Counseling

Yesterday, J and I went for our counseling session. This is a counselor who is a part of our clinic's team. She specializes in infertility concerns and has met with many, many couples and individuals who have used both known and anonymous egg donors. In our case, most of the focus was on the relationship between me and my sister and my husband and my sister. How using her eggs might affect our relationship and her future relationships. We were asked about family history as well. I found many of those questions to be difficult but the most difficult were the ones pertaining to my sister's future fertility. What if she had fertility problems later in life? What if something happened in our cycle to hurt her fertility (very highly unlikely and has never happened at our clinic, ever) but what if? What if she married someone later who took issue with it?

It just underlines one of the most frustrating things about infertility in general and that is the utter lack of control we have in all of this. I want this all to go well and for my relationship with my sister and with my husband to get even stronger and for T to be able to have her own children when and with whom she wants...without any struggle. I want my future children to be close with all their aunts and uncles, especially their special aunt T.  Obviously I have no control over any of this, but those are my hopes.

So, our counselor was happy with how open we have been with our family and close friends. She says that's a great sign that we are truly ready for this and realistic about it. She said she thinks that our situation so far sounds ideal. My sister will meet with them the day before Thanksgiving and we'll see what they say about her, but so far, it's looking great.

Now if only we could speed up this process! That's the hardest part still. Everytime I see a pregnant woman or hear another pregnancy announcement it stabs at me. I just want to move on from all of this. And have one or two more healthy children to show for it. Patience has always been tough for me. But I do finally believe it will happen. So that helps a lot.