Hello! And welcome to our infertility coming out announcement! Some of you may already have heard about all the gory details, and some may wish they haven’t. Others will finally be learning the answers to the question, “Why don’t those nice Howards have any kids yet?”  The short version, Teresa’s ovaries went in to early retirement. She’s thinking about having a retirement party to mark the occasion. No, we don’t really know why, for sure. And for now, we’ve moved passed, “Why” and are on to, “What next?” Well, for us, the next step is to find a generous young woman who is willing to gift us with her eggs so that we might have the opportunity to build a family through egg donor IVF.

But first, let us step back and give you a brief (or maybe not brief enough) summary of how we got here. Some 5+ years ago, Teresa started having, what is not so affectionally known in our house as, “girly pain.” An ultrasound revealed a uterine polyp and some ovarian polyps. She underwent minor surgery to remove the intruders and clean out the endometriosis she always suspected was present. Her Dr. diagnosed her with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS). Although, we later found out this was a faulty diagnosis. Thus began the year of super fun hormone treatments whose aim was to help regulate her system and prevent the growth of more ovarian cysts. Otherwise known as, the dark year. Those of you who knew Teresa during that time may have notice she wasn’t the most fun person to be around. After a year of no relief from pain and mood altering hormones left her body in no better position to have a child, it was decided to do another surgery to see if we could figure out what the heck was going on. More cysts removed and more endometriosis cauterized. After a few more months of Lupron (aka the devil drug) and then Provera (devil drug’s little sister) and no relief from the pain of constant cysts and near daily emotional break-downs, we decided to throw in the towel and just go back on ultra-suppressive birth control which seemed our only option to allow Teresa to get her life back. And it helped. Eventually the pain subsided and life got back to normal. But our hopes of having a family were officially put on hold.

As you might expect, this took a great toll on us individually, as a couple, and on the relationships in our lives. We needed to take time to heal and live life a bit before we could consider what to do next. Thank you to all of you who put up with the roller coaster and took us back.

In the fall of 2015, we decided to start taking some next steps toward figuring out if or how we might have a child.  Teresa’s Dr. suggested we start by testing her AMH level which would give us an idea of her egg reserve. The results that came back were extremely shocking. First of all because they were delivered via email in her patient portal with ZERO explanation. Second because the results were off-the-charts low. Thanks to Google and to Teresa’s nurse friend who confirmed that we were reading the results correctly, we feared that we’d reached the end of this road. So off to adoption orientations we went. The first one scared the crap out of us and left us feeling like we’d never be able to adopt. The second one was a little more encouraging. But we still walked away feeling totally overwhelmed and fearing that having kids was going to be oh so much more difficult than we ever expected. And we were right.

A little over a year ago, a friend suggested to Teresa that she attend a Resolve-sponsored infertility support group. She went in not knowing what to expect. She left thinking there might be hope for her dreams of having a child. Which sent us down the road of investigating fertility treatment options. Consults at Mayo and Colorado Center for Reproductive Medicine (CCRM) ensued. We decided to work with CCRM. When Roger’s tests came back above average (go Rog!), we made a plan to move forward with fertility treatments. With reserved hope, we decided to do an intrauterine insemination (IUI) with injectibles. Better known to many of you as artificial insemination. Lots and lots of drugs (and money) later, it didn’t work. We were sad. But not surprised. The odds were not in our favor.

We took a month to think about how to proceed. The Dr. told us options included sinking tens of thousands of dollars into trying to retrieve enough of Teresa’s few remaining eggs, or receiving eggs from a donor. Many conversations, some with paid professionals, and a few more support group sessions later, we decided to move forward with the egg donor option. This seemed the best chance for success. So with that, we put Teresa’s ovaries into early retirement (she celebrated with coffee, something that had been off limits for months), and began the search for an egg donor.

At first, we thought we would join our clinic’s anonymous donor program. However, the more we thought about it, we didn’t feel comfortable not having the option for future contact with the donor. If we are blessed with a child from donor eggs, we didn’t want to take away the option for that child to be able to someday reach out and have some kind of communication with their donor. We know it’s not the right choice for everyone, but it’s what we want to try to pursue.

As our journey has continued, we’ve become more and more public. Infertility isn’t something that is talked about openly very much. As a result, it can be very isolating to experience. We can’t say enough how much the infertility support group, online forums, and all our friends and family have helped us. And now, we’ve decided to “go public” with our story and our search.

Like most, we never thought this is a thing we’d have to think about. But when we did, we decided it was important to us that our child have the option to know their donor. Our clinic only offers an anonymous donor option so we’ve begun the search for the woman who will donate such an incredible gift to us so that we may hope to start our family. Recruiting our own donor feels very intimidating. But here we go.

What we want potential donors to know about us: We’re in our mid-thirties and have been together for 16 years. Teresa works in homeless services IT and Roger in sales support for a locally owned publishing company. Our home is in the Minneapolis area where we live with our two kitties. We are fiercely committed to our family, we love to travel, and gather with friends to share a meal and play board games.

What we’re looking for in a donor:  Our clinic requires local monitoring so we’re looking for someone who is local (or willing to travel here for up to two weeks). Other requirements from our clinic include age 33 and under and a non-smoker. Important to us is someone who is willing to stay in touch and correspond with our child/children as he/she decides as they grow up so that they never have to wonder “where they came from”. We’re open to what that looks like. Ideally, we are looking for someone who resembles me. That would be someone with brown hair, light eyes, between 5’3” and 5’9”, who leads a reasonably healthy lifestyle. Bonus features include being musically inclined and some college education.

So there it is. It’s a little scary and a little relieving to share our experience. Thanks for reading our story. Please feel free to ask questions and/or share with others. We’ll add more posts as our story continues.