# "grieving"



## Luisa8 (Apr 20, 2007)

Hi, I will soon be starting my 2nd DE cycle and although I have accepted the fact that this is the realistic way forward for us to fullfill our dream of having a baby... I just can't seem to get past the "grieving" of not being able to use my own eggs. Does anyone else feel this way? One minute I think Im ok and have got past it and then the next I'll just break down at the slightest reminder. I really do feel certain this will dissappear if/when I get pregnant but then there's this little niggley voice inside me that is soooo scared it wont. The not being able to talk about it is also so difficult at times and then the couple of people I can talk to just don't get it.... I suppose that is why I'm posting on here... in the hope that someone will.
Kath xxxx


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## shellspain (Oct 29, 2007)

Kath,
Im am currently waiting for my donors AF to arrive for my 1st DE IVF cycle and I know exactly how you are feeling. Im fine most of the time but then a wave of sadness hits me and then im in pieces. Like you I beleive that these feelings will disappear once i am /if i am lucky enough to get a BFP. I dont know if we are being naive but i think that knowing there is a baby growing inside me will change all my fears as I will be carrying MY child.
The things that set me off right now are imagining how I will feel if people come up to me in the street (as they do!) and say 'oh doesnt he /she look like you?' or anything similar. People do say that even when there are no similarities and normally a Mum can think  that maybe there is a resemblance that she is not seeing. For us its going to be a constant jolt of a reminder that the baby is not genetically ours. If that situation arises I really dont know how I will react, and its not something that will just go away. I have so many other concerns..all little things but when i build them up in my head they seem enormous.

Maybe I should have considered counselling but it wasnt a path i wanted to go down. I like to deal with my emotions my own way if that makes sense?

Like you I dont have anyone else to talk to who has been through anything similar. My mum and best friend really really try to understand but i think they can only sympathise..they cannot understand as it hasnt happened to them.

PM me if youd like to chat.

Thinking of you 
xxxx


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## Wendeth (Sep 8, 2007)

Hi Kath8 and ShellSpain

I do understand why you are both feeling how you are, having been told in 2004 that my ovarian reserve was too low to achieve an IVF pregnancy (1% chance - turn that round, which gives a 99% failure rate).  I grieved for ages and ages and ages and it was only last summer, 3 years later, that I was finally able to think forward on how to achieve my family and think about donor eggs.

I have a natural son but people are always saying how much he looks like his father - they never say he looks like me which I find bizarre - the opposite of your fears, Shell.  People are always desperate to find a likeness in a baby's face with its parents but seriously, if your clinic does a good job, these characteristics will have already been taken into account when they choose a donor for you and you may find the baby does look like you.  As for being reminded whenever someone mentions this, you have only been given an egg, not a baby. That baby will copy your facial movements, will smile like you, talk like you and will be your baby whatever its origins.  I think once i am pregnant and then heavily pregnant and then give birth and watch my child grow, i don't think i will ever forget my donor and where half of my child's genes came from.  I hope to remember every day and be thankful.  I don't think this is something i will be able to forget.  It will be a constant source of wonder watching my 'donor' child grow as it will all be a complete surprise.  

I would seriously recommend counselling because a counsellor can guide you to think about areas you may not have thought of.  My counsellor helped me come to terms with the idea of the baby being mine, not my donor's.  I had felt up until that moment that my donor was giving me a baby but my donor is giving me just an egg, some genetic material.  

As for emotion, i break down at the slightest thing.  I don't know whether i'm grieving for my lost fertility or whether my hormones are just completely shot after over a year of trying these cycles or just my age!  I broke down 4 times at a wedding last week and today i just howled when i heard about the near escape of the little girl who fell down a drain and her father rescued her.  Luckily i was in the car, parked and noone could see me in floods of tears.  I was in pieces!  

I wish you both the very best of luck in your journeys.  You are certainly not alone in feeling like you do.

Hugs
Wendeth


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## drownedgirl (Nov 12, 2006)

I think there will always be occasional moment sof grief and sadness about what will never be, espeiclaly if you have no genetic children.

But I have never heard a DE mother, however conflicted she was before, who wasn't 100% happy with her decision, once her baby arrived.


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## Luisa8 (Apr 20, 2007)

It is comforting to know that it's "normal" to be feeling this way and also that we are not alone.... I am having a more positive week this week (Im up and down ) and Im looking forward to starting my next cycle in October  . Good luck to all


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## Dr Kate (Aug 11, 2004)

Hi Kath
I felt just like you! I had my first DE cycle back years ago- BFN- and I wasn't ready for DE then definitely. I was trapped in my grief and now know that I would not have been ready for a child by DE. I was lucky to be young enough to call it quits for a while. When my marriage subsequently fell apart (IVF was apparently all that had been holding us together) I thought that was the end of me ever having a family. Anyway I subsequently met my new DH and of course we 'knew' from day 1 that I couldn't use my own eggs/ have my 'own' child.....

It was like a new page in my life and suddenly the DE thing wasn't such an issue- I had grieved for 'never having a child at all' during the gap/ marriage breakdown etc. My grief process had been completed so when I was ready to think about trying again it was a no-brainer about DE. 

I still had all the same worries about how I'd feel etc but honestly when DS was born all I could see was DH's face, which was lovely. Actually now I don't think he looks like anyone but himself - people still say how much he looks like DH though. I can't see it now. I am aware all the time that he isn't mine genetically but it makes no difference. He would have perished at the 2 day stage of being an embryo without my vital presence in his life. And I am and always will be his Mummy. He's the most tip-top topcat. 

We are about to try again and I am yet again struggling with the donor issue. This time it's about the fact that the donor is not the same one as DS's. How bizarre! It stilll seems odd to be having a baby with an unknown person, but the key thing is to have a baby and DE allows you to be as close to the full deal as you can be once you've been told your eggs are letting you down. Pregnancy and all that stuff makes up for a lot of the issues about not your eggs etc, if that makes sense. You get to see the bub on scans/ feel it moving etc long before you meet at the birth so a lot of adjustment goes on over those 9 months. I was more than ready to meet DS by the time he was born!

I hope any of this rambling helps you. Onwards and upwards. DE babies are cool. Donors are cool too. And we are extremely cool moms because we've been through so much - if we can handle all that's gone before, we can sure a heck handle this. Positive thoughts etc

Love
Kate


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## Essex Girl (Apr 3, 2005)

Hi girls

I had my DE baby 9 months ago.  Although my donor was related, and that certainly made it easier for me to accept emotionally, I still have some still sadness that my DD isn't my genetic child.  With a known donor, you can recognise the donor's features in your child - my DD has my sister's hair - and that reminds you.  

I guess that if you have a DE child, that feeling will always be there, but as the whole business of pregnancy, childbirth and bringing up the child is such a powerful one, any residual sadness for the lack of your own genetic child does fade into the background as you go along.  When you have the counselling (which I think is helpful) the genetic issues seem a big deal, because those are the sort of issues that the counselling is there to address, but the further into the pregnancy you go, the more the baby feels like yours.  

Of course, people who don't know about the DE conception will say things from time to time about the child looking or not looking like you, or looking like your DH, and that may catch you off guard, and that is just something you learn to live with.  It is certainly true that the child will take on your mannerisms, body language and way of speaking, so with time will look more like you. 

Even 9 months on, I'm amazed to think that I'm a mum.  My DH forgot on Father's Day that he would be on the receiving end!  We really thought we would never get there, and we're so delighted to have such a lovely baby.  I'm sure you will be, too.

Ruth (Essex Girl) x


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