Happiness and heartache all in the same week

As many of you know, I have been pleading and begging people to become our surrogate, I have even put it out there on Facebook for my "friends" to share and beg their friends. Through all of this, I received interest emails from 4 women! Amazing right? Two of the women live out of state so that would be hard but still doable. The other two women not only lived in the same state as I am in, but they worked with me! What a great opportunity to be able to be that close to the woman that could carry my baby and be a part of everything!

Seeing that I had options, I let the two women who lived out of state know that I had two prospects in state and that I would be looking into using one of them first, since they were closer. So, I told them, "thank you so much and I will keep you in mind if things don't work out". Then I interviewed both of the women where I worked. The first woman has an amazing heart and thinks that I do too and will do anything for me, but, her husband wasn't quite on board and she has some minor complications with her last pregnancy that weren't good for her health. I told her, "thank you so much but that because your husband isn't on board and because I don't want anyone dying trying to help me out, I will be pursuing using the other woman". She was fine with this and we will I am sure continue to be great friends! After interviewing the second woman and having dinner with her and her husband along with Dan, we all felt like she was a good match. They didn't want money, they just wanted to be able to give another couple the amazing gift that they knew they were lucky to have been given. She wanted to be pregnant again without having to raise the child and since he was away in the military when she was pregnant with their boys, he was looking forward to experiencing this with her. We said we would of course pay for any medical expenses related to pregnancy, maternity clothes and gas to get back and fourth to the appointments. Everyone got along great and we agreed to take the next step and she and I scheduled a doctors appointment to see if she was approved.

On Friday, we drove up together and saw the doctor. We spent 2 hours in the car to get there, 2 hours at the doctors office, I spent 250 dollars on the appointment and 2 hours in the car together driving home. I got to know everything about her medical history and was in the room when she had the ultrasound exam. While this was very awkward, I figured, if she was going to be my baby's "oven", I should get used to these types of appointments. The doctor was really excited about her potential to carry and said pending blood work, she was good to go. I was starting to feel excited but cautiously so. I mean we still have to get eggs, make embryos and they still have to implant. (One step at a time)! She and I scheduled the blood work to be this Friday (tomorrow) and she went and filled the prescriptions that he ordered for her and I bought the vitamins. She and I didn't talk much during this week other than text messages here and there to confirm meeting times. Today, I got a text asking to meet tonight to talk. My heart instantly sank and I knew this "talk" wasn't going to be a good one.

After trying several times to get ahold of her with no response, she finally texted me an address and asked me to meet her there. I made it there in less than 10 minutes and when she finally came to the door, I could see that she had been crying. (I wanted to turn around and run)! I didn't though and we sat down and she let me know that she didn't feel like she was getting the support from her family that she thought she would get by doing this and that she didn't think that mentally and emotionally she could actually go through with it. She said she was sorry, that she would pay me back for the appointment and that she wished that there was something she could do to make it right. I just said, it's "fine". (All of my southern friends know what "fine" really means)! I didn't cry (until I made it to my car). She asked that I don't hate her..... I said I don't, (but I know next year at work may be slightly difficult whenever we cross each others paths). I gave her a hug and left. I called my poor sweet husband and gave him the news and broke his heart (again). Then I cried all the way to dinner. Fortunately, I had already made dinner plans with a great woman who made me laugh most of the evening (thank you Molly)! The little wine I had helped too!

Now, I sit here, writing this, trying to figure out what the next step will be. This is how I survive, I keep going and plan for the next step. There has to be something to look forward to, or there is not much point to getting out of bed in the morning. So, I will be contacting the other women again and letting them know that I still have a need, if they are still interested. However, I fear that they will all not be interested because they were just being nice in the first place and maybe they were relieved when I told them I had someone. Part of me also wants to see if maybe, just maybe, my body will hold onto a pregnancy if we used donor eggs. I already have that process started so surrogate or not, we should have embryos in July. BUT, what good are embryos if you have no "oven" to grow them in?!?

As always, thank you for your continued love, prayers and support.

New Journey

What did I do on Mother's Day? Besides throw myself a pity party and cry more than once, I picked myself up and wrote a check for the deposit of donor eggs.

We are about to embark on a new journey people......donor eggs and surrogacy. I have given up on the hope that I will be able to carry a child and I have given up on my own eggs. It has taken a couple of months for me to come to terms with this fact, that our child, if and when he or she gets here, won't actually be my own DNA. I have always said that I could easily adopt and I still believe I could, I mean I fall in love with any child I come in contact with wether they are my nieces or nephews or children I work with. So, why has this decision been so hard? I think maybe because there is not an actual child out there yet. It hasn't even been conceived, there are no embryos yet and no confirmed pregnancy, nothing YET to look forward to. So, it is hard. I keep worrying about the future, when "she" is a teenager and she yells at me that "I can't make her do anything because I am not her real mother". Would I be able to handle that? What if "she" wanted to find her biological mother? Would we even tell the child? Is it even worth worrying over right now? Probably not, but these are the things that go through my head.

The process to get donor eggs is frustrating and expensive but after putting interest into several potential donors, we have one that should work out. She has to go through a series of testing and medical work-ups but after she is approved, we can start the donor cycle, in 1-2 months.

The next process is to find a surrogate. We have actually had a few offers in this area since my last plea on FB. I have talked with the women and we will be talking more with one of them soon. I am so happy that there are angels like these women out there, women who just want to help or who just loved being pregnant so much that they want to be so again, but are done raising their own babies. I am and will be forever grateful to these women.

The third step in the process is to find a lawyer who can represent us and write a "pre-birth order". This has to be done with the laws in this state so that when the baby is born, he or she belongs to us. That is all I can say about that for now.

So, if all goes well with the egg donor and the surrogate is approved, we should have embryos in about 2 months ready for transfer into our surrogate. Then, as with all other attempts, we wait that dreaded two-week-wait to see if it worked.

I will post more as things progress, assuming that they will. As always, thank you all for your support and love.

Holidays are hard

Holidays are hard for many people, especially family holidays such as Christmas and Thanksgiving. For a couple living with infertility, the traditions you make together as a young couple seem less fun and not as important when you feel you're missing something.

It is now mid May and yet again, we have been through another empty Christmas, New Years Day, Easter Sunday, our 9th wedding anniversary and Mother's Day.

That last one, and the one to come, Father's Day, those may be the hardest for both of us. I mean a whole day of people on Social Media celebrating their bundles of joy, soon to be bundles, toddlers, tweens, teens and adult children, sharing all of the sweet things they received from them along with photographs. I am very happy for everyone's joy, it is just depressing to think that we may never have that joy...

Yet, we survived. After a few pity parties and tears, we survived and will continue to do so. It just doesn't get any easier.

Thank you to my friends who thought of me yesterday and sent their love. It is appreciated.