It's been nearly 2 years since I posted. C is five and a half, and R is two and a half. We now have a daughter, T, who was born in January!
As I mentioned in the last post, we did a third donor cycle when R was born, and it resulted in 2 genetically normal XX embryos. We were able to work with the same gestational surrogate that helped us have R, which made things pretty straightforward. We transferred the first one early in 2017 and it didn't work. We transferred the second one, knowing it was our last transfer ever (thank goodness!) and really being at peace with either outcome. Either it would work, and we'd have a daughter (amazing!) or it wouldn't work and we could get rid of all the baby stuff, and be nearly done with diapers, and sleep through the night, and travel (also great!) And it worked.
T was breech, and an external version wasn't successful in turning her, so she was born via c-section. DH and I were able to be in the operating room (I didn't watch), so I've now given birth to one baby, watched one baby be born vaginally (and held him while the umbilical cord was still attached), and not-watched one baby be born via c-section. She was born around 9am, and we left the hospital midday the following day (same hospital as R - he was born around 2am and we left about 18 hours later!)
I induced lactation again, which meant I had more than enough supply when she was born (we had 9 poopy diapers the first day in the hospital, which the nurses had never seen) but not enough to keep going. With R I exclusively pumped for 6 months and hated it, so I knew I wasn't going to do that. So I nursed for about two weeks and our surrogate sent us milk for about 3 months, and we're using really good European formula (Lebenswert Bio if you're curious - with international shipping it works out to $15/box which makes about 108 ounces.
T is doing great. She's sleeping through the night as of about two weeks ago, and so the clouds have parted and the blue skies have come out. Her brothers adore her.
It's a huge relief to be done with more than 10 years of family building. I'm so grateful that we had the resources and the stamina to get to this point. Our kids are amazing.
I decided for National Infertility Awareness Week (NIAW) this year to share that we used an egg donor to build our family. I had kept that private, outside of immediate family, but I'm so open about everything else - miscarriages, infertility, surrogacy - that it felt awkward to not be open about that too. Lauren - thanks for the wonderful example to follow!
I'm rarely on twitter these days, and even less on blogs. Both were so important for my sanity over the years of infertility struggles - thank you for being my community. Now I spend most of my infertility-related time supporting friends and friends-of-friends who need perspective or advice. And I donate to RESOLVE, and post publicly about our experiences.
Love to you all.
My husband and I started trying to have a baby in 2007. We ended up doing 5 rounds of IVF with our own eggs, miscarrying twice due to chromosomal abnormalities, and then moved to donor eggs. Our son was born in 2012. After two unexplained miscarriages trying for a sibling, we found a gestational surrogate, who carried our second son (2015) and our daughter (2018).
