I've hatched plenty of plans over the years... but none of them have been as important as the one I am currently sitting on. You see, I'm ready to nest. I want to have a baby. My house is in order, I have a good job and a 6'5" fiancé. What more could a woman want?
How about just one good egg?
You see, without a good egg -- one that is genetically perfect -- your chances of getting pregnant and delivering a healthy baby are pretty much plucked from you. All of the hormone injections, IVF procedures and prayers in the world can't turn back the hands of time. You see, 45 is not the new 35 when it comes to fertility. There are no Botox injections, laser peels or Pilates classes to make your eggs appear any younger.
Let me crack this open for you: By the time you are trying on your first training bra, you have only about 300,000 to 450,000 eggs inside of you. You'll lose about 13,000 of them each year. Do the math. By the time you are 40, the experts estimate you're left with only about 3 percent of your eggs (and most of them have not aged very well). In fact, many of them are already scrambled, which is why there is such a high miscarriage rate for older women.
Now that it not to say, there isn't one good egg still hiding somewhere inside of you. The trick is finding it. IVF procedures help in this hunt. But 'hunting' can be very, very expensive... and there's no guarantee. However, there are still wonderful success stories of women who do, indeed, end up finding that one good egg at an older age.
But for every one of those lucky ladies... there are thousands who can no longer afford to put all of their eggs into that basket. I would be one of them.
So, I started looking at my options. Adoption was (and is) still one of them. After all, I'm an adopted child. However, something I have always wanted to do in my life... is to create one. As crazy as it may sound, I actually want to be pregnant. Yes, I've heard the horror stories: the morning sickness, the huge belly, the epidurals, the labor pains. It all sounds terrifying, but every mother I know tells me (after the fact) that it is also remarkable.
And why not be a part of something remarkable? I figured: If the only thing I was missing was one good egg... then I needed to start looking outside the box (pun intended). And as I was about to discover, good eggs are actually not that hard to find... if you know where to look.