Baby on hold, again

It seemed like madness. After almost four years of trying to get pregnant, were Peter and I really going to delay it again now that everything was looking good?

Yup. We had to. The reason was money.

We live on middle-income wages. Together, our cars were 26 years old. And we loved our house, but the mortgage payments stretched us each month.

We kept a tight budget. Buying a frozen pizza was an extravagance. With all the money we had spent so far on fertility treatments, medical bills and the adoption, we still struggled to pay the bills, saving nothing.

Going through in vitro fertilization with donated eggs was going to put us deeply into debt. We were preparing to borrow from my brother and, if we had to, to move to a smaller home.

Then an opportunity appeared. The baby would wait, again, this time for the insurance money.

It was October 2002 and The Herald was holding open enrollment for medical coverage. We learned that one of The Herald’s providers, Aetna, covered at least half the cost of in vitro fertilization.

That meant we could cut the cost for one egg transfer from $14,000to $7,000. The costs could double or triple if the first try didn’t take. So at three tries, we were talking about some serious cash – close to $21,000 – even with insurance covering half.

We did the math and really had no choice but to sign on with Aetna and delay the transfer. We called Leigh Bell, our donor egg coordinator with the University of Washington Fertility and Endocrine Clinic. Together, we all decided on a delay and scheduled the transfer for January, once the insurance policy kicked in.

The only hitch, Bell explained, was that we would have to pick another anonymous egg donor.

We’d have to say goodbye to Olive.

Earlier, the clinic had asked for our criteria for a donor. We kept it simple: She had to come from healthy stock, be intelligent and Caucasian.

Did she have to look like me?

At this point, it was no longer a priority. I had long since accepted the fact that my genetic fingerprint was not going to get passed down in this deal.

Besides, I was banking on the home-court advantage. I was putting all my eggs (pun intended) in the nurture – not the nature – basket. The kid wouldn’t have curly hair, but he or she would surely pick up some of my personality traits just by living in my house and listening to scores from Broadway shows.

Using our criteria, the clinic put together a list of potential donors. They sent Peter and me profiles of five anonymous egg donors. The day the envelope arrived in the mail, I tore it open like a Christmas present.

Each woman had submitted a two-page sheet of facts. Did she have any allergies? Was she nearsighted? We learned about height, weight, complexion, eye color and ethnic origin. We learned about her family’s health. Any heart attacks? Cancer? Alcoholism?

There were her academic successes, hobbies and reasons for donating – altruism, money. Each woman wrote a few words about her personality (“I am a strong-willed, compassionate leader…”).

There were no photos. And these skimpy details left a lot to the imagination. Was she pretty or plain? Intelligent, yes, but was she witty or a bit of a bore?

OK. I was asking for a lot. Let’s face it, we were trying to put together a baby in a petri dish. My excitement became overshadowed by the overwhelming fear of making the wrong choice. I was taking a leap of faith by selecting half of my child’s looks and personality based on a two-page summary.

Eventually, we found a donor we both agreed on. I called her Olive because that’s how she described her skin color. Her bachelor’s degree was in, well, I’m not exactly sure what it was, but it sounded like she had to be smart.

Her career focus, she wrote, was math, English and chemistry. So right off the bat, she would provide my child with something I couldn’t – the ability to do math. I loved the fact that Olive played the saxophone. I forgive her for being into volleyball.

I read the profile over and over, and imagined Olive heading off to her biotech job in her tailored suit or sipping mai-tais at Wild Ginger, talking with co-workers about some experiment they were doing.

We lost Olive when we had to delay the start of the egg transfer, since Olive’s eggs would be past their prime.

I felt oddly jealous. Perhaps I’d fallen in love with Olive’s eggs. I didn’t want another couple getting them. I also felt like I was losing someone who was going to be so close to me, so connected with my life through the life of my child.

Yet, Olive had to go while we waited for the insurance to kick in.

Then Peter and I picked Olive’s replacement – No. 888, or Madame X – from the five original donors.

No. 888 – not her real number – had a bachelor’s of science degree in sociology. She enjoyed painting, movies and reading. Peter liked the fact that she had green eyes. We both liked that she had a great sense of humor.

It was time to start preparing my body to receive No. 888’s eggs. It would be the most rigorous medical regime I’d ever been on.

I was petrified that it wouldn’t work.

Next part: Embryos tell you when it’s time