Mother's Day Madness...in March!

If you follow my blog, you know that I have been waiting over a month for my egg donor to call the donor coordinator and say that she started her period, so that I can start my donor cycle.  After no word for over a month, I finally broke down and called the donor coordinator yesterday to find out what was going on.  She told me that the other recipient (who is sharing the donor’s eggs with us) just finished her mock cycle…that started over a month ago.  Apparently, she had a problem with her mock cycle and so her mock cycle took much longer than anticipated.  Thus, I now have to wait until my donor’s NEXT period to get started on our donor cycle.  The donor coordinator anticipates that the donor’s next period will start in approximately two weeks.  It would have been nice to know that information… oh, I don’t know…like three weeks ago…or whenever everyone else knew we would be waiting an extra month!

Of course, as soon as I got the new information, I replaced my old obsession (when was my donor going to call in?) with a new obsession (when can I expect to do the cycle now that things have changed?).  So here it is…my new “potential” schedule which will inevitably change twenty times before I actually get to an embryo transfer:

Approximate Donor’s Cycle Day 1 –  March 14th

Approximate First Date of Lupron for all ladies involved –  April 4th

Approximate Egg Retrieval Date – April 22nd

Approximate Embryo Transfer – April 25th

Approximate Beta Test Date – Saturday, May 7th or Monday, May 9th

Mother’s Day this year – Sunday, May 8th

So…you see my dilemma.  Mother’s Day is always hard enough.  But this year, I will have to think about (and dread) Mother’s Day for two months before it even comes around.  Assuming that the cycle follows the anticipated schedule, there are three possibilities of how this all shakes out.  If the cycle starts running even a little bit late, I will know that I will be stuck in my two week wait during Mother’s Day, which is a worst case scenario for a worrier like me.  If the cycle picks up momentum and moves along faster than anticipated, I will have to waiver between hoping for my best case scenario – finding out I am finally a mother “on” Mother's Day – and my absolute worst case scenario – finding out I am NOT a mother right before Mother’s Day.  Two out of the three scenarios leave me crying just thinking about them…really, actually crying.  And the “good” possible scenario, while amazing and wonderful and what I've been waiting for years to achieve, is clouded a little, too, by this schedule…as only the Prince and I will actually know that I am pregnant on Mother's Day, because I decided long ago that I wouldn’t tell anyone until I saw a heartbeat.  I may have to go through Mother's Day, getting the usual condolences about another year without a baby from friends, and commiserating with my infertility friends about how badly Mother's Day sucks, all the while keeping the secret that I'm actaully pregnant.  I'm not good at deceit.  And no matter which of the three scenarios comes to fruition, I will get the added bonus of being pumped full of estrogen and progesterone at the time…adding to the “fun” of it all. 

The Prince is going to have to move out if we are going to make it through that time frame…because I know who I am…I know who I am on those meds…and I know who I am going to end up being with all of this on my mind while I am on those meds.  It won’t be pretty.  If he can survive the next couple of months with me…he truly is a prince.

I feel selfish and mean saying this, but why couldn’t the other recipient have just finished her mock cycle in a timely fashion?  I know it is horrible that she had to go through what I’m sure was a nerve-wracking ordeal for her.  But this Pissed-Off Princess had plans!  Specifically, my plan was to be announcing to everyone that I was finally a mother (baby heartbeat and all)…on Mother's Day…or to be on a trip on Mother’s Day, avoiding the reality that our last hope failed.  Now I have to scramble, regroup and try to find a way to set aside what could become an overwhelming panic-attack-causing anxiety for two whole months….and feel guilty that I am irritated that the other recipient’s mock cycle didn’t go as planned.  I guess I just have to have someone to be angry at about the way this is working out and she’s the person most emotionally removed from me in all of this, so it has to be her.  I keep thinking “Stop being a brat and just breathe through this,” but it has been almost 24 hours since I got the news about the cycle from the donor coordinator, and I still can’t help how I feel.  I was already terrified of this cycle not working...now I am terrified of so much more than that.  I feel like doom is swooping in on me, and I don't know if I can shoo it away.  If I make it through this cycle mentally intact, it will be proof of the existence of miracles.