change of events

It has taken me a while to come on here and give this update. For a while, I wasn't sure surrogacy was going to happen. I was (and still am) worried that writing out the process was jinxing me. But let me give you a recap of what's happened since February.

So I think things happen for a reason.  Last post I said I couldn't start the mock cycle until my period started.  And my period was abnormally late.  But before it could actually come, I got the strangest text from my IM.  She wished me the best of luck and said sorry things didn't work out.  Talk about confused.  I emailed J asking what was going on, and she called me.  Apparently the counselor sent a report completely jacked up.  And I mean completely jacked up.  She said I was on zoloft (I'm not) and that I have an eating disorder (wtf?) and possibly something else that I can't remember now.  I mean, I thought the woman was asking some weird ass questions, but she seemed strange in general so I wasn't too concerned.  Obviously I was wrong!  So once I confirmed that nope, not on any meds and nope, definitely don't have any issues with eating, she said okay let me try to straighten things out.  Unfortunately, the doctor at CFA saw my anxiety in the past as a "red flag" and didn't care that the counselor's report wasn't accurate.  I was a no-go. And my IM wasn't willing to switch Dr's.

At this point, I thought it was it for me.  But after a few weeks of kind of hanging in limbo, J set me up with a different counselor to get the psych screening done before trying to find me a new match.  I talked with someone NOT off her rocker, I took an MMPI (another looney test), she passed me and that was out of the way.  But I still needed to be matched.  Let me tell you, I was never so nervous.  Then an email came.  There was an IM, not so far from me, who liked my profile.  We set up a skype call, and had the longest talk.  This woman, she has the biggest heart.  And her struggles have been long and hard.  But her support circle is huge and that's something I worried about with the previous IM.  She didn't seem to have much support.  SO who knows.  I do hope someone is approved by her Dr (I found out I was the 3rd surro that didn't work out), but I think this is where my path was meant to go.

So after the skype call, we set up a meeting.  Of course, with scheduling conflicts, it had to wait about a month.  That put us into late April.  She brought a friend, who I loved, and we all talked for about an hour.  They couldn't stay longer but we could have chatted more otherwise.  We talked about things from the pregnancy, to support, to delivery and beyond.  I think we touched on everything.

One thing I love about this IM is her determination and drive.  She's waited a long time for this and so delays aren't her thing now.  When we tried to have me set up for a consult with her clinic, they wanted to make it for the end of May!  After some push-back, IM got it bumped to early May.  So the day came and I called the clinic.  I was so nervous!  But the Dr. I talked to sounded so down to earth.  We did talk about my past anxiety, but he didn't seem very concerned.  Especially since I've come so far with chilling out.  We went through the tests I still needed (which was just a few more blood tests and then a saline sonohysterogram.  Which is not as bad as the HSG test I had done with dye).  He went through the meds I'd take and transfer.  All in all, it went really well.

So oddly enough, we got the saline HYS scheduled for the same day the consult call was meant to take place.  I had to drive down to the clinic, which is near DC but actually in Virginia, around lunch-time.  The DC beltway.  At lunchtime.  Oy.  I gave myself plenty of time though, and I actually got there 30 minutes early!  Surprisingly, they took me back immediately.  Brownie points!  True to his word, the procedure was easy peasy and showed I have a picture perfect uterus (what a compliment!).  Got back to work and finished the day out.  The next week I got my blood work done.  Now unfortunately D needs blood work too, but his work schedule is craaaaazy.  So he's scheduled for this Friday, but now he may have to cancel because of a change in where he has to report to.  So frustrating!  He only needs ONE test done.  But it is what it is.

Almost done this update, promise!  So the other update?  I have a lawyer!  Yep.  We've entered the contract phase.  I was pretty well officially cleared by the clinic (I mean, barring D's blood test coming back wonky, which it shouldn't!) so IM's lawyer is currently drafting the contract.  My lawyer will receive it and then slide it over to me.  Then we'll set up a time to go over any changes we want, and do tweaks until both sides are ready to sign!  Woah!

But I'm not saying anything else jinx-worthy.  If it is meant to happen, it will happen.  And that's it.  But I am getting a wee bit excited about the reality!  Nervous about the unknowns, and how things will be at work.  Meh.  Not worrying too much about work, they survive women getting pregnant and having babies.  Anyway, I'm not happy with how the previous relationship dissolved, but I am SUPER happy with how things have turned out. Praying D's work schedule allows him 30 minutes this week to get the blood test done! And that there aren't crazy changes that need to be made to the contract.  I'm flexible, so we'll see!

My perfect uterus! :)

Itty bitty progress

I feel like I need to give an update, even though I don’t have much to update.  So with CFA, the mock cycle is part of the screening process.  Which means we won’t do legal until I’m done with the mock cycle.  They need to make sure I'm a suitable oven for someone else's bun.  So I was told to email the clinic when my period starts. Aaaand guess whose period still hasn’t come, more than two weeks after stopping BC pills?  Yep.  I've had some greater than normal stress at work (shaky job situation, uncertainty of the future, you know same ol’ same ol’ for the corporate America workforce), and then got hit with the mother of all stomach viruses.  Our whole family was hit.  D recovered after two days, I’m still recovering after 4 days, and the girls are still getting sick.  This is day 6 for Bubs, who got it first.  So, the point of all this is, I’m pretty sure that completely messed up my cycle.  It was already messed up because I had basically a period in the middle of my last pill pack, but I kept taking the pills.  I don’t know why.  I guess I kind of suck at changing course.  

Soooo, every night I go to bed thinking I have to start temping so I can figure out where I am in my cycle!  And every morning I wake up and completely forget to take my temp.  For those of you scratching your head, I was BIG into the fertility awareness method about five years ago.  There’s an awesome book on it, and it should be a required read for all women!  If you want to look it up, it's called Taking Charge of your Fertility, by Toni Weschler.  Seriously, I learned so much about my body!  And I credit it to getting pregnant so quickly with both girls.  Granted, I have no fertility issues so that helped too.  Your temp tends to run lower from the start of your cycle to ovulation.  Then once you ovulate, your temp skyrockets up, then stays up through the luteal phase until your period comes.  Then the temp drops back down.  I pretty much know my baseline temp, which I don’t think has changed.  So if I could remember to take my temp, I’m sure after a few days I could figure out if I’m pre or post ovulation.  There’s also cervical mucus to check (yeah it’s as lovely to check as it sounds) but I’m out of practice so I can’t rely on that.  If I were to guess, I’d say I’m around ovulation though.  Which means at least another week.  I hope I’m wrong!  I started bleeding on the 18^th of January, and before BC pills, my cycles were about 26 days.  So, that would put AF at Feb 12.  Um, yesterday.  haha.  So maybe it’ll be a 30 day cycle, and come Monday.  

But I have gotten some things done for the process!  Took the PAI test (personality assessment something or other; a looooong test to see if I’m BSC), and Derek & I went to the pysch screening, first met with the counselor by ourselves and then with IM.  It was slightly awkward, but mostly good.  And I only say slightly awkward because I randomly started crying about something totally irrelevant to surrogacy, and Derek was thrown off guard and got all flustered.  Yeah, me and my stupid overactive tear factory!  But I’m pretty sure she put in a good word about us.

So, who wants to pray my period comes?  Haha okay, I guess there’s no rush.  It’s going to come in the next two weeks, and then things are going to get really real!  Oh and one more update that’s not as happy.  Well, I guess it depends on how you look at it.  My IM is taking a job offer that will put her in another state!  Boo hiss!  I thought it was awesome that we lived so close, but she won’t be across the country, just a few states away.  And good for her, it seems like a better position.  Work is such a big part of our lives, so it’s important to find something you can enjoy or at least happily tolerate.  I mean, come on, I live in the real world.  Not everyone LOVES their job.  There's too many mediocre jobs out there that need to be done.  But anyway, I hope she really likes the new job and hometown.

So that’s all for now.  I literally won’t have anything else to update until the mock cycle starts, since everything else is done.  Well, unless someone comes to the door to take me to a loony bin after interpreting the results of the PAI test.  :)  And since I feel like a picture makes such a nice ending to the post, here's the bubs (and Sateen) taking a nap in the sunshine spot of the house.  I used to do this before I had kids, even when I WAS a kid I did this at my parent's house.  She's my mini me. :)  And excuse the random clutter.  That's how we roll!

meds received

So I came home from work (and an awful day at that, complete with a commute that was triple in time) to a box of meds.  Well, technically the meds were inside the box.  But I was quite surprised by how light the box was, and how little the pills were!  My mock cycle meds have arrived, though I'm not ready to start them yet.  Still, it was exciting opening the box and reading the two page long warnings for each medication.  I've got estradiol (estrogen) and progesterone to fluff up my lining in preparation of the "transfer". I'll get instructions later on dosage and timing of the meds, plus appointments for lining checks and blood draws.

This process is so humbling.  I am in awe of the women who do this not by choice, but by necessity.  The pressure for success of each cycle must be paramount.  Not only is a great deal of funds riding on each cycle, each medication, each day of fertility treatments, but a life.  A potential part of their family is riding on the line.  I'm seeing this from a completely different point of view, but I will make it a point to really attempt to place myself in the shoes of the countless women for whom fertility does not come easily.  They may still be excited to see a box of medications on their porch, but for them it's more likely the excitement that their future son or daughter is within their reach.  For me, the excitement is in making that reach a little closer for someone, if I can.

D finally got his blood work done, and now in less than two days we'll make a trip down to DC for our psych screening.  I'll be sure to update when it's done!

Oh and here's a pic of the meds I'll be taking in the near future! haha hey I want to document the journey!

First test is in the bag!

Wow I went from having to really stretch for information to put in updates to having something worth writing about!  As my last blog post stated, I was scheduled to have a phone call with a doctor at CFA on the 12th.  And by the way, time didn't exactly zoom by.  I had plenty of things to keep me busy, but it was on my mind every day.  So I had the call and it was such a simple thing.  She asked me a few questions about my medical history, but most of it she had in my chart.  She then went over the process and what test I needed first, plus what to do next.  So basically, the first thing to get done was an HSG.  The technical term is a hysterosalingogram (or -ography, depending on the site you look up).  Basically it's a type of xray, a fluoroscopy, using a contrast material they shoot into the fallopian tubes to see if there's a blockage.  Women facing infertility have this done to look for possible causes.  For me, it was to make sure there wasn't a a blockage that could cause trouble for the surrogacy.  So the doctor said to get that done this month while I'm still on birth control.  Then when my current pill pack is done, to stop taking them so we can do a mock cycle.  That will be me getting all the meds of a real cycle, minus the actual transfer of embryos.  That's to see how I'll respond to the meds.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.

So I got off the phone, and started poking around looking for a place to get an HSG test done.  Apparently nothing super local does it!  Or at least nothing I could find.  I made so many calls that day, I had to stay over at work because I used too much time doing it.  I did find a place in Columbia, but the first woman I talked to was a bear!  And I was certainly not my pleasant self either.  I felt like I'd been running in circles to find a place that did this test, and now this woman was telling me because I don't get a regular period, I needed a blood test from my OB's office proving I wasn't pregnant!  I told her, it's because I'm on lo loestren, one of the side effects is a light or non existent period.  I did question it but my midwife assured me it was normal.  So it's been like this for months.  Anyway, I wasn't having that so finally she put me on hold, came back and said fine if you want to consider your spotting a period, what's the exact day you spotted?  I said I don't know, why is that relevant?  She said this test has to be done 6-10 days after your period.  So I said look I'll have to call back, after I go home and try to figure it out.  But by the time I got home, they were closed.  I just used the 2nd day of my pill pack as the day because I think it was around there, and J at the surro place said that 6-10 day window doesn't apply if you are on the pill.  Someone needs to tell that lady that!  Thankfully someone different answered the next morning.  It took a while but she squeezed me in for the Friday, the 16th.

Sorry this is so long-winded! haha can't help going in depth since this is the first real step I've taken.  So I get there, and man did my nerves kick in.  I wasn't waiting long before I was brought back.  So there's a table, and a HUGE machine (where the pics would be taken) that slid over the bed.  I got prepped and laid on the table, talked to two very nice techs who thought it was awesome I was doing surrogacy.  They explained what would happen, sort of how it would feel, and the rare risks that could happen afterward (mainly infection).  The doctor came in (why did he have to be so dang good looking?), and inserted a catheter into my cervix.  Inflated a balloon to keep it in place, then injected contrast through the tubes.  The worst of it was that damn thing they insert for a pap, I hate that contraption!  I felt normal cramps, like day 1 of a real period.  No pinch, nothing worse than that.  It was so quick too!  Less than five minutes, a few x-rays, I rotated my hips to each side for different angles, and then he pulled everything back out.  The contrast was gross, but they warned me about it.  Oh and the best part? No blockage!  That would have hurt, and I have such empathy for women who have this test done and see (and feel) a blockage.  It's an amazing test though, being able to so quickly identify a problem.

So now that the HSG is done, next is my annual with blood work Monday.  And Derek has to get blood work done.  Then the psych screening.  Still waiting to hear about that being scheduled.  But wow, things are really moving!  Some moments I'm nervous, some I"m excited, some scared, some eager.  Depends on my mood and what I start thinking about.  Delivery?  Yeah, that's scary!  Helping create a family?  That's the awesome part.  Praying that all goes well, and that this is my path.  I feel that it is, but I am trying very hard to keep an open mind and heart so that I can roll with whatever comes my way in this adventure.

Looking forward to the next update!

Here's a picture of the place where I had the HSG done, just to make things a little more "real"