Just got back from the teaching visit with my RE, where I wrote the biggest check I’ve ever written in my whole life. Here’s the plan!

• 10/25 start Lupron
• 10/29 stop BC
• 11/4 start Estrace
• ~11/17 – ultrasound lining check
• ~11/18 Donor egg retrieval
• ~11/19 we’ll be told how many eggs were retrieved
• ~11/20 we’ll be told how many fertilized
• ~11/24 Transfer
• ~12/3 Beta

Everyone I spoke to told me how much they loved my donor, how sweet she was, and how excited she was to be starting the cycle. I’m putting together a little gift basket for her – the DE nurse says I can leave it at the clinic and they’ll give it to her the day of the retrieval. I got a nice basket and lined it with Thanksgiving themed kitchen towels. I’m putting in a stuffed animal (for her young son), a Willow Tree angel (here), a jar of homemade bath salts and homemade soap and some chocolate. I’ve also gotten an artist friend of mine to hand paint a card. Now I just have to figure out what to say! I mean, how do you thank someone for this? I have one chance to express to this woman how much this act, this gift, will mean to me and my family. I want her to know how much I appreciate her putting herself through this (I’ve been through IVF – it’s rough). I know she’s getting paid and I’m sure the money is an important consideration for her, but there are easier ways to make a buck. Plus, according to my DE nurse she isn’t doing this for the money – she seems to truly have altruistic intentions. Maybe they always say that, I don’t know. Regardless, I want to give her some sense of how grateful and thankful we are.

You know, it’s weird. IVF, DE, infertility – it’s a super intensity experience. And somewhere, nearby, is a women who is thinking of me and I am thinking of her. We’re on this parallel path, she and I, with coordinated cycles, blood draws, doctor visits. We’re both going through a significant amount of trouble, spending an incredible amount of time to achieve a common goal, and yet I’ll never meet her. I think of her every day, and I’m sure she thinks of me sometimes, and we’re sharing a very unusual and strangely intimate experience, but we’re strangers. It’s just….odd.