done blood tests and further ultrasounds to help us with the miscarriages before we go again. I knew I had a condition called Adenomyosis but yesterdays ultrasound confirmed it which is not good as mine seems quite bad. Now I am dreading next weeks appointment with the Dr as I suspect he is going to say it’s not good news and our chances are slim or none of holding a baby…. fingers crossed that he has some ideas on how to manage or help it… unfortunately the condition is not fixable 🙁 Normally they recommend a hysterectomy!!

So another Christmas and we still don’t have our dream. How do I feel?? Unbelievably sad but then grateful for what I do have but then overwhelmed by the sadness… How do you turn the corner on this, is it acceptance of your fate and move on with your life, do I keep trying until there is no hope at all?? My TCM lady said to me recently it will happen for me as I am the most determined person she knows in regard to this, however now I am not so sure. Even when the Dr told me 6 years ago things were not good and even when we tried and tried and I came to terms with an egg donor, I was still determined to realise the dream… now I am not so sure it can be realised.

My fear is that while I am putting this in writing, many of you going through the same thing are going to worry that this will be your fate, please don’t xox. As many of you know this is part of the process and I am documenting this as its normal and we need to know that. Surprisingly I am quite a shy and private person and this post is especially hard as it’s not like me to admit some defeat, give in or let it get to me but I feel it’s important as if I am going through this, then many of you have, will go or are going through this and we need to support each other.

The hardest part is to pull myself out of it, normally I am really good at this, like any of us, you have a sad or emotional day and then you wake up the next day, smile and get on with it. This time it’s a bit harder, I bounce back for a day or week and then I have another “ho hum” day….. It may not help that I am on the hormones as the Dr is doing a uterus biopsy next week as part of his investigation into the miscarriages.

So what next for me.. well I need to pull myself out of this, I need to get to next weeks appointment and hear what he says and take it from there. Will keep you updated and please talk to me about this if you want to either through email or here on our Facebook page….

xox

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hhhhhmmmm still thinking :-)

Yep still thinking about it….. though after last nights run where my feet were so cold I couldn’t feel them for the first 10 minutes, all I can think about is warm weather. Of course it appears I have Raynauds syndrome which doesn’t help, in the past two years my fingers and toes are quite often frozen and go white with no circulation…

Speaking of the run, now I am not normally an gadget person personally, I love them for businesses but not necessarily for myself…. but on my HTC desire I have loaded Runkeeper and tried it for the first time last night and it’s awesome. I don’t plan to share with the world my details on it but it’s just great for my goal setting. I think I understand some of the hype about “apps”. So then after I woke up when Shane got home last night, well this morning, I lay awake with my brain going 100mph thinking about work and then what apps I could develop for businesses and in terms of my favourite topic infertility.

So what to do about our holiday… another issue is that my cycles have been so erratic, well nothing for almost a year that I feel I need to use the pill to give me a couple of good cycles before we get a little embie to try to attach itself. They need nice snug uterus linings to attach to 🙂 sorry if too much detail! I need to send my ultrasound report to my Dr and see what she says, once reading that she might suggest to wait a cycle or two for this reason.

So another wet miserable day in Sydney, but again the fires on and I have work to do. If it was a nice sunny day I would feel guilty for being indoors so it’s probably a good thing.

Well I need to go and collect firewood, finish these presentations, do some filing, ring my Mum, do some housework and later do my dog walk, run and workout…

Thanks for listening xo

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