egg donation

1.)  At some point, you will freak out.  There will be a moment of second guessing.  Be it whether you injected yourself (which will happen 5 minutes after you do, but you’ll just… forget — I promise it’ll happen) or whether you messed up on the amount of your meds, or whether you’re just second guessing any info you’ve been given.  It happens.  It’s a wave of panic that rushes over you that you’ve effectively messed up the whole cycle and then you reason with yourself, and it’s over.  Be vigilant about your process, but don’t be anxious.

2.)  Don’t underestimate the power of a calendar and some Crayola markers.  Your doctor will give you a calendar on a piece of paper and it’ll have all your important dates on it… times of appointments, amounts of medications, changes in medications, upcoming procedures, etc.  Color code it.  Tape it up in the kitchen or bathroom.  All appointments get circled in red, all med changes get circled in green, and as you go through the days, cross them out in blue.  I know we’re in a technological world now, and paper calendars and markers have gone the way of your 5th grade art class, but in this case, it’s very important that you physically live within your calendar until your timeline is complete.

3.)  Secure a ride to your retrieval immediately.  Before you even start your cycle, make sure you have someone locked in to drive you to and from your retrieval and then make that person promise you her first born or left arm.  I have a lot of friends, most of them best friends, but most of them are also complete flakes, and they’d  say yes, then not be able to follow through and I’d be stuck 48-hours before my retrieval with no exit strategy.  Well, I had one, but it was foiled.  There is no feeling of anxiety like not having your retrieval day planned and then Plan B’d.  This isn’t something you can ask of just anyone, and it’s so very important that whomever you ask understands the weight of the responsibility.  Period.

4.)  Plan on putting your life on relative hold for about 3 weeks.  It’s like when you try and diet, but continue to go out to eat and be social as if you weren’t on a diet — you don’t actually ever lose weight, and you wonder why.  It requires self-discipline and understanding that you have a new priority, and it’s no longer your social life.  Your injections need to happen at the same time every night.  Your appointments are going to be every three days at 7:30 a.m., sometimes daily.  It’s difficult to keep pace if you’re out on the town, here or there and everywhere.  A lot of people are involved in the planning and execution of your cycle; don’t be the reason it needs to be re-planned and re-executed.

5.)  It’s not as hard has it looks.  You’re gonna get a big box delivered to your home or office.  It’ll have dry ice in it, and under that will be a pharmacy — meds, syringes, vials, a biohazard receptacle like in a doctor’s office, and gauze and band-aids — literally, like a pharmacy.  Take it all out.  Put all the meds in the fridge, put all the “tools” in a handy spot and set up shop.  Every night, you’ll mix-master yourself whatever the calendar tells you, and you’ll inject.  At some point, you’ll have two injections.  It’s possible you’ll even get up to three different meds, thus three different injections.  Don’t be overwhelmed, but be aware.  It’s pretty hard to do it wrong.  Honestly.  There is no math involved, there is no science involved, just being able to follow directions.  Trust yourself.  Have a routine, and stick to it for the sake of consistency and by default, your sanity.

6.)  Ask questions.  If the doctors ask you if you have any questions, and you do, but think it’s silly, ask anyway.  If the nurse ask you if you have any questions about how to inject, and you think you got the instructions, but you’re a little unclear and think you can figure it out on your own at home, rethink that, and ask her to show you again.  Once you’re home, holding a syringe with $10K on the line, you’re gonna wish you had asked that question.  If it’s midnight and you’re going over your schedule for the next day and you realize something is missing/wrong/confusing/worrisome, call the 24-hour number for your doctor’s office.  Sometimes, the doctor’s offices are not.. on it.  If you feel like you don’t have all the info you need, or calls or emails aren’t being returned with enough urgency, YOU call.  Be a pest.  It’s your body as much as it is the recipient’s.  Take ownership of the cycle — it’s yours.  All people involved are very invested in making sure everything goes as smoothly and successfully as it can, but sometimes, people need a little nudging.

7.)  Talk to your HR department at work.  As women, we have all kinds of trump cards we can pull that men will never have the opportunity to play.  “Lady Issues” is one of them.  And it covers a myriad of situations with no questions asked.  This is one of them.  Your HR boss is probably a woman, and you do not have to actually say what is going on, or what you’re going through, but I can assure you that you’ll with you had an ally at work when it’s the 5th time in a week you’ve been late because of a doctor’s appointment that went waaaaaaaay longer than it should have, or the retrieval happens, and you need a week off with no remaining vacation time.  This will most definitely affect your 9-5 job.  It simply will.  But it doesn’t need to be in a negative way.  You need to be honest with yourself about the intensity of the procedure.  It’s a commitment.  Be prepared to make it fully.

8.)  REST after your retrieval.  My first cycle, I took 3 days off after my Saturday retrieval.  So I was resting from Saturday to Wednesday.  Wednesday rolled around, and there was no way on earth I could have gone back to work and been 100%.  You know when your co-workers have a cold and they’re coughing and sniffing and gross and they say “I feel fine.”  It’s great that you feel fine, but you’re not fine, and you’re germy and infecting us at work, and you’re far more useful when you’re well, so go home and get well.  Same thing with your retrieval.  For some people, it’s not an in and out procedure.  Well, I suppose technically, it is.  But it does take a toll.  For me, it was like really bad cramps and PMS for a week — bur far more intense, remember it’s an under-general-anesthesia surgery.  And if you show up for work, people will assume you’re okay to be there and you may not feel up to being there.  This isn’t the case for everybody – many donors do bounce right back and return to work or school within a day or two – but every recovery is different.  My pain tolerance borders on sociopathically high, but I was out for the count for a week solid (and that includes having a Darvocet prescription, which you will be unfortunately denied, as it’s been recalled… shame, really… ).  Your body goes through the ringer, it really does.  You need to be prepared to rest — you may feel fine, but one day of think you’re fine when you’re not could set your recovery back quite a bit.  Listen to your body and make sure you do what’s right for you.

9.)  Numb your injection area with a cold can of something.  Every donor gets a mentor from the agency.  Mine was Ellie.  I called her my PO.  She was, literally, my case worker.  And she gave me the most important advice I have ever received, and no I pass it on to you:  Before you inject, for 2 minutes — the entirety of a commercial break — hold a cold can/jar of something to your injection spot to numb it.  A can of Coke works, a bottle of hot sauce works, a jar of olives works, whatever you have in the fridge.  It’ll be COLD.  But when you have to talk yourself into sticking a needle into your stomach, you’ll thank me.  Well, thank Ellie, actually.  The ONLY part of egg donation that freaked me out was the injection in the stomach.  Um, gross.  But this little nugget of advice saved me.  You can inject without numbing, but that is so unnecessarily sadistic.  Please just trust me on this.  And don’t hesitate, just stick.

10.)  The most important thing I can tell you is to embrace this adventure.  It truly is an adventure.  Unlike anything else you’ll go through.  From the start of the screening process where you’ll speak with a personal medical historian of sorts… you will find out so much about your family, your health history, your future health cautions.  And then you’ll get a complete blood work up, so if there is anything under the surface, you’ll find out that, too.  All of no cost to you.  And then as you start medications, you’ll feel your body change in a way you never would have otherwise experienced.  You’ll learn, in no time, to listen to your body unlike you’ve ever thought to listen before.  You’ll literally feel your ovaries grow and move inside you (they go from the size of a walnut to almost the size of a grapefruit), and you’ll feel your fallopian tubes pull from the weight of that dangling grapefruit when you try to lie on your side 15 days in… it’s all such a strange, unique process and not embracing the full experience is such a waste.  Whether you donate one or 6 times, it’s never boring and it’s never the same twice.

- Kate Lee, www.askaneggdonor.com