How we decided to search for an egg donor.
After my second unsuccessful IVF cycle, Mr Lavery delivered the blow that, at that time, I wasn't ready to hear. "Egg quality is the major factor for a viable embryo" said he. At that point he gave us a 5% chance of success which, he said, would shoot up to around 60% if we used a donor egg. Horrified at the thought of 'giving up' on myself so soon, we rejected the idea for a further four IVF cycles.
Our IVF cycles had been pretty hit and miss; I'd produced between 7 and 14 eggs each time, had really "exceptional" womb lining (so said every consultant when probing my lady bits) but the embryos in the early cycles were 'average' quality. Like most people in this situation, I was willing to do anything to improve the quality of my eggs so I embarked on a strict (and bloody expensive) regime of vitamin intake including large amounts of Coenzyme Q10 (OMG how expensive???), Starflower oil, vitamin D as well as my usual doses of folic acid. On top of that a drastic diet change, piling as many vegetables down my neck as I could bear, and I'd long since given up even a sniff of wine. On top of this I embarked on a regular routine of Chinese herbs and acupuncture. I was so focused on producing good eggs that Husb started to call me his 'Little Hen'....😳
I can't say whether any of this became the definitive factor but, slowly but surely, my egg yield and embryo quality improved significantly. By cycle #4 and #5 our embryos had even made it to blastocyst stage. Cycle #5 (embryos below) yielded our only IVF pregnancy, which sadly ended in miscarriage. Mr Lavery hit the nail on the head when he described this experience as "the cruellest of all" - we'd waited for so long, kept the faith, done everything possible, produced near-perfect embryos AND FINALLY we were pregnant again. But even still, it wasn't enough. From cycle #5 we had one frozen embryo, which became cycle #6 and came to nothing.
By this point I knew I was ready. I'd had enough of the mental and physical anguish of IVF. I'd had enough of Husb and I putting life on hold to cultivate embryos that would perish and leave us in unimaginable pain. I know that Husb would have kept going if I'd wanted to; he'd never given up hope, but a new concern had entered my head: even if I could achieve and sustain a pregnancy with my own eggs, I was now in my early 40s with a track record of poor quality eggs - would a baby be at serious risk from Down Syndrome or worse? That was the tipping point that helped me reach an important realisation; it was time to move on.
Back to Mr Lavery's office we went, ready to discuss our options and the possibility of using an egg donor - which, if you've read my previous post, you'll know I wasn't sold on. He discussed with us the methods of finding donors - and gave us some brochures for agencies in Spain and Russia where, he explained, we could find anonymous donors. I have to admit, the brochures freaked me out. The Russian one was full of childhood images and biogs of potential donors; flicking through it felt soulless - like catalogue shopping! Is this really how I was going to achieve a pregnancy? He also recommended Altrui, a UK-based team who could find us a donor.
Several months later, after many sessions of counselling and the mind-opening evening with Altrui, we decided that we would like to start the search for a donor. We did a lot of soul-searching about whether to use a foreign donor or a UK-based one. Here's what kept us up at night:
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| Husb hit the nail on the head. This just about sums up IVF... cluck. |
I can't say whether any of this became the definitive factor but, slowly but surely, my egg yield and embryo quality improved significantly. By cycle #4 and #5 our embryos had even made it to blastocyst stage. Cycle #5 (embryos below) yielded our only IVF pregnancy, which sadly ended in miscarriage. Mr Lavery hit the nail on the head when he described this experience as "the cruellest of all" - we'd waited for so long, kept the faith, done everything possible, produced near-perfect embryos AND FINALLY we were pregnant again. But even still, it wasn't enough. From cycle #5 we had one frozen embryo, which became cycle #6 and came to nothing.
By this point I knew I was ready. I'd had enough of the mental and physical anguish of IVF. I'd had enough of Husb and I putting life on hold to cultivate embryos that would perish and leave us in unimaginable pain. I know that Husb would have kept going if I'd wanted to; he'd never given up hope, but a new concern had entered my head: even if I could achieve and sustain a pregnancy with my own eggs, I was now in my early 40s with a track record of poor quality eggs - would a baby be at serious risk from Down Syndrome or worse? That was the tipping point that helped me reach an important realisation; it was time to move on.
Back to Mr Lavery's office we went, ready to discuss our options and the possibility of using an egg donor - which, if you've read my previous post, you'll know I wasn't sold on. He discussed with us the methods of finding donors - and gave us some brochures for agencies in Spain and Russia where, he explained, we could find anonymous donors. I have to admit, the brochures freaked me out. The Russian one was full of childhood images and biogs of potential donors; flicking through it felt soulless - like catalogue shopping! Is this really how I was going to achieve a pregnancy? He also recommended Altrui, a UK-based team who could find us a donor.
Several months later, after many sessions of counselling and the mind-opening evening with Altrui, we decided that we would like to start the search for a donor. We did a lot of soul-searching about whether to use a foreign donor or a UK-based one. Here's what kept us up at night:
- I'm mixed race - I have dark hair, olive skin and brown eyes (and a latin temperament) - it would be MUCH easier to find a donor that would be a good visual match for me in Spain
- Donors can remain anonymous abroad; in the UK they can be traced when the child reaches 18 (read what HFEA says about this here) - would this be a deterrent to women wanting to become donors? Given my ethnicity, it would be hard enough to find me a good donor match in the UK without the pool of donors being limited to start with?
- Would we want a traceable donor? Surely it would be less complicated not to be able to trace them? But would it be fair to any children to take away their choice? Would the knowledge that they could be traced hang over our heads for 18 years?
In the end, for us the right choice was the one we felt was fairest to any potential babies. Even though finding a donor in the UK seemed the hardest route given the lack of donors - especially non-Caucasian donors - but we both agreed that it would be fairest to any children to give them the choice to eventually trace their donor. So we took the step of contacting Altrui.
I think that's maybe enough for one sitting, so stay tuned to find out how we eventually found a donor!
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