Episode 3 - My Donor Egg Journey Starts Here

Hello and welcome to 'My Donor Egg IVF Journey – Raw + In Real Time'.   
    

I am Claudine, your podcast host. I want to share my Donor Egg IVF journey via my podcast in the hope that my experience will help others.  This is our safe holding space. If you haven’t already listened to Episode 1, my introduction, please do so.   

✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨  

In this episode, episode 3 of my podcast, share with you the discussions held during my consultation with my Fertility Specialist and the very beginning of my Donor Egg IVF Journey.  

Thank you for stopping by. Please follow me if you are on a similar journey or are interested in the Donor Egg experience,    

✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨✨  

I would be most grateful if you could rate or review my podcast. Please also share my podcast with anyone who you think will benefit from the content.    
    

🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍  

Thank you for sharing your time with me. From my heart to yours, sending healing energy to all of my listeners. 🤍  
     
Claudine Xx 

Transcript

0:03

Welcome to my Donut Egg IVF journey, raw and in real time. I'm Claudine, your podcast host. I want to share my Donut Egg IVF journey via my podcast, in the hope that my experience will help you and others. This is your safe holding space, created with a heart centered approach. A place to land to share all things related to Donut Egg conception. I want you to feel safe, supported and informed during our shared journey. Now let's start today's episode. I just wanted to add this little note to my recording. I have already actually recorded this episode and just inserted my intro and outro. Um, now I'm failing you to podcasting and I can't quite figure out how to. Um, get the, you know, the, the volume of the episode that I recorded to be the same as my intro and outro. So please bear with me. Um, and I will try to work on this for future episodes. Thanks for your patience. If you haven't already listened to episode one of my podcasts, please do my recommendation is that my episodes are listened to in the order that they're released. But of course, it's up to you to decide how you go about listening to my podcasts in that regard. I recommend that you, at the very least listen to episode one first and my initial podcast episodes, we'll get you up to speed. And from thereafter, I'll update you in real time. So today's date is Monday the 30th of December, 2024. First of all. I hope that all of my listeners had a happy and safe Christmas. I apologize for the full, the delight in delivering you this episode. So my aim was to drop a minimum of one episode per fortnight, but I've had a fair bit to juggle lately. Plus there was a festive season. And I also went on a short trip to the south coast over Christmas. Now getting on with it. As I previously mentioned, it was on the 10th of October, 2024 that the donor egg pathway was suggested to me for the first time. In today's episode, episode three of my podcast, I'll share with you what was discussed in the consultation during which that occurred. So in episode two of my podcast, I provided you with a background leading to my consultation with Dora fertility on the 10th of October, 2024. So on that day, on the 10th of October, 2024, Dr. Zang, uh, started that consultation by stating it had again, been a couple of years since we last spoke. To which I briefly rehashed out what I did in that timeframe. So he stated Claudine. I'm going to be really blunt here. I think you need donor treatment. So with that, I was in complete and auto shock. I felt like I left my body and that I was floating in a dream. It just felt really surreal to me. And I asked why because of my age. So he explained that three years ago, my egg reserve was already low, that he was not willing to attempt IVF as my egg numbers were way too low. That I was almost 44 and that he would be doing me a disservice by trying to do IVF. So with that, I was confused because I knew other women who had been of similar age when they fell pregnant, um, or when they gave birth to their children. Also, I had joined a face numerous Facebook groups where the, like had thousands of women have members, um, that to the thousands. Um, so various women of similar age and fertility struggles, um, who eventually fell pregnant and gave birth. Then there were also the others who are still in there trying to conceive journey. Now some of them are younger than me and some of them are similar age. Some of them still going undergoing IVF. And I noticed that some of them had shared that they had lower AMH too. Then, you know, my last AMH result from some years ago, So I then asked Dr. Zang, why are the people with lower AMH undergoing IVF? So he replied that they shouldn't be. Which, and then to that, I added to that, that those people are still having a luck. So Dr. Zang said in regards to women in their thirties who have had low, very low AMH and that dependent on their age, their chance of getting pregnant by IVF versus trying naturally was going to be the same. He did highlight that he was not saying they would not get pregnant. Simply the chances of getting pregnant naturally and, um, getting pregnant via IVF was going to be the same. He shared that in my case three years ago, we could have given IVF a go because we might've had a 5% chance per month and that we kept, could have kept on trying. He expressed that, or, sorry, my alarm's going off. Excuse me. Okay. So, um, I'll just, I'll just restart that. So he shared, um, that three years ago, in my case, we could have given IVF a go, um, because we might've had a 5% chance per month. And in that case we could have kept on trying. So he expressed that he was concerned that he would not retrieve eggs for me at this stage. Um, he said that he felt that I would have a less than 1% chance per go at the moment and that I really needed to think about options that would give me a good chance. So I was very. Understandably. I was still in shock, so I just didn't want to accept what he was telling me, despite his reasoning. Behind that. So I asked him if he was saying that he did not even want to try one cycle. I was just in complete disbelief and I couldn't believe that he didn't even want to do one cycle to see how many eggs we could retrieve from that cycle at the very least. He said he didn't even want to try one. And he stated, I think what you're going to find is that there'll be one egg. If we're lucky and nothing is going to happen. So then I moved onto the subject of the donor egg pathway. I would stay there to him with the donor's egg. That's someone else's egg and completely the day and night completely seen. So not your DNA whatsoever. So you're just carrying the child. So at that stage, I knew nothing about the donor egg pathway, donor conception or anything like that. Like I would have never, in my wildest dreams guessed that I would ever have to consider it. Um, and I guess I was just, yeah, just not accepting. This suggestion, I'm just rejecting it really. So Dr. Zang stated that half of my baby's DNA would be my partners and that there would still be epigenetic changes. So he explained to me that he has twins, um, the type of twins that have the same genetic makeup and that are from the same egg. So he went on to explain that his twins are in the same environment yet they are different and could not be any more different from one another. When it comes to personalities. He further explained that this is where epigenetic changes come into play. He summarized that his point is that even though they are someone else's eggs, they'll have subtle changes. Because there'll be carried by my body. And epigenetics is so interesting. I'm just going to note this here and it is. I feel that I do have to dedicate an episode or a couple of episodes to that subject alone later on down the track. Now, back to that consultation. So Dr. Zang stated, I know that I'm being pretty abrupt to you, but I think that we have missed the boat and and I need to be very, very clear with you about it. You need to seek donor treatment. So he really made a point of highlighting that. So he welcomed me to a second opinion, whether it be with the door of fertility or another clinic. He said that if someone else was willing to give IVF with my own eggs ago, that was fine by him. But that he thought my chances would be very, very, very low. So for various very, very, very, very low. He couldn't stress it enough. Um, Now he stated the following in regards to the donor egg pathway. And in my, uh, in response to my questions regarding that. So when exploring the possibility of donor treatment, you have two options. One option is to find a donor yourself. Uh, from a financial perspective, that's going to be the best thing you should do, or you could do, because it's going to be much cheaper. Usually you're going to get a few eggs or so out of them or some eggs out of them. I shouldn't say a few and hopefully it is someone in Australia. So the second is that the clinics can find a donor for you. I should know when I say, hopefully it's someone in Australia that's because I'm based in Australia. Um, I've noticed when looking at my statistics, I've got listeners from all over the world. Um, yeah, we're purely stating AMO. He purely stated Australia because obviously I'm based in Australia. So, um, the second option is that the clinic is confined to Dharna for you. So at the moment, a Dora does not support that process. So with the other clinics, um, that covered that process, you're looking at about$30,000 as 30 S. Thousand Australian dollars. And that covers about six eggs. It is very expensive, but it will work and ACAM work. So all of this is what Dr. Zang was, um, was stating to me. So the last option is to go overseas and your best options. There are South Africa or grace. They are the two big centers for donor eggs there, including if you are looking at airfares and such, you're looking at about$20,000, that's 20,000 Australian dollars. And he said, but that usually gives you about a 70% chance of having a baby. So he explained. That these costings were pre COVID and that he was unaware, whether there have been increases. Since then in terms of cost. So he also said when taking into consideration my physical profile, he thought grace would make more sense if I was to pick a place and that they show profiles of the donors. So he believed that the profiles. Uh, shed details about uni degrees and such, but he was not sure about personality or temperament over like, He stated that a Dora do not sell eggs, um, that if you have someone who has eggs, a Dora have a process, which is called a non donut. Process the key difference there is that a Dora charge, a. A donor fee for the donor coordinator. And that fee is 3000 Australian dollars, which is much more affordable. Now, he also said that if I found someone who was willing to donate eggs, the donor process with the Dora usually takes three to four months. That is because the Dora need to ensure that the donors do not carry any genetic problems or infectious diseases before they start the process. Infectious diseases. Take three months to quarantine check. He stated with that. It's obviously not going to be easy to accept the fact. And then also go through the process of finding somebody. Um, and he said that within Australia, uh, Dora allow embryo transfers up to your 51st birthday. So Dr. Zang stated that we still have a bit of time, but it's not for over. And for example, if I approached him at say 50 years and six months of age, He would say to me, Claudine, no, it's not going to happen. So I also talked to Zang where I could find reputable overseas donor egg clinics and stated that I wanted to avoid the dodgy clinics. He said that he only knew all of the Malaysian clinics where he sends his Asian patients. So Dr. Zang then wrapped up the consultation with his apology for his bad news. And again, reinstated that based on the numbers, he felt that he would be doing me a disservice by attempting. Uh, my own egg IVF. So with that, that concludes today's episode. Please choose to tune into our next episode where I share with you what transpired in the week or so following this consultation. Thank you for sharing your time with me. From my heart to yours, sending healing energy to all of my listeners.