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Our Happily Ever After

I had already been diagnosed with endometriosis and premature ovarian failure/diminished ovarian reserve before beginning treatment with Dr. Grossman and the amazing staff at the Latham office of CNY Fertility Center. My husband and I knew the road to parenthood might be long and difficult (despite me being “only” 29 when we started trying to conceive), but after a half dozen failed or cancelled IVF cycles, it became apparent that our dream of having a baby might be out of reach if we didn’t consider options that were “outside of the box” for us. My husband was open to the use of donated eggs early on in our journey. I was much more hesitant. I worried about whether the baby would feel like “my baby” when the baby was not “genetically” mine. Ultimately, it was the encouragement, support and honesty of the Latham staff that helped me to realize that the most important thing to me was to hold a baby in my arms, and to be that baby’s mother, whatever that term might mean. Slowly, I began to open myself up to the idea of using donor eggs to achieve pregnancy. I will not lie and say it was an easy transition. I did a lot of mourning, as I had to grieve the loss of my “could have been” child that would have been genetically mine. I worked through a lot of anger about how unfair it was that I couldn’t have a baby with my own eggs. I dealt with guilt and feelings of inadequacy about my body which was failing me. But, slowly, I began to shift my way of thinking. I realized that I was blessed to have the option of donor eggs available to me. And, upon researching CNY’s donor egg program, I found that there were many wonderful, healthy, generous women who were willing to help me and my husband become parents. I also was pleasantly surprised to learn that, by using CNY’s “split cycle” program, the use of donor eggs was very affordable for our family. Eventually I decided that it was time to move forward with the use of donor eggs. I spent hours researching available donors, until I found the perfect person for us. Once our names made it to the top of the donor’s list, the CNY donor coordinator walked us through each step of the process, and helped to ensure that the donor egg cycle went smoothly. The cycle went so much better than we could have hoped for. But after so many IVF cycle failures, I was still not as confident as I wanted to be on the day of our embryo transfer. Dr. Kiltz performed our transfer and I couldn’t help but chuckle when he had us hold hands and say “I believe this is going to work.” Despite my skepticism about the positive affirmation, from that point forward I decided to push fear out of my mind and embrace the belief that I was becoming a mother that cycle(pregnant until proven otherwise). On Mother’s Day 2011, I received my first positive pregnancy test. It was the most amazing Mother’s Day present I could ever have asked for. While my pregnancy was not without certain obstacles, on December 3, 2011, I gave birth to my beautiful son, Ian. From the moment I saw him, there has never been a single doubt in my mind that I am his mother. When holding him in my arms on the day of his birth (and every day since) I couldn’t help but feel that this is what “happily ever after” feels like. All of the fears I had about using donated eggs were gone the second his sweet little eyes peeked open at me. There was no more grief, no more longing, no more questioning our choice of path to parenthood… just overwhelming love for my son. I can never thank the doctors and staff members of CNY enough for making my dream of motherhood a reality. And words could never express my gratitude towards the kind and generous woman who, by donating her eggs, gave my husband and me the greatest gift of all. ~ ~ Fawn

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