"Assume" makes an...

When I first started reading IVF blogs, I came across an elegantly written piece about why adoption was not the choice for everyone and how the poster was sick of people suggesting it. It was long post, and I wish I remembered who wrote it, but it was good. Really, really good. The post outlined perfectly why not only was it not an option for them and the reasons why it was not an option for many, but also how the constant mention added hurt to an already very difficult time.

That's what I felt like yesterday with yet another hint that we should consider donor eggs. 

I'm sure it wasn't intentional, the person probably thought they were being helpful - they weren't. At this time, egg donation is not an option for us. Period. Maybe that will change if I have additional failed cycles and other things fall into place, but 1 failed cycle does not = go straight to donor eggs for us. 1 failed cycle that I may add, produced a high grade embryo. I may not have responded as well as we had hoped, but that's what 1st cycles are all about - right? Learn how you respond and adjust.

Both my husband and I are educated people and we know exactly where we stand with odds. We are fortunate enough to have access to published information that is reserved for academics in the field, are avid researchers, and even have access to data that very few others are privy to. If anything, one can say I have analyzed data to death as data is my field of expertise. We do not even look at data the way a layperson does because we have a statistical and data background that let's us read beyond sheer numbers. We are well aware of EXACTLY where we stand. 

Besides the warm and fuzzy of having your own genetic child, we have bigger issues on why it's not an option: my husband is not a US citizen. We live in the US. An egg donor means our child would not be a US citizen and we could run into some very serious issues of not being able to return to the US or a child visa expiring while we are in the US. There are 20 things that could go wrong and quite frankly the added cost of it all (me not being able to work while this thing sorts out) is too much of a limbo for us. To badly paraphrase the great Jack Nicholas, "Go sell limbo somewhere else, we're all stocked up here". 

We could wait for my husband to become a citizen, but that can take a lot of time and his international travel could be limited during the process. That may or may not cause issues with his work and it would certainly cut out travel to India, something we would prefer not to do at the moment given his parents are elderly, have had health issues, and live in India. 

There are a TON more issues of WHY we choose to try to use my eggs right now and quite frankly I don't feel like listing them all at the moment. Between a baby shower and a email yesterday, I'm spent. The email was from a popular clinic and even though I have never worked with them before and have only had 1 failed IVF, there was a blatant suggestion that I consider the egg donor route. I'm sure it wasn't meant this way, but it felt the same way that all of us IVF'ers do when someone suggests that we quit being selfish and go adopt a needy child. It's not one of our current options and people shouldn't assume that it is. 

I seriously thought my tears were going to flow in front of everyone when I naively and happily opened that email from the clinic. In the middle of the baby shower no less. Let me clarify that I think the egg donor route is an excellent option for many people and I fully support that decision, - but for now it is not for us. 

Decisions, decisions

While we already know we want to cycle again as possible, it is very hard deciding where. There are so many pros and cons to the different locations - have to decide quickly. Due to my age and low previous response, it is imperative that I choose someone that has a high success rate for MY given situation. That's harder to determine (outside of US) than one would think. 

BFN

I'm oddly ok. Setting my expectations realistically helped a lot. I think it was harder for my husband, but he seems to be holding up ok right now. He woke up at 6:45am wanting to call the doctor. Before we did that I checked my email and the sad news was waiting in my inbox. I can tell I'm going to cry, but I don't feel absolutely horrible.

We've already contacted the doctor about returning; now I just need my PIO card to come in stat.

Things you should not read during 2WW (I mean it!)

From  http://www.fertilitynation.com

Ugh.

Supposed to get the news tomorrow, but I wouldn't be surprised if we don't hear from them till the 11th.

Looks like I need to pull out a yoga video and read my new "Mindfulness" book. 

Indian transformation 70% complete

Well I've done it. After worrying about the limitations of my 10 year visa while in India, I decided to go a different route and looked into obtaining OCI (Overseas Citizenship of India) or PIO (Person of Indian Origin) status. Oddly enough, I only qualify for the "Person of Indian Origin" status as the OCI does not make allowances for spouses.

The differences are not that much. PIO is only for 15 years while OCI is granted for a lifetime. The PIO also costs more ($365 vs $275) and overall has little less rights (such as I have to register if I plan on staying more than 180 days), but way more leeway than a normal visa. I can pretty much go and come as I please - that is the main reason I applied even with 6+ years left on my visa.  There is also talk of merging the two types and I'd rather pay more now than possibly lose out if they don't want to include spouses in the future. I could get lucky and shifted into lifetime status! (A girl can hope.) 

Gathering the paperwork and filling out the forms was pretty tedious. You need to make sure all your "t's" are crossed and "i's" are dotted. After gathering all of your paperwork, you need to make sure you have copies made of the right things (such as your drivers license or husband's documents), and that everything is in the right order. After quadruple checking everything, I was finally satisfied enough yesterday to hand it over to FedEx guy, even while giving him a slight Big Eye. I get edgy whenever my passport leaves my possession.

Hopefully by this time next month I will be able to tell people I am  officially a "Person of Indian Origin". As a blonde hair, blue eyed, fair-skinned girl, I can't wait to see the confusion among my friends here in the states. Even more so when I have to present it at travel points in India! I can hear it now, "wait... what?" Better bring along my visa just in case...

TSA killed my laptop

On my trip to India, we opted for the pat down instead of the scanner as we always do. Trying to have a baby, we do not need anything working against us. When doing an opt out, you are not allowed to carry your things to the pat down area - TSA agents will do that for you. At least that's the way it works in our airport.

Going through the security line, we noticed that one of the TSA agents was yelling at everyone for a variety of things. If you dared forget to take even a sliver of paper out of your pocket, you were yelled at in front of everyone. I received my pat down and started putting my things back together when I noticed my husband was one of those people. We travel very frequently and he carries non-metal things in his pocket all the time - never previously a problem. This time it was. As my husband does not take it well when people in positions of power are abusive, he argued with the TSA agent, but then eventually was allowed through. 

After he went through the metal detector, he was brought over to the pat down area. I was still gathering all my stuff, but was distracted as the TSA agent began to yell at other people. Had my attire back together and started putting all of my things they had brought over back in the bags. 

After my husband's pat-down, I noticed he was visibly distressed. Not surprising. In the airport there is a TSA stand where you can see agents sitting down, talking, doing paperwork. My husband gathered his items that the agents had brought over and headed to the TSA stand. 

At the stand, he stated he wanted to file a compliant, but the agent stated that she would take his complaint orally. Since we had an overseas flight to catch, we didn't want to investigate if that was enough or if we should insist on filing a form. After all, they could always throw it away if it was what they were trying to avoid.

It was in right before we landed in Paris (our layover) that we realized his laptop was never returned to him. As the plane landed, we rushed to talk to the stewardess, but there was nothing she could do; they don't even have TSA overseas. Then it hit me as we got off the plane: my laptop had not been returned to me either. One is a mistake - two laptops not returned is something else all together. 

In a flurry of long distance cell phone calls, we were able to contact my brother and his wife to get the process started of trying to get our laptops back. They found out the number to our airport TSA and the general number. Even though it was still the middle of the night in our original airport, I left a message for the manager of TSA customer service for that airport. (Big surprise - he never called back.) 

Fortunately my brother was able to retrieve the laptops the next day; he was really on top of it. While he was picking them up, he heard the lady in lost and found drop a laptop. He asked if it was one of ours, but she insisted it was not and opened up another laptop stating it was that one. My brother was all prepared to give his ID and the passwords to the computers, but no need, the employee said he had "an honest face" and let him take both laptops without any proof what-so-ever.

When he got home he booted the laptops up to make sure they were the right ones. They were, but unfortunately mine would not boot. Rather than having him send the laptops to India like we originally planned, we decided not to risk more damage and vowed to take care of it on our return.

Well I've returned and it's not good. My 6 month old laptop is fried. For the first time in my life I took my computer to a repair shop (I'm an IT person), because it was clear that it needed tools that the average IT person does not have for data recovery. After days of trying different methods, the data recovery shop had to inform me that none of the data was recoverable and it was the worst case of damage by dropping that they had ever seen - and they see a lot. 

Normally I back up my hard drives, but with all of our recent unexpected travel (we've had a lot) and medical things, I just didn't get it around to it. I am sick to my stomach over what is lost forever. Not to mention the weeks and weeks worth of work on it. My computer has been shipped off to HP in hopes that in the very least it will still be covered it under warranty and that I will not have to "drop" another $600-$800 on a new one. 

Now the computer shop tells me that not only do they get A LOT of PCs that TSA has dropped, but that it is very common for TSA not to return things to people who are flying. Apparently if it goes unnoticed, all items are auctioned after 30 days. How many guesses do you want on who goes to those auctions... 

WILL UPDATE MORE AS MY CLAIM AND COMPLAINT PROCESS PROCEEDS. It is not a fast process from what I understand. Their website claims 3 weeks to even acknowledge your compliant and 6 weeks to resolve. 

Eggs in a basket

For some reason our daily fruit package from our hotel in India always reminded me of a uterus. Don't judge, I have a great imagination and my thoughts were consumed with my lady parts already. You can even see where I pressed the cling wrap with my thumbs to try and get a better look and some tiny round fruit beneath the bananas whose name escapes me now. I'll call them the ovary fruit. (Thank goodness my Fallopian tubes don't look like that!)

With wandering thoughts today (and because it has been mentioned to me more than one at my precious age of 40), I looked up some egg donor info today. Not because I'm worried, just to prepare myself with some info should I need it.

Holy. Crap. 

According the American Pregnancy Association, the costs for just the egg donation is another 15-20K. If we do it here in the US, then costs for egg donation + surrogacy + all the other expenses that go with it run around 120K (and that's ONLY if the IVF cycle is successful!) If we do it in India, the costs are much less, but the complications are way more. If I want an egg with my ancestry, then it gets SUPER complicated. 

Do the process in the USA where it costs more and you chance a lower success rate by using frozen embryos or find an egg donor that is willing to travel to India (and probably go through a huge culture shock.) If we use an egg donor in India, then I have zero chances of having an egg donor with similar traits to me. In India we also run into the problem of my husband not being a US citizen and thus our child would not be. Getting the baby a visa with the HOPES that the US would approve me for adoption (and then citizenship for child) is a nightmare that might test me more than I am able to handle. (What happens if they say no after the fact???) Alternatively I can dash all hopes of any remote resemblance and we wait for the long process of US citizenship for my husband. 

Crap. 

Come on little embryo! You're the only prior egg left in my basket.