Has anyone had to "switch" to DP/DW carrying?

[kkearney1982]

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[2ezforyou]

Kate, my DP and I haven't switched but some of our best friends did. Friend A tried for almost two years of fialed IUI's, triggers, Clomid, ov drilling, cysts, etc. Finally, they decided to do IVF and actually used Friend B's eggs. They conceived with twins, but lost one embryo. Now their little man is almost 2. Recently, they decided to have another. When Friend A's IVF cycle failed, she had a laprascopy only to find out that her uterus is too thin and she can no longer carry, due to their son's placenta sitting on her ut too long. Anyway, they made the decision for Friend B to carry, and use Friend A's eggs this time. They'll transfer next week! If anything, Friend A said the whole process has def brought them closer together. Friend B could never understand what Friend A was dealing with from the shots, Clomid, etc. but now she does. Best of luck to you and your DW.

[kkearney1982]

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[indigoscot]

we did switch but only after i had already carried our first son. that was always our plan. i went first because i was older and we did give me a hard limit of 6 tries before switching if i didn't get pregnant. i had a very easy pregnancy.

dp carried our second son and had hg for 6 months and nausea daily up until she delivered. her experience wasn't as great as mine.

if i was younger (i'm 41 this year) and didn't have a blood clotting issue (post partum blood clot that means any subsequent pregnancies would require daily shots of heparin) i would jump at the chance to be pregnant again. however, dp will also ttc our third child. it was something i had to come to terms with even though it had been our plan all along.

i hope you are able to work something out!!

g

[kkearney1982]

Our plan all along has been for each of us to carry one dd/ds, and then to adopt after that.

Maybe we'll do the whole "3 more tries" thing, then give her 6 months, then start alternating between us if this goes any longer than that. But she's only 28 and has very regular cycles and normal hormones and all that, so we're thinking it shouldn't take 6 months for her

I just might need to come to terms with my own barrenness at 27...not fun.

But I have 3 more tries...forget the stupid doctors, three more tries!

Thanks,
Kate

[jenmostoften]

Originally Posted by kkearney1982

I wish this issue would bring us closer together, but just discussing using DW's eggs has already put a wedge between us--DW feels like by doing that, she's being treated as just a donor, just spare eggs floating around that she's not using, even though I think it's awesome that this baby would be both of ours.

What a bummer that she views it that way! My DP and I feel like the absolute ideal situation for us would be for her to carry my eggs, because like you said, then it would be both of ours. I am pretty sure we'd never be able to afford it though. But it seems to me like the closest two women can actually get to really having a baby together. How awesome that after the baby was born, and people ask "who's the mother" the answer would truly in a physical and biological sense be "Both of us!" Maybe she needs time to come around to the idea...its not like she couldn't still carry after you did.

Although it doesn't make it any easier that you are having troubles producing eggs...sorry to hear that. Hang in there!!

[kkearney1982]

Jen: thanks...I think that way too, but DW feels like she could never go through the process of making enough eggs for IVF, then NOT being pregnant...she'd have all that build up so someone else could be pregnant (even though it's me). She says it's a visceral reaction that she could never "give up" her eggs. But she's agreed that she'd do it AFTER she's already given birth.

Her main concern with this process is that it would take so long that her fertility will disappear after she turns 30.

[osker]

Kate,
We, I think, were kind of unique in our process. We ideally wanted H to get pregnant first for a variety of reasons. We had no reason to believe that either one of us would have better fertility than the other, so it was more social reasons that made us go that way. Anyway, that aside... it took us three long years to get pregnant. In that time every so often H would get tired of trying. She would be overwhelmed and frustrated and just feel like it wasn't working. A few of these times we took a break, a few of these times we would do a cycle where we would try to get me pregnant. We knew that we both wanted to be pregnant at some point, and in the long run knew it didn't matter.. they would all be both of our children no matter whose body they came from. So, over the course of those three years we tried getting me pregnant... probably five times? (one was actually because she failed to ovulate one cycle and we already had the swimmers)
In the end, I think it's really important to talk about how you see your fertility journey going. Do you feel that one person makes all the decisions? Do you make them 50/50 or does it depend on whose body is up for the try? Does one person get all of the choices? It sounds like you're already pretty well introduced to the medical world... you might see if there is someone at the fertility clinic who can sit down with you both as a mediator of planning, sort of like a financial planner, but a "fertility planner" and map out what you would like to see happen given the great variety of things that could go right or wrong in this process. My best advice at this point would be to talk all the time, and don't be afraid to take a month off if you need to breathe. It can be a long road, especially if you want multiple children, which it sounds like you do. It's a marathon, not a sprint!

[CassnBeth]

My wife and I did the whole switcheroo thing. We had planned for me to be the one to carry/birth all our children even though we knew I had PCOS and would need clomid to get pregnant. We tried with me using a known donor for...15 months I think? We ended up switching our first donor to a second donor and then back to our first again because we had to move in the middle of the process. And I had at least two, possibly three, miscarriages all before six weeks even with progesterone supplements. The whole thing was just exhausting and heartbreaking.

Switching from insemming me to insemming DW was my idea. She and I are the same age (26 at the time) but her cycles are textbook perfect, as if they were invented by Toni Weschler for demonstration purposes, so we had every reason to think that DW would get pregnant very quickly. We decided for both of us to insem each cycle until one or both of us turned up pregnant (this somehow made sense at the time -- we were a little strung out). DW got pregnant on the second try by a donor who turned out to have pretty signifigant male factor issues. We were both ecstatic; I didn't have even one speck of jealousy when the second line turned up. However, once the obsession of TTC was over, DW and I both went through a grieving period for our plans for me to carry our children. Those were the roles we had expected and things didn't turn out that way so it was hard, for both of us.

There was never a point where DW and I felt like we were in competition. When we decided to have my wife start insemming we were both just desperate for a way to get the TTC misery over more quickly. Though...I think some of the reason we didn't feel competitive is because we are hoping to have at least four children. I mean, we knew there were more chances for pregnancies if one or the other of us turned out to be really unhappy with the way things were the first time.

And now that my daughter is here I really don't care if I carry or birth any of our children at all. Even though now we have much better health insurance and could probably afford to go through the treatments I would need to get pregnant successfully. We ended up with this great division of labour since my wife got to do all the pregnancy and childbirth and I am the SAHP. Though we're with Jenmostoften in that if we could afford for one of us to carry the other's eggs that would be our ideal; one person provides all the genetics and the other provides all the nutrients and breastmilk.

I'm sorry this is kind of a disjointed novel -- I have been trying to respond since yesterday but I have an eleven month old with a head cold trying to help me every few words.