You Asked, I Answer: Infertility Questions

Yesterday I answered all of the Fun and Deep Questions from my little Formspring experiment. I got a lot of questions related very specifically to infertility and our journey, so I wanted to give those answers their very own (very long) post.

Blogging About Infertility

Who is your favorite ALI blogger and why (name up to 3)? What are the essentials you look for in a good writer/blogger?

We’ll just start this off with a bang, shall we?

I’ll say it plainly. I freakin’ love Mel’s blog, Stirrup Queens. Is she one of the leading superstars of the ALI blogging world? Totally. But that’s not why I love her blog. I love her blog because it is at once down to earth as it is philosophical. She pushes us to uncomfortable but necessary patterns of thinking and perceiving the world around us. And she’s wicked funny and quite provacative, too. Don’t believe me? Read her BlogHer Community Keynote post from 2008. It’ll knock your socks off.

I have a LOT of blogs in my Reader and I have to be very honest: sometimes it’s really hard to keep up with them all. But there are a few I read consistently, and one of them is A Half Baked Life, by Justine. She juxtaposes scenes of her life with beautifully written and photographed recipes (like this very moving post from a couple of weeks ago about the Value of a Life). Plus, she’s from NJ so that wins a point in my book. There’s just something about her writing (and most definitely about her recipes) that just always keep me reading. Justine, I may not comment very often, but know that I read you whenever you post 🙂

Good writers feel like old friends when I read them. I may never meet you in real life (and I would love to!) but there’s a connection I feel when reading their stories. And good writers are those who leave me with stories that stick with me, that I remember days or even months later.

What advice would you give a fellow infertility blogger to make money out of her blog?

This question is actually pretty tricky, as I’m still figuring out myself. The first question you have to ask yourself is: how much are you willing to sell out? I hate to put it plainly, but everyone a) has a price and b) you need to know how much trust capital you’re willing to give out. The trust you’ve built with your readers dips every time you seek to monetize your blog. For me, a lot of this is experimentation. But in the long run (and hopefully sooner rather than later run) I want to turn my blog into one part of my one-woman business (as yet to be determined).

If you have an Etsy store, as many ALI bloggers I know do, start pimping it out on your blog if you aren’t already. Consider applying for Affiliate ads or even selling your own ad space. I hate to say this, but check some of the mommy blogger resources out there, as they have a lot of great advice about monetizing your blog. I’m a big fan of resources like The SITS Girls, Mashable, Moxie Tonic Communications, and MomComm.

But make sure you sit down and have that talk with yourself: is it about the writing? Is it about sharing your story? Is it about money? Is about all of these, some of these? And how much trust capital are you willing to give out?

Our Infertility Journey So Far

Where are you on your infertility path right now? Are you still leaning more towards a DE cycle than adoption at this point? And when can we look forward to your cycle?
There have been a few things since my last infertility journey update in June. Right now we are still leaning very heavily toward donor egg, although, and this is totally random: I may have ovulated on my own this week, but because I’m rocking the Zombie Leper Shingles, not so much with the sex this week. We are going to continue our “experiments in natural babymaking” again. And just in time for the hurricane: a light period. So no “we’re stuck inside and there’s nothing else to do” sex either. Awesome.

Right. So, still leaning toward donor egg but adoption is not off the table as a second option. The challenge right now is that everything depends on my insurance. I have, very luckily, rockin’ insurance that will cover basically half of our total costs. Right now, we’re looking at about $15K out of pocket. However, and this is a post for its own day, I kind of want to carve my eye out with a pen when I think about staying at my current job for more than the next six months. There is a very good chance that I might leave for bigger, better, and just plain different things (which, by the way… Hey folks, I’m a highly skilled writer with some serious web savvy & graphics design skills. Hire me now!) and with that I would lose my insurance.

Which would then throw us off even longer.

The original game plan was to select a donor by the end of this year, get the ball rolling, and aim for an April/May transfer if everything went swimmingly. And right now, things are up in the air because I need to make a game plan should I leave my job, which is a very real possibility and soon. I promise next to my immediate family, my blog readers will be the first to know when things get off the ground.

How does your husband feel about you being so public about your emotions and your relationship? Has the blog affected your relationship? If so, how?

I started this blog as a way to cope and initially, wrote under a pseudonym. I’d ask, and then nag my husband: “Did you read my blog today?” Sometimes the answer was yes, of course, and other times he’d play catch up the same way I do with other blogs I follow. There’s a certain degree of self-censorship that occurs; rarely do I write about some of the more intimate details of say, our sex life. But I have written about some nasty fights.

When I broached the subject of doing my video and revealing my name and face, I of course ran it by him. He was more than supportive and has continued to be even more so since then. Larry gets that my blog is more than just dumping my emotions for the world to read (which yeah, a lot of times it can be). He gets that this fuels a sense of impassioned personal fulfillment for me. And that as much as this blog is my space, Larry is very much a part of it. Sometimes, I even let him write here (and I hope to have him do it more in the future).

It’s hard to say if this blog has affected our relationship; it certainly factors into our life together, say, watching an episode of Castle together versus writing a blog post. Larry understands that my blog has become a platform for me to finally start figuring out just what the heck I want to do with my life, and in being supportive of me, my goals, and this blog, then it’s fair to say that yes, in that sense, my blog has affected our relationship for the better.

Have you ever thought about getting a lap band? I bet it would solve some problems for you like it did for me.

Believe it or not, I have considered it. I know someone who’s getting it done next month, actually. I think unfortunately, from what I’ve read… I’m not fat enough. Don’t get me wrong, this Captain Cranky Pants is rockin’ some serious extra weight. (When I was a freshman in college, I weighed a mere 118 lbs. Now- yeah, a bunch more. Like, a LOT more.) But amazingly, I’m still not overweight enough to qualify for the medical necessity.

At this point, it would be considered elective surgery and as someone who’s already had 2 organs removed already, I don’t really want to volunteer for more surgery if I don’t have to. I just need to get off my ass and get in shape and perhaps stop indulging in my guilty pleasure all the damn time (see yesterday’s post).

Infertility Support & Resources

I am unfamiliar with the donor egg process. How do you choose donor eggs? Do they have photos of potential donors? Are there specific requirements that you and your husband have for the potential donor?

There’s definitely a lot to answer in this one question. So first, let me point you to a couple of posts that might be helpful. The first is this helpful overview of the donor egg process from RESOLVE, the National Infertility Association. The second is a mish-mash of helpful info from RESOLVE of New England’s Donor Egg Decision-Making Seminar back in June, that I live-tweeted. The third is a post I wrote early last year about wrapping my brain around choosing donor egg as our option: A Donor For Your Thoughts. That post might help answer how we chose donor eggs.

As far as what we’re looking for in a donor… we’re looking at three basic characteristics:

1. Brunette
2. Caucasian*
3. College educated with good academic history

That’s pretty much it. The * indicates that ideally, we’d love a donor of Japanse or Asian descent, as I’m half-Japanese. And to make things in a really nice neat little bow, it would be awesome if she were Jewish. But finding a Japanese-Jewish donor is a bit of a challenge, so we’ll settle on those top three for now.

Keiko, I’m a twenty three year old woman who desperately wants to conceive someday. I have poly-cystic ovarian syndrome and have been told that I’ll likely never have children of my own. Help.

First of all, I just want to say that I’m so sorry you’ve gotten this diagnosis. PCOS can be a very overwhelming disease when you’re first diagnosed, but take solace in knowing there is a huge online community out there for support and education.

So here’s my advice.

• Do you like your doctor? Trust them? Feel comfortable at your appointments? If not, consider seeking a second-opinion from a doctor you are more comfortable with. You want to make sure that not only you have an accurate diagnosis, but a professional who’s willing to work with you whom you trust.
• Do your homework, but do it in moderation. It’s easy to don the Dr. Google hat and get sucked into the self-diagnosis and worrying vortex. Pick up a couple of trusted PCOS resources. Check out a few online communities. But give yourself only an hour or less a day to do it- you don’t want to overwhelm yourself.
• From what I know of PCOS, diet plays heavily into the disease, so it’s worth making an appointment with a nutritionist. I know there are also implications for other health issues so you want to make sure you’re giving your body the best nutrition you can.
• Find other PCOS bloggers. Read their blogs, reach out, and connect with them. And find those online PCOS communities – I know they’re out there.
• Seek out IRL support, too. Whether it’s a private therapist, a clergy member, a friend you can count on, or even a support group – it’s important to talk about how it’s affecting you emotionally.

That’s all I’ve really got. Since I was originally diagnosed with PCOS in 2000 but then went to college and had my head up my ass, I don’t actually have any good PCOS resources off-hand. I’m more in the POF/POI camp at this point. That said, I know I have many readers here who are in the PCOS boat.

Readers with PCOS: can you post some of your best/favorite PCOS resources in the comments here for our question-asker? I would be much appreciative as I trust your experiences over what I could find in a simple Google search.

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Whew! Y’all have about worn me out with these questions. Thank you to everyone who asked a question. You’ve given me a lot of cool things to think about, spawned some excellent prompts for future posts (like my conversion to Judaism story the last week of September), and given me the opportunity to open up about some things I haven’t yet had a chance to talk about here.

Now, it’s off to batten down the hatches. For those of you in Irene’s path, stay safe out there this weekend!