A Big Decision

We've talked about this before, but as money is a bit tight we never really thought we'd be able to go ahead with it.  However, when I was speaking to my Mum a few days ago she offered us some money toward treatment.  It now looks as though egg-sharing will be an option for us to enable us to go ahead with treatment asap.


What Is Egg-Sharing?

Egg sharing is a process whereby patients with a normal egg reserve can undergo IVF and share their eggs with a woman who cannot produce their own good quality eggs. By sharing their eggs the donor is helping a couple and there is a reduction in the cost of standard treatment, as the person receiving the eggs (the ‘recipient’) undertakes to pay most of the expenses involved.

Who Can Be An Egg-Sharing Donor?

Egg sharing donors must:

have body mass index of <28 Kg/m2
be a non-smoker
be negative for various infectious diseaseshave a normal genetic analysis approved
be less than 34 years of age (i.e. before the 34th birthday)
have an AMH value of at least 16 pmol/L (showing a good ovarian reserve).


I won't lie, the main reason for us to take part in egg-sharing is that it would reduce the cost a great deal for us which means we can start treatment a lot sooner than if we were paying the full costs (IVF costs roughly £4.5k per cycle)  I spoke at length about it with mum and the idea of helping someone who is struggling with infertility is also a major plus in going ahead with treatment this way.  I know how devasting I've found the whole process of not being able to get pregnant, and can only imagine how much worse I would feel if I were having to rely on a donor for either eggs or sperm as there is such a shortage. 

Mum and hubby both asked how I would feel about someone else having (what would in effect be) my child and that at some point in future I could be contacted by that child as the UK no longer has anonimity regarding donors.  My answer for that is that I don't know - how can I possibly know how I would feel until it happened?  I'm not sure how much of a possibility it even is that A) the parents would tell the child that I donated eggs, or B) that the child would care/try and find me.  In my opinion, all I would be donating would be cells as it's not an embryo/baby until it is fertilised with sperm.  In my mind, it's equivilent to donating blood - which I also do - and in that case you don't become the person who donated the blood you receive do you?  That's my reasoning anyway, no matter how flawed others may think it is.  I would prepare any children we had by telling them (when they were old enough of course) that I donated eggs to allow another couple to become parents when otherwise they could not.  I know that if my mum had told me that I would be very proud of her, and can only hope that would be the case if we were in the same situation.

The other issue to consider is what if our treatment isn't successful (ie we don't get pregnant) and the recipient does?  With that one I don't think I would ask how their treatment went as it would no doubt be very painful to think it had worked for them and not us.  I know that if we go for egg collection and there aren't enough eggs to share that it'll break my heart, and I'm not sure what I would do.  The options are to keep all the eggs myself and pay in full for the treatment, or give all the eggs to the recipient and receive another round of treatment free (excluding drug costs)  On one hand it would be so hard to go through all the drugs etc then have no eggs to go back, but on the other hand I would feel so guilty and sad for the other woman as she would be feeling exactly the same way.  That is a decision I hope we don't have to make - and if we do then we'll deal with it then and do what we think is best.

So, armed with a list of the tests we need carried out I'm going to phone our GP tomorrow.  I know I've had most of them done, and obtaining the results will reduce the costs for us further as they won't need to be repeated.  I'm hoping that if we are missing any the GP will perform them for us - I can but hope!!  I also need to contact the clinic tomorrow (god thats scaring me to actually make the phonecall) and arrange our initial consultation and fertility assessment (to see if we can proceed with donating)  Following that we need to book a "consents" appointment (which according to the girl I e-mailed today is booking into early June) then we'll be ready to start treatment. 

All being well we should be starting treatment in mid June this year!!!

A little bit about us

The best place to start is at the beginning, so here we go .....

My husband and I had been married for a year when we decided to start trying for a baby of our own.  My husband has two kids from a previous marriage, so this would be his third child and my first.
It is drummed into you while you're young that having unprotected sex = getting pregnant, but what they never tell you is that for some people it isn't as straight forward as all that.

I stopped taking my birth control pills in August 2009, naively thinking that we'd more than likely be pregnant by Christmas (I was actually so confident that I bought I dress for my sister's wedding the following July that would accommodate a bump!)  Christmas came and went and we were still no closer to being pregnant.  A few months later I decided that I'd go and see our GP and have some tests carried out to check things were all working as they should be.

I had the usual blood tests carried out which all showed that I ovulate as normal.  However hubby's sperm analysis came back showing low motility.  To confirm this, we had another test done which showed the same, and this prompted the GP to refer us on to the Fertility Clinic at the local hospital.
Our appointment came through - and was on our second wedding anniversary.  Long story short, they carried out another three sperm analysis on hubby (two were still bad and one was fine - we think this was because we were just back from holiday and he was very relaxed)  I also had an HSG which showed that there were no blockages in my fallopian tubes.

Our last visit to the Fertility Clinic was on 8th March and the Consultant decided that the only way we would achieve a pregnancy would be through IVF (ICSI)  For this we had to be sent to a bigger hospital as ours does not perform IVF.  So far the only appointment we have had at the new hospital was for hubby to have yet another sperm analysis last week and then we have to attend another appointment on 11th May to find out which treatment they think would be best for us.

So as things stand just now, we will be put onto the waiting list for IVF which for our area means a year long wait.