Today was a big day

Last night I had a dream that I was given a baby boy and then I woke up from a nap because the baby was crying and I was so confused as to why I was hearing a baby cry until I remembered that it was mine!

This dream represents my current feelings about everything I guess. It is all surreal and strange. I know I have a baby on the way but it doesn't really feel that way since I am not the one pregnant. I know in the end that it won't matter and that I will love that baby with everything I have. It is just strange.

Anyway, thank goodness for technology! I was able to see the first ultrasound today via Skype. I was introduced to the doctor as the "mom to be" and then the camera was turned towards the ultrasound screen. The first thing I saw was that there was, in fact, a pregnancy. I couldn't really make out a baby but I knew what to look for since I had been here before with my own pregnancy (and I looked up many images of ultrasounds at 8 weeks on Google images). The next thing I was looking for was any indication that there were more than one baby. There was just the one, which is great news for everyone involved! I mean two would be a blessing also, but we don't want to put our surrogate under any more stress than necessary and I am not sure what I would do with two babies at one time!

So, once we could see that there was just one baby (or the likeness of an alien) in there, we looked for the heartbeat and shortly thereafter, there it was! Nice and fast, just like it should be! My instant reaction was to cry at the relief and cry tears of happiness, but I held it together, (because I was on my lunch break at work). The doctor said that everything looked "great" and that the next appointment should be in 4 weeks. The baby measured right at 8 weeks and the due date is August 28th.

Now that I have seen the heartbeat, I am feeling like breathing a little more, I am getting a little more excited, yet still cautiously so. I am thankful for the positivity and love that our surrogate and her family have daily. I am also thankful for my many positive friends! I will get there eventually. I did do a little shopping today for some things that I remembered being nice to have around when I was pregnant for a short time and sent them off to her in the mail with a smile. Yes, today was a big day and here are the pictures. :)

And the results are in…….

"Lately I been, I been losing sleep

Dreaming about the things that we could be

But baby, I been, I been prayin' hard

Said no more counting dollars

We'll be counting stars

Yeah, we'll be counting stars" - One Republic

The last few weeks have been crazy busy at work and with life in general. As you know from my previous post, we did the implantation on December 10th and have been waiting and praying for good news. During the wait, I kept my mind busy at work with meetings and piles of paperwork and stayed busy at home cleaning house in preparation for family to arrive for Christmas. Time flew for me during this two-week-wait compared to the other ones. Maybe because I am detached from it all and our Surrogate is in another state, I'm not sure, but even though I found myself still thinking about it every day, I did not want to bother her so I only checked in every three days. Each time, she reported no changes, so that could be good news or not good news, so we continued to pray and wait until the official blood test. This time, since it wasn't me we were waiting to see about being pregnant, I had no control, I could not sneak a home pregnancy test, did not compulsively look up early pregnancy symptoms and on the day of the test, while I was anxious to hear, I did not convince myself if was negative and give myself a pity party before ever hearing the results. Yes, this wait time was much easier for me! 

On the day of the blood test, I was at work and needed to finish up a few last minute files before heading out on winter break but could not bring myself to get any of it done. The night before, I had had a dream that our Surrogate called and I missed the phone call so she left a message that we were pregnant and every time I tried to call her back, we missed the connection. So, on that day, I was a wreck, was the dream going to be a reality? Was it a sign? Was it just a dream and nothing more? Were we really pregnant? 

Not too long before lunch that day, I received a phone call……...

The song above has been playing through my head over and over again and seems to fit my current feelings. Many people have been praying hard with us so that we could get our miracle baby. We have had people praying all over Texas, Arizona, the east coast and even in Europe!

I am happy to tell you all that our prayers have been answered and our wonderful surrogate is pregnant!!! 

(I can tell you all now because we have told the grandparents to be and the immediate family already.) We decided to wait to tell Dan's parents for Christmas and it was fun to try and think of a cute way to tell them. We decided to FaceTime them to open gifts together. We had them open their gifts and we opened ours and we talked about random things for over an hour and then we told them we found a couple of gifts that they sent out and forgot to open them. Mom didn't notice that the paper was the same as what was on the gifts we sent them and said she couldn't think of what could be in them but she wanted us to go ahead and open them anyway so she could see. There was a baby rattle in one and baby lotion in the other. Both of them seemed confused at first but then got really excited as they realized what we were driving at! They are thrilled to think they will be first time grandparents in August. I decided to put an ornament on the tree for my mom with a note saying "Coming soon….August 2014" for her to see when she arrived on Christmas Eve. I had to tell her to go look at my tree but when she did, she noticed it right away and asked if it meant what she thought it meant and then said "cool" or something like that. It wasn't very exciting as I had thought but later I found out that she already knew but was trying to act surprised. 

Anyway, so now you know that the initial prayers have been answered, that "beautiful" embryo stuck and he or she is growing fast! She had a second blood test to confirm that things were progressing as they should and the numbers were "huge",  according to the physician's assistant when she read them to me. When you first get a beta HCG pregnancy test, you get a number that tells you it is positive and that number is supposed to double about every 48 hours her numbers were more than doubled! This is great news and could mean that it is: a) a very viable pregnancy (woo hoo!), b) the embryo split and there are two (only a 5% chance of this happening but if it did, wouldn't that just be God's sense of humor shinning through!) or c) apparently there is a correlation between higher numbers on the second beta HCG test and the baby being a girl…… (awe!). Whatever the outcome is, we will be thrilled!

We are so happy that this has worked, happy with a side of caution. We have had the happiness of knowing we were pregnant and before the second trimester, that happiness was ripped away, leaving holes in our hearts forever. I would like to believe that nothing could go wrong as things have so far being moving so smoothly but we all know they can and we will continue to pray for a healthy pregnancy and a healthy baby. This is where you all can continue to help, please keep sending up those prayers! 

We are only 5 weeks along right now but I am already planning what I will be doing as soon as I take that last final exam in the first week of August and planning how much time I will take off of work and trying to decide if I am going to try to breast feed or not. I may be getting way ahead of myself but if you know me, you know that I have never been one to slow down or to be unprepared! I can't wait to put little glow in the dark stars on my child's ceiling and lay down on the floor counting the stars with them……or better yet, go on many fun family camping trips and count real stars!

Until next time, much love and appreciation to all of you for your continued prayers and support! Pray for our Surrogate to have an easy, healthy time during this pregnancy, thanks!

"Sticky vibes" and "praying for a BFP"

Well, since my last update, I had that 10th surgery and it went fine. I woke up in pain as usual but only had two incisions which is two less than typical so I am guessing that I didn't have a lot of scar tissue to remove or that it was concentrated only to the one side. Either way, I am almost completely healed and feel fine so that is a plus! I will see the doctor on Thursday for a full report.

A few days after the surgery, we went up to Phoenix to meet our surrogate, friend and family member and her awesome husband at the airport. They had a LONG day of sitting and waiting for their flight to take off at the airport due to several cancellations for bad weather so they were tired to say the least. We travelled to the resort that I had gotten us rather inexpensive rooms in via Hotwire and we were slightly disappointed to find that it was really no better than a Motel 6. The problem with Hotwire is that you do not get to pick the place, just the general area, the price and the star rating of your choice. So, the last time we ended up in a great resort that had a golf course on the premises and a kitchen and laundry facilities in the rooms. These rooms has a mini fridge and beds. At least the beds were comfy. Anyway, the next day we had a few hours to kill before we had the doctor's appointment for the transfer so we explored Butterfly Wonderland as it sounded interesting and was only a few minutes away from the doctor's office. They had advertised thousands of white butterflies for the season but we only saw a few. The place was very large compared to the one we have in Tucson so it was nice to not bump into people every step you took while exploring the various butterflies. My favorite are the blue morpho.

 

One landed on Dan and decided to stay for the duration of our visit, supposedly this is good luck (heres hoping!) Once we exited the exhibit, we were surprised by a stingray pool and we were able to pet them. Each of us had a stingray nibble our fingers……. wonder if that was good luck too? (Fingers crossed!) 

After the stingray play, it was time to head to the doctor to do the transfer and get a look at our embryo. When we arrived the doctor was ready to go so we were asked to come back right away. We were able to see a picture of our embryo when it was taken out of the freezer and another picture about two hours after the thaw process began. The image showed that the embryo was in fact alive and expanding quickly as it should be. Our surrogate was prepared to receive the embryo and just before it was implanted, we got one more image. 

The above image is our "beautiful" (according to the doctor), embryo that was transferred on Tuesday. After the transfer, which went fairly smoothly, our surrogate was instructed to be on bed rest for 24 hours. So, we all headed back to our rooms and laid around and watched movies! After bed rest was up, we had some time to kill before heading back to the airport so the guys went golfing and the ladies headed out shopping! Then we all had dinner and we took them to the airport and said our "goodbyes" and "see you laters" with me trying my best to hold back tears. Tears of happiness, maybe worry and of overwhelming shock that someone is doing this for us out of the kindness of their own heart! What do you even say to that? This whole process is definitely no picnic for her as she has to get injected with needles daily and of course, if it works, she will carry a child for 9 months which, I am told is hard on a woman's body and mind! As I have said before, she is amazing and definitely an angel sent from above to help us out like this and even if it doesn't work out, I have gained a forever friend and that is something special! 

Since then, we have been praying for "sticky vibes" as they say in the infertility forum world so that the embryo latches on and begins to grow into a healthy baby. We should know something in another week so we are also praying and hoping to hear the news of a "BFP" (Big Fat Positive), another infertility world term. Thank you all for your support, thoughts and prayers! Until next time, I hope you all are healthy and happy and enjoy Christmas with your loved ones!

Prayers requested!!

It has been quite a while since my last post this past July! Since then, we finalized all the legal stuff and our surrogate had her first visit to my doctor for his approval. That went smoothly (minus getting pulled over 3 times on the way back from Phoenix for a blown headlight!). She was approved and was given a list of things to do to prepare and she went back home to get started. The whole visit was wonderful and it helped to make me feel a little more at ease but still not completely convinced that something would go wrong, even with all of her positive energy and words.

Nothing has gone wrong since then and we are only a few days away from transfer! She will arrive on Monday afternoon and we will do a final ultrasound to make sure everything is ready and do the transfer Tuesday morning. We will be implanting one of the six embryos and pray it takes. If so, we will have our little miracle in August. I am still so humbled and amazed at the generosity and love she is sharing with us and I can't express enough gratitude towards her……ever. Even if it doesn't work, I will always be grateful and she will always hold a special place in my heart!

Tomorrow I will be having my 10th laproscopic surgery to remove scar tissue from endometriosis. I am really wanting to just have everything ripped out as it has done nothing good for me but as a last stitch effort of hope for the unlikely event that I could carry on my own and there may be embryos left after everything works out with the surrogate, I will keep everything in tact…..just in case.

So, with these two events coming up so quickly, I ask for prayers for an easy surgery, a speedy recovery, an easy transfer and for all the baby vibes you can muster up for this to work! Hugs and love to you all and thanks in advance for the prayers.

One third of the way there!

Last I wrote, there were 14 eggs donated. That turned into 8 fertilized eggs on the day after donation. Then, on day three, I was told I had 7 embryos, one had stopped growing. They said they would call me on day 5 to let me know how many survived that far. Day 5 was yesterday and I received a phone call saying that they froze 4 "beautiful, perfect embryos" and were letting the others grow one more day. They said that they were where they should be but not quite as good as the 4 they had already frozen but that things could change over night and if they had made it to "blast" then they would freeze them too. The phone call I received this morning was to tell me that two of them had continued to grow and they made it to blast and were able to be frozen.

So, as of today, we have 6 "snow babies" just waiting for an oven!

Now, all we have to do is get all the legal stuff out of the way and plan for transfer. The goal is to get everything ready to do transfer for early December so if and when it all works, baby would arrive in August.

We are a third of the way there, however, I am not completely breathing just yet, but at least we have embryos......

Until next time, thanks for the prayers and support.

A few hurdles down, a few more to go....

There is SO much to share since my last post!

Lest's see, as of my last post, I no longer had a surrogate and after that post, I was told my egg donor was no good. So after a short bout of depression, we searched again and decided on another donor and asked the other two ladies who expressed interest in helping. They were both still interested but one is currently pregnant and as it is her first pregnancy, she didn't know what to expect and would let us know after delivery if it is actually something she thought she could do again and for someone else. Completely understandable! She is a great friend for even being willing to do such a thing, not knowing what it really entails.
The second woman has had three children and according to her they were easy pregnancies and she would have no problem doing it again. There were just a couple hurdles to jump through first. She is out of state and she in her early 40's. The doctor wanted her to go through a stress test and a blood test before saying that she was a good candidate. She willingly did both and has been approved! YIPEE! She is an amazing woman who also happens to be a member of my husband's family. I really married into a wonderful family and I am blessed! I hear horror stories from other women who just hate their spouses family and I feel so very lucky to know and love every member of Dan's family!
So, with a new donor and a surrogate, the next step was to get the donor the medication she needed to grow the eggs she would be donating and to contact the lawyer to make a contract between us and the surrogate. The donor started her cycle of medication a couple of weeks ago and today was the egg retrieval.
As you all may remember, the most eggs that were ever retrieved from my cycles were 6 and those resulted in only 2 embryos. We have been hoping and praying for more than that and just enough if that makes sense.
Well, today the donor gave us 14 eggs!!!!! I am amazed and so excited about this. If her eggs fertilize and grow like mine did (worse case scenario), I would expect to have 7 embryos to freeze. If they are way better than mine, we will have more. They will call me tomorrow to let me know how many fertilized. Then they have to grow them for 5 days and let us know how many they will be freezing. Once they are safely grown and frozen, we can finalize the legal stuff and prepare the surrogate for transfer.
We have a couple hurdles more to jump before transfer day and the dreaded two week wait, but we are getting closer!
As always, thank you all for your continued prayers and support!

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.