MicroblogMondays: Finally Pregnant

My friend who had 21 blastocysts from her second round of donor egg cycle is finally pregnant.  Eighteen out of the 21 blastocysts are PGS normal.  Eighteen!  What does one do with 18 blastocysts?  Her mother wanted her to transfer a male embryo mainly because she herself didn’t have a son.  Her husband also wants a boy.  My friend does not have much of a preference so she transferred a male embryo.  She is now 8 weeks pregnant.  Her 6 week scan showed a beautiful heart beat.  I am so thrilled for her!  I know that she is still early in her pregnancy but I am so hopeful that everything will go well, and that she will finally hold her baby after being on this journey for 8 years.  She still has a lot to work on in terms of grieving the loss of genetic connection with her child.  We have had numerous conversations about it.  I had been trying to convince her to see a professional to work through her feelings.  At least she is working with one right now.  It has been quite a trigger for me to walk alongside her on this journey, which is kind of unexpected.  I thought I have done grieving not sharing genes with my kids.  I guess these deep seated feelings don’t totally go away.  When she shares with me how she feels, I often tell her that I sometimes still feel something similar.  I will be curious to see how I fare emotionally as I watch my friend go through her pregnancy while processing her feelings.

MicroblogMondays: Friending Donor

About a year ago, my former reproductive endocrinologist Dr. E introduced me and Bob to the parents of one of Bunny and Okra’s genetic half siblings.  We haven’t met them in person but did exchange emails several times and become FB friends with one of the parents.  I was very curious to see what the little sibling looked like and it has been fun to see photos of her.  She is a few months older than our twins.  She and Okra share more of a resemblance than she and Bunny.  Dr. E mentioned that little half sibling’s parents are connected to our mutual donor on FB.  Although our donation was supposed to be anonymous, we do know our donor’s name.  We just haven’t asked to meet up with her in person.  It is partly because of the pandemic but also of our egg donation history with the donor.  I am tremendously grateful for our donor and do not hold any grudges against her.  But it seems to be hard to ignore this piece of history when considering when to meet her.  I wonder if we would ever talk about what happened.  Fast forward to last week.  I messaged Dr. E to ask about something for a friend of mine.  She wrote back and said that she actually wanted to reach out to me.  She invited the parents of Bunny and Okra’s half sibling as well as our mutual donor to dinner at her house the previous week.  They all had a blast and discussed about doing this annually.  Dr. E was wondering if Bob and I would like to be a part of that annual dinner.  We continued chatting, and Dr. E asked if we wanted to connect to our donor on FB, she could make it happen.  I took some time to think about it.  And I thought about how it would be good for Bunny and Okra to know who their donor is, what she looks like, and for us to get information on her family medical history if need be.  After a few days of consideration, I told Dr. E that we would love to become FB friends with our donor.  Dr. E made it happen. She messaged our donor, and that same night, our donor friended me on FB.  I wrote her a message with pictures of the kids.  I haven’t heard back from her but it is a great first step to get to know person who so graciously helped us complete our family.  I showed the kids our donor’s photos.  How did they react?  They were more interested in our donor’s grandpa. Haha.  I will let you know if our donor ever messages me back, and maybe one day we will see her face to face.

MicroblogMondays: First Day of Preschool

After a long time in the making, the kids started preschool today.

They were a little reluctant to go.  Last week they went to school for a half an hour play date.  My usually chatty and social kids at the playground were reserved and resistant.  It took them a little while to even touch the toys.  I was a little bit concerned about them refusing to walk into school, especially Okra. To my surprise, Bunny walked in  right away.  Okra at first was reluctant, but entered the school after he saw that sister already took out a box of train toys.  This was the first time I met their teacher as she was out sick on the day of the play date.  She has a great energy with a voice that is kind but has authority.  I like her and am glad that she is their teacher.  When I was driving away from the school, I started missing them a lot. This is the first time they are away from the both of us or family members for more than a couple of hours.  It felt so weird driving away without them in their car seats in the back.  Bob had taken the day off so the two of us dropped them off at school.  We went on a date day and had brunch leisurely.  We enjoyed the adult time that we got to spend together, eating a meal without stopping to serve or attend to anyone.  We got a phone call at 1:45pm, which was half way through nap time.  I was told that Okra was crying to a point that his crying was disturbing other kids’ sleep, so I was asked to go pick him up.  The teachers and I discussed strategies at the door.  Okra usually chews a cloth at home during sleep.  I deliberately didn’t give him one because of how disgusting it gets after his use (all wet with his saliva) and didn’t want the teacher to have to handle it if she didn’t have to.  But I think without the cloth, something that he has been using since 6 months, it would be hard for him to fall asleep.  So the solution for now is to bring three fresh ones on Monday.  I will pack a couple of ziploc bags labeled “Clean” and “Used”.  After Okra uses one, the teacher can help him place it in the “Used” bag.  These will come home to us with the beddings on Friday so we can wash them all.  The teacher did say that they did really well for all the activities.  They listened and participated during circle time.  They played well outdoors except for when Okra was playing in the sand box and kept complaining about sand getting in his shoes. So the teacher told him to play elsewhere.  They each ate a big bowl of vegetable fried rice provided by school, which was surprising to me because the kids do not eat fried rice at home.  They also ate some of the lunch that I prepared for them.  Despite having to come home early, I think it was a great start.  I was a little hesitant sending them to preschool at this time given how bad the Delta Variant is out there right now.  The preschool is very good at enforcing masks for everyone, and they are very careful with who could enter the building.  With the teachers following the Department of Public Health’s guidelines, I am hopeful that the kids will remain healthy.  This is why we are still sending them to preschool.  I hope that as time goes on, the kids will get used to going, and they will be running to the door in the future without any convincing from us.