Hey There!

Haven't been "in" in a while, but have enjoyed the steady flow of chatter. As wonderfully supportive family and friends are - it is nice to know that there are other people out there who actually have a CLUE what it's like to walk in your shoes...

Husband and I have tried IUI (but I much prefer to call it turkey basting) twice now with donor sperm from Xytex. We've got four lots left before we have to "go back to the shop and buy some more".

Millie - we go through Qld Fertility Group...they use Xytex. When we started looking, they directed us to their Brisbane office who gave us their list of 10 donors that they have on the shelves ready to go. They told us that if there is nothing in their current stock that doesn't suit us then we can have a look at their website and find something there - maybe they could order that one in in their next shipment - which would mean about a 3 month wait. Luckily for us we found one that suited us - we didn't need to go to the website.

We're in a bit of a quandry as to decide at what stage we stop with trying with IUI and go IVF. While IUI is much less invasive, less messing around with horemones, 'harvesting' ect...the specialist says that the ods of conception are much greater with IVF....I think we're going to give IUI one last go then maybe have a look at IVF...

The SBS show was good wasn't it? I had a girlfriend send me a txt in canberra saying that she had just finished watching it and thought of us and was sending us her love. It was really sweet...handy too - because of time difference we switched it over and started watching! Have to remember it's on next week.

As far as the nature-v-nurture thing goes...it will continue to go on to the end of time. of course there are pros and cons with both. The way my husband and i look at it (Husb has no sperm from heavy chemo in his late teens - before they knew about freezing sperm) - we were originally looking at adopting anyway...this way, we're just adopting half of the ingredients to make a child. There will be no doubt he will be the DAD.

Another thing that I suppose has made it 'easier' for us too - my husband has an older brother who is adopted. He grew up knowing that his older brother is adopted - but it made no difference to him or the rest of his family...he was still his brother.

I think at the end of the day it's all about open communication. If you gradually let your child know how special they are (and at what lengths we went through to have them!) then it's all ok.

After our last two IUI attempts before christmas - we're having a couple of months off (they shut down over Christmas anyway). I'm using this time to crack down and lose a couple of kilos before we go at it again.

I wish you all the best in your neck of the woods and hope your dreams come true.

Cheers,
Susan.