Hello again.. most of you who've been around this section for a few months or more know my story (in bits) but I'd thought I'd repeat some of it as there are a few more recent questions re. decisions like ??who the birth mum etc

I have two children DS1 has just turned 10 and DS2 will be 8 in a couple of weeks. They and their other mum (my ex-DP) were together for 10 years and split up four years ago. She is the biological mother of both the children. Currently ours sons live week about with her and then with me and my DP, so they now have three people they call 'mum' or some variant of eg 'mamma'

Re decision making.. when ex-DP and i started talking about having children (many moons ago now!) we were both clear that we both wanted to physically carry, birth and breastfeed a child. We also at the time thought we'd like 4 children. The deciiosn that she would get pregnant first was easy... she is four years older than me, she really wnated gewt be pregnant at the time, i felt ready to be a mother but was studying fulltime and at that stage my course (medicine) did not allow part time study. The initial plan was that she would have the first one and myself the second. We used a known donor, i did the inseminations myself in our own home (the donor lived interstate but would travel to us) and she got pregnant on the third month of trying.

OUr first son was born in Juily 1998, 5 months before my final med school exams. About a year later we started talking about a second child and contrary to our initial plans we decided that she again would have the child. It was a little harder this time but as we thought we would still have more children I was ok with it. Again she really wanted a second pregnancy and the age factor meant it was sensible for her to do it sooner. A bi factor was that I was finally finishing studying, we were about to have an income for the first time in ages, had bought a house and the mortgage needed paying! We used the same donor and she got pregnant on the second attempt. OUr DS2 was born towards the end of my intern year.

Fast forward almost eight years and I am now 36 living with my sons (every second week) and my DP who is 45. DP and I were clear we wanted children (she din't have any prior to meeting me) and again the decision re who was easy. DP has never, ever wanted to be pregnant/give birth, in fact the idea is abhorrent to her! However, I always have and I guess even if she did want to her age would make it tricky, if not impossible for her.

We are using a known donor (different to the one for DS1 and DS2) weho is in the same state as us. We have been TTC for about 18months but apart from one BFP and very early miscarriage/chem preg in Nov 2007 have not had any luck. FOr a myriad of reasons we are now going down the IVF- in fact ICSI path. This is largely as our donor turns out to have fertility issues but for many reasons we do not want to change donors. Currently our first ICSI is planned for around Jan 2009.

In response to Nurse27... wow! I'm not sure what is going on at repromed but we've never been told of anything like a $10K sperm processing fee! We are seeing Dr Kelton Tremellen who had been really good. But I have also heard good things about a number of their other Drs including Chrisitne Kirby and Louise Hull.

OUr expenses have been as follows
First appt
Me- $115.70 up front with $65.70 back from medicare (so $50 gap)
DP- bulk billed

First appt for our donor
As for my first appt

Follow up appt
Me- $83 up front with $33 back from mediciare (so $50 gap)

Transvaginal ultrasound
$93 up front with $29.75 back from mediciare (so $63.25 gap)

3 mandatory counselling appts- 1 for donor, 1 for me and DP and one with the 3 of us. There is no charge for any of the counselling

I've also had a couple of blood tests for which there has not been an extra charge
OUr donor has given semen samples on three ocassions and has had blood taken, there was no charge for these services.
OUr donor is also taking menevit which is $80 for three months supply from them (and we have bought 2 packets to date, so $160) You can now get it from chemists but at the time we first bought it you couldn't
I am not sure about sperm storage fees. I know there are costs for frozen embryos storage (but i think this is hundreds rather than thousands). I now cannot remember re sperm storage. We certainly have not been charged anything yet and our donor's sperm has been stored for just over three months. Re the sperm storage/quarrantine period- it is actually three months (ours was up last week yay!).. but i do know that since we started with repromed they have done an overhaul of their whole donor program so things may have changed.

That's pretty much our experiencr to date. Donor has another appt on 23/10 then us on 27/11 to actually finally plan first ICSi and sign consents etc! Yay
Nurse 27 if you want to PM me would be happy to give you my mobile number and have a chat/share experiences Good luck, Girldoc