Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner!

Yesterday we had our appointment at the clinic to choose our donor. It was somewhat exciting and quite nerve wracking. Darling Kate' was full of nerves the night before and did not sleep too well. I was a bit worried we’d feel rushed, but it wasn't like that at all. Far from it. We spoke to Dr Sperm Lady about the cost, more legal things and also signed some more forms, before we were left alone in her office to go through the manila folders of donors.

The first donor we looked at we both liked straight away, so we put him in the ‘yes’ pile. Then we went through the others, had a bit of a giggle here and there at some of the profiles, and then put quite a few in the ‘no’ pile and two more donors in our ‘ yes’ pile. We had a top 3! I actually had read elsewhere that you needed to pick 3 in case your first pick didn’t come through for whatever reason, and then you would have backup. This wasn’t the case and we only needed to choose the one. Due to our top 3 all having great profiles, medical histories, etc, we decided in the end to go with our first donor that we both liked right from the start. It was a sign that he was right on top, the first to be seen and the one we compared the rest to. He would provide our little swimmers.

The next step now is to have our orientation day which is booked for the 19^th. And because my period came 4 days early this month, we will now begin our IVF cycle in the last week of April and will hopefully (cross fingers for us) be knocked up by mid May! 

Mardi Gras, A Birthday & Test Results

We’ve had a busy week and a half! Last weekend we had friends up from Melbourne for the Sydney Mardi Gras and this weekend we had Kate's parents up for the weekend for her birthday. But I’ll start with Mardi Gras..

Mardi Gras was……..good. Not great, but it was a fun night out. The weather was horrible, but regardless of the wind and downpour, the parade still went on. We threw on our plastic wet weather ponchos (we looked absolutely smashing!) and just sucked it up as we had front row seats due to arriving at the pub early for pre-parade beers and moving outside before the crowd arrived. Everyone lined along the parade route had umbrellas or were wearing ponchos as well, but the bright rainbow coloured flags, hats, balloons, clothes, etc, could still be seen and outnumbered the wet weather gear. The parade was bright and the participants still danced, walked, rode their way from start to finish through bouts of torrential rain..….what great sports! The only beef I have about the parade was the constant breaks between floats. Two or three floats would pass and then we’d be waiting for 10/15 minutes before more would arrive. This could have had something to do with the rain. Once the parade was over, it was off to the Mardi Gras party, which was PACKED. We stayed until Kylie Minogue performed at 2am and then headed for the exit doors of the RHI. We couldn’t get out of there quick enough due to too many people being crammed in the building. It was hot and sweaty and I’m surprised people weren’t dropping like flies. SO HOT! But Kylie put on a great performance, and overall Mardi Gras was a bunch of fun as usual.

On the Saturday (before Mardi Gras parade), I had my blood tests done and then the Friday just gone I had my internal ultrasound. That was nowhere near as awful as I thought it was going to be. It was actually quite interesting. Without going into too much detail, as the u/s lady did her thing, I could see on the screen my uterus, ovaries, lining and even the follicles in my ovaries clear as day. She pointed out 6 on each side, which is good, and measured the big one which would pop out the egg this month. She said everything looked great!

This weekend we had Kate's parents up for her birthday which is today….HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LOVELY! Yesterday we caught a ferry from Circular Quay to Watson’s Bay where we met my parents and a friend of Kate's for a nice lunch. It was the first time that all parentals were meeting each other. Happy to say it all went well and everyone came out unscathed. Then we caught the ferry back and had a few drinks at Opera Bar at the Opera House where we mingled in the lovely sunny weather…...pretty much the only hour of summer Sydney has seen.

Today we had our next appointment with our Doctor to go over our test results from the bloods and ultrasound. All looked great! She said she was very happy with it all. We signed consent forms and she went through which IVF process she thinks we should take. There are two….a short one and a long one. The doctor said she’d like us to do the short cycle one (Antagonist) which is around 15 days. Not only is it a shorter cycle, but it has less side effects and is less taxing on the body apparently. So the plan is, I’ll be due for my period on (or around) May 1^st and I should be getting knocked up around mid May and find out if it’s worked beginning of June. Tomorrow we’ll ring the fertility clinic and organise an appointment within the next week or two to choose our donor and organise our orientation to go over injections and the like.

So we’re very pleased with how things are turning out and at the pace it’s going!