Hi everyone. I am 42 years old and we are starting a donor egg cycle in August. We are finishing our round of tests required by the clinic, and have already chosen our donor. My situation is a bit different, I have two children already but I have always wanted a third. I am living in Singapore, and we are doing our donor egg cycle in New York. I initially tried to use my sister as a donor, but she is 37 and a doctor I saw in Singapore actually told me "Why should we make an exception for you to use a 37 year old donor (their limit is 35), you already have two children?" Needless to say, I was devastated and decided to move on and pursue this back home in New York. We later decided to use an anonymous donor (not an option in Singapore because they don't allow donors to be compensated and the number of caucasian donors volunteering out of the goodness of their hearts is slim here.) So here we are, getting ready to do our cycle in a couple of months, and I am getting excited and nervous at the same time. I am trying to temper my excitement so as not to be crushed if it doesn't work. Has anyone done donor eggs after having biological children?

1st baby - clomid/iui at age 35
2nd baby - natural conception! At 37
Working on number 3 since 2009. I have an AMH of .2 and a FSH of 27.

Just wanted to welcome you to the boards. There are women here who have done DE after already having children conceived with their own eggs and they've often posted here about the fact that there is no difference in mothering there. Most of the people with children post on the PG after DE board, though. Link is above. You might get more responses there. I don't have OE children. We were always infertile and years of ttc with our own eggs ended with our move to DE. We finally found success and have a daughter now.

Just a gentle nudge here. There are some topics that maybe some women might choose not to read about, so we usually put headers in the title, for example about children, miscarriages, death, pregnancy, etc.

Wishing you the best of luck with your upcoming cycle.

Thanks, I understand it is a sensitive topic. I have never used donor eggs before, and I have never even gone through an IVF cycle, so I figured my questions were more like a newbie's questions than someone who has already had a child using donor eggs. Yes, I know about the pregnancy and childbirth part, but I am pretty clueless on cycling with a donor and what to expect in the next few months. I'll be sure to use headers.

Hi Jennifer
I have been trying to find someone exactly like you to talk/share experiences.
DH and I have three (7, 10, and 12 all dd's) biological children together. We decided Oct.'09 to try again for one more. I am now 37 and DH is 41. We tried 3 rounds of clomid, uping the dosage each time with no response Ended up deciding to do an IVF cycle. RE wanted me to have an amh test done. Came back .16.
We are now doing de's as well. Have our donor match complete and will probably be cycling in August as well. Just waiting for our donor nurse to get our schedule to us.
After almost 3 years of this journey this is the only/last attempt.
I am in the same boat as feeling anxious and scared.
Would be great if we could keep in touch. Best of luck to you and all of the other couples out there struggling with this journey

I completely understand where you are coming from. We will have to compare notes as we cycle. I have chosen my donor, and she becomes available to do all of her testing July 1. We are sending our gigantic wire transfer to seal the deal this week. I just had all of our paperwork notarized at the embassy (part of the drag of being overseas), and they actually charged me $50 per signature for all of the consent forms. I also had to find an American who was free in the middle of the afternoon on a Friday to go wait with us and sign all of the forms too. It was like going to the DMV, took about 2 hours to get done.

Part of my nervousness is we have chosen our donor, and we are trying to push our cycle back two weeks. Back in February we bought $6000 worth of tickets for my sister and her family to come visit us here, and now if we don't time it right, our cycle will hit while my sister is here in Singapore!!! She can't travel at any other time, and I miss her!!! So the clinic has this policy that they can't reserve a donor, but there will be about two weeks where she is available and someone else can snatch her away from us. I might go crazy during those two weeks!

Let's definitely keep in touch. We can be cycle buddies. Good luck with yours!

You will find lots of support, info. and encouragement her.

Thanks, Mrs. M!

Yes I have a baby DS after having a naturally conceived DD. I love both children the same amount and am so happy I decided to use donor eggs to have another child. I feel he is 100% my baby to love and care for. When I look at his cute little features it doesn't matter at all that they are not from my genetics. He is perfect exactly the way he is. If I would have known I would feel this way I never would have spent the money and time trying with my own eggs. I really hope your upcoming cycle works for you.

Hi Raindrops, I was wondering about that! I was thinking about that last night. One of the reasons we decided to go for donor eggs rather than adoption was so I could have the pregnancy experience. I was reading an article discussing the biological vs recipient mother, and one interesting thing they pointed out was that's the way genes are expressed depends on the hormones in the Mother's womb and the genes from the father, and that while the egg donor contributes genetic material, the way the genes are expressed depends entirely on the recipient's womb and therefore the resulting baby is uniquely the recipient's, the egg donor would never have produced a baby exactly like yours. I am glad to know you feel that way, thanks for sharing!

In more ways than one as we share the same name as well but I go by a shorten version w/ an "a" at the end but on this board I am futurebeauty. Anyways, I am also 42 and have been TTC baby #3 for 3 1/2 yrs since Jan 2009 when DS was 11 months old. I had our first at 34 and second at age 37. We have had a whole enchalada of losses b/t kids and afterwards and I am too tired of writing about it all. We turned to DE last yr w/ a successful twin pg that ended in m/c and we are going to transfer 1 or 2 of our frosties in July.

DE is such a great option and I would be so blessed to turn our frosties into our last baby. My advice is to make sure you are tested for everything under the sun prior to your transfer as I thought I was in the clear but the m/c still happened. I recommend blood clotting testing and immune testing just to be sure as you do not want to find out the hard way like so many of us on this board. I am about to test for NK cells (natural killer cells) and DQ Alpha testing (similar DNA matching b/t spouses) next wk to see if anything shows up that would explain all my losses except bad luck.

I am glad to see you on this board and we are welcomed to discuss our previous success but we need to do so w/ grace and kindness as so many women were not as fortunate as us.

Good Luck,

FB

Futurebeauty, that is a startling amount of similarity! I have never met anyone who wanted a large family bad enough to go through all of this! We have been trying again since August 2009.

I just had $1500 worth of blood tests, and there were at least 15 immunity tests in there. I am really hoping my insurance decides to reimburse for these, because they were expensive! Our insurance doesn't cover fertility treatments, only diagnosis. It kills me that two years ago, my RE advised IVF, but we couldn't afford it. When I finally had the money, at age 41, I went back and was told too late, now you need donor eggs. Ironically, my husband feels better about spending the money with a higher success rate than he did for using my eggs at age 39, with a success rate of around 35%.

Here is what they tested me for, among other things.

Thyroid peroxidase antibody (TPO)
Thyroglobulin antibody
Thyrotropin receptor antibody
Immunoglobulins quantitative
Antinuclear antibody
Anticardiolipin antibody
Phosphatidylserine antibody
Beta-2 g lycoprotein
Lupus anticoagulant
Anti ovarian antibodies
Anti adrenal antibodies

Good luck with your upcoming transfer! Hope your tests come back normal.

I am the only one that I know IRL (in real life) that is trying so hard to expand their family. I have lost friends who think that it is ridiculous for me to continue and I say "see you in the rear view mirror" that is after plenty of tears.

It looks like your list is pretty good. The only thing missing is NK cells and Alpha DQ. You may not need these tests is you have not had multiple m/c's. I asked if DH and I really needed the Alpha DQ since we had past success and the doctor said that yes we could be a match and it may be a clue to our issues. However, most doctors have no clue w/ NK cells and will brush it off as "out there". I had to consult w/ SIRM for a doctor to help me out.

I wish you luck as well w/ your upcoming cycle. Please keep us posted.

FB

that I think there are two new Jennifers on the board. I don't think you are the same one who posted recently thinking about DE. One or both of you might want to add an extra identifier to your username, like JenniferTX or JenniferH or something to distinguish between the two of you.

Welcome to the boards. I am doing donor embryo, so I rarely post on this board, but do lurk from time to time. There is an amazing group of women on this board!

It is the problem with being named the most common name in the year I was born! I will change to SingaporeJenn because that is where I hang my hat these days! Hopefully that will help keep is straight!

I am also new to this Board.

and welcome to the board. I was an active and new member of this board 4 years ago when we did our first fresh DE cycle...I was one of the July sparkers in 2008. Sadly, I was one of the only women who cycled that month who didn't get pg on our 'perfect cycle with two perfect blasts"

We did get pg though on our first FET which we did in the following Sept...our little guy turned 3 years old today...and our twin baby girls turned 1 last month.

They too were not our first....we had 5 OE children...our last was born when I was 43. Our DD Grace was born after a long time ttc on our own and after a 12 week m/c. There are lots of women on these boards who have oe children and then continued to build their family using de.

I was thinking a lot today about how magical it was delivering our little boy 3 years ago and how when they put him on my stomach and I saw him for the first time he was the baby from my dreams...it was pretty amazing.

So I'M happy to hear that you are moving forward and following your heart to have a 3rd...no matter how your little one is created...via your sister's egg..sad to hear that didn't work...versus an anon donor...I believe that the soulbaby that is waiting to come to you will be the same regardless...he/she just needs an earth suit to make it onto the earth. Hold your vision and this time next year you will have a new baby. Exciting hey...all the best!

Blessings from Hope

I like the thought that there is a soul baby waiting for me. I like the thought that they choose us to be their parents, no matter how we get them here. Thanks!

I couldn't love my DE and OE anymore. They are just wonderful children and I love them the same. No difference. Wishing you the best of luck.