In October of 2002, after almost 2 years of ttc, I got pregnant after a short time seeing an RE. At 8 weeks, we had our first u/s and saw the heartbeat. I jumped the gun & ordered about 10 maternity dresses from Ebay and also a stash of cloth diapers & diaper covers. By 10 weeks, our baby had died and I had had a D&C. Then, the boxes (about 5 in all) came in the mail. I never had the heart to open them, so I put them on the top shelf of our closet and there they sat, gathering dust.

Now, we live in a tiny 700sq foot condo. Every time we've saved up a house downpayment, we would choose to spend it on another cycle of fertility treatment. We're happy here and always knew if we did have a baby, we'd have to find a larger home by the time we had three mobile human beings living in this tiny space. So, those 5 boxes have been taking up precious storage space all this time. I couldn't bring myself to throw them out and I held onto the hope that one day I'd have the need for their contents.

Finally, four years later, I opened those boxes! I tried on each dress and they all fit on top. They seem to be different "belly sizes" as if they won't all fit for an entire pregnancy. I have zero fashion sense, so the lack of being on the cutting edge is pretty much my usual clothing modus operandi. I am washing the dresses right now!

And the diapers! DH & I just laid them out on the bed and stared at them. I'm sure we will end up using mostly disposables, but it's nice to have an option in case there's a middle of the night "out of diapers emergency".

A very wounded part of me is slowly healing.....

We're home!

We had to wait over an hour for the appt. It was fine, because our donor & I got to catch up. We've been so busy lately we haven't had time to talk.

The appointment went great. The doctor had never had an open egg donation IP-ED "group". He's seen a lot of anon. egg donor IPs, but never an open one and he seemed to love the whole idea of having our donor see what her egg turned into. Of course, once he said that, DH had to pipe up and say "Well, what about the important part played by MY SPERM????". After we placated and soothed the savage male ego, we proceeded into the u/s room.

BabyBep was much bigger than 2 weeks ago; very still for most of the scan, but then noticed that all eyes were watching so he/she put on a little wiggling arms & legs dance for about 15 seconds. We saw fingers & toes, a pulsating umbilical cord, the outline of the brain, and the whole profile of our baby! The OB printed off pictures for DH, me and also one for our donor (gotta love a doctor who does that)!

We then went out for an extravagant dinner. We ate lots of delicious food and are stuffed.

The only really scary part was that our donor's GS was having contractions and had measured fingertip dilated at her OB appt and ended up in L&D on a monitor. We were all very nervous and awaiting updates on how she was doing. She's at 33 weeks now with our donor & donor DH's little girl. Anyway, it all turned out okay with the contractions stopped effectively.

We had a great afternoon & evening. I am so happy to be able to share this very very very special moment in time of my life with the woman who made it all possible. Egg donors & surrogates............what can I say that would communicate what's in my heart & soul?

Off we go at 3:15 this afternoon!

The four of us; DH, BabyBep, our egg donor, & myself.

I'm a little nervous because I have been feeling so well. I have such minimal and fleeting symptoms that I can't believe that there's a little human being growing inside my body.

We've been doing a lot of thinking and research, considering midwives vs OB, homebirth vs hospital, etc. We finally choose to go with an OB. Our reasoning is that even though we love the idea of less intervention & less medicalization of this high-tech pregnancy, we just need the extra emotional security of a doctor involved in BabyBep's care.

I'm a little nervous about today's appointment because it was at 10 weeks in 2002 when I found out that the baby I was carrying didn't make it. That, in conjunction with the lack of symptoms is a little worrisome to me. Plus, DH & I had terrible colds last week and I hope I didn't sneeze or cough BabyBep out!!! I also took several doses of Tylenol and used Afrin nasal spray for 4 days.

Anyway, I'm VERY excited that we are all going together!!! I'm happy our donor could arrange her schedule to attend this appt with us! Then it's out to dinner afterwards, planned by DH.

It's really so perfect.

There was no sleep to be had last night.

Tossing & turning, with relentless thoughts of a delicious grilled bologna sandwich refused to dissapate.

DH called me to report that relief was finally found at a local breakfast deli.

He said nothing ever tasted so good in his entire life.

His pregnancy symtpoms have started to set in!

Yesterday evening was the baby shower for our donor.

Recap: Our egg donor. She has a 2.5 year old son. Her pregnancy was very rough, many complications and lots of preterm labor. She almost lost him several times. She got a tubal ligation during her c/s. She knew she wanted more children so she went through IVF in Jan with a gestational surrogate, who is due in Oct with our donor's baby girl. As she was looking for a surrogate, she realized how much it meant to need another woman help her have a child so she decided to advertise as an egg donor so she could "pay it forward". That's how we met. Through an online message board. She lives about 20 mins from me.

So, anyway, the baby shower was perfect.

It was so amazing to finally meet our donor's surro (who doesn't live in our state) and stand there knowing we are both pregnant with babies from our donor's eggs. The babies will be genetic half siblings.

DH & I decided long ago that we wanted an open relationship with our donor and her family. We want our children to know each other as family (similar to cousins). I am forever grateful to have found a donor who feels the same way.

I know many many (about 80% of donor egg familes) are against any form of disclosure. That's fine for whatever works for them. I don't live their life, in their culture, know their situation, relatives, etc.

For me, I need openness & transparency. I can only imagine a home without secrets. Where life "is what it is" and we deal with it accordingly. Where we accept the reality that the norm of two adults required to create a baby did not work for us & we needed three (plus a doctor, embryologist, pharmacy, ultrasound tech, etc).