Who Are We?

After introducing our blog a few days ago, let me now share who we are:

• I'm Chinese. Hubby is Japanese.
• We are an over 40 couple who met at work and in less than 2 years got married last September.
• Each has been married before.
• Each has pretty much have seen and lived in other parts of the world, work high pressure jobs and are homeowners, etc.
• We each have dogs.

I have one and my hubby had two, the older of the two unfortunately passed away in September 2012 of old age, now one. The big one follows the little one around, not vice versa. You can figure out who is the alpha in their relationship.


Our Christmas 2013 card
Photo: Baby For Our Family Blog

Me

From our 1st date we each were straight up honest. We both said we wanted to have children and at the time the only way I thought I could have children was IVF. Starting in my mid 30s, I have tried getting pregnant for 10 years. Went one round of IVF with my first husband and was able to produce great quality eggs, but surprisingly I could not carry and still remember vividly how devastated I was when I received the news that I wasn't on Halloween 2008.

During this 10 year period, my first surgery was for adenomyosis and my 2nd was for fibroid tumors before I began IVF.  I have had super duper heavy periods with excruciating lower back pain throughout, which finally led me to have a robotic hysterectomy last June at Kaiser. This winter was the first time since 2008 that I wasn't taking prescription pain meds because normally with the cold I would have the symptoms of arthritic lower back pain during my monthly. So to look at the positives, I do not have any regrets having a hysterectomy.

Hubby

His first wife works as a elementary school teacher who also has back problems. She didn't want to have kids since she's with them all day long. Unfortunately, this issue wasn't discussed before they got married. So after several years, this, among other issues, was what ended their marriage.

Why the egg donor and gestational carrier route?

Beginning in 2012, I was going through the process of reviewing my fertility at Kaiser which led me to their IVF clinic because I wanted to go through IVF, but my very painful, heavy periods returned starting around 2010 and grew worst with each passing month. I knew I had to get this resolved before I could even start the IVF merry-go-round again. But because of my over 40 age and now my recurring condition, the RE recommended I go back to see a OB/GYN to address that AND strongly recommended that we go the egg donor gestational carrier route because to put it, bluntly, my eggs are old and my uterus is and will be even more damaged than it's already with the 2 rounds of surgery I've had.

Hubby and I did talk about adoption. Did a lot of research for both domestic and overseas adoptions. But it didn't make sense for us because it would take as long or longer with all of the hurdles we would have to jump through for a toddler+.

Reality sinks in

What rang clear for me from my conversation with my RE: "If we really want children, stop wasting time and money. Go get an egg donor and surrogate because in order for me to stop having the debilitating painful periods I will have to have the hysterectomy. My eggs are done. At least, our child will be half Hubby's."

It took three more months to meet with the OB referral to get my June robotic hysterectomy, which recovery time was less than 2 weeks compared to 4-6 with a traditional one. One week after we returned from marrying in Hawaii last September, I contacted the Kaiser's IVF Agency coordinator and she gave me their referral list to review. I, then, started making the calls to set up the initial consultation appointments.

Hubby and I never looked back.

Love to hear from you: What was your decision making process for going with the egg donor gestational carrier route? Do you have any regrets?

Hello World!

Been thinking about starting a blog for a while to share my hubby and my IVF experience in the makings of our modern family.  Last Monday, the Agreement with our gestational carrier (GC) was finally signed. Our GC will start her meds tomorrow while our egg donor will start hers towards the end of this month. It took us about 8 months from making the first call, to our now IVF clinic, to get to this point.

Some of our decisions and observations along the way

Finding the clinic was easy since we went with Kaiser IVF because we are Kaiser members and I am existing patient of one of their REs. They had a list of suggested egg donor and surrogacy agencies they've worked with. I also did HOURS of egg donor and gestational surrogacy research via the Internet. But when I did Google searches for "Asian," "Chinese,"or "Japanese" egg donors, there wasn't much other than the egg donor agencies themselves or how expensive or how difficult it is to find an Asian donor for the various reasons many who are in our situation know too well that I don't need to go into this blog.

In the Asian community, there is stigma about discussing openly your personal health issues outside your immediate family or finding Asians, in general, who are willing to donate medically. I know there are many of us in our situation because the demand for getting an Asian egg donor is so great. Where do you go? Who do you talk to? Who do you trust?

There are support groups for egg donors and surrogates, but for us, Intended Parents (IPs), there aren't any in our local area who are actually going through this process. I've asked around -- our psychologist, IVF agency coordinator, surrogate agency coordinator and egg donor agency coordinator -- and checked RESOLVE. I have found some support and helpful information online via A Child After 40 and Parents Via Egg Donation, but again not specific with our Asian egg donor and surrogacy twist.

Our Kaiser IVF coordinator told us it could take, using multiple donor agencies, 6 months to 1 year to find someone (more on that in a future blog post) while juggling the process of finding a surrogate who is willing to wait for us because I am not able to carry. We never went down the "Ivy League educated $25K+" egg donor route because we're both 1st generation college graduates. I graduated from Cal and feel that it's the environment, or the nuture, that gets you to who you become in life, not a designer egg.

Why not share?

So I thought since we're embracing the IVF technology and using an egg donor and surrogate and had to be extremely open emotionally, mentally and financially to have our modern family, the logical next step is to chronicle our experiences electronically.  In future posts, I will include more about who we are, how we ended up here today and share with you all of our emotions, the good and the bad, and the dreaded costs--I used to joke about naming our baby, "Tesla," but it's now more of a reality when I see that we have just wrote checks totaling in the amount for the fully-loaded model to get us to this point!

Hopefully, our personal experiences can help other IPs who are in our special niche situation because we couldn't find any in one website or blog.

If you are going through this too, please don't be shy and share. I'm trying to form a support group.