First of all, I would like to thank everyone for being so supportive of this blog. It took me a lot of courage to write about my syndrome. I truly appreciate all of your kind words.
I was doing some thinking this morning, and I came to a conclusion. I am going to be finishing up our wedding plans this winter for the ceremony in August 2014, and then we are going to start putting money away into a separate bank account to gain interest for our baby fund! I am going to start discussing my plans with my gynecologist when I see her again in the spring. There are many innovations coming for those looking to use in-vitro fertilization and gestational surrogacy. This means that we will be using my fiance's sperm and (hopefully) my eggs in order to create embryos, which will be implanted into our surrogate of choice, which is my friend and "sister", Pam. She has promised to carry our baby for us at no cost, instead of us having to find a surrogate and spend more money paying them to carry the child. Instead, we are just going to pay the medical bills for her not covered by insurance.
The reason I say "hopefully" in the use of my eggs is that it is going to be difficult to extract my eggs from my body. Typically, doctors would go up through the vaginal canal, through the cervix, uterus and Fallopian tubes in order to extract multiple eggs from the hormone-stimulated ovary. However, since I do not have most of my vaginal canal, no cervix, and no uterus or Fallopian tubes, that normal procedure won't work. Instead, they are going to have to pin-point my ovary and do a small incision in order to extract the eggs. They are also supposed to extract them from both ovaries, but since one of mine is in a weird spot (up where my left kidney should be) and we aren't sure whether it is actually functional or not, they are just going to draw from the one side. That being said, this means that my procedure is going to be much more complicated and possibly more costly than most women's.
My biggest fear right now is that my gynecologist had mentioned that I could potentially go into menopause early because of the way my body is (and maybe not), so the earlier we can extract the eggs and everything the better. But the fact of the matter is, the withdrawal is expensive, and keeping them in a freezer is both costly and they are not guaranteed to survive the thawing process. But medical technology is improving as I type this and hopefully within the next 3 years we will be able if not to have our own baby, to at least have the process started in that respect.
It is very stressful to think about, and weighs on my mind every day, among everything else. But my desire for a family is greater than anything else, and I will NOT allow my medical challenges to stop me!
I was doing some thinking this morning, and I came to a conclusion. I am going to be finishing up our wedding plans this winter for the ceremony in August 2014, and then we are going to start putting money away into a separate bank account to gain interest for our baby fund! I am going to start discussing my plans with my gynecologist when I see her again in the spring. There are many innovations coming for those looking to use in-vitro fertilization and gestational surrogacy. This means that we will be using my fiance's sperm and (hopefully) my eggs in order to create embryos, which will be implanted into our surrogate of choice, which is my friend and "sister", Pam. She has promised to carry our baby for us at no cost, instead of us having to find a surrogate and spend more money paying them to carry the child. Instead, we are just going to pay the medical bills for her not covered by insurance.
The reason I say "hopefully" in the use of my eggs is that it is going to be difficult to extract my eggs from my body. Typically, doctors would go up through the vaginal canal, through the cervix, uterus and Fallopian tubes in order to extract multiple eggs from the hormone-stimulated ovary. However, since I do not have most of my vaginal canal, no cervix, and no uterus or Fallopian tubes, that normal procedure won't work. Instead, they are going to have to pin-point my ovary and do a small incision in order to extract the eggs. They are also supposed to extract them from both ovaries, but since one of mine is in a weird spot (up where my left kidney should be) and we aren't sure whether it is actually functional or not, they are just going to draw from the one side. That being said, this means that my procedure is going to be much more complicated and possibly more costly than most women's.
My biggest fear right now is that my gynecologist had mentioned that I could potentially go into menopause early because of the way my body is (and maybe not), so the earlier we can extract the eggs and everything the better. But the fact of the matter is, the withdrawal is expensive, and keeping them in a freezer is both costly and they are not guaranteed to survive the thawing process. But medical technology is improving as I type this and hopefully within the next 3 years we will be able if not to have our own baby, to at least have the process started in that respect.
It is very stressful to think about, and weighs on my mind every day, among everything else. But my desire for a family is greater than anything else, and I will NOT allow my medical challenges to stop me!