Shooting Up

I started my injections on Tuesday, and by last night I feel like an old pro. The needle is not as awful as I thought, and I was far less squeemish, too. I will continue with these injections to suppress all of my hormone levels.

Then after I get my period, I'll go to Syracuse for a baseline ultrasound. (I could do that here, but I figured I should start to establish a relationship and feel comfortable with the new office.) After that, I start with a different shot (still in the stomach) that will turn my ovaries into Jiffy Pop, as my friend Nancy says, and hopefully produce lots of big, juicy, healthy eggs.

And then sometime around September 8 or 9, I will go up to have my eggs harvested. I'll need someone to take me, since they will have to give me a local and I'll be a little too loopy to drive back. I'll already have the baby batter at the doctor's office so they can inject each egg with sperm. And then if all goes well, I'll go back a few days later and be implanted with two embryos.

That's a lot of if's. I'm trying to be cautiously optimistic about this whole process.

You'd think by now that would be an emotion I was an expert at, but I'm not. Somehow I always get my hopes up too high, which leads to major disappointments. And for the past year, it has been nothing but a roller coaster of hopeful highs and crashing lows.

Just once, I would like something I hope for to come true. I felt that by securing a known egg donor, by finding someone I knew and trusted and loved to be my genetic "replacement," the disappointment of having the dwindling egg supply was so greatly minimized.

Truly, the minute she offered, my 10-day headache went away. It was so unnerving to have to think about finding a genetic replacement for me. Choosing the sperm was like buying a pair of shoes compared to looking at the egg donor profiles.

I should have known better than to feel so secure. (And while I'm glad if she had reservations, that she voiced them now, it is still disappointing, it is still so hurtful. And I wonder, if I had not written to her and told her I had my phone consultation and that I would call her after so I could let her know the next steps, if I had not done then, when would she have told me?)

And so that's all I have to say about that. It's done. It's over. I need to focus on trying to grow some eggs. To encourage my body to eek out just a few viable eggs, for just another cycle or so. And that Dr. Richard Gere can perform the miracles that he's been performing for over 10 years.

I know of nine babies, by three different women, that he is responsible for creating. Wouldn't 10 be a nice round number?