When it rains. . .

. . . it pours.  Remember a few months ago when we had decided to put DE on the back burner and pursue donated embryos?  In this post, I wrote about a possible opportunity for us to receive donated embryos.

Today, now that we are in the thick of pursuing our DE cycle and within 60 days of plunking down the largest amount of money I have ever spent at one time--aside from buying our house, which, let's face it, is theoretical money because it's a 30-year mortgage --I found out that the donating couple are interested in us.  Given where we are and the fact that they are looking to donate their two sets of 7 embryos each immediately, I had to politely decline.

Also, earlier this week, I received an email via Miracles Waiting in response to our profile there (which I had not gotten around to taking down) from a couple with ten embryos to donate.  Because this couple is just in the beginning stages of considering embryo donation, I was completely upfront and honest with her about where we are currently, and we will keep in touch and potentially talk more if DE does not work for us.

[By the way, both these couples conceived their children (and frozen embryos) through DE.]

Ironic, no? 

I completely understand MM's feelings of not being ready to give up on the possibility of a genetic child until we try DE.  (How many months did I struggle with this question myself?  And he is not even the one with The Problem, and as a man, reproductively speaking, is far from old.)  I am more than ready to go ahead with the DE cycle we are currently pursuing.

I must admit, though, that having both these opportunities present themselves in a week has given me food for thought.  When we first talked about looking for donated embryos, I thought it would take FOREVER for someone to choose us to receive their embryos.  Turns out, even though my efforts in that regard have been minimal, two couples in just a few months seriously considered us. . . and who knows, had we not decided to go ahead with a DE cycle, one of these situations might well have resulted in our actually receiving embryos.

As I told MM when we had our (heated) heart-to-heart discussion about this in February, from my perspective, there is not a big difference between DE and DEm.  Both will allow me to experience pregnancy, labor and breastfeeding in addition to parenthood and to control our child's intrauterine environment, and both will result in a child to whom I am not genetically related.  (His feelings were a little hurt that I didn't have a preference of whether the child is "his" child, but honestly, once I gave up my attachment to a child who is genetically related to ME, giving up a child who is genetically related to HIM is simple and easy by comparison.  Does that make me an awful wife?)

Because there isn't a big difference to me between the two, I defer to his preference, which is clearly DE as a first choice.  I defer to this preference even though it's going to mean thousands of dollars more spent on the procedure because I think this is a HUGE decision with which he needs to be 100% on board.

It's just interesting to me to contemplate the other possibilities that might have been available to us, had MM not had his late February epiphany.  Although I am far from religious, and my faith, already not particularly strong, has been weakened considerably by our inability to conceive a child of our own, I find myself wondering about what is "meant" to happen for us.

Deep thoughts for a Friday morning.