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" I think it is safe to say I know a lot about IVF. With only three cycles completed out of the seven we started, I&amp;#039;m not claiming I&amp;#039;m good at it \u2014 those who can&amp;#039;t do, blog \u2014 but merely that I have a certain familiarity with the process. I am also fairly well acquainted with the grinding anxiety inherent in it, and the wand-shaped ultrasound probe and I are on a first-name basis. (He lets me call him Stabby.) So I slip into complacency pretty easily, assuming that we&amp;#039;re in for more of the same. I keep forgetting that IVF with donor eggs is a completely different ball game, one that I sometimes find baffling to the point of stupefaction. Permit me a metaphor: If autologous IVF is good old red-blooded American football, donor egg IVF is that f**ked-up manly carnival of sport known as Australian rules football. For those of you who&amp;#039;ve never seen a game, all you need to know is this: the players wear skin-tight shorts and Ronald McDonald-style knee socks; a player may never, ever throw the ball, which is, incidentally, red or yellow depending on the time of day; and every once in a while an umpire sashays to the sidelines, pauses for effect, and gives the players the double-shooty-finger.  I sincerely apologize to the dozens of Australians I have surely offended with my imperfect understanding of the game. But that is kind of the point. Donor egg IVF, like the Technicolor fever dream that is Australian rules football, mystifies me. It sort of seems like something I know very well, and I get all comfortable with it for a quarter or two, and then whammo! Eighteen angry Aussies in hot pants and jerseys \u2014 excuse me, guernseys \u2014 are breaking from their huddle expressly to give me the finger. You know, whichever finger they happen to use south of the equator. I have the vague idea that it&amp;#039;s different, Coriolis effect and whatnot.  Everything is new this time, and I keep forgetting that. When I estimate the cost of the cycle, for example, I hyperventilate a little until I realize that drugs for a donor \u2014 presumably an average-to-good responder \u2014 will cost significantly less than the approximately $19.3 million we spent on my last attempt. When I try to project what my travel dates might be for this out-of-town cycle, I forget that I don&amp;#039;t need to be on hand for retrieval. I plan six weeks of perfect temperance, and then I remember: I can drink coffee during the cycle. Or wine. Or vodka, and plenty thereof! (Okay, so I always did, but this time I don&amp;#039;t have to lie.)  It is easy to feel discombobulated when almost everything I know about cycling is suddenly obsolete. I&amp;#039;m even a little wistful thinking of those golden days of yore, if last December counts as yore, when I&amp;#039;d draw the last Follistim vapors out of the cartridge with a syringe, determined to inject every drop I&amp;#039;d paid for, prescription dose be damned. But these procedural differences are minor compared to the big one: Our chance of success is different \u2014 much higher \u2014 too. This is the new fact I mustn&amp;#039;t forget. And if it takes pissing off the entire Australian commonwealth to remember it, I consider it well worthwhile. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.redbookmag.com/body/pregnancy-fertility/a2033/terra-australis-incognita/>