Finally, finally our egg donor has signed the contract and we are moving forward again. There were many events that couldn’t happen until she signed and now it seems that they are all happening at once.

The first thing we need to do is to fill out an application for “complications insurance” for both the donor and the carrier. This is separate from the insurance that will cover the pregnancy. If either woman has a bad response to the medications they will have to take before we can attempt an embryo transfer, this is the insurance that will cover them.

I do not have a problem with this insurance; I think it makes sense. Other than the possibility of an adverse reaction to the medication, the doctor is going to be inserting a hollow needle into the donor’s ovaries. I can understand why we’d all want some coverage for that procedure.

However, I do have a problem with the (ridiculously expensive) insurance that we have to buy to cover the pregnancy. B. will be pregnant with my biological child. If she had become pregnant with my child through an improbable, random encounter, my insurance would cover her pregnancy (assuming I survived after Alberto found out). But since this pregnancy is planned and wanted, it is not covered. Although I understand the financial reasons to have such a policy, I think it sends an inappropriate message to society.

Despite the fact that the complications insurance isn’t in place yet, both women have been sent their medications (I hope this blog post will not be used as evidence in a denial-of-coverage hearing). We spoke with B. over the weekend and she will now give herself a daily shot of hormones in the leg. She said it wasn’t so bad, but I’m glad I’m not the one who has to get a shot every day. The shot will make her uterus into a more welcoming environment, like a Starbucks.

Instead of world music and soft lighting, her uterine walls will grow more robust. They will develop an infrastructure of capillaries that the embryo can cling to. Picture a cliff with vines growing on it. Now picture someone being throne off that cliff, clamoring to grab the vines on the way down. This medication grows more vines. I guess that's not really like a Starbucks.

Since the donor is anonymous, we don’t know much about her experience with her medication, but I know that it’s supposed to suppress her menstrual cycle so that there is a traffic jam of eggs in the ovaries. Another drug is supposed to “ripen” the eggs. Finally, just before retrieval, she takes something called the “Trigger Shot,” which is kind of like the starter gun at a track meet. It releases the eggs from their follicles and makes them available to that probing needle.

The final thing we need to do now is to make travel plans because the first attempt at an embryo transfer will be September 28 (give or take a day). Keep us in your prayers.