Counselling

Yesterday we had our fertility counselling session which wasn't what we expected but was still nice. We expected more of a grilling, but actually it was more like a discussion on the ins and outs of sperm and egg donation from a legal point of view. We expected to be asked our feelings on a child knocking on our door in 18 years time, but this never came up. We didn't come away knowing anything more than what we already knew, though it was good to sit on a comfy sofa next to my wife and daydream about being parents and how good it will feel both being mums and equal legal parents someday to our children. I feel lucky to live in a country where we are afforded such a great thing. I feel happy too knowing that we will be giving half our eggs to another woman who will also become a mother, or at least expand her brood.

Following our counselling session we had our appointment to have bloods done to check for various infections and genetic things. At this appointment we also filled out the paperwork for the HFEA to become an official egg donor. My wife's physical stats were taken down and her interest and hobbies. We also filled a form out about our sperm donor requirements. The only sticking point for me, was that they wanted my height, weight and build for the sperm matching which I refused to give. Are they going to find a donor with breasts and a vagina? I can understand how this is relevent for a heterosexual couple where the man would like to find a donor with his frame etc but realistically this isn't applicable to me and I don't want my stats to assist with being matched with a man!

I told her that I would give this information to the DR when we saw him if it really was needed. She said it would be as it is important for 'welfare of the child'. I know I have several extra pounds and my BMI is more 35 than 25, but I am by no means in any category that would see me an unfit parent. I don't drink or smoke and I lead a healthy lifestyle, more so than many parents out there. Especially the ones on crack.

I have struggled with my weight and self image since I was a child and I am not paying a clinic £1000's of pounds to fuck me off and antagonise me. She also threw in that as I wanted to also do ivf in the future that her noting my weight down had some sort of relevance, like no, because when my time comes, my BMI will be 29, I will be getting matched with a female and not a man and it will be relevant.

I really like our clinic and everybody is so lovely, but I went to the appointment after a manic long stressful night shift and we were waiting for an hour between appointments due to a delay so it was lunchtime by the time we left and I was exhausted and a surprise weigh in just wasn't something that was going to happen, nor was my build (medium) getting noted on a sperm match form!

Before the appointment we went for breakfast at Carluccios, which was lovely and then we discovered a really great coffee shop with chesterman sofas and nice tasting coffee, somewhere that is going to become a regular I am sure. I love going to the clinic and a coffee date with my wife, though I hope we never have to face the day where the gods are not in our favour as we know that sometime we may have to face the downs that come with IVF sometimes.

I so want this to work first time

Happiness

I have the best wife ever. The past 3 years have been the happiest I have ever been. I honestly feel so incredibly lucky to have her in my life. From the day that I met her, she has made my life infinitely richer. She is so beautiful, caring and strong and I appreciate every day we have together. Yes we have days when we bicker or are too tired and stressed but we also have many days that melt away where only we exist.

She is my favourite person in the whole universe and I am so grateful to be in love with my best friend.

She is also doing fantastic with losing weight and is 25lb's down and only has 10lbs to go to get her BMI to 29. She plans to lose some more too but to get below 30 is the main goal. We are glad our clinic accepts bmi's below 35 if you are losing weight, because if we had to start all these testing stages once she had lost weight, we would be waiting even longer for this to happen. Ironically it was her slimming world leader who suggested our clinic as she had donated eggs and knew the BMI criteria, so it gave us the head start to apply at the start of her weight loss journey especially as we knew the process took on average 6 months

Someday I know we will great mums. I have faith that it will happen and when it does, it is going to be AWESOME