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Who? The Dads via Egg Donation
95 Plays6 months ago
Father's Day is a special occasion, and to celebrate, we're shining a light on dads who became fathers through egg donation. In this episode, Brent and Scott share their heartfelt stories, highlighting the joys and challenges they faced along the way.
Scott and his wife always knew egg donation would be part of their story, but even with that knowledge the journey was filled with emotional ups and downs. Brent and his wife turned to egg donation after many years of struggle. Hear from the perspective of Brent and Scott and how they navigated their unique paths, reflecting on the emotional highs and lows. Brent and Scott discuss the crucial support from their spouses and the importance of finding a community of people on similar journeys. Ultimately, they share the profound joy of finally growing their families.
Join us in celebrating these inspiring fathers and their incredible journeys. Happy Father's Day to all you dads and future dads!
Takeaways
- The decision to pursue egg donation can be emotionally overwhelming, and it is important to have support from partners and loved ones.
- Talking to children conceived through egg donation about their conception will be an ongoing conversation.
- Navigating the process of egg donation involves making numerous decisions and dealing with a large amount of information, but having a clear plan and support can help alleviate some of the overwhelm.
- Each individual's experience with egg donation is unique, and it is important to find a path that feels right for you and your family. Support is crucial throughout the egg donation process, both for the intended mother and the intended father.
- It's important to prioritize what is truly important and not get caught up in minor details.
- Educate yourself about the process and seek advice from others who have been through it.
- The journey may have its challenges, but the joy of finally starting a family makes it all worth it.
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Transcript
Introduction and Personal Stories
00:00:00
Speaker
Father's Day is such a special occasion. And to celebrate, we want to shine a light on a few dads who became fathers through egg donation. Brent and Scott share their heartfelt stories highlighting the joys and challenges they encountered along the way. Egg donation was always going to be part of Scott and his wife's story, but even knowing that, navigating the journey had many roller coaster moments. For Brent and his wife, egg donation became a reality after many years of struggle.
00:00:29
Speaker
We get to hear how each couple navigated their own journeys, as well as reflect on their emotional journey. Brent and Scott emphasize the crucial role of support from and for their spouses and the value of finding a community of people in similar journeys, ultimately sharing the profound joy of finally growing their families. Join us in celebrating these inspiring fathers and their incredible stories and Happy Father's Day to all the dads and future dads.
Whitney Hall's Introduction and Role
00:01:01
Speaker
Me, you, and who? Who knew it would take more than two people to have a baby? In a world where infertility is no longer a taboo topic, this podcast will take you through all of the different aspects of surrogacy and egg donation through the lens of many who walk this journey in different ways. My name is Whitney Hall, and I am a two-time Surrogate Now Turned Surrogacy Coordinator for Egg Donor and Surrogate Solutions.
00:01:28
Speaker
the very agency I used when I chose to carry for two amazing families. With this podcast, it is our goal to help guide and support you as you learn about what it takes to grow a family in an alternative way, as well as hear inspiring and beautiful stories of how this path has changed lives forever. We can't wait for you to hear about just one more way happy families are created every day.
00:01:57
Speaker
Well, yeah, I'm so glad you're here. Thanks for taking the time. Absolutely excited about it. Oh my gosh. Absolutely. Okay, so let's just dive right in.
Decision-Making and Emotional Challenges
00:02:10
Speaker
You are a dad to your sweet, amazing kiddos. But it took us we went on a journey to get there. What led you guys to egg donation?
00:02:23
Speaker
Well, you know, we, you know, we were married for about three years, you got married, not later in life, we got married, we were about 27, 28. So not, not crazy late. Yeah, that's not later in life. Right. But, um, you know, we're like, we want to go travel, we want to enjoy being married for a little bit. You know, everyone always thinks you can get pregnant right away, right? It won't be an issue. So like, let's go travel, let's go see the world. And we're fortunate enough to be able to go do that.
00:02:48
Speaker
Um, you know, going to Europe and Australia and some other things like, all right, we're about 30 or 31. We'll go, we'll start, you know, trying to get pregnant. You know, sure enough, you go through it and you're like, okay, well, it's been like six months and it's been like 12 months. And it's like, well, I can't really see a doctor about it until after a year of trying. So we're like, you know,
00:03:06
Speaker
Whichever. So anyway, we started seeing doctors, you know, after year 1 and, you know, went through a couple, and then we're like, all right, we gotta switch course and kind of go through a couple. So he did like 2 or 3. And then at that point, we had to take a break. We took little breaks in between there. I mean, this is over a span of probably.
00:03:27
Speaker
eight to nine years. So seven, eight years, I should say, but, um, so taking breaks in there, cause I, it's a lot on obviously my wife, it's a lot, um, you know, me as well, just, you know, if you didn't know where, what was going on, we kind of figured it out, obviously going through IUI and everything, but, um,
00:03:44
Speaker
Anyway, so we just kind of had enough decisions. Do we want to go through adoption? Do we want to do, you know, egg donation, you know, kind of what's, what's the whole story there? And it's kind of ironic, but you know, our first visit with a infertility doctor here in Dallas, um, you know, the first thing he said, first meeting ever with a fertility doctor, you know, one year after trying, it's like, uh, I think you're going to probably have to go through egg donation or another route. We're like, whoa.
00:04:10
Speaker
Hold on. This is our first time ever like, it was like from zero to 60, you know, really quick. So we're like, can we just pause here? Like, sure. We can't try something else. He's like, you can try other stuff, but I'm telling you. And then obviously six years later we come back to him. You know, ironically, we're like, I think we better need to go to a egg donation. So, um, kind of full circle, but, um,
00:04:32
Speaker
I think that kind of helped us, you know, I'm very kind of, not OCD, maybe a little bit, my wife says, but I want to make sure that I'm like checking all the boxes and making sure we're doing all the right things before we're making a huge step forward on something, right? Sure.
00:04:47
Speaker
probably waited a little too long, waiting six, seven years, but, you know. Hindsight's 2020. Hindsight's 2020. And to be honest, we didn't know much about that process or, you know, what's the cost going into that? What's the success rate? What's, you know, all these things, right? That you have to, that you need to make a decision. So that's kind of long enough
Cultural Shifts and Support Systems
00:05:06
Speaker
short of it, short story long, I should say, but.
00:05:09
Speaker
Okay. So going, yes. Cause there's so much to unpack there. Okay. So let's, let's, let's go back a little bit. So you had kind of your, you know, for lack of a better phrase, quote classic, you know, you wait for that year, you try, you know, all of the things. And then you said right out of the gate, the doctor says, Oh yeah. Egg donation. What was that like?
00:05:32
Speaker
How did you guys even process that? We did very well. We did not very well. We kind of just stepped back and we took a pause. We actually didn't do anything for a month after we got told that. We were kind of like, did we get another opinion? And we did. We went and got some other opinions, you know.
00:05:55
Speaker
And then, um, but yeah, I mean, it was, it was just crazy. Yeah. I think we were just caught off guard and it kind of froze us to be honest in the place. Um, but I think he, you know, he looked at her, he was looking at her levels, right? And kind of knew from his, from his past and from his history. He's been a fertility doctor for 30 plus years. You know, but it's hard for us to.
00:06:17
Speaker
Understand that right and they do it like every day and it's like whatever but for us it's kind of like oh my god, you know It's huge for anybody to feel to be given that information and you guys had it I mean at that point you hadn't even done like you said eventually you did You guys did proceed to go and do all of the IUIs and the IVFs and you said it was about six years So as you're going through all that, you know, I know you know Rachel was I
00:06:43
Speaker
going through all of the things as far as the medications and all of that. What was, and you said you took pauses. What was that like for you as a spouse, as you were supporting her, you know, or just for you as you're kind of feeling all of those things. Right. Yeah. You're trying to go through this. Yeah. Yeah. It's just, uh, I don't know. Like I said, I'm kind of OCD. So it's kind of, it's frustrating and perfectionist, right? So it's kind of like, Oh my gosh, you know, why is this taking so long or why is this? And I still,
00:07:13
Speaker
I felt bad like I couldn't do anything for her because it was so painful for her. I mean, you know, the shot, you know, the shots and all the doctor's visits and you know, she was a school teacher at the time, right? So you're seeing your own kids all the time, right? So you don't even think about that aspect. And then also what is going on with this, you know, we have about probably
00:07:31
Speaker
20, a good group of like 20 friends, you know, in couples that we all hang out with, you know, ever since college and going up through this. And of course, you know, they get married and they're pregnant like in two months or they're pregnant, like everyone's getting pregnant. And they usually say, you know, like one in four has, you know, fertility issues, right? Well, all 20 of our couple of friends had no fertility issues, right? So it was like, they're all getting pregnant and then, you know, they're all having two before we have one and we're still good at all this stuff. We never really,
00:07:57
Speaker
talked about it with anybody. There was a very select few people that might know, but we didn't really talk about it because even back then, like, what was that? Seven, eight years ago. I mean, people didn't look, no one else was going through it. It wasn't as public out there. I don't feel like it is as it is now. I don't know. May have just been more and more aware of it. I don't know. But there was no one for her to really talk to you about it. There definitely wasn't anyone for me to talk to you about it. You know, so it's just kind of,
00:08:23
Speaker
you're kind of dealing with on our own, right? Which was super stressful. I think that was the hardest part was just talking to each other and trying to figure out, okay, what are we going to do next? But still kind of, you know, going through life and trying to, you know, still move forward in life and do other things that we're trying to do. Right. So, um, it was just a crazy time. So I think people at your question is just, it's just trying to support her and support each other just through, with just us two, because no one really knew what was going on. Right. Yeah.
00:08:50
Speaker
You said only a select few knew what was going on. For you to be able to support her, and obviously I know in time she was able to support you, but it ebbs and flows. You support your spouse, however your cup is filled. What support did you find being an intended dad in a situation like that? How did you give yourself what you needed in order to get through that?
00:09:17
Speaker
to support myself. I think it was just, I don't know, I probably didn't do it very well. I was probably focused more. I mean, I'm being honest. I mean, I probably didn't do it very well. You know, you definitely get frustrated and upset about it, which is just normal human emotion. But, you know, there are some guys I did talk to about it, you know, and then I did find out that one of my other guys was kind of going through a similar situation. So, you know, there were conversations that we started to have, I think halfway through this whole process with other people.
00:09:46
Speaker
And then also our family was always very supportive. You know, we were blessed enough to have, you know, my brother and his wife that lived close by, my parents had moved up back to Dallas and then her parents, you know, were always close by in Arlington. So, you know, we had a lot of support. Her brother, you know, was in Austin. So we had a lot of family support around it that were helping us through it. You know, they didn't know what to do, but they are there to support us, right? And to help. Right. Sure. As best as they could. As best as they could. Absolutely.
00:10:14
Speaker
Um, oh my gosh. Okay. So you get through the, you go through the IUIs, you go through the IVFs, you ultimately get to the decision. Okay. If we're going to, we're going to do this, it's egg donation. How did you wrap your head around that concept? I guess a second time. Um, and you know, how, how was that? How did you realize, okay, we are ready now?
00:10:43
Speaker
Yeah, I think it was, you know, God, we took a long time to decide to be honest. I mean, it was six, seven months. I think we almost took like eight, nine months off before it made a decision just cause we were going back and forth through adoption. We're like, God, there's so many, you know, blessings out there that don't have somewhere to go, right? So we, you know, we thought about wanting to do adoption. Um, but you know, Rachel and I both, I mean, she wanted to be,
00:11:10
Speaker
pregnant forever, right? That was her dream is to carry her baby. You want to be able to share with that, go through that experience, right? Of course, yeah. Especially since it was kind of egg donor, obviously it was part of me, but that still made it obviously part of her, right? And so I think that was what was very important. That's kind of what made us make that decision that we felt comfortable with was that, hey, she's going to be able to carry our children and do whatever, be
00:11:39
Speaker
being a mom, not like she wouldn't, if she went another route, but you know what I'm saying? Just go through the whole natural pregnancy part of it, which I think was super important. Sure, yeah. So how was it you, you know, okay, you've decided that egg donation is the route that you're going to take. And now, you know, you've gone through this, the roller coaster, I always say, of just all of the things all at once. And now, okay, you've made this one big decision and now you're met with,
00:12:09
Speaker
a thousand more decisions that you have to make. You have this huge database that you have to go through. Even before that, is it fresh or frozen? Is it agency? Is it independent? Is it whatever that may be? How did you guys navigate all of that? And you specifically, maybe how did you go through kind of your thoughts on the whole thing? Yeah, I think it was getting a lot of references, obviously,
00:12:39
Speaker
talking to not only our fertility doctor and his recommendations, but also getting other recommendations from other groups. I think Rachel have gone on some forums and some other things and read up on different things and other research and everything. And, you know, it was just coming to the table and just talking, you know,
00:12:56
Speaker
Best best scenario for us, right? And then what were we looking for and the timing and kind of it's really success rate, right? We've been going through this for seven years, right? So what's our success rate look like? I think it's most important and what gives us the most options Going forward should something not work out. Is there a backup plan to that right? And so that's why I think you know
00:13:18
Speaker
going through the process we did was the way to do it, right? I mean, it gave us the most options and the most variable outcome should something happen that we kind of had backup plans going forward. Okay. Okay. So you yourself, you get to that database and I know some people say they go through it together. Some people go separate. How did you feel as you're going, you know, you get this database of 450
Complexities in Egg Donor Selection
00:13:46
Speaker
people that you're looking at, like how did you navigate that? How was that as you're sitting there kind of thinking about the magnitude of what that was?
00:13:55
Speaker
Yeah, it was kind of surreal. I mean, I don't know. I don't know if I have the word to explain. I mean, now it's kind of looks like Instagram. I'm like, I'm on Facebook. I don't know. I couldn't really like go through. I was like, I kind of feel like I was looking through a yearbook trying to find like a long lost sibling or someone's company, you know, right? Or Rachel's lost sibling. I don't know. It was, I was like, how are we deciding like,
00:14:19
Speaker
I don't know, I guess we'll get into this later, but like, okay, based on who we choose, like, what does that affect like 15, 16 years down the road? Like, what are they gonna want? What are we gonna want back then? Are we gonna tell our kids? Are we not gonna tell our kids what's important to us? And basically what Reed and Rachel did, we said, once we had the database, we're like, we're not gonna tell, we're gonna go through it separately. Cause I travel every week and so we're separate a lot and doing stuff. And I was like, well,
00:14:47
Speaker
Let's just go through it. We picked our top five. Go through and pick your top five and our number one pick matched.
00:14:56
Speaker
first time. So we just knew it was like instant. So I mean, we were, I guess it was a blessing or lucky or I don't know what you want to say, but out of that many people to have the same number one was just crazy. So, Oh my gosh. Yeah. I mean, all this, we were looking for similar features to Rachel and things like that. So I kind of, you know, a little bit, your, your idea of what you were doing in geography and like our, you know, so kind of nearby geography, obviously. And then, you know,
00:15:25
Speaker
what we were looking for. I'm in an egg donor and it was just crazy. We matched them the first time we went through it. Oh my gosh, that's amazing. But then again, even then, after making the match, we have still a lot of thought and debate. And then you're like, okay, it says all this stuff, but is that everything we need to know? What else do we need to do? I need to go through, okay, well, what testing are we going to do?
00:15:46
Speaker
You know, what, what are we going to legally do, like, going on the road and all those kind of next steps you have to go through when you're, when you're signing up for it. So very complex, very complex matter for sure. Not something to take like, hardly. So we took a while to decide it. Shocker going through everything, but it's.
00:16:05
Speaker
You know, I mean, it's a lifelong decision, right? So a big one, a big one for sure. For sure. So one of the, I would say like a lot of times and going back a little bit, you know, I know you had said it as you guys are even saying that egg donation is, is the route that you wanted to go and.
00:16:23
Speaker
and Rachel was going to carry the baby and so and all of those things but there are some common questions and fears that a lot of people have when they're thinking about egg donation as their avenue to growing their family as parents and all of that. What were maybe some of those fears that you had and how did you feel like they were alleviated? My fears about egg donation itself or just the whole process as a whole? I think I mean both both and. Yeah I think
00:16:54
Speaker
My biggest fear, and to be honest, it still is to this day, is when are my kids going to ask? And what are our kids going to ask me to say? And what are we going to say? I mean, we agreed upon kind of what we were going to say. We went through it initially, but I think now with Rachel being more involved and then obviously I'm getting a lot more insight to kind of as we move farther down the line in this process, not, you know, to move farther in life, our kids are getting older.
Scott's Journey Post-Leukemia
00:17:19
Speaker
I think our views are kind of shifting in that aspect, but
00:17:23
Speaker
I keep randomly, but my short answer is it was, what are we going to tell our kids when they get older? Cause I'm like, are they going to despise us or like not to spy this, but are they going to be so upset at us that we were lying to them or hiding the truth to them, you know, their entire life to whatever point in time we tell them. Right. So that's what my number one concern is like, how do we combat that? You know, um, sure.
00:17:48
Speaker
I have no idea. And going through this, we didn't know anyone who actually went through an egg donation that we personally knew that we'd had those conversations with. So that was a very big point of conflict that we had to work through, to be honest. I mean, but that's a huge question to think about is it's not just
00:18:09
Speaker
A donation is not just a means to an end and now I have a baby and the story is happily ever after. You do have to think about the long and short of that baby is going to become a grown up and this is their story and what does that mean.
00:18:26
Speaker
wonderful that you and Rachel knew the gravity of that and wanted to take care and how you're going to, you know, whatever works best for you and your family as you navigate that with, you know, a donor conceived person. So that's huge. That's amazing. Hold on. Sorry, Scott. Scott's here. There we go. Hey, Scott.
00:18:55
Speaker
You did it! Hey, thank you. I think a great crew at United and one of the most helpful parking ladies at Buschler Continental Airport. I am impressed because I've heard nothing but horror stories as of late, so good for you.
00:19:11
Speaker
Oh, yeah. The gods of business travel have conspired to get me here. There you go. I feel like Brett can probably relate between both of you traveling as much as you guys do. I'm sure you all have your tales of woe and then your tales of triumph. It's just really nice to have a tale of triumph.
00:19:34
Speaker
There you go. Absolutely. Absolutely. Okay. So, Brent and Scott, do you guys know each other at all? We do not. No. Oh, hey. Hi. We're meeting. What's up? I feel like we probably do.
00:19:48
Speaker
yeah in a weird way yeah you guys are part of a very cool club yes scott we've just kind of jumped right in and are just kind of talking about you know brent was talking about just his you know how they got to where they got and we were kind of talking about the the complexities of you know just
00:20:11
Speaker
the egg donation as a whole, but I would love to, if you're able to just kind of jump in, how did egg donation even come to be for you and your family? Oh man, so I met my wife the, what I would consider their traditional way at a bar. And I was with,
00:20:37
Speaker
two of my friends from Northern Ireland and she was with two of her friends from Houston. And they overheard the Irish accents and they were like, oh, that sounds, that sounds super fun. And my wife ended up stuck with me.
00:21:00
Speaker
So to get through a whole bunch of this stuff fast forward and I go over to her apartment and there's this picture frame and there's a picture of this girl that's puffy and bloated and bald-headed and
00:21:26
Speaker
in this orange Superman t-shirt. And I'm like, hey, what's the story behind that? She's like, that's me. Oh, wow. And she was like, I didn't really expect to have this conversation this quickly, but that was me at 18 years old.
00:21:57
Speaker
she had leukemia. And thanks to her brother, she had a stem cell transplant and to this day is, I don't even think it's in remission anymore. I think it's considered just completely cured. Oh, that's amazing. But part of that is the treatment process was an extraordinarily aggressive chemotherapy.
00:22:28
Speaker
And she's actually a PA in stem cell transplant. And she works at MD Anderson Cancer Center. And she treats the disease that she had, which is absolutely amazing. Oh, that's such a beautiful full circle right there. Oh my gosh.
00:22:50
Speaker
She could go into a thousand other details, but part of the treatment left her unable to, it basically fried her ovaries and everything else. Yeah, sure. So at that time, her mom was actually, had the foresight to have part of her ovarian tissue removed. And with the idea that, and frozen, I guess, goes along with that.
00:23:20
Speaker
with the idea that it could be maybe one day re-implanted or in some other way. Sure, sure. And unfortunately, that technology has still never gotten there. And so when I saw that picture, it brought up a conversation. Sure. It became our reality.
00:23:50
Speaker
Our reality was always that if we were ever going to conceive a family, and that was always a goal of ours. She always wanted that. If this was ever going to be a part of our journey, then the egg donation process was always going to be a part of our journey.
Strategies and Management of Egg Donation
00:24:15
Speaker
On one hand, it probably was not the way that she would have scripted a dating relationship, but on the other hand, you know, what better time to discuss it than right up front. And so we knew that this was going to be our journey. We didn't know all the different twists and turns that it was going to take. And God, it took a lot of twists and turns.
00:24:44
Speaker
it was always gonna be a part of our journey. And we were really lucky in that, I feel like. We have so many friends that in so many different ways struggled with their journey towards building a family and they didn't expect it. And it came as such a shock to them.
00:25:08
Speaker
To us, we always knew this was gonna be what we were gonna, the road that we were gonna walk down. And it didn't make a lot of the parts of that a whole lot easier, but at least we knew what we were getting into when we started down the path. So you said you kind of knew what you were getting into. So you're at that apartment after you guys have met the good old fashioned way. Did you even know what egg donation actually meant? Well, right now,
00:25:37
Speaker
I say that right now, I had absolutely no idea what I was getting into. Sure, sure. I knew that it wasn't gonna be whatever the traditional way is. Sure, sure, right. I had no idea what I was getting into.
00:25:55
Speaker
I still would do it a hundred times out of a hundred, but man, I had no idea what I was getting into. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. So how was that conversation when, you know, okay, let's, let's fast forward, you know, as you're, we get to the point where you guys have decided, okay, now's the time we're going to get started on building our family.
00:26:16
Speaker
How did you guys navigate? We know we're gonna have to do, we know we're gonna have to pull in a whole team of people. How did you guys navigate that and what did that look like for maybe you specifically? Oh man, so it's interesting. So I come to it from the perspective of the person that didn't have cancer.
00:26:45
Speaker
Oh, sure. Yeah. And, and so I recognized, I think, I think really early on that, that maybe I had a different relationship with, with this process then. And for her, it, um,
00:27:08
Speaker
One of the things that I tried to do was be a little bit of a buffer between the volume of the process, the information that
00:27:28
Speaker
There's so much all at once. You made a decision, and I was saying this earlier to Brent. You made a decision how you're going to go about after having just a gamut of decisions, and then you're met with even more decisions. And it's just this whole overwhelm. And then, as Brent was saying earlier, then not only is it then you make one decision, and now you have this complex
00:27:55
Speaker
you know, aspect of it. It's, you know, it's a database of 450 plus people and then you decide and then it's, you know, okay, well now we have to start talking about escrow accounts and contracts and, and, you know, I hadn't even gotten, I hadn't even gotten to thinking back to that point yet, but yeah, I mean, so, so I'm gonna just kind of go.
00:28:19
Speaker
Yeah, let's do it. Let's go back. Let's go back. So basically, we started thinking about donors, right? And I think for both of us, honestly, but especially for my life, it was kind of emotionally overwhelming. Absolutely. And so I considered one of my
00:28:43
Speaker
kind of my role in there is to, we talked about the general parameters that we wanted. And then I went into the database. I don't think my wife ever actually logged into anything at all. Wow, yeah. And what we decided that we would do is I would go in there and
00:29:11
Speaker
We would agree on some parameters and I would filter everything down to present just kind of a more approachable process. And that kind of worked for us and for our...
00:29:30
Speaker
I guess for our style. Yeah. So, you know, from a financial standpoint, from a logistical standpoint and everything, there's thousands of things that came there. But I think the hardest part for us was, you know, how do we how do we recognize like the
00:30:01
Speaker
The financial side is hard, but the emotional side is I think a lot harder sometimes. And for us, it was for me to kind of take the fire hose and turn it into a garden hose and just kind of narrow down
00:30:30
Speaker
narrow down every uh sure so as you're taking the fire hose and turning it down to a garden hose what was your support as you're being overwhelmed by all of the things oh man oh man so um oh god she's gonna hit like half of this um
00:30:59
Speaker
the first thing that I had to kind of figure out is like, I'm not, I'm not trying to find her. Sure. Right. I'm, I'm trying. Ah, man. Well, there's a hundred percent chance I'm going to ask you to come
00:31:16
Speaker
No, no, no. You're totally fine. You're totally fine. Let me give you a little bit. Let me lob it up a little bit for you. And Brent, please feel free to... I got a game plan a little bit of this, and this is the one question I didn't want to answer a little bit. Oh, no. You don't have to answer it? Not in that way. She was like, you can't answer it the way that you want to answer it.
00:31:39
Speaker
Well, let me lob it up for you a little bit. And Brent, please jump in. So Brent and Rachel, the way that they did it was they looked at it separately, then brought their top five and their ones matched. And one of the things that Brent was saying was
00:31:55
Speaker
They had certain parameters one of them being there were some physical attributes that were similar to Rachel and geography and and things like that But I'm more asking the question and you can feel free to answer that if you want to but I'm more asking specifically You know, you're getting this fire hose, you know, you're talking about how um, you know, you're
00:32:17
Speaker
It's a lot. It's a lot for your wife and you're being there to support her, whether it's, hey, you knew from a very long time ago that this was going to be how we're having a family, but it's still hard. And you're being that support person to her. How is your cup being filled? How are you being supported as you're the one that's kind of taking in all of the information and trying to make it smaller for her, but you're still getting all of the information.
00:32:52
Speaker
So I guess for me, based on where we started, I don't know that that was necessarily the time that I felt that I was looking for something to fulfill my side of it. Yeah.
00:33:16
Speaker
I think for me, I recognize what a vulnerable and difficult situation that was for my life. It was just really important that for me, she felt that the decisions that she had to make there were approachable to her.
00:33:45
Speaker
I can say that from when I started through the process, like this was not a, I logged into the website and 20 minutes later we had a decision to make. So I can say that the process, it evolved as we went through the process.
00:34:14
Speaker
through everything. And yeah, you know, oh, I'm sorry, go ahead. Our approach to it also also evolved our, our, our decision making approach and our our our conversations about it changed as as we as we move through the process. What were some of those changes? You know, so so at first,
00:34:44
Speaker
You know, at first we wanted to find my wife's twin, right? And I don't think that's a strange concept. Like, we want to find the same as her. Which, by the way, doesn't exist. Ever, unless they have a twin. In which case, it's a whole different type of conversation. Probably that we didn't want to have either. So...
00:35:14
Speaker
we started there and then we moved past that, right? Like what's actually important to us are the physical attributes important to us, right? My wife and I both have incredibly light green eyes. That was kind of important to us, right? Yeah. You're given so much information that- Sure.
00:35:45
Speaker
in the moment seems so relevant. And when you think about like, I decided to change my mindset to like, if I met this person in a bar the same way I met my wife, and I found out that her grandfather at age 85 had heart disease, would that be a reason I would consider not dating her?
00:36:16
Speaker
No, not even close. So is that particular piece of information relevant? Probably not. You get so much information about somebody that in any other context probably wouldn't be particularly relevant. Sure.
00:36:38
Speaker
You find the things that are important to you. And as you're going through that, you're figuring out slowly what you thought was maybe important, isn't as important as it really is as you're going through that process. Would you say that was kind of similar for you, Brent?
00:36:55
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Like at first, like very similar to what Scott was saying is, yeah, you want everything like, Oh, I do want these certain physical attributes, but does it really make that much of a difference? I mean, I don't know, right? You just want, at some point you get, you get, you almost get paralysis by analysis and you're like, okay, I gotta, I had to simplify this a little bit, you know, make this a lot easier. We're already going through a ton of new shit, a ton of stuff, right? So I want to simplify that down and make a,
00:37:19
Speaker
a good choice, but let's not get such blinders on. We aren't seeing a bigger picture here of where things are going to be down 5-10 the road. So yeah, I totally agree with that.
00:37:30
Speaker
Yeah, you're right, like the heart disease and all that, and you're like, well, their second cousin from, you know, the stepfather or whatever has, you know, if you're like, okay, I don't know, I just can't, I can't, I can't comprehend it. I don't even know that about my family, right? Right, exactly. Every time I hear those forms, I'm like, I think so, I don't really know, maybe, you know, right. So what am I bringing to the table as well, right? So that also comes into perspective. So it's like,
00:37:54
Speaker
I mean, you know, my big thing actually that had mentioned to you, Whitney, is that, you know, I was diagnosed with type one when I was like 34 years old, like out of nowhere, like no one in my immediate family had it. I mean, my uncle did, my dad's mom's, I guess kind of immediate family, but like,
00:38:12
Speaker
my brother, my dad, my mom, no one had it. Right. And my uncle's, my uncle's kids, my cousin's never had it. And then I get it, you know, so it lives in you, but then something sparks it and you're like, I've been healthy my whole life. And you're just like, Oh, you have type one. So I say that to say that, you know, I'm looking at all these other people's history, right? Health history in here. I'm the one that's going to be supplying a port piece of the puzzle here. And I have that, you know, in me. So that was also one of my concerns, you know, with doing all this as well. Right. So, yeah.
00:38:40
Speaker
So yeah, so that's Scott's point is just, you know, stop it. Don't overanalyze it. I mean, you got to analyze it sharply, but don't take scrutiny on every little point, right?
Emotional Highs and Taking Breaks
00:38:51
Speaker
Right. You find those important pieces. And for everybody, it's different. But all of them are valuable to you and your journey. And that's going to be the right thing for you and your family. No, for sure. What would you guys say was maybe the most surprising part of the process?
00:39:14
Speaker
Can I start? The most surprising part to me was, so we ended up recognizing that we needed support in this process outside of each other. I couldn't be everything for her on this.
00:39:44
Speaker
And I didn't think I needed anything through this process and I found out I did. So some of the feelings that we have were really unique to this situation and they're not always
00:40:08
Speaker
feelings that you feel 100% comfortable discussing with your spouse. Sure. Yeah. Um, like, like, like, let's be honest, this is a kind of bizarre situation that kind of only exists now.
00:40:25
Speaker
Right? Sure. It's new. It's very new. Yeah. All things considered in medical land, this is very new. We have to work with three-year-old daughter, and she loves Frozen, right? This is not the story of all time, right? Sure. This is a very new thing. And so it was important for us to have, and I kind of agreed upon, circle of people that we felt
00:40:55
Speaker
comfortable discussing what we were going through in the time that we were going through it and in the moment as we progressed through the process. And what was kind of amazing to us is the more people that we opened up to about the process and about what we were going through,
00:41:22
Speaker
the more we found people who were going through a similar situation. It was never that exact, like, hey, we also had cancer at this time and are trying to- Sure, sure.
00:41:37
Speaker
but people were going through, you know, some other fertility battle of some type or a family planning battle of some type. And, you know, I feel like we kept, for a while, we kept this umbrella of secrecy up above us as something to shade us from
00:42:06
Speaker
the chance of disappointment. Sure. In reality, we were kind of shading ourselves from the shade that everybody else provided. It's kind of like having an umbrella underneath a giant canopy of trees. We thought we were holding this thing above us, but there was actually something else kind of covering up above.
00:42:33
Speaker
And the more that we felt comfortable talking to people, the more we found that everybody else was kind of in the same boat, but just floating off a little bit beside us. And that was really kind of great and super helpful. And, you know,
00:43:01
Speaker
there are times in the process where things don't work out. And, you know, you want the support when you're going through the hard stuff, but you also want the joy of the success when it does work, but you shouldn't shield everybody from, from either side of that. You know, it doesn't have to always be everything's great. Yeah. The more that we opened up to people and the more that we let people in,
00:43:29
Speaker
the more that people were able to join us in the success of the end process. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. If I may, how did you, with the bumps that did happen with your canopy, how did you guys navigate that?
00:44:04
Speaker
It was so hard. It was super hard. You know, when you go into... How do we navigate it? Gosh. God, we cried a lot. I'm sure. Yeah.
00:44:28
Speaker
I remember one night we just went out to a bar and, and probably were super irresponsible. We didn't have kids. It was okay. Um, there you go. Um, man, it was so hard. Like, like it doesn't, and, and like that, that's okay to be an answer, right? Like sometimes it sucks. Oh, absolutely. It is okay because you're right. It does just suck. And they're just like, not well sometimes. I think the answer
00:44:56
Speaker
Yeah. I think that's the reality of a lot of people.
Advice for Intended Dads
00:45:00
Speaker
Like a hundred percent. Yeah. Like we, we got through it. Like we're, we're there. We did it. But man, like, how do we handle it? Sometimes not great. Yeah. Brent, you can relate. Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, you just get so frustrated and so, you know, angry at certain things that happen, you know, like I was telling you with all our other friends, not angry, but you know, you just get frustrated, like,
00:45:27
Speaker
Things are moving along and then you keep hitting road bumps and blockings. Sometimes you just throw your hands up and they're like, I don't freaking know. I don't know what to do. Just pray a lot and just have a cocktail. I don't know. You don't know what to do. Sometimes you just gotta... That's why we took breaks too. You have to take a break or you're going to try yourself freaking insane about it.
00:45:46
Speaker
just kind of unfortunate, right? Yeah, and like the reality of the process. Yeah. And a little bumps during it, like what I didn't know, like everything, as much as everything has to line up in a natural pregnancy, everything has to line up in a egg donation cycle as well. Like the person you pick might not be available or you don't do it just in time, like ours, you know, was picked
00:46:08
Speaker
one day before we signed and so like oh sorry she just signed the day before it's another couple you can't use her that was our number one pick um and it's also her sixth cycle so she can't do any more after this and we're like oh okay um so that was that was devastating um now it ended up not it didn't well not the right thing but everything worked out because
00:46:35
Speaker
Eventually the other couple had to drop out for a reason. And so she was able to do our cycle. I mean, randomly enough, how that worked out. So then you have, then you have little successes like that. Like, Oh my God. Okay. It is meant to be right after you're just down the dumps about it. So things like that. But yeah, you just don't know how to navigate that and you don't know what's going to come. Right. Cause they're in the hands to still line up perfectly. Yeah.
00:46:57
Speaker
Oh my gosh. Yeah. What were, what were kind of some of the surprises you encountered, Brent? Well, I think that one was a huge one. That's a big one. Yeah. I told you about OCD waiting and like wanting to go through every, all the details. I waited, you know, a day or two too long and you know, we almost lost her and then things ended up working out. But I think it's just that and just, you know, there's a lot of anxiety about waiting around. Like once you,
00:47:27
Speaker
get the egg donor and okay, are there going to be eggs? Like ours is on her last cycle, right? So how many are we going to get, right? Are we going to be able to create our family? We want to have, you know, are they all going to be healthy? I think that was the most strenuous time is we were driving actually to a wedding out in Fort Worth area. And, you know, our doctor calls like, Oh, we got all the results back and
00:47:52
Speaker
they tell you all the different grades and everything. I mean, that was one of the most stressful parts, how many are good, how many are, because that's the most stressful parts. You're doing all this investment and you're like, well, if this doesn't work, we're going back to square one almost. And we really went through IBS and IUI's and all this stuff. And we're just like,
00:48:13
Speaker
please God let this just work and you know that was the most stressful like time ever is finding that out right um like retrieval and you know all of it it's that quality hurry up and wait hurry up and wait hurry up and wait and like i said it's all timing right so i think that was the most stressful kind of some of the surprising things they didn't really realize you know things it's gonna go pretty like boom boom boom boom but there's all stops and goes and stops and goes and
00:48:39
Speaker
You know, just very anxiety-ridden process for sure, to be honest. Oh gosh, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. So what would maybe you say to, you know, maybe specifically some intended dads out there who are thinking about going through the process in the middle of the process, what would maybe be some advice that maybe you would want to give to day one you?
00:49:12
Speaker
from the egg donor process. Oh, good question. You pick. Our process was long. I'm not sure how long Scott's process was, but I think we went through IUI and IBF and everything. Even though day one, seven years previous, we were told egg donor. I think it is just getting all your facts upfront about
00:49:33
Speaker
Whatever you need to do, right? Like, okay, why can't we do IUI or why can't we do IVF? Or why do we need to do egg donor? Or why do we need to do surrogacy or why? Just getting to know all the details because I went in very uneducated into the whole process. And so it freaked me out and I was like, whoa, whoa, hold on.
00:49:49
Speaker
time out. I got to learn about all this stuff. We lost a lot of time by kind of going through all these other processes and everything. I mean, we shouldn't have elongated, you know.
Reflection and Transparency with Children
00:49:59
Speaker
So I think just educating yourself, getting opinions. And I think the most important thing I think Scott kind of alluded earlier is I didn't have anyone to talk to you about it, you know, like I didn't
00:50:08
Speaker
Like I said, all 24 of my couple's friends, they were just like, boom, boom, boom. Like they had no issues, right? So I think it's finding a forum. And I think things like this, like podcasts, I know there's a lot more forums and it's a lot more, even in the last four or five years, I think it's become a lot more openly discussed in there, you know, publicly and very simple is not the right word, but I think it's more out of the open, I should say, than it was.
00:50:32
Speaker
Um, so I just think finding that support and someone to bounce things off of, you know, I didn't find that at all really late in my process, you know, just by having to talk to some friends that I hadn't talked to in like three or four years that were going through the same thing, you know, across the country or whatever. Um, so I think just, just getting some real life experience, kind of like what Scott and I are talking about and, you know, know that there's going to have to be a little bit of patience. It's going to be a little anxious, but I think just,
00:50:57
Speaker
Getting all the knowledge you can and all the stories from other folks that have been through it will be super helpful in kind of knowing how to manage the process and knowing how to support, you know, your significant other, um, wherever way you need to, um, as you move through it. So I think that's a really roundabout saying about just make sure you have a support structure around you and kind of have all the knowledge you can, to be honest.
00:51:18
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It's, I mean, it's a community that not everybody was jumping to be a part of, but it's becoming a lot more, you know, when you, when you have it, you're grateful for it. Absolutely. Yeah. What about you, Scott? Look, you know, for, for me, it, nothing about the process was what I thought it was African.
00:51:44
Speaker
And I never thought this was going to be my process to begin with. But I met the woman I wanted to start a family with. And she is the greatest mom I could ever imagine. And to get to that point, it took a really circuitous route.
00:52:12
Speaker
But we got there and, you know, there are things I wish I had done differently. There are things that I prioritized that weren't even slightly important. That was part of our journey. And, you know,
00:52:38
Speaker
It's not for me to tell somebody that that's not important. Maybe it is for them. Maybe it wasn't for us. But I am so glad we ended up in the place that we are. And I think if I look back on everything, the thing that now that I've got
00:53:07
Speaker
a kid that's going into kindergarten, which doesn't serve. And a little girl that also thinks that she's going into kindergarten either. Yep. To look back on the process. Oh, man, there's so many things that we agonized over that I now look back on them like,
00:53:32
Speaker
Hey, let it ride. And there were things that we just agonized over that today. It wasn't what I thought it was.
00:53:58
Speaker
I guess like the, the one thing I would reach back, reach back to myself and say is like, Hey buddy, like all of the things, all of the decisions that you think are so much, no matter what you did, you got it right. Yeah. You got it right. But you don't honestly, you don't have a bad decision there.
00:54:25
Speaker
Follow your gut, follow your instinct, and at the end of the day, you're never gonna say, I did something wrong there. It's all right. And if I can just throw one more thing. There's gonna be a time that my kids sit here and watch and listen to this podcast.
00:54:53
Speaker
There's going to be, like right now, Nolan's five and about to go to kindergarten and Evelyn's about to be three. And there's going to be a lot of discussions that we have in the future that have to do with this process and
00:55:17
Speaker
everything that we've gone through, and we aim to be as transparent as we can possibly be about it. But the one thing that we really want to make sure that they understand and know is that they didn't have the traditional path to being here, but the path that they had
00:55:47
Speaker
so many people that they'll never know. They had such a commitment to making sure that they were here. And that before they ever stepped foot on this earth, they had so many people that were so excited to
00:56:10
Speaker
to welcome them here. And they had so many people that gave so much of themselves in some physical ways, some emotional ways. In a lot of ways, they gave everything that they could to make them be a reality. And
00:56:33
Speaker
We are both, my wife and I are both so very thankful for that gift that they gave to us. I just want to say thank you. I will never meet so many people that had a hand in that, but if they ever happen to see this, thanks so much.
00:57:00
Speaker
It really means just everything to me.
Conclusion and Community Engagement
00:57:06
Speaker
There's something special about that for sure. Yeah, thank you guys. Okay, so final question. For those who know me, they know I have a very dependent relationship on coffee. I have switched it up and I'm drinking tea. I got an espresso when I walked in here.
00:57:24
Speaker
There you go. There you go. You were ready. So I always love to ask this morning, what filled your cup? Literally or figuratively, what was the thing that filled your cup this morning? Brian, can you start? Yeah. I know. I'm not letting my mind go in here. It all blended together this morning, I feel like.
00:57:54
Speaker
No, I think, you know, it's funny right now, let's be honest, like both, both our kids, our kids are three and a half and about to be two, one's about to be two in July, right? The little girl. So right now they are in 100% mommy phase. Like everything's about mommy. Nothing, then no one wants anything to do with daddy right now, which is fine. I get it. It's a phase. And there's points in times, but there's points in times, right? And so this morning, you know, um, I was able to get her up, you know, sometimes it's, you know,
00:58:22
Speaker
whatever but you know I got her up and she's going to get up and just cuddle me for like you know four or five minutes you know before I even changed her to anything you know so we just walked around the room and just hung out and you know do whatever unfortunately I used to get that every morning and now I get it like maybe two out of you know three or two or three mornings of the week but it makes it just the worst it makes it just more special right so it's such a day off right for sure rather than them screaming at you right when you walk in the room so I'd say that filled in my cup and then
00:58:52
Speaker
Same thing with my boy, he was super sweet this evening, just being very lovey and cuddly, which he's a three and a half year old boy, so that very rarely happens. Those cuddles, those cuddles. Yeah, so that was kind of a, it was a good day today to be daddy for sure. Yeah. Most of the time I'm the one. No daddy, you go away. Today was your day. Today was my day, so it was good.
00:59:23
Speaker
So it's not today. The answer to your question isn't today, but it is...
00:59:34
Speaker
is one of those things that just stops you in your tracks, right? So it was about five days ago. My son brought home a collection of terrible artwork from school. And one of them was this little worksheet that had math problems on the front.
01:00:00
Speaker
And he showed it to me and I was like, great buddy. One of the thousand ones they brought him, but he was like, no, no, no, not that one, turn it over, turn it over. And so I did. And on the back of this worksheet, it had a heart the size of the piece of paper. And it had two windows on the top, one window on the bottom and a door right down there at the bottom.
01:00:29
Speaker
And it had a little stick figure on the side and a little bit smaller stick figure on the side. And he said, that's our house. That's our house. And I was like, well, tell me about that. And he's like, that's my room. That's Evelyn's room. That's you and that's mine.
01:00:55
Speaker
And to him, our house was a big, giant heart. Yeah. Yeah, that's gotta make you feel real good. It truly doesn't get better than that.
01:01:18
Speaker
And you know, so as we talked through all of this, all of the process, all of everything from the day my wife and I met in a bar to seeing a picture of her in the middle of
01:01:38
Speaker
leukemia treatment to having our heart ripped out a few times through the process of trying to start a family and to having a workout. We got there. Yeah, you got your heart house. It couldn't. Man, it's a feeling that I couldn't.
01:02:10
Speaker
I couldn't imagine. I truly, there was no part of my being that could have imagined what that felt like. I love that. Yeah, that's gonna fill your cup for a while.
01:02:30
Speaker
Well, you guys, I am so grateful for your time, for being vulnerable and sharing your story. And I am just so happy that your story, both of y'alls, ended in a heart house. And I am so grateful for you both and being willing to tell just your journey through this whole process. So thank you guys so, so much.
01:03:00
Speaker
Thank you so much for joining us on this episode of Me, You and Who. We appreciate your time and hope you enjoyed our discussion today.
01:03:09
Speaker
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01:03:39
Speaker
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01:04:02
Speaker
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