Knock on Wood

I was so mentally prepared to be patient.  Well, as prepared as someone as inherently impatient as I am could be (I was mentally making calendars of how often it would be appropriate to email my agency for updates.  I was hoping to be able to wait 2 weeks between annoying emails. 

Then, on Monday, just a few business days after my medical records were sent to the IVF clinic, they were cleared.  I was told it could take up to a month.  And then, yesterday, one day later, I get an email about a possible match.  =-O  No way!  Yes, I was checking my email obsessively, hoping, but in no way did I actually expect to have a match anytime soon.  The details are still a little vague, and there is an issue that may be a deal breaker, but I'm still waiting on their profile.  I do know they are a gay couple in China.  And THEN I get an email today, saying that they'll send the profile as soon as they receive it from their partner in China, BUT the director is meeting with another gay couple tomorrow they think may be a good match for me, so they don't want me to make any decisions until I have info on both couples!  So not only may I have one match, they may have two for me to choose from.  In my first active week!  So, at this rate, my timeline goes like this:

Last week: Patience Dance-> This week: Matched-> Next week: Pregnant-> Next month: Giving birth (vaginally) to beautiful fraternal twins, one from each IF :-P ;-)

Now, I know I'm totally jinxing myself, and I know there will be bumps and pit stops on my surrogacy journey.  That's just the nature of the beast.  And I'm mostly prepared for that.  At least I like to think I am.  But I can't help but be cautiously optimistic at this point.  I will be so thrilled if the matching goes so swiftly.  I feel like the rest of the waiting will be a little easier to deal with once I'm part of a baby-making team.

But until I get some profiles, you'd better believe I'll be checking my email like a fiend.

So, Maybe, Possibly?

My agency emailed me today about a possible match, with a possible personal hiccup involved.  I, cautiously excited, emailed back almost immediately asking for more info, and she hasn't responded yet.  Argh!  Doesn't everybody know my emails are of the highest priority, and should be responded to as soon as received.  Or sooner.  It would be better for my mental health, and help with this checking my email every 5 seconds issue I have.  :-)

So, maybe tomorrow I'll have a profile to look at?  Possibly?  Wow, this is moving way faster than I dared hope.

I Hate the Weekend

Okay, I don't really hate the weekend.  But I do prefer weekdays.  Why, you ask?  Good question, I say!  :-)

Around here, weekdays aren't that terribly different from weekends.  Kismet only goes to preschool 2 days a week, and my husband, Tony, has to work every other weekend, but gets every Thursday and Friday off.  So, especially if he's working, I sometimes forget that it's technically the weekend.

But the important thing is that many places don't conduct business on the weekends.  That means that I can't move forward on the refi of our house, and, most importantly, there's no chance I'll be getting that magical match email on a Saturday or Sunday.  Which isn't to say I'm constantly on the lookout for that special message.  But I am.  :-D  It's like waiting for something awesome you ordered online, but you didn't order from Amazon.  You know it's going to get here, eventually, but, since you didn't order from Amazon, you have no clue when it will arrive.  And everyday you think, "Will it arrive today?!"  But UPS doesn't deliver on the weekends.

But they do deliver on Mondays...maybe it will come tomorrow...but probably not.  :-)

The seed was planted...

When I was in college, I took a sociology course during which we had to do research on an adoption agency. On their website, they featured a whole section of letters, intended to be to birth mothers, from parents desperately wanting to adopt. I wanted so badly to give all of these loving, deserving people children (I also wanted to adopt all of the children on the website, but that may be a whole 'nother blog someday...). And I recalled an ad I had seen in the school paper about surrogacy, and I realized that someday, in the vague future, I could help people get the children they have been dreaming of. The seed had been planted.

To me, it's several little months out of my life. For my Intended Parents, it's changing their lives, their everydays, forever. It's hard for me to pass up a comparatively small effort on my part for such a large prize for someone. I'll be helping make a family.  I cannot wait to meet my IPs and form a relationship with them, and hear about how they've been dreaming and hoping for a child, and I can do that!  I can help make somebody's dream come true!  I feel amazingly blessed to have that opportunity.  I *cannot wait* to see my IPs hold their child(ren) for the first time.  I still treasure a picture of my husband in his first moments of fatherhood, and if I can help create that indescribable joy in others, damn straight I'm gonna do it.  I just know it's going to be an amazing experience that will forever positively impact the lives of so many.  Why wouldn't I do it?

It's a very good place to start...

The beginning, that is.  Which is what I'm calling today.  This day, whichever date it happens to be (I'm fairly certain it's a Thursday because it was Library Day), marks the official beginning of my surrogacy journey.  Granted it's not the very beginningest beginning, which I guess would be the first time I considered being a surro, nor is it the actual current beginning of my most recent foray into this little subculture.  But today is the day I start my blog, and being the visual person I am, I'm not interested in a story I can't see, so this is the official beginning of my story.

I decided to begin today as an optimistic gesture.  I'm planning (positive thinking!) for all things to flow naturally and in good time from this day, making for a blog that's easy writing and good reading.  :-)

I spoke today with my contact at my surrogacy agency who just wanted to clear up a few points on my application.  For example, I did not check the box saying I'd like to work with a straight couple, which was unique in her experience, and she just wanted to confirm.  Yup, that's correct.  I would vastly prefer to work with a gay couple at this time.  I'm staunchly pro-equal rights, and I guess this is my way of putting my uterus where my mouth is.  And what better way to ensure the future is populated by more open-minded people!  ;-)  (Which is not to say that straight people can't also be open-minded, but statistically, I feel like it's safe to say that gay people are more likely to be open-minded.)

So once we went through all of that, she said we're waiting on clearance of my medical records, but I'm more or less on the block now (Eee!).  If they happen to find a match before the clinic finishes with my records, they'll start harassing the clinic to stop dragging its collective feet.  So, right now I am officially waiting on a match.  Woot!  /me does the happy dance  Realistically, that could take anywhere from a week to several months.  /me does the happy, patient dance (That's a real thing in our house, The Patience Dance.  My kids are awesome.)

So here we are, playing the official Surro Waiting Game (patent pending).  Welcome to my surro blog, and I hope you'll join me for this journey.  Thank you so much to all of the amazing surros and IPs who have been brave enough to blog about all the numerous ups and downs involved in this process.  I've been reading them near constantly over the past few weeks and shared your joys over BFPs, sadness at failed transfers, trepidation at giant PIO needles, delight at healthy births and utter despair over lost babies.  Thank you, thank you, thank you.  Each one of you has helped prepare me for this journey, and I couldn't be more grateful.  I look forward to being a part of this community.