Bad news shouldn't come through a telephone wire.

My babies died.

Sounds crazy doesn't it? I mean, they weren't my children, just my DNA, but nonetheless they died.

Two donations, two separate couples, multiple babies, same outcome. No live births.

My heart is aching for those couples and when I sit and think about it, I feel like falling to pieces.

I did the donations in a way of honoring my friends who have suffered infertility, miscarriages, stillbirths and a very dear friend who learned of her sons death at her last doctors appointment.
I seemed to be a 'fertile myrtle', getting pregnant without wanting to, while using birth control. I figured I could do a small part in helping a couple achieve one of the dearest things in the world..a family.

I did everything required of the donor, they told me I'd be an amazing candidate. I had my first donation in June 2009 and another in November 2009. Both resulted in positive pregnancy tests, confirmed by ultrasound.

In December I received a call from a clinic in California asking me if I'd be interested in doing a donation for one of their couples. I thought about it, asked family opinions and everyone said I shouldn't do it. I decided to go ahead and do one more donation, I signed the release for medical records and faxed it to them so they could get my records from the clinic I was using here in Austin. I then received an email telling me that they couldn't continue with the process. I just figured it was because I don't have a college degree, many clinics prefer them.

Last week I received a call from the clinic here in Austin, informing me that I would no longer be able to do donations. When I asked 'why' the woman on the phone told me 'Your eggs have a low viability rate.' I guess this is where that college degree mentioned above would of come in handy, I asked her what she meant, although I already knew.

She informed me that out of 18 eggs fertilized..not a single one resulted in a live birth. I asked her if both donations resulted in a pregnancy and she informed me 'yes, the June donation made it to 5-6 months before she lost the multiples and the November made it a few months before those were lost as well."

My heart sank. So that is why the place in California wanted nothing to do with me..not because my education level..but because my babies weren't surviving. (This was confirmed by the nurse on the phone)

I feel horrible, absolutely horrible. Yes for myself, but mainly for the two couples involved..and their families. The family from June lost MULTIPLE children more than half way through their pregnancy. They knew the genders at this point..they most likely had names. They were probably preparing nurseries. The mother from November was probably just over morning sickness and finally able to start enjoying her pregnancy. My heart BREAKS for them, for what they experienced and are still dealing with and will deal with for the rest of their lives.

I feel at fault, everyone keeps telling me it wasn't my fault..but they were my eggs..they had the low viability rate, not the sperm.

And now it hits me..a loss for words. My babies died.

It tugs on the heart strings

So today I went back up to the fertility clinic to get my check and my donor counselor handed me my check along with a gold bag.

I was thinking it was just something from the clinic. Appreciation for using them, it wasn't, it was from my recipient couple.

I opened the bag when I walked into the elevator and I read a note inside of it..

"Words cannot describe what I feel...you are an exceptional young lady. You will always be very special to us. Thank you for everything you have done.

This hasn't been an easy road to be on for us, Thank you for walking this road with us.

I wish you love, happiness and peace in life.

Your recipient."

I wanted to cry, I hadn't expected it. I knew it was a big thing for the other couple, but I hand't expected to see it in writing..from them.

Along with the note was a plaque, cutely decorated that reads...'dream big'

I'm happy...very happy with what I have done. God is good.

It's over

So I had the retrieval this morning.

We had to be there at 5:00 am. So we left at 4:15.

I was nervous, which made time fly.

I got there and signed paperwork, basically saying 'yes i consent and yes i know whats happening' They did my IV..they got me in the sexy little hospital gown, hospital socks and put my hair up in one of those blue head net things. I was sexy alright, ha.

Then they came in, wheeled me down to the room, which scared me to death. I have never been in a surgical room. It had the big light over head, the scary table that made me feel like I was going to be crucified (the arms out to form a T) and all the equipment.

I can't really even remember anything else but that, I was so nervous. I came in and they told me they were going to give me warm blankets and I made a joke about 'good thing cause this room is freezing'. The anesthesiologist then told me he was going to start the anesthesia through my IV and I would feel sleepy. I then made another joke about snoring once i was out and they better not to post it on youtube. Then, I was out.

I remember waking up back in my room crying. I was crying, why was I crying, I don't know, but I was. They kept asking me if I was in pain and I said no, which was a lie, I was. The nurse came back in, gave me something for it and I started feeling great.

I was released 45 minutes later and slept the entire way home on Tim's shoulder.

I have spent the entire day since 8:00am in bed sleeping. Every time I get up I get dizzy and sick, so I have tried to avoid that. The nurse told me they took 9 eggs, 9 out of the 26, which was actually 28. They said they will be fertilizing them and the recipient mother will get them in 3 days.

Well that's it, that's my first time as a donor.

Egg donation to this point

Okay, this update is for all of you who have been interested in the egg donation.

This is what has happened so far.

Step 1:
I have had the nurses consult, where they just went over the general information, and took my photos for the all the recipients to see, so someone could pick me.
I have had the psychological evaluation and was told that I would be an "EXCELLENT CANDIDATE".
I have had the physical exam, lab work and cultures where they checked for over 100+ things like genetic disorders, STDS and so forth.

Since everything came back awesome, I started Step 2.

Step 2:
I started the birth control pills. This is why I was on birth control pills for egg donation, there were some questions about that..
"Most stimulation protocols involve suppression of ovarian function for on cycle, followed by vigorous stimulation in the next cycle. Our [Texas Fertility Clinic] protocols are designed to obtain a greater number of mature oocytes than would ordinarily develop in a natural cycle. As a result, we allow a large group of developing oocytes to become synchronized. The purpose of oocyte synchronization is to increase the chance that multiple oocytes will develop at the same rate, resulting in a large number of mature eggs. The pills also reduce the likelihood that a patient will have an ovarian cyst when she is ready to begin stimulation. This is important, as the presence of a cyst could possibly delay the stimulation start. "

So after doing a month of the birth control pills, I have started the Lupron injections.
" As an oocyte matures in a natural cycle, it produces increasing amounts of estrogen. Once this estrogen level reaches a peak, it stimulates the production of a hormonal surge from the pituitary gland called the LH surge. This surge causes ovulation to occur. In the IVF procedure, we do not want ovulation to occur - rather we want to be able to retrieve the maturing oocytes directly from the ovaries prior to ovulation. We therefore must prevent patients from having an LH surge. TThe way we prevent a patient from having a sponaneous LH surge is the use of a medication called leuprolife acetate (Lupron).
Lupron administration is usually initiated during the final week of oral contraceptives and continued until 2 days prior to the egg retrieval."

So right now I am currently doing the Lupron injections. Thank God for my husband who has been able to do them every morning for me, since I have had issues doing it myself. First off, I have a fear of needles, second off, the stuff burns. The first time we did it I got a HUGE bruise on my leg at the injection site. My injection yesterday left me with another lovely bruise. I experienced side effects from the Lupron, for the first time last night. It started off with a slight headache around 5:45pm. By 10:30pm I was in tears and ready to be in bed. I was exhausted, my body was aching, I had a really bad headache along with being dizzy and being nauseous. Tim and I had been watching "Yes Man" and as soon as it was over, I went to bed.

I hope that was a one time thing, because I don't know how many nights of that I can handle. I am to continue taking the shots til 2 days prior to the egg retrieval, which is the first week of June, I hope I don't continue having the side effects til then.

The next step in the process is my base-line sono. The appointment is to just make sure I don't have any cysts before starting the Gonal-F. I will take the Gonal-F ( to stimulate the growth of multiple ovarian follicles.) for about 9-12 days until I recieve an injection called Ovidrel. Ovidrel is the most important injection I will take as it is the one to induce ovulation. Retrieval of my eggs will happen approximately 36 hours after the injection.

Well, that's it so far. I'm sure I'll update before or after the egg retrieval.

Moving, Schnuller, bye bye baby food

So, I figured I would update on our lives.

I'll start with the parents, I always write about us last but i'll write about us first today!

So at the end of April we will be moving out of Colonial Grand and into my mother's house. We are ready to move tomorrow if we could. I am so tired of
living in this stupid apartment. It was nice when we didn't have neighbors, but gangsta boy upstairs drives me crazy. He is the loudest person I have ever experienced. He probably weighs 100lbs soaking wet, but he stomps like an elephant. Not only that but him and his buddies like to hang out by our front door and yell...and let their door slam...at all hours of the night. And don't even mention the rat they own that they believe is a dog. Damn thing stands in the stairwell and barks. Their stairs are smack dab in the middle of our apartment, thank you rat dog. So we are ready to move out of here. It will be nice to be able to let the girls play in my mother's back yard, instead of having to stay inside all day. We will put our stuff in storage while we are there. We plan on staying with her through the summer, so come August we will start looking for somewhere new..hopefully a house.

Tim gets to reapply for his plumbing test as of today. He won't be able to do it today though, he is in South Austin and his paper is here at the apartment. He only has to retake the questions portion, so he will be once again studying like crazy for a straight month. Who knows when his retest date will be, hopefully before May.
His birthday is next month, April 4th. I am trying to plan a fun night for him, i'm not sure what we will be doing yet though. I had thought we would go to a bar or a club or something, well he informs me today he would rather go to a sports bar and eat wings and drink and stuff. I'm not sure how many people would be interested in doing that. Of course his guy friends will, but I'm not sure that the girls will. Oh well, it's about him and what he wants.
He has been on a motorcycle kick for the past month. I posted a picture of him on a bike the other day, it's a bike he is really interested in. He has wanted a bike since he was 14, so it's just a matter of time before he gets one. I'm okay with it, as long as he stays off 35. He has decided to wait another year before he gets one, he wants to save up for a big down payment so his payments will be good.

So I have been chosen as a donor by another couple. I received a phone call from Texas Fertility Center yesterday and the woman said I was picked and the recipients wanted to know how many children I have and if I have anything coming up in the next 2 months that they should know about. I told them the only thing was my husband's birthday but that it was no big deal. I'm excited about it. Everyone keeps asking me if I'm just doing it for the money, which I'm not. While the money will be nice, it's not why I looked into it. I wrote a blog about why back in November/December, check it out if you don't believe me. So when they start doing the fertility drugs they will have to remove my Paragard IUD. All of the family is scared that I will get pregnant, and if I was to get pregnant, it would be a multiple pregnancy for sure. (The fertility drugs I would be taking would make me release 15-20 eggs at once, wow!) But ya'll don't be worried, you have to abstain from having sex for about a month. So basically, Tim will be locked in a basement, haha. But when they take out my Paragard I will be having the Mirena put in after. Has anyone used the Mirena?
I donated another eleven inches of hair to locks of love. My hair went from this..

to this...

It's quite a change, one that I'm not use to yet, but I love why I do it. There was a woman in the salon when I was doing it. My stylist, Kim, turns and looks at her and says "she's donating to locks of love again." The woman looks at me and says "thank you, you don't know what it means to us that people like you do this. I have been cancer free for 5 years, and you don't know how grateful I am that someone donated so I could have hair, but I love having my own hair again!"
It was nice.


So Mackenzie has officially stopped using her nooney (new-knee). I finally asked Sandy what it means...apparently that is what Tim called his pacifier as a baby since he couldn't say 'schnuller'. Schnuller is german for pacifier. I think it's adorable to think of Tim as Mackenzie and Madison's age, very cute. Anyway back to Mackenzie, she no longer needs a pacifier to go to bed. I don't like when kids past the age of 2 use a pacifier and it was driving me crazy that at nearly 3 she still was using one. So we just took it away cold turkey. It took one night and now she doesn't even ask for it anymore. YAY!! She is also going to the bathroom by herself which is exciting. She will be playing and jump up and say "Mackenzie is going potty, you leave me alone, i'm a big girl, I do it myself" haha. She is getting so big..it's crazy. Look at this picture I took the other day..doesn't she look so grown up?


Madison, oh Miss Madi. I say it every time, but she is just amazingly precious. I think every single person needs to spend at least 30 minutes with this child to understand why. She is just so sweet. She slept through the night last night, big thing. She normally wakes up at least once, but last night she slept straight through. Of course she was also up at 7 something..which sucked! She is officially eating normal adult food, no more gerber graduates or baby food. She won't eat if you try to feed her, she wants to do it all by herself. Such a big girl. She is also wearing 18-24 month size clothes, which is funny because she is sooo tiny. My baby girls are getting so big!!

My baby girl is ONE!

Okay, so I haven't wrote in a bit, so here is my update.

I will start off with updating about the birthday girl, Miss Madison. Her birthday was on Sunday, and I can't believe she is already one, isn't that insane!? I can't believe how fast the time really does go.






She is such a funny child too, for the first two months of her life, she cried..constantly. Turns out she had acid reflux, so we got her on medicine. She improved, and up until recently was a pretty quiet kid for the most part. Now she is gibbering, and talking and her favorite thing to say is uh-oh, which started last week. She walks around, drops things and says uh-oh. Tim noticed it first, it was funny.
She is sleeping better too, last week she slept through the night about 4 times, it was great! I feel so much better after being able to sleep a whole night. She is getting better at running now...she is always on the move which leads me to the next point.
Yesterday we had her 12 month check-up, and while she is an inch taller, she hasn't gained a single ounce. That had me worried at first, until the doctor pointed out that she is more active now than she was at 9 months. Good point, she is constantly running.

Guess who can say the ABC's perfectly, Mackenzie can! (okay so V sounds like B, but whatever) She also can count perfectly to 10, and sometimes all the way to 18 if her daddy helps her.
For the past week or two she had been sleeping in our room with Tim and I. She got in a bad habit of getting out of her bed and waking up Madison, so after a couple nights of laying down in our room we have moved her back into her room. Last night was the first night and she laid down and didn't get up, not once. It doesn't matter that she only did this because I told her she could eat birthday cake for breakfast if she stayed in her bed, does it? Well who cares, because it worked! haha, and for those wondering..yes I let her have cake for breakfast this morning.
On Saturday she made Christmas cookies with her Oma and Michelle, and she loved it. Shoot I loved it, I got a tin of cookies at home to munch on now. Speaking of Christmas, she can't wait until her Uncle Trenton and Aunt April come to visit, so she can see their new puppy Tinkerbell. She keeps telling us "Trenton is bringing me a puppy to play with." Trenton and April...ya'll better bring that dog, she will be crushed!

It's so fun to be able to finally start traditions of our own for Christmas. We decorated stockings and put up our Christmas tree, and can't wait to buy presents for the girls. Mackenzie is kinda freaked out by a man coming into her house while she is sleeping, and leaving gifts. She told me "No mommy, he can't come in here, make sure you lock the doors so he stays out." haha. I asked her how would she get gifts then? She told me "he can leave them on the porch, but no come inside"

Well, I want to chop my hair off short again. I asked Tim if he wants me to just trim it or go short again. He told me he doesn't care but if I go short, wait til it's long enough that I can donate to locks of love again. I love that, I love that he knows that it meant something to me, and he wants me to do it again. So I will probably wait a few more months, and around march or so cut my hair for locks of love.
Speaking of March, that will probably be when I donate my eggs. My recipient wanted to start the next step around January..and to get our cycle's aligned I will have to take a month of birth control, so if we started around the middle of January, I will probably be donating at the end of February to beginning of March.

Do you know how proud I am of my husband? Do you? I am stinking proud. He finally has his 4,000 hours that he needed to take his tradesman test and submitted them yesterday. They told him that it normally takes a month or two to get his test date, and they will let him know. He is excited, while nervous at the same time. This test will increase his paychecks by $400-$500 a week, which will be amazing. He will finally be a licensed plumber, not just an apprentice, and will be able to work on his own truck. He is so excited, and everyone should be proud of him and tell him how proud you are. He has worked long and hard to get to where he is!

Life is good.

I was picked!!!!

So today I got a phone call from Jennifer at the fertility clinic. She asked me how I was doing, I told her great and she goes "good, because we need to talk"

She proceeded to tell me that I was picked from the couple that was interested in me on Friday. She said that they picked me and if I was still interested that she wanted to start the process at the beginning of the year.

Wow, was that quick or what?! They say it normally takes months to get picked..I on the other hand was less than 3 weeks. Wow.

Anyway, I was picked and am one step closer to becoming an egg donor!!!

Egg Donation as of 11/21/08

So I had my consultation on Tuesday and it went great. Basically it was a lot of paperwork, which I'm positive there will still be loads more of.

There were tons of questions, and basically them explaining the process. After I practically signed my life away, ha, I was given instructions that my next step was to go have a drug screening and blood work.

So yesterday when Tim got off work we went and did that. It went well, besides the fact that I couldn't fill their urine specimen cup, I just didn't need to go. I made them stay after close by about 10 minutes, so they could wait for me to...finish the job?

Anyway this morning around 9am I got a call from Jennifer, my nurse, that I was now an active donor, and all I had to do was wait for a recipient couple to pick me. Sweet. Then at 5pm I got another call from her telling me that they needed the rest of my information, because I had a few couples interested in me.

Damn was I a cute kid or what?! So I sent her the rest of my information, family history, and she told me that they will be in contact with me on Monday for the next step.

I just looked at a paper that is in my folder and at the bottom it reads...

"Thank you for helping a couple achieve their dream of having a family." That pretty much sums it up.

Just another update

So I have been putting off writing a blog, just because I have posted more than usual lately. I don't want to go blog crazy or anything. So here is everything I wanted to post about..in one blog.


Mackenzie gave us quite a scare the other night. As you may of read in my bulletin, she got out of her bed and was sleeping under it. Tim and I couldn't find her until I saw her two toes sticking out, so we were pretty scared for a bit. Well last night she did it again, but this time I knew where to check first. I don't quite know how she gets there...she is a VERY light sleeper and I just can't imagine her getting out of her bed and crawling under there, or sleep walking. To get under her bed she would have to belly crawl, cause of how low it is. It's odd. Recently she has been coming into our room around 1-2am and climbing in bed with Tim. She likes to sleep with her daddy and of course he loves it too. I have re-assembled the pack n play and it's in our room. I don't like her sleeping in the bed with us, but if she wants to be in our room she has to sleep in it. So this past week she has come in 2-3 times.
She is officially in a big girl seat, like booster car seat. I know of a few people with kids around Mackenzie's age that already use them. This made me nervous with Mackenzie just because on some of the boxes they say "Do Not Use Under Age 3". So being the researcher I am, I decided to try and find the Texas car seat booster law. Damn them to hell, the only thing that they have are weight/height limits. That's stupid. You can have a freakishly tall 14 month old who can qualify, or like us, you can have a really small 3 year old. Well she isn't 3 yet but you get my point. Anyway, Mackenzie couldn't keep doing the front facing car seats, she would get out. She is on this kick lately "Well big girls do this....Big girls don't do this .." and it is working great. So since being in her "big girl car seat" she hasn't been escaping. I also have a new favorite thing that Mackenzie says...bubble bath. Except in Mackenzie lingo it comes out.."bubble baf" too cute.


Madison is 11 months today. Oh my gosh...1 month til she is a year. (I'm a genius I know..I can do math) It has flown by, my baby girl is a toddler. She is such a hoot, and a big Momma's girl.
She is content sitting in my lap all day and especially if we go to a friends house. She is the quiet one of the family, but we expected that. When I was pregnant with her, she barely moved..was real calm. Mackenzie on the other hand was real active and well....she still is. Madison is content sitting in my lap and just observing the world. She barely makes a noise, unless something is wrong. She doesn't really talk much for her age, she mainly grunts. No words, just ma,da,ba. that's it. We're not concerned...she'll talk later.
This past week she has been sleeping pretty good. I think the girls finally have a schedule together, my goodness it only took a year. They go to bed between 8:30 and 9:30..and sleep til 7 am. Of course if you know my girls this doesn't mean it's straight through..they wake up a couple times a night.
We don't have anything planned for her birthday, money is a bit tight right now..and we really don't feel like throwing a party anyway. We will probably do a little family bbq and just have fun with our family.


Tim is still with Victory and is 100 hours away from his 4,000 hours. This means he will be able to get his test date for his license by December 1st. He is VERY excited, but also very nervous. The test he has to take is insanely hard and very complex. The book that he has to remember for this test is around....600 pages. It's not only residential plumbing but commercial as well. So some of the stuff he hasn't even encountered yet. His boss told him that since the economy is so bad, that Tim will get a test date immediately after he turns in his paperwork..normally they would wait a couple months. So he isn't quite ready to turn in his paperwork, we will probably wait until January just so he has more time to study.
He had been doing tubs with Santos, but since his company has been letting people go, they moved Santos off of tubs and onto Punch and put Tim on set-outs with Fred. Tim gets along well with Fred so this is good, plus Tim is doing more than just installing tubs, now he is installing sinks, water heaters, toilets and tubs in finished homes, custom homes. In fact today he is doing a house that has eight...EIGHT bathrooms. Ladies could you imagine cleaning 8 bathrooms?! His days are longer now..they work til about 6-7.


So as you read in the blog I posted a few days ago, I'm trying to become an egg donor. Well yesterday they called me and I have my consultation date set up for November 18th at 2:00pm. I am to bring in photos of me between the ages of birth to age 15. So I am trying to find lots of cute ones. I am so stinking excited about this whole thing. I did receive one hate message about this though. I was asked "How can you just give your egg to some random person you don't even know, that's like abandoning your kid". This certain person pissed off my husband very much. As Tim said "it's not ABANDONING her child, it's giving someone else a very important thing, a very special thing that they couldn't have else wise. It's giving them a child you dumbass." Sometimes I love him, haha.
Speaking of babies...Ashley is having a boy. Tim and I are THRILLED and can't wait for this little guy to make his appearance. YAY GO BLUE!!

Charlie boy is in surgery today. Tim and I dropped him off at 7:30 this morning in Austin. He is to be picked up this afternoon between 3-6pm. He also has to do the same thing tomorrow also. I hope everything goes okay, we're really nervous.

Motherhood...it's amazing

So...how do I start this off...let's see.

I love life. I love my children. I love that when I look at my girls..I see their father, and I see myself. I love that we brought two perfectly beautiful children into this world.

I have many friends who have been affected with infertility and miscarriages, and that breaks my heart. Tim and I never had to try to get pregnant...we never had to wait countless months to finally get that positive pregnancy test. We make jokes that I'm so fertile that if there is the slightest chance that I could end up pregnant, that it will happen. It's a bittersweet feeling..because while I have conceived quite easily..there are countless women in the world..who will never know what that feels like.

I have always been interested in surrogacy, or becoming a donor. I have always wanted to help bring life into this world..I want to help make a family. Now that I have a family of my own, this desire has become so much stronger. I would willingly carry a friends child if they couldn't do it, I would do it in a heartbeat without a second thought.

I looked into surrogacy but at this point I don't think I could handle being pregnant and chasing two toddlers. Plus I feel like my body needs a well deserved rest. So about a month ago I started looking seriously into becoming an egg donor. I checked out a couple websites and found a really nice fertility clinic in Austin and submitted an application.

I have been in contact back an forth with this place..and I'm at the point of filling out a donor survey. I just feel incredible and really hope that this works. Thank God that I have an amazing husband who supports me in this, and an amazing family who is standing behind me.

I just wanted to write and let my friends and family know that we are seriously considering this. Keep us in your prayers."