Yep, it's really happening!

This week has been an up and down kind of week in my world. Monday was a great day. Tuesday, not so much. Today was a great day again at least. Tuesday, although my day started sinking down hill about 7:30am, around 10:30am I got a knock on the door from the Fed Ex guy. Who knew he'd be a bright spot on a hard morning? Well, he was! Look what he brought!

That is a beautiful box of medications!!

Less than 9 hours til I take my first shot of Lupron!

(Being THIS happy about starting meds is something we (surrogates) have put on our list of "Things only a surro would say," Feel free to laugh, it's funny!)

This week Katie got her meds, too, but not without their own drama!! I'm happy she got hers too, as I think it probably makes it even more real to her, this is really happening! She also booked her tickets to come for her monitoring and egg retrieval the week before transfer and then, surprise to me! She's staying through the 24th, which if egg retrieval happens on the 19th means she might be here for transfer!! I'm so happy about that I could dance! Seriously!

Also, we were invited to a lunch with Simple Surrogacy appreciating Intended Parents and Surrogates on the 21st and I'm thrilled we'll (hopefully) get to go together while she's here! 

Tomorrow I will change the count down above to retrieval date, since it all depends on how that goes.

Thanks for reading! We're so excited if you can't tell by all the exclamation points!! Have a great night!

Beth

Flyin' by...

Well, I set a reminder to blog on Friday nights and that blew right on by me! I think I was asleep by 10:30, which has been happening fairly often for me lately. I decided that for Lent I would give up caffeine and start going to bed earlier. Without caffeine, going to bed earlier is SO easy to do! This is also helpful for me to get ready for transfer. I started weaning off caffeine the Sunday before Ash Wednesday, so tonight marks 3 weeks since I've had any significant amount of caffeine. Other than some sleepiness in the afternoons I feel like I'm doing great!

In other news, we got our calendar this week! Seems like it was a long time coming! I added everything into my Google Calendar as soon as I could after we got it. I know April 24 seems like so far away, but when I was putting everything in, it really didn't seem so far away anymore.

3-22 Start 10 units of Lupron per day,
3-28 Stop BCP
4-2 Blood work and Ultrasound, Start Oral Estrace 1x per day,
4-7 Estrace 2x per day,
4-10 Estrace  3x per day,
4-16 Blood work and Ultrasound

Everything after that is tentative and based on Katie's cycle and retrieval, but following the blood work on 4-16 we should know when I will start the PIO injections.

So being that it is March 11, there are currently 11 days remaining until I get "Lupy" and 44 days until April 24.

Today was a get together for a couple other surrogates and myself, we went to On the border for dinner. I had a great night! I love when I get to hang out with other surrogates in person! I hope we can do it again soon, one of them doesn't live far from where I'm at while the boys are in therapy every day. This week is spring break for my kids, and other than a few play dates and therapy, we don't have much planned. I hope to get some housework done and relax as much as possible.

I hope you have a wonderful week! Be blessed!
Beth

What a week!

This week has been crazy! Roller coaster crazy!

Monday and Tuesday it was all about getting the contracts nailed down. Wednesday evening I received the contract via e-mail. Thursday was a whirlwind I'd rather not re-hash! Suffice it to say, at the end of the very long, crazy, head spinning round and round day- the contract was on it's way to Katie's lawyer via overnight FedEx.

In the middle of all the head-spinning, AF decided to peek her little head in the door just to say hi. 3 days early. It wasn't much but it was there, and there was a little more of it today. I expect her full fledged visit tomorrow.

This morning the legal clearance for us to start with the clinic was sent over to them, and we both called them to stay on top of things. I knew yesterday, that even with all the running around I had done, this was probably going to happen. But I was still disappointed when they said our cycle needed to be pushed back. Not far, but still, the first week of April I had nothing going on, we were excited the due date was before Christmas... plus it was *that* much closer to now!

We are looking at transferring around April 23. Not too shabby, still in April. It does mean there probably won't be a baby under the tree for Katie and family, but hey January is a good month for a baby, too :) We were joking about there not being another little tax deduction for them this year, too.

So as of today that's really the only news- contracts are done and we have a date. They're supposed to e-mail me a calendar soon, but I'm going to guess that will probably come in a week or two. Katie should be getting soon or already gotten her calendar as well.

As much as I'm needlessly disappointed, really, about the date push-back, I am thrilled that we can just keep getting to know each other for that much longer and have some fun while we wait. I think I have one of the best IMs around and if I have to wait, she's a great person to have to wait with :)

Alright, I'm getting back to work. I have a cake-pop order this weekend to attend to this evening. Have a great weekend!

Update

Sorry for leaving you hanging! I haven't really been around enough to do an update!

Wednesday I drove to Fort Worth for the mock transfer (they just practice where they would place an embryo in my uterus, sans embryo, for the mock) and hysteroscopy (kind of like a colonoscopy, but in the uterus). It went really great. The only rotten thing was that they couldn't even show me a calendar because our contracts aren't signed yet. I think so far, this is the one major difference between working independently and with an agency-- my time frame is not their time frame. The agency requires that the contracts be signed and in their hands before we even get to "discuss" dates- although we do know and they know we are wanting to work toward a first week of April transfer. So other than tell me about the meds I'll be taking and discussing bed rest afterward, there wasn't much for us to talk about.

When I got home I did have a little pain from the hysteroscopy that I don't remember having the other times I've had the hysteroscopy. It wasn't bad, just definitely there, if you know what I mean.

That afternoon we received a call from a psychologist saying we had to do a social interview, one hour with my husband and one hour with me, over the phone... Psych Eval. I was kind of taken aback because nobody contacted me to let me know this guy would be calling, as I had assumed they would use Wendy's eval from last year as well as the MMPI. Thankfully I don't have to re-take the MMPI this time at least. They both went alright. I think one always gets nervous during a psych eval for this stuff. I mean, the guy is deciding whether he thinks you can do this great thing based on asking you about traumatic life events and such in a one hour conversation, not to mention you have never spoken to the man before so he really has only this one hour to go by. So anyway, we were needlessly nervous, of course, and passed.

Now it's time to get these contracts on the move. Since Katie and I had already discussed what we wanted to see changed in the contract, this part should be fairly simple. It would have gone a little quicker if the lawyer hadn't made them sit on their hands for a week to talk to her, but oh well, that part's over and now we're hopefully almost there. Hopefully the lawyer will have everything ready and sent to my lawyer today some time.

I hope I will have an update soon that says contracts are signed and on their way to the hands of the agency and the clinic!

Today my hubby had two have two teeth removed in emergency oral surgery, so I'm off to take care of him.

Have a great weekend!

Tomorrow, tomorrow...

Tomorrow.....it's less than a day away :)

Tomorrow morning I head over to Fort Worth to do my hysteroscopy and mock transfer. So far my body is following all instructions. I think the birth control pill helps with that, or something, right? Just kidding, it does.

Over the past couple weeks I have so enjoyed getting to know Katie over e-mail! I think she missed her calling... I think she was meant to be a stand-up comedian! I look forward to her emails not only because of the "getting to know you" factor, but because she always has something funny in her emails that makes me laugh, makes me have to show it to DH or to tell a friend what funny quote it was this time.

We're also trying to get contracts going, which is hard for us because we know what we want but we have to wait on those darn lawyers! But that should change this week and hopefully we'll have a contract that is near ready soon.

This week I started a new pre-natal pill, instead of the daily vitamins I had been taking every morning... and I started taking both at night instead of in the morning or during the day. I figured out that the BCP had been giving me headaches, so I switched that to night to see if it would help, which it did, some. Then I switched to the pre-natal and started taking it at night when I take the BCP and let me tell you-- the difference is astronomical. Maybe the BCP just needed the extra dose of vitamins with it to work with my body better. I dont know what it is, but I'm definitely grateful not to have those stinking headaches!

Anyway, before I get all sappy, since I'm incredibly tired, I'll end this with an excited Hoorah!! We might just have this ball rolling soon!

Will update tomorrow night! Have a great "hump-day"!

Hello, April!

Well... first things first. Isn't it JUST like my body to decide to change it up only when I'm expecting things to go a certain way on a certain day?? That's just what my body did today. I can usually pinpoint my AF down to the day in any given month. But plan a doctor's appointment that necessitates NOT being on AF, and there she comes 3 days early! That's what I woke up to, today!

I freaked out for a few minutes and then called the clinic to make sure I wasn't making a wasted drive. They assured me all was well and to come in as scheduled. Woot!

So I made the drive and then when I went back and they asked about AF I learned they could do part of my screening today but that I will have to go back on Feb 22 for a hysteroscopy, mock transfer, and "teaching." (I don't expect the teaching part to go long, probably more of a discussion about our calendar.) I had my bloodwork drawn up and had a sono to verify everything was good and voila, she said the P word I heard last time. I'm not going to get near as excited as I did last cycle-time, but it was nice to hear, I'll admit.

And WOW was this nurse good at drawing blood. It was altogether painless! Can I take her with me to ALL my blood draws?

From the ultrasound room we went to the office to chat and the first thing they asked was when we would like to transfer. Well I know when we hope for, but I was going to leave it up to Katie to decide, so I texted Katie. I think she may have been just a teeny bit excited enough not to know that I was asking her for a date that was good for her. I think her head was possibly spinning round and round. Eventually she said she'd talk to the clinic, IF, and SS and get back to me. Then a little while later I got an email letting me know that it looks like we'll be shooting for the first week of April!

I'm excited, and I know Katie is excited! I'm feeling very blessed that we can work together, and very hopeful. Can't wait to update again soon and let you know that we're starting contracts! That should be sometime this week. Til then, Have a great week!

Beth

Just for kicks...

I don't have much to update on but that I am still having a great time getting to know my new IM! Today I talked with Stephanie at Simple Surrogacy and got to go over some smaller details with her and make sure we were on the same track and everything was good. It was a very good conversation and I came away from it very pleased with my decision to work with them.

Anyway, so I wanted to share this picture with you! Last week when we met for dinner, we tried to take pictures inside, but my camera on my phone was the only one with a flash- and it was dead! So before we left we went outside (brrrr!) and plugged it in to my car and my husband took a really quick shot from just outside the driver's side door of us. We're cold so our teeth are chattering a bit haha....

Without further adieu, meet my new IM, Katie! (on the left side)

I think this is going to be an AWESOME journey! In the words of Miss Katie up there, "Let's make a baby!" *giggle*