So this last fortnight has been a wave of emotions for me... and I suspect that adjusting to the birth control pills only added spice to the experience.
First off we decided to take a wild leap and leave our wonderful apartment for a rental in the outskirts of town. Country living sounds great, but its been ages since I've actually done it (and more importantly the added driving requirements). This led to some stomach wringing anxiety, excitement, and lots of anticipation! I was practically vibrating as I flung myself into finalizing the move.
More importantly, movement has happened on the whole egg donor front. After I heard my best friend's news, I found myself at my another friend's house – the one who offered to donate awhile ago. We talk about lots of things, and I really appreciate that she is letting our friendship continue to evolve irrespective of her amazing offer. Over tea, I mentioned mybest friend's pregnancy and how I was surprised on how mellow I felt about it.
The next day I received a wonderful email from mydonorating inclined friend sharing all sorts of information that I was planning to ask her about as soon as I had made some headway through the grieving process over my failing ovaries. She volunteered information regarding her own fertility and medical history and other details that she felt that she would want to know herself if she was considering an older egg donor.
That afternoon I also received a letter from my fertility doctor in response to a letter I had sent only a few days prior saying that I had a donation offer. The letter outlined next steps and made it easy to respond to my friend's email.
Two days later while I was off at a conference, unbeknownst to me, my friend was having her FSH levels tested. In the middle of a brutal meeting, I got a text message from her sharing the results... I have never been so excited by a single digit number in my life. At 39 her FSH was lower than mine had ever been in my twenties! I was twitching with nerves at that point. Suddenly all of this no longer seemed theoretical. I could actually try to conceive. I could be a parent in the next year even! And boy oh boy do I need to get my head sorted about how I felt about the emotional aspects of egg donation.
In 72 hours I had gone from a holding pattern with no obvious transition point to actually planning doctor appointments with my friend!
I've often been told not to make any major decisions whilst grieving...
In fact several years ago, I choose not to switch jobs once because of this (a dear dear friend had died and I decided that I 'ought' to wait to leave my job until I was in a 'better' place griefwise...), a decision that felt wrong at the time and continued to feel wrong for years later.
I promised myself that I would never blindly follow that advise again. I'm starting by embracing the upcoming move to the countryside--even if it comes at a time where I am desiring stability and safety as my world seems to churn under foot.
Now I am also heading down the egg donor path (keeping a backdoor open for now) with as much confidence as I can given how overwhelming, exciting, hopefully, terrifying, and unknown as it is.
First off we decided to take a wild leap and leave our wonderful apartment for a rental in the outskirts of town. Country living sounds great, but its been ages since I've actually done it (and more importantly the added driving requirements). This led to some stomach wringing anxiety, excitement, and lots of anticipation! I was practically vibrating as I flung myself into finalizing the move.
More importantly, movement has happened on the whole egg donor front. After I heard my best friend's news, I found myself at my another friend's house – the one who offered to donate awhile ago. We talk about lots of things, and I really appreciate that she is letting our friendship continue to evolve irrespective of her amazing offer. Over tea, I mentioned mybest friend's pregnancy and how I was surprised on how mellow I felt about it.
The next day I received a wonderful email from mydonorating inclined friend sharing all sorts of information that I was planning to ask her about as soon as I had made some headway through the grieving process over my failing ovaries. She volunteered information regarding her own fertility and medical history and other details that she felt that she would want to know herself if she was considering an older egg donor.
That afternoon I also received a letter from my fertility doctor in response to a letter I had sent only a few days prior saying that I had a donation offer. The letter outlined next steps and made it easy to respond to my friend's email.
Two days later while I was off at a conference, unbeknownst to me, my friend was having her FSH levels tested. In the middle of a brutal meeting, I got a text message from her sharing the results... I have never been so excited by a single digit number in my life. At 39 her FSH was lower than mine had ever been in my twenties! I was twitching with nerves at that point. Suddenly all of this no longer seemed theoretical. I could actually try to conceive. I could be a parent in the next year even! And boy oh boy do I need to get my head sorted about how I felt about the emotional aspects of egg donation.
In 72 hours I had gone from a holding pattern with no obvious transition point to actually planning doctor appointments with my friend!
I've often been told not to make any major decisions whilst grieving...
In fact several years ago, I choose not to switch jobs once because of this (a dear dear friend had died and I decided that I 'ought' to wait to leave my job until I was in a 'better' place griefwise...), a decision that felt wrong at the time and continued to feel wrong for years later.
I promised myself that I would never blindly follow that advise again. I'm starting by embracing the upcoming move to the countryside--even if it comes at a time where I am desiring stability and safety as my world seems to churn under foot.
Now I am also heading down the egg donor path (keeping a backdoor open for now) with as much confidence as I can given how overwhelming, exciting, hopefully, terrifying, and unknown as it is.
3 comments:
This is so exciting! I can just feel your hope in this post. I understand that shift from holding pattern to being able to take action, although it didn't happen quite as fast for me as it has for you! I think you are right to just respect that things are changing quickly right now, and not to try to slow things down because of your grieving. My experience is that grieivng ins't linear anyway, so trying to wait until it's done is a bit pointless. The big grief things will probably come up for the rest of my life, although it probably won't feel as acute. I have also found that every time we take a step forward and get closer to doing DI, I need to revisit some of those feelings. But a while ago, I was obsessing over some details and feeling really angry and my best friend just pointed out that it sounded like I needed to work on acceptance. And once I realized that, it was almost magical - I just sat with that for a couple days, and my heart just settled with it all. That's not to say that I'm 100% at peace with all of this all the time - in some ways, I think the sadness of all of this will be there forever. But a whole lot of it has moved over to make room for my happiness at being on the brink of trying to conceive our first baby, and when those feelings come up now they are way less intense and much easier just to accept.
What I love about this post is that despite all the anxiety and fear of both these decisions, the sense of them both being the right thing for you really shines through. I am so so happy for you.
Thanks for your comment... I am glad that you too seem to think that everything is going to work out with these two big changes. Many in my face-to-face life say the same. Perhaps I"m just clutching to anything that keeps things familiar because I feel like I'm sinking at work and in social things, losing ground, not gettign anything done... but I am really worried and scared.
I am pretty sure it has to do with this one huge decision I made years ago, one that I regretted for years and am still paying for, that everyone at the time seemed to think was a great move for me. Turns out not everyone did, but they said they did because I thought that is what I needed to hear to get on with an already made decision. In the end it opened lots of doors for me, but it was a brutal time in my life that I endured rather than lived. It also makes me fearful whenever other decision come up... and anything there is any similarity to that decision with current decisions, I panic a bit!
Funny how fast things can change in life, isn't it?
And, what a wonderful friend you have to be so proactive in this process! Got my fingers crossed that this will work out for you.
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