Jayson and I were given access to the egg bank website a few days ago. It was exciting and nerve wracking all at the same time. I was at work when my nurse emailed me to let me know I now had access to go online and check it out. I waited all afternoon until I got home to look through it with Jayson – that afternoon seemed to drag on forever!
I have to be honest, I was pretty shocked when I logged in and only saw 93 donors available. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but I was kind of taken back a little. Jayson and I spent that evening looking through them. It is an odd experience. I knew I would have emotions but I didn’t know exactly what to expect. It’s overwhelming, exciting, a little sad, and intense.
It’s almost like an online dating site with an “order now” icon below their pictures. That has taken some getting used to. Ha!
You see anywhere from two to four pictures of the donors from when they were babies or young kids. It gives their basic information such as height, age, weight, hair color, eye color, ethnicity, blood type, heritage, and education. That’s all on the main page for each donor. If you like what you see, you can select to view both their genetic profile and medical history.
All donors are tested to see if they are carriers for things such as Spinal Muscular Atrophy, Cystic Fibrosis, etc. This is all listed within their genetic profile.
In their medical history there is usually about 15 pages of information on each donor. We are talking everything from their high school GPA, college GPA, how many siblings they have, aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc. It even asks them their nostril flare size. I had to laugh when I saw that because that’s not even something I would have thought about. It gives us a whole makeup of their family medical history. How old their family members are, how tall, what their weight is, hair color, eye color, if they have any diseases, if their family members died what it was from and how old they were, etc. It gives us their religion, hobbies, what they were like when they were a child, what their interests are, achievements they are proud of, and why they decided to become a donor.
You guys, it’s overwhelming!
I’m so appreciative for all the information but it’s hard to decide what’s important to us and where to draw the line.
I went into it thinking that I wanted to find someone that resembles me but that isn’t as easy as I had expected. There isn’t one donor yet that has brown hair and hazel eyes. So it’s making Jayson and I reevaluate what our priorities are.
The donors change from day-to-day. When we first got access, there were 93 donors. Within a couple of days that went to 94. We liked the new one that came up and added her to our favorites list. When I looked this morning it went from 94 down to 89. The one we just added to our favorites list was already removed. Yikes!
I wasn’t heartbroken because while I liked her, it wasn’t someone Jayson and I were ready to move forward with. While we are anxious to get our donor selected and move forward with the process, we also know this is an extremely important decision and we will take our time until we know for certain we have found the donor for us.
The good thing is that my clinic started me on birth control last night, so now this will allow us to move forward fairly quickly once we have made our selection. I was put on birth control prior to IVF as well. Whenever I tell people that I always get a very confused look. All it does is basically allow the clinic to manipulate my cycle so we are ready to get started once things are set in motion.
We ask for prayers for guidance and direction in moving forward with selecting our donor and that the process goes as smoothly as possible.
With love,
Haley