A Small Update but a Huge Heck Ya!

We got the news a couple days ago that all of our labs came back NORMAL at our appointment on the 9th! Yippee! All is good to go! We now have to focus on getting all the legal done before I need to start medications. If anything should happen to where we can not get all the legal done by September 11th then that will postpone our transfer date. As of right now our transfer date will still be October 13th. :)

I began taking prenatal vitamins four days ago and let me just say, yuck! The after taste is awful and I thought I was going to puke for sure. I realized I had not ate anything so I quickly did so and felt MUCH better. I took these same prenatal pills when I was pregnant with Ava and they never made me sick, thank goodness! I did not start taking them until I was already pregnant though so there might be a little bit of a difference in how they affect me as of now until I am pregnant. Glad to say it has already been better taking the prenatal pills and no signs of uneasiness as long as I eat with them.

Tomorrow I begin the first step in the medication process, birth control. Strange right? The clinic we are going to only does transfers 2 week out of every month therefore they put me on birth control at a specific time to line up my cycle with theirs. Make sense? This process regulates my cycle and gets me ready to start Lupron (the next step in the med process). I will be on birth control a total of 29 days and then one less pill. I'll take it! :)

Birth Control & Small Black Pouch Comes With It

Right now I am feeling pretty pumped up! Maybe a little too pumped up because we do still have a couple months before our transfer but just knowing that the ball is rolling makes me feel awesome! I'm anxious to start the legal part of things on our side as E and A are mostly all set to go with their side of things. We are still waiting for our lawyer to contact us for a meeting to get things going. So, we sit here and play the waiting game for a little while and everything will end up all going into place as it usually does. I guess I am just ready to make things official official. Yep, two officials are better than one!

E was telling me that many IP's going through the process of setting up the contracts will require a specific diet for the surrogate to follow. Wow! They laughed when their lawyer asked if they would be putting that in the contract. I'm so happy to have such laid back and supportive IP's. I replied that it wouldn't be so bad having a calorie count in our contract, then maybe I would only gain 20-25 lbs instead of 55! Goodness Gracious! I have learned my lesson especially now that my starting weight this time (October 12') will be a little higher than last (March 11'). I will be working hard to keep my weight down and hope for not too much water retention.



Upcoming Blogs: Telling David about our surrogacy journey, the legal side of things, all the wonderful support we are experiencing, and some personal news in our daily lives.

Thanks for reading!!!



All or Nothing - Part 2!

To determine whether we would be able to move forward with our surrogacy journey, we were required to take a psychological test. This test was almost 300 questions and random they were to say the least. True or False "Do you feel people try to rob you?", "Do you hear voices?", "Are you afraid of windstorms?", "Do you want to be a Nascar driver?" Hmmmm...

I just can not imagine some of the people who have tried becoming surrogates and truly are psychologically damaged. It makes me feel good that one less couple in the world (E and A, our IP's) have the risk of having a less than competent woman carrying their child. That is such a scary thing and I can't imagine being on the other end of this experience. I feel that there is much more for E and A to worry about than us including trusting us to take the best care of their baby while they can't always be there. I loved the most being able to hear Ava's heartbeat in a instant by getting out our at home heart beat monitor, feeling her all day everyday knowing that she is still moving, and having my own peace of mind about the nutrient intake she had. This was all because I could carry her myself and I can't begin to put myself in E and A's position not having that luxury. It makes me cherish those small things and not take anything for granted because to some people those small things are EVERYTHING!

Another important thing we had to go over with Nurse M was the medication list I will have to take until I am around 12 weeks of pregnancy. I will be required to take 9 medications ranging from patches, pills, injections, to suppositories. I have strict charts I have to follow telling me which medication to take and when to take them. Right now I am able to decide whether I want to take them in the morning or in the evening but once I start I have to keep taking them the same time everyday because they are on a 24 hour timeline. It was definitely a lot to take in at one time learning what each medication is for and exact how to administer each. I'm sure once I have things written down the routine will come naturally. It is a good thing I am so organized already because it will take a little routine altering but I have faith it will work out just fine.

MEDICATIONS!? I have gotten a lot of questions about the medication aspect of our journey which has kind of caught me off guard. Many people had no idea that medication would need to be taken and are confused why I have to take so many things so strictly. To everyone inquiring about this, here is your answer. The easiest way to explain this is each medication serves a purpose in manipulating my body into thinking that I am actually pregnant. The F. Dr. is unable to place embryos into my body as is because my body will reject the unknown if it is not prepared to be pregnant. This means that my entire cycle has to be lined up with the F. Dr's. transfer cycles. I will take medications that will provide my body with the right hormones, lining of my uterus, vitamins, and antibiotics. It seems a little excessive all written on paper but every medication has a purpose and in the end will provide an even better home for a baby then I could do on my own. When do we start our med cycle? As soon as the legal side of this is all said and signed we will begin. We are thinking that should be taken care of in the next couple weeks leaving us with a transfer date of....drum roll please......October 13th! We will have at least 4 more visits to the city before the actual transfer day. Each visit will consist of blood work and ultrasound to keep track of my body's progress.

I'm feeling great! It is so weird for me to say that I can not wait to start my period (I would never normally say this!) because I can't begin taking the meds until I do so to keep things on track for the cycle they need me on. I'm anxious to hear back from Nurse M to give us the absolute GO to continue. As soon as our agency is contacted with the good news that our pre-screening went great then our lawyer will contact us to schedule a meeting soon. We will be expecting to go over every detail with good or bad situations but I will update on what actually happens in our case.

Nervous! I'm not exactly looking forward to giving myself shots although Ben said he would help out with that. I'm hoping for the best and that the meds don't take a huge toll on my body making me feel weak or drained. I've heard man people say they affected them each differently so I hope I am one of those who take well to them.

You Tube - I have saved many links from this website to start up yoga again. I want to continue with zumba as well but I am planning on making the zumba my own mix of things. I don't want to overdue myself especially with taking medications so it will be all my favorite music and however I feel like dancing that day. :) Any movement has to be better than no movement right? I think so!

David - Ben and I have David this week and he will be going back to his mom's house Sunday evening. We plan to fully get our thoughts together and write down exactly how we want to tell David about our surrogacy journey. Some people have explained to me their thoughts and how they see this being hard for David to understand because "he wont be able to see his little brother or sister" ... ??? That threw me off guard a little! I guess some are still not understanding that this baby will absolutely not be related to us in anyway. We will not be going into the conversation with David stating that this is his sibling. I'm not sure how the conversation will go yet but I will definitely be posting a blog for that alone. We will go into this with a special role for David and maybe a nickname for the baby. I think it is extremely important for David to feel included and not left out. We want this to be a great experience for all of us as a family <3

All in all this trip was exactly how we wanted it to turn out! It was a great experience learning about the process we are going through and we can't wait to have things made official in writting! Glad to say that our drive out of the city was such a sigh of relief compared to the drive in! Excited to update you all very soon! Thanks for all your love and support!

All or Nothing!

It feels like forever since I have been able to actually have something to blog about. Things this past month have seemed to go by rather slowly but August 9th finally came around Thank Goodness! We were scheduled this appointment to go through all of our medical pre-screening and psychological evaluations to let us know if we are for sure able to move forward. I was so anxious the night before our appointment in Chicago but luckily I was still able to sleep. We woke up super early to make sure we had everything ready for Ava to go to the sitter and for our trip to the clinic. The drive down was adventurously interesting to say the least. It rained spontaneously the whole way there and back. When we got into Chicago, traffic was ridiculous and we ended up taking a wrong exit. BUMMER! Traffic was bumper to bumper and it was extremely hard to get turned around. We ended up right in the middle of China Town! What!? It was definitely the most stressful drive we have had yet and I was so thrilled to find our way back on the highway.

After all the craziness with the drive we were 20 minutes late for our appointment. We called ahead and they were beyond understanding and made accommodations for us with ease. I remember signing in and being so shaken up from the drive that my handwriting looked completely different. Yikes! We were almost instantly called back and finally met our wonderful nurse M. She was very welcoming and guided us through what we were going to do this appointment. My nerves were finally starting to ease up with all the warm attention we were getting.

First things first! They had to make sure that we were not already pregnant and that was confirmed in minutes. I was then taken to a room down the hall to have my ultrasound performed. It was a little different of an experience than the ultrasound I had with Ava. It was much quicker and I was so thankful I didn't have to drink a ton of water before hand. It was different seeing my uterus without a baby in it. This was the part of the appointment I was mostly nervous about. You never know how your body healed after having a baby so they had to make sure I was adhesion and polyp free. I was told to expect a little cramping but it turned out that it was completely painless. The great news is the actual transfer is even less than the ultrasound as far as how long it takes and pain. Okay Okay! I know you are eager to hear how it went! Perfect! They said my uterus was beautiful and that it was an absolute positive ultrasound! Fantastic! It is a huge weight off our shoulders to know for sure that I am physically able to go on with our surrogacy experience.

The next part of our appointment they took my blood pressure (127/70) and Ben and I had our blood drawn. Part of this appointment was to speak with a psychologist so next we went into an office to sit and talk. I was feeling very nervous but it was a pretty straight forward meeting. It was mostly the woman asking us questions to make sure we had thoroughly thought about every aspect of surrogacy whether good or bad. It was a way for her to get an idea of how prepared we were and for us to think through certain things that we may not have thought about.

There were only 2 things that Ben and I really needed to discuss that threw a curve ball at our initial plan. One being that I could die and when this topic came up there was a long silence of thought. Of course it is a scary thing to think I have a possible chance of dying to help someone else and that I would be leaving my family behind. It is not something that anyone wants to discuss or think could happen but that is the reality. Death is a risk with any pregnancy whether it be a surrogacy or not. About 550 in 4 million women will die from child delivery. That is not a low enough number for my taste and in the end I don't want to die but it is a risk I am willing to take in order to help this deserving family have a child. I am passionate about doing this and it is completely worth that number above in order to go through this experience and to do such a self less meaningful act. I wrote in all my scholarship applications to college about my passion and my absolute guarantee to make a difference in the world not knowing how big of a difference I would end up making. This is my way in this part of my life to make that difference and to give back.

I don't expect everyone to understand and it is perfectly normal for people to choose not to agree because that is how we get to different places in life than others. People go through different experiences and have different passions and that is what makes them the people they grow into being. I am the person I've always wanted to be. Strong, independent, driven, and giving.

On to the 2nd thing Ben and I hadn't fully thought out, David. We knew we would eventually have to explain to David that we are helping another family have a baby of their own obviously in other terminology and more simply put as he is only 6 years old. We initially thought it best to wait to tell him until I began showing so that the less time he has to be confused about things the better. That was spiraled into a completely different direction after our nurse (M) sat down with us to go over all the medication I will need to start on soon. We realized that there is absolutely NO WAY David is not going to notice all these changes. There is going to be way to much going on with me for us not to tell him as soon as possible. The last thing we want is for David to be confused or to feel left out so he is going to have a special role in our experience and help us give love to this very special baby who needed a home to grow in. We are still in the process of working through the details of this conversation with David before it actually happens. I want to be prepared so that it can be straight forward, simple, and as less confusing as possible for a 6 year old. We were also informed that it may be best to talk to David's teachers at school because children tend to like to share their home life and a situation like this can easily be interpreted in many ways. It is best to let them know so that they are prepared for anything that may come up and then they have a better idea of how to explain things if there are questions.

It was refreshing being able to talk to someone about any issues that could possibly come up and it made my decision to want to be a gestational surrogate that much stronger! I have decided to make a part 2 to our "All or Nothing" blog because the entire appointment must have gone well in order for us to go any further. I will be posting soon!