One morning last week I bundled myself and the 6 month old into the car, leaving hubby and Mr3 at home. Hubby is on holiday from university so as always it was much easier to not take the toddler with me.
I get there with plenty of time to spare, find a carpark and mutter a quick prayer under my breath.
The place is impressive; 2 levels of a high rise and everything you'd expect in private practice: a showroom-perfect waiting room, current magazines, fabulous art work on the walls and expensive trimmings. I picked a couch slightly out of the way as the wee one needed feeding and I wanted to be discreet.
I have no issues breastfeeding in public as such but I felt very aware that I was in a fertility specialists clinic and didn't want to flaunt that I had a baby. Silly, I know given that its a baby friendly place but that's just how I felt.
10 minutes later and a happy baby fed (great timing), the doctor comes and we trot off to her room. Baby is very taken with her and seems to think everything she says is hilarious.
We talk briefly about my reasons for donating and she starts to ask me questions: weight, height, age of parents, age of living grandparents, age at death of deceased grandparents, heath issues in my family... etc etc etc
She shows me a big list of diseases and asks if any of my relatives have had any of them. Nothing looks familiar though dad does have asthma and a mild heart condition but it doesn't sound like that's a big thing.
We discuss the actual procedure. Its very straight forward and the actual harvesting takes around 10 mins.
I'll talk about that in more detail at a later stage.
She said they normally at this point do an internal ultrasound to just have a look at my ovaries, but we decided to do this at another appointment closer to the time.
I then go and speak to the nurse who is the one I initially contacted. She, I think, is trying to get a sense from me as to how serious I am about this and whether I am comfortable with the process. She is lovely and really puts me at ease.
My last appointment is with the counselor. Part of the whole process is meeting with the counselor twice- once now and the other time later on but with your partner. She said part of her job is to get a better sense of my personality as they not only try to match a donor on their physical attributes but also on personality a little.
The only part of the morning I feel a little uncomfortable with is one time with the counselor. I tend to talk a little too much about everything really and have a real tendency of repeating myself. Apparently most recipients want to meet their donors first. Not 100% sure how I feel about that as at this point. Some donors receive updates on how their donations (is that even the right word? children doesn't feel quite right) are getting on and I'm not sure how I feel about that either. I kept saying "well, its not like they are my children" and I got a terse "well, you've made that very clear" in response.
I suppose I just wanted to make that distinction as perhaps some people feel like its hard to separate themselves. Its for this reason I don't think I could be a surrogate. I think I would feel far too connected to the child itself and I think I would find it very hard to give them up after birth.
I leave the clinic feeling even more determined to go through with this, but strangely not particularly emotional about it either.
xJ
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