Donor Eggs

I love my church. I really do. But there is a huge difference between the doctrine of the church and Mormon culture. I love the doctrine but I pretty much detest the culture. There are a few things that I've been a bit skeptical about and have labeled them Mormon Urban Legends. One is when people say that they have been struggling with an issue and they open the scriptures and it was like the scriptures have been written just for them. My response when people start telling these stories is, "oh please!" I just didn't buy it. I thought it was people creating a self fulfilling prophecy. Until it happened to me.

I was reading the Ensign (church magazine for those not in the know) and an old issue at that a few weeks ago. It was the Feb issue and Elder Hales was talking about axioms for life. Axiom 2 states, "Pursue your goals with all your heart, might, mind, and strength. You are doomed to failure if you pursue them in a vacillating manner. So often we are tentative and don't move forward with conviction. We feel our way along, as if we were afraid in the dark. It is so much better to turn on the light of faith and move ahead with energy and commitment. If our course is wrong, we will quickly recognize it and make the necessary adjustments. But if we pursue a course tentatively and indecisively, it is difficult to know whether it is right or wrong in time to correct it. The Lord said, 'I would thou wert cold or hot'. Rev 3:15. We should decide now to make our decisions prayerfully and then move forward with faith, energy, and determination."

Brilliant man, that Elder Hales. I tell you, he wrote that just for me. I know he did. Ok, so that might be a bit of a stretch but it felt like God is gently reminding me that He is there and aware of my situation.

I have been doing exactly what Elder Hales said. Moving along too tentatively, unsure of my course. I still haven't received a visit from an angel, a comment from God on my blog or anything else earth shattering but I am making a conscious decision to move forward with faith. I am prepared to change my course if I feel like that is the right choice but the best thing I can do is move forward until such revelation comes.

To that end, I believe we have selected a donor. She is lovely. Her health history is good. She has brown hair. She is tall. Her sisters are tall. Her brother boarders on giant like as he is 6'7". I love that about her. We share an ethnic background which surprised me how important that ended up being to me.

I was prepared to know next to nothing about our donor which is sad for me. I have been thinking about how our son or daughter will fill out forms at the doctors office regarding health history. They won't have much information about their birth mothers history. It's kind of bumming me out. It was also hard not to know if she is a nice person, a hard worker, or any things else that have anything to do with her personality. She obviously is going to put her best foot forward on the donor questionnaire. I'm not really upset about any of this but I have been giving it some thought.

It's turning out the anonymous donor process may not be totally anonymous. Entirely by coincidence I have found a connection between us. Here is my post from my favorite IF board.

I received a batch of donor profiles a while back and got some more from my clinic a few weeks later and I am pretty sure I have picked a donor. She is actually cycling right now for another couple and I will make my final decision in a week when we know how she responded, how many eggs were retrieved, and fertilized. I knew that the only way we would get to know our donor is if we recruited her ourselves. Paul got a bit uncomfortable with that though. I had resigned myself that we would never know her or know any more about her than was on the donor profile we initially received. Or...perhaps not.


So Brooke (my childhood friend that is currently living with us) and Alexis (a mutual friend from college who is visiting because her brother is graduating from unm) and I were at lunch today with Alexis's brother and I asked him what his major was. He responded criminology and I said one of the egg donors I am considering is majoring in criminology. Brooke has seen the donor profiles and looked over them with me. She and Alexis were at Alexis's brothers graduation over the weekend. At lunch when the DE subject came up a light bulb went off for Brooke. She looks at Alexis and reminds her of a conversation at the graduation where she was asking how she knew the girl that was graduating. This was a military graduation and Brooke remembered some stuff from the profile that was military related and we start quizzing Timothy because Brooke is almost positive that it is the same girl. We talk with Timothy quite a bit and in a matter of minutes we are assured that we are talking about the same girl. Does graduation girl speak German because the donor does? Has the graduation girl recently had lasik because the donor has? It was all confirmed. We got home and her picture was in the graduation program and it is definitely the same girl.

When we started this process we signed papers stating that we would never go looking for this girl and she was to be anonymous etc and I am not sure if I have violated her privacy. I still really like her. I talked with Timothy for a bit at lunch and asked what I am sure to him were very strange questions. I was so taken aback that we had a common thread. I asked him if she was a nice girl, if she was pleasant and kind. He reassured me that she is a wonderful person and a great leader and she cared about her country which I thought was very cute. I'm still in a bit of shock! Is it bad to go through with this cycle and keep her as my donor? Obviously I wouldn't tell the clinic but I am just wondering if this is ethical. This whole incident made me like her even more.

Maybe God won't leave a comment on my blog but He will so conveniently arrange things so that I fall just a little bit more in love with our donor. I know that He is paying attention to my life and my desire to have a baby hasn't fallen through the cracks. That in itself is very comforting.