What now?

I've spent most of the last 24 hours struggling to figure out what to do next. Over the last year, a large pile of books on different topics has gradually accumulated on the floor near my side of the bed; books about surrogacy, adoption, egg donors, and remaining childless. On top of them all is a "chick lit" book to conceal them from DH (so he doesn't realize the level of insanity his wife has reached).

Anyway, I was rereading bits of all of them last night struggling to find an answer but not coming up with any clear cut path. At the moment my mind is a jumbled mess of options and I find myself considering moving forward with adoption, using a surrogate, doing another fresh cycle and possibly using half donor sperm, and doing an egg donor cycle all at the same time. Yeah, I know. Even if we did have the unlimited money this would cost, it's probably not a great idea. I'm just feeling so desperate right now.

I guess part of the issue is that there are some serious issues for us with any of the alternative options.

When it comes to adoption, we are just not comfortable with open adoption, which seems to be rather prevalent these days. I am also worried that our being Jewish might work against us when it comes to being chosen by birthparents. Ironically, I was raised as a Roman Catholic but converted to Judaism before DH and I married. Part of the reason was to be able to raise our children not feeling confused about religion yet, when it comes to adoption, our odds of getting a child may have been better if at least one of us was Roman Catholic. I sometimes regret converting for other reasons. I have great respect for Judaism and felt very strongly about converting at the time. Maybe the issue is just that I haven't taken any effort to participate in the customs or holidays, but it's hard when DH doesn't. I know we would both make the effort if we had children. Anyway, I'm getting into a whole different topic here.

Back to adoption... In all honesty, I also have to admit that adopting a child just seems like such a huge leap of faith to me. I worry about whether I'd be able to bond with the child. Would it feel like having a stranger in my home? Logically, I know from speaking to others who have adopted that it can be a great way to build a family and I'd feel like the children were truly mine. They would be mine. I love my cat like my own child so is it really that big a stretch to believe I'd love a child like my own child? That leads me into the positive aspects of adoption. We would get a child. It might be a very long wait but, if we were persistent, it would happen. I can't say the same about any of the other options. I also feel like adoption is something I could be proud of. We would be doing something altruistic by giving a child a great home and parents. Both of our families are fully supportive of it.

When it comes to egg donation, the first problem is that we aren't certain egg quality is our issue. And, if it is, we don't know if that's our only issue. Would we need an egg donor and a surrogate? If so, then we negate what many regard as a big positive factor with egg donation; being able to carry the child.

When I first started thinking about egg donation, the imbalance it might create in our marriage was a big concern to me. I've been able to convince myself that wouldn't be a problem and, sure, if there is some way at least one of us can have a genetic connection that would be great. It would somewhat ease my fears about the baby feeling like a stranger if I knew there was part of DH in there.

Another issue, though, is we would not be able to tell anyone. DH's mother would be the only one who would know (and, even then, only because we would need his parents help financially if we went that route... especially if we used a surrogate as well ). I wouldn't want to live my whole life putting up with stupid comments or subjecting the child to them. I don't like the feeling of having to keep secrets. I know that many who decide not to tell say it is really no one else's business (except for perhaps the child's) how they conceived. I would just feel a little strange about my parents thinking there was some sort of genetic link between them and the child when, in fact, there wasn't? So, there are definitely some issues here. And, of course, one big issue is that there is no guarantee donor eggs would work for us.

Then we have the option of trying donor sperm. Again, we have no clear cut need for donor sperm in light of ICSI being available. According to many Dr.'s, a sperm can be completely terrible in terms of quality yet still do it's job properly once they have injected it into the egg.

My DH is also not very receptive to this idea. He would do it if a Dr. were to tell him that he was 100 percent certain his sperm were the issue behind our very low percentage of normal embryos but has a problem doing it just as a part of trial and error to see what might work for us. Using donor sperm would also mean my doing another IVF cycle.....and I don't think we'd be willing to try that until we did one more cycle first with our own eggs and sperm to see if not having any normal embryos last time was just an aberration. So, that would bring me up to Fresh Cycle 9. I don't know if I have that in me, mentally or physically not to mention the financial impact it would have on us.

The only conclusion I've managed to reach for now is that I will try to search for a new surrogate for the embryos in Las Vegas. Meanwhile, I'm sure I'll spend everyday thinking about all of the above.