My letter to my donor! (kind of an overall update, too)

Hi all!
When we first started this board, there were things I knew we'd put out there for people to get ideas and learn from. So, I wanted to share the letter I sent to our egg donor this weekend telling her we are pregnant (again). She and I exchanged a few letters around our fresh transfer over a year ago, and I know she was informed of our loss because they did some testing on her as a result. My RE said she was sure our ED would LOVE to hear from us and I wanted to share...So, I hope this isn't an overshare to post it for you all to read! But consider it a little bit of an overall update for you all too! Because we're anonymous, I am J1 and my wifey is J2.

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Hi!!
It's been a long time! J1 here . I'm writing with the awesome news that I'm pregnant again, largely thanks to you!

As you know, last year in mid-march we lost our baby boy at 16 weeks. The reason was a total fluke - a blood clot in the umbilical cord. It was very sad and a hard thing, but we were glad to learn he was healthy, and we could try again soon. After some minor complications from the D&E to remove him, we finally tried again in July. It was a chemical pregnancy. In September, we got a total negative. Our 'last chance embie' was put in almost a year to the day from your egg retrieval on December 2nd. I'll admit I had little hope and felt like we were just going through the motions... We'd reserved your last batch of frozen eggs, I was already looking at new sperm donors and trying to figure out where to find the money for another cycle. Generally I am not a pessimist but it had been a long, rough year on my body, mind and spirit for sure. And what do you know...we got a positive test a few days later!

Then the real hard part started. I think when you lose a baby, there is a piece of grief you can't really unlock until you're pregnant again. That first while was hard - I didn't want to be a ball of worry an anxiety but it was really hard to ignore those feelings. I took it one day at a time, and J2 was super calm and reassuring at every turn which helped. I found a lovely counselor who specialized in infertility and loss, which helped too.  This pregnancy was very different than the first, as they say happens but it is true! I was really nauseated this time around, which was oddly reassuring (though not much fun) - and that helped remind me baby was still doing ok. Getting past our loss date milestone was HUGE! I woke up that day, checked the heartbeat with my at-home doppler, and thought "wow, this baby might really be born!" followed by "holy crap we have a lot to do!"

So I'll be 1/2 way (20 weeks) in a week and a half (day after J2's bday!) and we found out this baby is a GIRL! I have to admit to being pretty happy about that. I have 3 sisters and J has 1, and we're both women...somehow it just feels so right to have a little girl! Plus, I wished this pregnancy to be different than the last, and it's nice to feel like this isn't a 'replacement' of our first baby. He gets to be our boy forever.

One piece of news we got that wasn't great is that baby S (we named the baby already and we LOVE her name!) has an extra sex chromosome, it's called Trisomy X. This is not the worst news - believe me - but it was a bit of a bummer. It happens in about 1 in 1000 girls (I don't know how we keep getting these odds...our loss was a 1 in 1000 too). Now if you google this is could freak you out as it did me! But, after several conversations with our RE, as well as a fantastic consultation with a medical geneticist/pediatrician at Children's, we feel very reassured. Primarily, she will be a little extra tall, like 3" more than she otherwise would have been...which does scare us a little with your height and our male donor was 5'11... and she could have some delays in terms of when she walks/talks, as well as a potential for some learning disabilities/challenges, and an IQ that is slightly lower (10-15 points) than it otherwise would have been. Another helpful stat is that 90% of females with this are never diagnosed - meaning the impact is light to none - which is a reassuring set of odds.

While we all want a 'perfect child' the whole process of digesting S's diagnosis has reminded me that no one is perfect. We feel so grateful she landed with us, because we will be all over it - ensuring she is assessed and that any delays or challenges are addressed quickly with appropriate therapy and/or interventions. The good news is prenatally diagnosed girls generally land within 'normal' ranges for just about everything. It does make us a little sad that she may struggle to do things that she sees her peers having an easier time with, but we hope to help her find where she shines and foster those skills and interests so she always has a place where she can feel good about herself!

As far as her treatment goes, our appointment at Children's was fantastic - the dr. recommended simply letting our pediatrician drive S's plan if needed. The difference will be if she tests in a way that shows a delay or a borderline result, we will get a referral and start therapy vs. taking a 'wait and see' approach. We felt good about this plan! We do not want to spend all of our time looking for potential issues, we just want to love her and parent her, and while we'll keep an eye out, we don't want to be obsessive 'helicopter moms' about it. If you're interested, this link is probably the best for honest info on this trisomy - noting that it really speaks to the 10% of diagnosed females, more outliers than the norm: https://www.genetic.org/Knowledge/WhatareXamp;YChromosomeVariations/TellmeaboutTrisomyX.aspx .

Regardless of this news, we are over the moon for our baby girl! And I must admit, I think about you at some point just about every day because of the amazing gift you've given me and J2. We are so incredibly grateful and happy that we are getting to have a baby from your eggs. I've never taken down the card that you sent that says "Believe" on it since the day it arrived! We are going to frame it in S's nursery, and are making her a book with info about you and her male donor too so she is never surprised by how she came about and that it's a natural part of her self-understanding.

We both hope you are doing well and we will for sure keep you posted (if that's ok . We always love to hear from you, but no pressure on that - we just wanted to share the happy news since you are a big part of it!

J1