Conception Woes

The following is a Guest Post by Cor

My sister-in-law has been having a ton of trouble conceiving.  She and my brother have been trying for about two years now unsuccessfully.  This past year they began undergoing testing to try to figure out if they have any fertility issues. It turns out that she had a reduced quantity of eggs, and the small amount that she had may not have even been viable.  For a while they toyed with the idea of adoption, but ultimately she decided she really wanted to be able to carry the baby herself.  We just started the process of researching egg donation and so far it seems to be the best option for meeting her needs. Before this I did not realize that there were two different types of egg donation.  One is a frozen egg, which is what I pictured, an egg bank full of little frozen tubes of eggs.  This is the cheaper option(by almost $10,000!) and provides her more of a donor selection.  Then there is the fresh donor cycles where the donor and the recipient much have there cycles matched up, and the egg is immediately fertilized upon removal and then transferred.  The success rates were still very promising for the frozen donor so that seemed to be the best choice for them.  She is going to begin the hormone therapy sometime this month and right now we are just in the process of screening donors.  It kind of a strange idea, we are reading these descriptions about girls 5'4 130 lbs, Caucasian, blond hair, green eyes,  bachelor's degree in social work, etc, etc. and its like trying to guess what kinds of genes will be passed along to their new little baby.  Of course half the genes will be coming from my brother, but it is still just a strange and kind of scary idea.  There is an Atlanta egg donor who seems to be a good match though, and they are 99% positive they will be going with her.   I really hope this works for them, because they deserve all the happiness in the world and I know they will make amazing parents!