INTERNATIONAL MUSEUM OF WOMEN

Are you familiar with the International Museum of Women? They just contacted me. They want me to be part of an exhibit they are doing on motherhood:

"While researching motherhood blog sites online I stumbled upon Babies On Ice :IFV & Embryo Donation. I found your archives and perused a few articles. Your articles were a refreshing and honest retreat from the many analogous mother sites I have been leafing through daily. After reading your articles I decided it was important to email you about submitting an excerpt of your work for the Imagining Ourselves exhibit.

From March to May 2007, the focus of the exhibit will be on Motherhood and the challenges that this generation faces. We want to reach out to young women to amplify their voices, talk about issues they face and focus on the issue from different perspectives-- but really looking at personal stories. We would like to explore their views on maternal health, pregnancy, parenting, single motherhood, adoption, relationships, work and family and much more.

I feel that you so fluently broadcast a view of motherhood that is not seen by many. Most interesting is that you are a mother who is on a journey to find the perfect mothers for your eggs! It would be an honor to have you submit an essay for consideration to the Motherhood exhibit. Your work is honorable, but it is also important and relevant, and should be shared in order to catalyze a new wave of honest and emotive mothers and women like yourself."

It's nice to get some feedback on the blog. I do have a rather intricate reproductive history. If you do as well you might want to check out the exhibit or even contribute to it. And if you know anything about this organization, please let me know.

THE INTAKE APPOINTMENT

The embryo donation coordinator at our clinic gave us important information we needed to complete the embryo donation contract. She agreed that it was possible to thaw one embryo at a time until a viable embryo was produced. If more embryos needed to be thawed it would not disrupt the recipients' transfer cycle.

She had even more important information for our recipients as they planned their doctor's visit. It was not necessary for Jenny and Erin to take the two-hour flight to our area to have their intake appointment at our clinic. If their doctor sent our fertility clinic the patient files before the appointment, Jenny and Erin could have their intake and work out a treatment plan over the phone. They would only have to come North for the actual embryo transfer procedure, saving them vacation time, effort and money better used for embryo transfer attempts.

Jenny and Erin asked if we thought they should fly up anyway or if they should do the intake over the phone. We assured them that it was not necessary for us to meet them in person, that we would go ahead with the donation based on our communication and negotiations to date. If they wanted to meet our kids and "see what they were getting" before going through with the contract they were welcome to do so.

The phone intake meant that Jenny and Erin could have had an appointment sooner, if they were willing to choose whichever doctor was available first. The doctor we recommended does not do phone intakes because English is not her first language but there was another doctor who, while new, had a great reputation. She was available for a phone apppointment, but no sooner than the in-person visit they had already scheduled.

In the end, Jenny and Erin decided to do their intake over the phone. As soon as the clinic accepted them we would sign over the embryos. We would be doing this without meeting them, and without their meeting us. And it would all happen within one month from the day we first spoke to them on the phone and told them we would donate to them. Jenny and Erin were breaking the world's record for getting and using donated embryos. And it was full speed ahead.