Update of Sorts

Exciting news! I talked to Heather today, and she is going to come up for my ultrasound/OB appt on January 14th! Yaaaay! She's going to take a short flight to DFW, rent a car, and make the 2 hour drive to Wichita Falls in time to have lunch before the ultrasound. I can't wait! When she texted to ask if it was ok, my only response was, of COURSE it's ok! I mean, it's HER baby. If she were the one pregnant, she'd be at every appointment. 

I want this to be as much "Heather's" pregnancy as it can possibly be, as hard as that is to manage when we live about 7 hours from each other. I tell her all of my cravings, like the other day it was lemon everything. Lemon gummies, lemon cupcakes, lemonade... Today it was Long John Silver's fried clams, and those little bits of fried batter that fall off the fish. Oh Em Gee. I'm planning to take belly pictures every week, as soon as I have a belly. Well, I have a belly now, but it's just a food-baby belly and no one wants to see that. I've been meaning to find a doppler on Amazon so I can record the heartbeat and send it to Heather so that their kids can hear it. Even better, maybe I can get one in time to take with me to Houston next week!

Which reminds me... Only one week until I go spend the weekend in Houston!

8 Weeks!

*yawn* I am SO tired. If I weren't pregnant, I'd swear I had developed a sudden case of narcolepsy. I'm so ready for this phase to be over with, I need my energy back!

In other news, I got a prescription for Zofran and I've managed to set a record on the least amount of times I've vomited in the first 8 weeks (go me!) although I still have the weird, random gagging reflex throughout the day. I look like I cat trying to get up a hairball. Brandon happens to think this is HILARIOUS and will do whatever he can to induce this hysterical event. He'll make me smell his arm pits, talk about gross things, but the worst is when he mimics my gagging. I told him, he's going to think it's funny until I puke on him. It's all in good fun, and I always laugh & he always apologizes for using me as cheap entertainment. But I still hope I vomit on him someday.

I'm flying down to Houston on December 28th thru the 30th to see Heather & Brandon, and meet their awesome kiddos. I am beyond excited! I think we'll be getting together with some of the Houston ladies Friday night, and then Heather & Brandon are taking me to the Rockets vs. Thunder game on Saturday night. Can't wait!

Second Ultrasound

We had our second ultrasound today, and saw one baby measuring perfect at 7w2d, with a heart rate of 144 beats per minute. It appears that the second sac we saw was in fact a big pocket of blood, and not a twin. We realized this on Friday when the pocket ruptured and I nearly bled to death. Ok, ok, I'm exaggerating. I'll spare you the details, but trust me, 'bleeding to death' just about sums it up.

I've been released by our IVF Doctor to the care of my OB, and we have a due date of July 29!

Twinkies? And I Ain't Talkin' Bout Hostess!

Friday was the big day, it was finally time for the ultrasound! Heather and I had both agreed that we were expecting only one gestational sac, since my beta numbers we so low. When one sac appeared on the screen, I told Heather, "see, only one! YAY!" and Dr. E said for me to hold on just a minute because I was speaking too soon. The nurse turned the wand sideways and HOLY EFF THERE IS ANOTHER SAC IN THERE! Heather claims I yelled "holy sh**!" but I don't remember that. Ha! The second sac was just a teeny bit smaller, and the Dr. E explained that it could be a twin with a smaller sac, just catching up (which makes sense, as one of the embryos was smaller) or a twin that has arrested and will vanish. We have another ultrasound December 14th to see.

Heather and Brandon came up for the ultrasound and it was great to see them! They're coming back on the 14th, and since my Brandon is off work that day, he'll get to go too so we can all do lunch after our appointment. I'm so anxious to see if we still have twins, and to see a heartbeat, or two. It was too early Friday, and I know we will all feel much better once we see it.

Common Questions

Heather wrote a blog post not too long ago about the questions that she is commonly asked as an intended mother. Someone asked me the dreaded compensation question the other morning, so I decided to do a post of my own about the common questions that I (and about 100 other surrogates I know) are often asked, and give the best answers that I can. So many of my friends are fellow surrogates, or intended mothers, that I am used to the lingo & being able to speak freely without explaining. I forget sometimes how little the 'real world' knows about surrogacy! So this is my attempt to educate the masses. Or at least just the people who read this.

Q. I should do that, that's easy money! Don't you get a ton of money for doing that?
A. Well, that depends on what you consider a ton. When you do the math, I make approximately $3.72/hr, JUST for the pregnancy. This doesn't count the several months & two IVF cycles before I actually became pregnant. Easy money? Hardly. You're required to jack yourself up with hormones 10x beyond their normal level via injections, pills, creams & patches. You're required to go for several ultrasounds and blood draws pre and post embryo transfer, and some surrogates have to forego sex for up for 8 weeks during cycling. Let's not forget morning sickness, stretch marks, constipation, heartburn, insomnia and that whole part where you push a human being out of your vagina, or have it surgically extracted via a giant incision in your abdomen. Either way, it's no picnic. Did I mention you have to stay on progesterone, often in the form of a rather large needle injected into your hip until 12 weeks gestation? The more I talk, the more I wonder why the heck I signed up for this. Oh wait, I remember. To help my friend do something she isn't able to do on her own. If a surrogate is only motivated by a paycheck, it is NOT worth it. You have to be getting something else out of it, at least that's my opinion.

Q 1. If it's twins, do you get to keep one? 
A. If there are twins, or 17 babies, the parents take home every single one of them.

Q 2. Do you get to name the baby?
A. No. I have absolutely no claim to the baby I am carrying. The parents get to name the baby whatever they want, but I do however get to make up a nickname. My first surrogate baby was Cletus the Fetus, which I am certain made her mother cringe. It was all in good fun though! This baby is Boudreaux, and Heather gets the credit for this one.

Q 3. Why don't they just adopt?
A. This is one that makes my blood boil a little bit. I often answer that question with this series of  questions: "Why didn't YOU adopt? Because you wanted your own genetic child? What makes you more entitled to a genetic child than anyone else?" That usually gets the point across.

Q 4. How did your husband feel about you having sex with the dad?
A. I am not kidding you, someone actually asked me this once. If you think that this is how gestational surrogacy works, I am sorry. No one has sex with anyone! The process used to impregnate a surrogate is called In-Vitro Fertilization (IVF). The only one getting any action is the Reproductive Endocrinologist who has the honor of taking the embryos from the dish & putting them into the uterus.

Q 5. Well then how DID you get pregnant?!
A. Let's elaborate on IVF. The intended mother (in this case, Heather) takes a bunch of injections to make her ovaries produce several follicles, where the eggs grow. Meanwhile, the surrogate is taking medication to suppress her ovaries, and to thicken the lining of her uterus so that the embryos can implant. Once the follicles are ready, the IM takes an injection to make her ovaries release the eggs, and 36 hours later goes under general anesthesia to have the eggs retrieved. They are then fertilized with the IF's sperm and grow for 3 to 5 days. On the day of retrieval, the surrogate begins taking progesterone, which will ensure that once the embryo implants, it stays put. Once the embryos are ready, 1 to 2 (or 6 if you're a damn nut and have an RE who is an idiot) embryos are transferred into the uterus via a teeny tiny catheter inserted into the cervix. Typically you have a blood pregnancy test 10 days later to see if it worked. Most surrogates are able to get a positive home pregnancy test by 6 days or so after the embryo transfer.

Q 6. How can you give up the baby? Won't you be sad?
A. I'm not giving "up" the baby, I'm merely giving it back. You can't "give up" something that was never yours to begin with. I won't be sad that the baby is gone, or miss the baby, but I will be a little sad that the journey is over. When I delivered my first surrogate baby in 2010, I felt such an overwhelming sense of pride, but at the same time, I was sad that it was over. It was a goal that her parents and I had been trying to get to for over a year. During that time, my life revolved around trying to get pregnant, being pregnant, looking forward to delivery... and just like that, it was all over. I had a bit of a "well, now what?" feeling. But I got over it in a couple days. It helped that my former IM and I remained friends. To this day, we still talk & it's often not even about the baby. But she frequently sends pictures, and a couple weeks ago sent a video of the baby, who will be two in a couple weeks, holding a picture of me & saying my name, then saying thank you. I can't even begin to put into words what that feels like. So though I might be sad for a few days, the lifelong joy I will get from knowing I helped bring a child into the world is more than worth it.

Q 7. How did you meet the Intended Parents?
A. Heather and I met 5 years ago when I joined TOSS (Texas & Oklahoma Surrogacy Support). I was looking for all the information I could about becoming a surrogate, and she was in the process of starting her first surrogacy journey, from which her son Abram was born. We became friends on Facebook & I followed her journey and she followed mine. When I was ready to attempt another surrogacy about a year ago, I remember telling a friend of ours that I wished Heather wanted another baby. I had a failed match with another couple, and as I was walking away from that, I posted on a Facebook group for Texas surrogates that Heather & I both belong to that I might be looking for IP's. Heather messaged me right then & said that she and her husband Brandon had just decided to try for another baby. The next day we had a good, long phone conversation about everything and a month later we had a contract. It was meant to be!

Q 8. Will you get to see the baby after it's born?
A. Yes. Heather and Brandon will likely be given their own hospital room on the maternity unit, but I am positive that they will spend time with me after delivery & let me hold the baby if I want to. Until it cries or poops, then I'm giving it back. I don't do crying or poop.

Q 9. Does your name go on the birth certificate?
A. No. We already have a pre-birth order in place, which is a legal document filed with the state of Texas stating that any child born from this arrangement will have the parents (Heather and her husband) on the birth certificate. My Brandon and I had to sign a crap ton of paperwork declaring that we have no legal rights to this child, that we agree it is not either of our DNA, etc. There is actually quite a bit of legal paperwork involved in surrogacy, I don't think most people realize that. We also have a 50-something page contract, also filed in Texas, outlining our intent. It even says I can't go skydiving! There goes my plan for Spring Break.

Q 10. Will the parents be there for the delivery? In the room? What if they see your va-jay-jay?!
A. Yes, they will be present for delivery, assuming they make it in time! The will probably stand by my head with my cash & prizes out of view. But considering there will be about 37 other doctors, nurses & an anesthesiologist in the room, I could honestly care less if Heather got a catchers mitt and stood front and center. Maybe it's just me, but this will be my 4th delivery, I've lost all modesty. How modest can you really be during childbirth anyway?


I think that just about covers it. There are a billion other silly questions we are asked, but these are the most common ones. I hope you learned something!

Moooovin' On Up!

We had our third, and likely final, blood draw today. Since our numbers didn't quite double in 48 hours last time, we wanted a third draw to see what was going on. Our beta on Wednesday was a 107, so today we needed, at minimum, a 214. And we got a 290! That puts us at a doubling time 33.06 hours from Wednesday's 106.81 to today's 290.24. And that evens out the Monday to Wednesday time of 54.76 down to 41.76. So well within that 48 hour window.

We are definitely pregnant! I have already nicknamed this baby 'Don't Rush Me' Bello.

So now we just wait until next Friday for our ultrasound to see exactly what's happening in there.

Beta #2 is in

Second beta was today, and it came back at 107. So in 47 hours, it didn't quite double. Close, but no cigar. Heather and I both worried, but our NC called to tell us that the RE wasn't concerned & left it our decision to get another beta on Friday, or wait for an u/s on the 30th. We opted to have another beta on Friday, and then set an appointment for an u/s at 11am on Nov. 30th. So, fingers & toes crossed that the number on Friday has gone up considerably.

Beta!

At 9dp5dt, our beta is 59! I go back on Wednesday morning for a repeat, and we'll see then how fast it doubles. 

Our NC called and told us that 59 is a good, solid number, and that as long as our number Wednesday is good, we will schedule an u/s. The RE wants one at 5w5d to check for placement, and then again at 7w to see a heartbeat. So we could possibly be having an u/s on November 30th!

Seeing Double

Well fancy that! That is my home pregnancy test from 6pm tonight. I've been getting much fainter lines beginning on Tuesday night, but we were hesitant to call it until this afternoon. Slowly but surely, that line is a-gettin' darker! Looks like I'm knocked up!

We still need all the thoughts, prayers & well-wishes you can send us. Our blood test is Monday morning and we'll have another one 48 hours later to make sure that the number is doubling properly. There is some standard rule about doubling times, but I can't remember what it is to save my life. Basically, in order to see that it's a healthy, viable pregnancy, the number has to double in a certain timeframe. So that first number will be a good indication of how things will go, and the second number will paint an even clearer picture. Then we have to wait 4 whole weeks from the transfer date to have an ultrasound to see just how many babies we're baking in there & check for a heartbeat/heartbeats.

I wanna thank everyone who has reached out to us, prayed for us, and let us know we are in their thoughts. I know I speak for Heather and I, and both of our Brandons, when I say that we greatly appreciate it. We are looking forward to a happy & healthy 9 months, but we know we have a few hurdles to jump over before we get there. Love y'all!

Transfer Complete!

Our transfer was scheduled Saturday morning at 10:30am. It's about a 3.5 hour drive to the clinic for me, and 4.5 hours for Heather. So needless to say, we had to get an early start. I went to bed early, about 9:45pm, and set my alarm for 6am. I woke up at 6:53. Alarm didn't go off! I yelled at Brandon that we were late and I took off to get ready. In 15 minutes I managed to get dressed, fix my hair, take all of my pills, cram the rest of our things into a bag and get breakfast to eat in the car. Brandon said I was blur the whole time, just running all over the house. Ha! 

We left town at 7:10 and my GPS said we wouldn't get to the clinic until 10:50am, but we somehow made up time and pulled in at 10:15! Heather and her mom, Brenda, arrived right after we did. We were called back to the room shortly after signing in and after I got ready, Heather and Brenda joined us in the room. We all talked and joked around for a little while until the embryologist came in to give us a picture of the babies (below) and explain the grading. They were a 4BB and 4CB. The embryologist said they were great & then started telling us about the risk of splitting and triplets... She said she tells everyone that but she didn't tell us that at the last transfer! 

The RE, Dr. Le, came in a few minutes later. We weren't expecting him, as our transfer was scheduled with Dr. Haas, but Dr. Le told us that he didn't feel right letting anyone else do the transfer. He looked at the embryos & told Heather they were beautiful embryos and he expects at 70% chance of live birth, and a 40% chance of twins. He checked out my file & told me that they grade all patients trasfers on a scale of 1-5, 1 being the easiest transfer, and 5 being the most difficult. I was graded on my past transfers and I am happy to report that I am a 1! Dr. Le was pretty happy about this too. He then went on and on about my wonderful cervix and how I was just made to give birth, and that we'd better be close to the hospital when I near my due date because this baby is just going to pop right out. We were all laughing throughout the transfer. We didn't even know he'd done it, we thought he was still doing the practice transfer and he said "That's it, the embryos are in!"

After they wheeled me down to the car, we drove across the street to the hotel & went up to our room to begin bedrest. When we walked in, I saw the HUGE basket Heather had put together for me. And I mean HUGE. It had bags of pretzels, big bags of every kind of M&M, little bags of gummy bears, Pringles, Reese's, Doritos and Sun Chips, Sprite, Gatorade, Dr Pepper, and 34 pregnancy tests! And right on top of everything, an LSU hoodie :) I felt SO spoiled!! Heather & Brenda went over to Cheddar's to pick us up some lunch and we all ate and talked for a while. They had a long drive back to Houston, so eventually they had to go. We stayed the night in the hotel & got up Sunday morning and did some Christmas shopping for the kids before heading back home.

I'm off work today as well, so I'm planning to just lay around and take it easy. I had some cramping yesterday, but it seems to be gone today. Our original plan was to wait til Wednesday night to start POAS, but Heather's bringing the peer pressure so I think it'll be Wednesday morning! I'll update as soon as we have something worth updating :)

How Many Embryos? E-'Neuf'!

In case you didn't know, neuf is French for nine. And this baby is Cajun, so expect some French words in the next neuf months. And believe me, in a few weeks you'll have to be pardoning my French when I'm cursing my heartburn!

So if you didn't pick up what I was putting down in the first paragraph, we got the embryo report. And at day 3, there are still NINE embryos growing! Seven look great & are exactly where they should be (I'm guessing they all have 6-8 cells) and the other two are growing a bit slower, but are still kickin' so we're not counting them out yet!

Holy Moly!

Away We Go!

I've done a terrible job at keeping up with this over the last 6 weeks or so, but there hasn't been too much happening until just recently. Heather had her egg retrieval on 11/5 and they were able to get 16 eggs! On Tuesday the embryologist called to let them know that 9 of those 16 had fertilized and were growing. We're eagerly awaiting the Day 3 call to tell us how many of those 9 are still growing and how they're looking. This cycle has been vastly different from our first one, and in a very good way. Last cycle, everything that could go wrong, did. There were issues with almost everything. Monitoring, conflicting schedules on important dates, the egg retrieval yielded less than stellar results for the embryos AND for Heather. There were only two embryos and we had to rush into a 3 day transfer, and then we had a chemical pregnancy. I do believe though that everything happens for a reason, and for whatever reason, we just weren't ready. I'm feeling much better about this cycle, and I think everyone involved feels the same.

I really enjoyed keeping up with my blog when I was pregnant with my first surrogacy, and I'm going to try my best to keep it up this time. I want to document everything & take a thousand pictures so that this baby's family can be as involved as possible. With my first surrogacy, my Intended Parents families all would read my blog & comment, and it was just really cool for them to be so connected. I didn't want any of them to feel like my IP's were just showing up out of the blue with a baby that was essentially a stranger. If my IM were the one who was pregnant, her parents would've known everything going on with her pregnancy, and I wanted to share as much as I possibly could. So by the time Miss T was born, her grandparents knew that she was a night owl, that she got the hiccups at least 178 times a day, and that she was very strong and active. And this baby will have 3 older siblings who will be very curious & probably want to know what's happening as well. Blogging was a great outlet for me to get all the thoughts in my head OUT. Carrying someone else's child is an amazing experience & I had to be able to put all of my thoughts and feelings in black & white.

So as helpful and neat as it was to the IP's and their family, it was just as helpful for me. I hope that makes sense. Heahter blogs as well, about pretty much everything, but she'll be blogging about the surrogacy from her perspective as well. She is an author on this blog, if she wants to pop in & share things from time to time! I will also link her blog on mine, once I remember how to do that.

 I'm gonna go get back to crossing my fingers and wishing & hoping that we get a good report on the embryos today. I'll update when I can!

Here We Go!

It's time! I start birth control pills on Sunday (seems so counterproductive to me) and Heather has her first monitoring appointment on Monday morning. I should start lupron on or about the 1st of October. Other than that, I have no idea. I'm hoping we'll know more on Monday, but I'm not going to hold my breath. I love my clinic, but this NC is super tight-lipped about everything. I'm really excited to get this show on the road!

October here we come

We got the beta results on Thursday, it was negative. I took it pretty hard, I wanted this to work so badly for Heather and Brandon. I know that they've taken it hard as well. Negative cycles are never easy, period. We will be doing another fresh cycle probably in October.

Transfer Complete!

This morning we transferred two 3-day 8-celled embryos! We have dubbed them Milo & Otis for the time being. The transfer went great, and it was wonderful to have my Brandon there with me, since he was unable to go to either of my previous two transfers. Heather and her Brandon (we need nicknames for our Brandons) were there as well, though positioned well away from all the action! The embryos looked beautiful, and I have high hopes for Milo & Otis.

The best part for me by far was finally getting to meet Heather & Brandon. I've known Heather online for years, from SMO and then on Facebook, and meeting in person was exactly how I expected it to be. I wasn't nervous, it wasn't weird... I felt like we've been friends forever! Sometimes you just 'know' when something is right, and this is one of those times. I knew before that this was the right decision, but getting to meet Heather and Brandon finally just really solidified everything for me. I'm so excited that we're doing this!

So after the transfer, Brandon drove me home, which was fun laying in the backseat for 3 hours. I've been on the couch ever since. Brandon had to go take care of something at work, so my friend Robin hung out with me for a while. She brought mini-cupcakes and we devoured them while watching old episodes of Friends. Not a bad Saturday afternoon. Now I'm just waiting for Brandon to come home so we can watch Eastbound and Down and have dinner later...much later... like after I digest 83 mini-cupcakes.

So, fingers crossed, baby dust & happy thoughts! Heather brought me 10 pregnancy tests, and I'm going to try to wait until Thursday evening before taking one. Try being the key word there.

Ivy

What's Gonna Work? Teamwork!

After delivering a beautiful baby girl for my friends K & J in December of 2010, I knew right away that surrogacy was something I wanted to do again. My life since then has taken a couple of unexpected but amazing turns, and as it's finally beginning to settle down my husband Brandon and I decided that we were ready to help complete a family. We tried a couple rounds of IVF with a couple earlier this year that didn't work, and dude to embryo issues we had to part ways. I was feeling so down and defeated, but fate works in mysterious ways. My friend Heather, whom I've known since I first started looking into surrogacy in 2009, saw on Facebook that I was looking to match with another couple and sent me a message. A couple hours on the phone later, and bam! We were matched!

It's been a couple of months now and after jumping over what seems like 238 hurdles to get here, we are finally ready! We've both been on all kinds of fun injections for a few weeks now, and Heather and HER husband Brandon are on their way now to our clinic for one more ultrasound and she should get the go-ahead to do her trigger shot and do her retrieval on Wednesday. Assuming all goes as planned, we should be transferring two embryos to me on August 13th! *fingers crossed*

Heather and I decided to team up to blog the entire pregnancy from both of our viewpoints. So check back in soon and hopefully we'll have more exciting news soon!

-Ivy