L's Story: Part Two

We went through donor after donor with this particular agency, and they kept flaking out on us.  If they didn’t change their minds immediately, they would string us along and then quit on us.  Or, they would take 2 months to return the contract and say it must have gotten lost in the mail.  Just what you need to inspire confidence after you go out on a limb to use an anonymous stranger’s DNA to start a family.  And if the donors from this agency weren’t being difficult, the agency was.  Their follow up was abysmal and their attitudes even worse.  It was very discouraging.  Then, late one Friday night I noticed a donor of interest posted on the BHED website.  She was the first donor that had caught my attention before we were strongly encouraged by our clinic to work with this FL agency.  She had been unavailable at the time, some months earlier, and I just happened to notice that she was posted again.  So I sent an email and Lisa called me shortly after.  This donor had become available almost mid-cycle due to some strange circumstances and it became possible for us to jump right in, so we did.  

While that cycle didn’t pan out for us, it brought us to a wonderful clinic in VA and to BHED.  We have found BHED’s donors to be educated, responsible, and pretty much all-around wonderful girls.  Their staff is supportive and extremely diligent and they go above and beyond to make this experience as smooth as possible.  They know a lot about their donors and they spend a great deal of time selecting them and teaching them about the process so they are ready, willing and able to see it through to the end, no small feat.  For those of you who have not been through a cycle yourselves, it is not for the faint of heart.  And to go through it to help an anonymous couple start a family is pretty remarkable.

Now, onto the remarkable part of our story.  After a year of trying to cycle with various donors and then finally finding BHED, we were matched and the donor was cleared and we were ready start.  Well, almost ready to start.  The donor had gotten her period and was on the pill waiting for me.  I returned from a business trip expecting to start my period early the next week and for some reason, I decided to take a pregnancy test.  Not sure why, I don’t normally take them.  Well, imagine our shock to find out that a little stick was telling me that I was already pregnant.  I think we were in denial at first and since I had gotten pregnant once before and it didn’t take, we knew it was still a long shot.  So, we made the decision to go through with the donor cycle as well and to freeze the embryos.  It had been such a long, hard journey to get to this point we just couldn’t risk having to start all over again.  Our donor did wonderfully, with 19 eggs retrieved, 11 fertilized and ultimately 4 blastocysts frozen for future use.  We are very grateful to BHED for their support and really cannot say enough wonderful things about their organization and its dedication.  I hope our story provides you with some encouragement to press on when things look bleak and some hope, because despite a diminished ovarian reserve, a blocked fallopian tube and sperm that doesn’t survive 24 hours, anything can happen.  I wish you all the best of luck.

-L, Recipient