salut gals and thanks for the good wishes Desert. sorry that i'm not writing personals. i'm still processing the last 24 hours, and i hope ya'll don't mind if i ramble a bit...
Yesterday was a 15 hour adventure which involved getting up early and driving to Belgium,meeting with a psychologist in one clinic and then a gynecologist in a hospital fertility center before driving the 4+ hours back home. We spent the night before talking about how we would answer possible questions from the psychologist, and i think we were both a bit tense when we got to the first clinic. the staff, however, was lovely, and we waited in this beautiful old building among several newly pregnant women. there were sweet birth announcements hanging on the wall, and i watched a straight couple come from the doc's office and hug each other with pure joy on their faces. a dyke couple came out of the shrinks office before us. the shrink herself went out of her way to explain that it wasn't any kind of evaluation of us, rather, a chance for us to ask questions and for her to give us advice about how to talk to our future children about how they were created. she was sooo sympathetic to us and our experiences and genuinely shocked to find out we couldn't even foster or adopt in france. dp and i were both close to crying tears of gratitude. at the end of the consultation she gave us copies of a very pro-lesbian psychological study, a paper with advice on how to talk to our children about their conception (broken down by age and also indicating possible problems to look out for at those ages) and a sweet little children's book that we can read to our future babies.
our next appointment was at a huge hospital. when i called to make our appointments, i told the receptionist that we both want to try, but she only took my name down, so we figured we might be charged double for the gyn appointment, but in the end, we were only charged us for one. the doc was wonderful, warm and receptive...the complete opposite of my current gyn. she listened to us, answered our questions and outlined how she would go forward with each of us. we also learned that the inseminations cost approx 300euros, sperm included. super cheap, basically. she said she wants me to do stimulated cycles because of my lining, and said that i should absolutely not be taking clomid and absolutely should be having IUIs instead of ICIs. she wants DP to do IUIs on natural cycles. we don't know yet if they'll be able to let us use the same donor. the donors are all anonymous and come from belgium or denmark (cryos and nordic cryobank). it all sounds perfect, BUT..... she and her colleagues have to discuss our case first before deciding if they will take us both. normally, we'd have to wait for one of us to get pregnant for the other one to start, but she said that in view of our ages, she hopes they will make an exception in our case. we'll have our answer in about a week. we loved the place and the people, and we can't beat the price or the proximity... i hope they say yes.
the doc also said she wants me to get a hysterosalpingography before the first IUI. is that the thing you just got carmen? does anyone have any experiences with it? she also wants me to take follistim, use a trigger and then do a second trigger a week later to support my luteal phase. we've looked into the follistim, and apparently it's very expensive and other lesbians on the forums have had problems getting a gyn to prescribe it, problems getting the pharmacy to dispense it and problems getting social security to pay for it. i have a feeling mine will say no, but i've seen good things about bravelle, and as it's about 5 times cheaper than follistim, it would be less likely that the social security would notice/care about it. has anyone used bravelle or follistim?
we're trying to make a photo and written record for our future LOs, and here's a shot from yesterday
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this is what Belgian birth annoucements look like. i had no idea fiep was even a name. in the lower left corner there's a bag of pasta with the birth announcement part on the packaging. and in the upper left corner is a surreal picture that is unfortunately too small to be enjoyed fully. funny how my greatest aspiration right now is to have my own little card on that door.
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