Almost There!

Tomorrow, tomorrow, we leave tomorrow! And the day after tomorrow, I'm getting knocked up, folks. :-D So excited!

Just about finished packing, and here are a few things that were on my shopping list:
-Hair dye (Had to dye my hair a color that I can grow out without it being too obvious)
-Pineapple (There's a theory eating pineapple the night before transfer can be helpful)
-Life Cereal (Silly tradition from last transfer, ya know, to help create life or whatever)
-Lucky transfer socks (Since my feet will be on display in the stirrups)
-Wine (For Tony, Chris and Keith at our after transfer pajama party)
-Kindle and laptop (To help keep us busy during 48 hours of bed rest)

Sunday I started progesterone injections. Wanna see?
First progesterone shot The shots are going well. They hurt very little during the actual injection, and are just sore the next day, despite the heating pad and massage we do afterwards. I had a weird, but not unheard of experience the other day when, directly after a practically painless shot, my throat hurt all of a sudden and I got a strange taste in my mouth. Fortunately I'd heard of this happening to other girls before, so while it was freaky, it wasn't terribly worrying.

Had a minor freakout yesterday when I almost singlehandedly ruined transfer. We're working with HRC Fertility, so I had looked up my doctor and read that he works out of the West L.A. office, so I assumed that's where the transfer would occur, and I'm basing all my planning and hotel and everything off of that address. It wasn't until I told the guys what hotel we were staying at did it come up that we're transferring at the Encino office. So very glad that came up before we showed up at the wrong office on Friday. Today I did see on my instruction sheet where it said ENC, but I had thought that was doctor speak I just wasn't reading correctly. :-P

40 hours and counting! :-D

All Systems Go!

Wrote this Saturday and didn't get a chance to post it, so pretend it's still Saturday. :-D

Yesterday was my final monitoring appointment, and it is official, everything looks good, our embryo transfer is officially next Friday, August 22! My lining is a nice 9.3mm, with the triple stripe (triple stripe, or, in medical speak, trilinear pattern is when the walls of the uterus ate so thick they touch in the middle, and it looks like three stripes), which seems to be super important. You know you're a surro when you see the triple stripe before the tech mentions it. :-) I didn't ask about my estrogen numbers, but my nurse says they look good as well, so yay! At Monday's appointment, my lining was measuring 6.8mm, so that's a nice increase and my uterus should be extra fluffy in another week.

Tomorrow night we start the progesterone, which I have mixed feelings about. On one hand, it's a shot, and, in addition to the soreness the next day, it's just a bit of a pain in the butt to get it all ready and everything. Funnily enough, it's starting progesterone that is an impetus for me buying a new microwave. Ours broke several months ago, and we haven't really missed it, but I have a heating pad that you have to microwave, and, whether it helps or not, I always put heat on my injection site (and massage) afterwards. And it's cheaper to buy a (secondhand) microwave than an electric heating pad. :-)

And then, Thursday, we leave home for transfer! Eeeeee! Tony and I will drive down, because the travel time (driving to the airport, checking in, flying, blah, blah) either way is almost the same. And this way we'll have our car with us. Since we're talking just under 5 hours drive time, it's a much better idea for us to arrive the night before in order to be on time on Friday. And then, I believe our transfer is around noon on Friday, and then I'm on strict bed rest for the next 48 hours (feet up, only getting up to pee, pretty much). Pajama party in our room! :-D And then Tony and I will head home Sunday. And then we have to wait until August 29 for the beta test, which is a blood test which tests for hcg. Pretty much anything over 0 indicates some level of pregnancy, but I think we'll be looking for a number higher than 30.

Now, the hardest part. Making it through the next several days until transfer, and then until beta, without my head exploding. Eeeeeee!

Watch out, I'm taking hormones!

With my last journey, I took both my estrogen and progesterone via injection, and the only side effect I recall was the inevitable soreness that comes from shoving a bunch of hormones suspended in oil into your muscle everyday for three months. I even avoided the weight gain a lot of women experience while on meds (don't hate me too much; I more than make up for it once I get pregnant).

This time around I'm having a bit of a different experience. It seems like the estrogen is making me just a tiny bit crazy-pants. :-D I was aware that I was feeling a bit more stressed out than usual, but I just blamed it on jetlag and our broken down van and trying to get Kismet back into the swing of school. And then I almost lost it over a pair of stained jeans. I'm usually a pretty even keel type person, but we're talking almost full-fledged tearful breakdown over dirty laundry. It wasn't until the next morning when I thought, "Gosh, that was a *bit* of an overreaction." And then I thought, "Hey, hormones!" I was so excited that I wasn't really a raging bitch. Or at least I've got a good excuse for feeling like one. :-) I'm definitely still feeling a lot grumpier and shorter than usual, but it's a lot easier to keep myself in check now that I'm more self-aware, and I like to think my body's getting used to the influx of estrogen. Hopefully I'll be able to deal with the 50% increase in dosage today. :-D

I'm currently sitting in the waiting room, waiting for my monitoring appointment. That includes a transvaginal ultrasound to check if my uterine lining is responding to the meds and a blood test to check on my estrogen levels now that I've been on it for almost a week. It should be a quick appointment once they call me back (I was anticipating traffic that didn't occur and got here a half hour early), and hopefully we'll get the results this afternoon. And then, when everything looks peachy keen, I believe we get the go-ahead to officially make travel plans for transfer. Woot woot!

Super enjoying our burgeoning relationship with Chris and Keith. I love how involved they want to be with everything that goes on on my side, and how involved they want me to be on their side. It really feels like a team effort.

Despite the fact that I am, of course, not actually pregnant yet, because of the weird way pregnancy is tracked (counting from the first day of the last period, and not from fertilization), I am sort of kind of 1 week 1 day pregnant today, based on our transfer date. :-)

It's Meds Arrival Day!

Today, arriving just in time for IF Keith's birthday, is our first, real, tangible proof this is really happening. Meds are here! Never in my life would I have imagined I'd be practically giddy over a box of needles, hormones, vitamins and antibiotics. But they're here, and I start them tomorrow! Yay!

This protocol is a little different than last time. We're doing a frozen embryo transfer like we did before, so I don't have to do Lupron. Tomorrow I start the estrogen to start plumping up my uterine lining. Last time it was one shot every three days. This time it's 2-3 pills everyday. So that part is a little easier. Slightly unfortunately (it's not a terribly big deal), we'll still have to do progesterone shots everyday, but that doesn't start until about 5 days before transfer. And I'll also start the antibiotics (prophylactic) at that time. And maybe some steroids? I gotta check out my box again. As a matter of fact, I'm going to go organize it all right now. Alas, no valium this time. ;-)

It's hard to believe, but as long as my body cooperates, and there's no reason for me to believe it won't, we will be transferring in 18 days! That's right, transfer is on August 22! I may be a little excited and might have bought a pregnancy test already. :-D It's real now. Meds start tomorrow, countdown mode to transfer, let's make Chris and Keith a baby!

How a 2.5 hour delay almost turned into a week (or more) setback

Posting this unedited, as is (written on July 31), so I can get to work on my next post. See if you can find the super important piece of information amid all my whining:

While I won't post this until we've confirmed our transfer date, I'm currently writing having just boarded our plane back to the U.S.

We woke up this morning at 6:00 in order to be at the airport in time for our 11:00 flight. The travel time between our accommodations and the airport was only about 30 minutes. But a variety of circumstances (mostly out of our hands, I'm proud to say) meant we didn't get to our gate until 12:00. So I guess it's a mixed blessing that our flight was delayed. Two and a half hours. Which is a general bummer, but nothing we can't deal with, being pretty good at rolling with the punches. But that causes further issues, because our connection in Miami is two hours. So the likelihood of us making that is pretty darn slim at this point.

So, double bummer. Especially because they're saying they can't get us on another flight to San Francisco today, and we'll have to stay the night in Miami. As much as we'd like to be home, we're not terribly averse to a little addendum to our adventure. BUT I have an appointment for an ultrasound tomorrow morning. And based on the results of this ultrasound, I'm supposed to be starting meds in anticipation of an August 22. If I miss this appointment, it's likely they won't schedule another one until the following Friday, at the earliest, as I was told they like to do transfers on Fridays, and that works out best for our schedule.

Needless to say, I'm motivated to make this appointment. I politely expressed that desire to the airline agent, and they found one seat on a flight from Miami to San Francisco tonight. But that means leaving Tony and the kids in Miami while I go on by myself. I'm almost certainly going to take the flight if it comes down to it, but I'm not keen on the idea of leaving my family on the other side of the country for a night.

Almost totally ready to go

Last Thursday was my sonohysterogram. This is a procedure wherein a doctor uses a catheter to insert saline into my uterus, and then, via transvaginal ultrasound, they check out my uterus in all it's splendor.

Usually this procedure takes place in the RE's office. Our RE is down in L.A., which is a 5 hour drive, so they were kind enough to let me get the procedure done locally. After a little bit of effort, I found a place just 20 minutes away that could do it. When I checked in, they didn't have the billing information on file. This is something that was supposed to be taken care of ahead of time by my agency, so both the receptionist and I called around to our various contacts to see what was going on. The receptionist had clearly never dealt with a situation like this, and seemed to keep lowering her voice whenever she'd mention "surrogacy" on the phone. It's okay, dude. I'm not ashamed and it's not a secret. I finally got ahold of my finance lady, and it turns out she had taken care of out previously, the imaging place just hadn't made proper note of it. So, yay.

Now, if you're squeamish about, ya know, vaginas, feel free to skip over the rest of this paragraph. :-) So, I'm all set up in the stirrups, ready to go, and the doctor comes in, and she applies some lube or something. And at first it's nice and cool. And then it starts to burn. First a little, then a lot. And I have this running commentary in my head: "Ooooo, cold. Oh, that's uncomfortable. Oh, oh, burning, it's burning. That is not good. Is it supposed to feel like that? Am I being a wuss? Does it feel like this for everyone? This is definitely burning. Should I say something? Am I allergic? Is this worth complaining about? I mean, if it always feels like this, I don't want to be whiny, but what if they're ruining my lady parts?! Does it look as red as it feels?! If so, can't they tell something's not right?" But by the time I had decided to say something, the burning had subsided, and I'm glad to report nothing was ruined.

With the exception of the above and literally a few seconds of mild cramps, the procedure isn't bothersome. The most annoying part was that the performing doctor was not my RE, so I had to wait until Tuesday for my RE to get the images and review and approve them. There's always that irrational fear that something will be wrong, at every step. But I'm pleased to say my uterus has a stamp of approval.

Tuesday I also spoke with my nurse at the RE's office, and we went over my medical history (yet again), and she told me about their med protocol. Since we'll be doing a frozen transfer (as opposed to fresh, where I would have to sync my cycle with an egg donor, and then the eggs would be fertilized and grown out 3-5 days, then transferred. With a frozen transfer, they do everything but transfer, all without me, and then freeze the embryos. When I'm ready to go, they'll thaw 'em and transfer them into my nice cozy uterus.), I already get to avoid the Lupron shot, which seems to be almost exclusively used with fresh transfers, and my new RE does estrogen pills instead of shots, so the only I'll have to be shooting up will be progesterone. But I assure you, that will be plenty. That one is a literal pain in the ass. :-D We talked about getting started on cycling once we get back (Did I mention we're going to Europe? Like, literally right now. I'm in a plane, on airplane mode, composing this. Six hours down, about 13 more to go. And we'll be gone the rest of the month! Woot woot! But, anyway, back to surrogacy. :-D ), and yesterday, before we left, I was able to schedule my baseline ultrasound for the day after we return. They said it has to happen in the morning, so I have it scheduled for 10:30. The office is about an hour away from my house. And this happens the morning after I return from an international flight, probably not getting home until 1:00am. I assured the receptionist. I'd be there. Miserable, but present. :-)

We were also met with a minor unexpected hurdle on Monday. Every surro agreement that I've ever heard of involves a life insurance policy for the surro, ya know, in case of shit. I have never heard of surros having to complete a special physical to be eligible, but that turned out to be the case this time (surprise!). The lawyers received our notarized contract, and gave the insurance underwriter the go-ahead, and she emailed me Monday mentioning the physical and that somebody would be calling me in a few days to schedule that, and I'll want to get it done ASAP. I emailed her back immediately explaining that, if they want it done anytime soon, it would have to be Wednesday. And bless her, she made it happen. Wednesday morning a nurse came to my house to review my medical history (again, in-depth; no I don't remember what month it was when I was diagnosed with mild allergy induced asthma when I was 12. How's April sound? April is a good month.), weigh me, take my blood pressure, make me pee in a cup and draw my blood. It's a good thing I don't eat breakfast first thing, because somebody failed to mention I was supposed to be fasting. So good thing that worked out. And the insurance lady continued to be on the ball, and Wednesday afternoon sent me a travel form, which I filled out and returned, lickety-split.

So that's that. I believe I got all my surro business, at least, 95% wrapped up (insurance lady made it sound like she might need me to sign some things or something) before we left the country. I tell ya, I think it's damn near a record. Chris and Keith were mad on the ball with the legal side, and I was chomping at the bit to get medical all done; between the three of us, we rocked the pre-baby-making business. We should be all ready to start on the fun stuff once I'm back stateside.

Speaking of the future daddies, last Wednesday the kids and I got to had to the City to have dinner at their house. The kids and I had a great time, and Kismet was just about ready to move in: "I'm just going to go lay down in the guest room for a while." I'm really looking forward to our families continuing to cultivate our relationships throughout this journey.

And then...?

Yesterday the guys got their copy of the contract notarized, and I'm eagerly awaiting our copy so we can make that shit legit! :-D It took an extra day or so to get the finalized version because I got a little finicky and requested 2 changes to an already super awesome contract which apparently confused our lawyers a bit and caused a bit of miscommunication on the legal side, but we got it all straightened out. I think it might be a bit annoying to everyone else involved that the guys and I have such excellent communication, because the outside parties can't blame any hang-ups or setbacks on each of us to the other. ;)

Yesterday I also scheduled my sonohysterogram (or hysterosonogram, according to one office I called; it's a procedure where they put saline in the uterus and do an ultrasound to make sure everything looks pristine in there). I was surprised when I called up Tuesday to schedule it and the nurse at the RE's office (in LA) said we could try and find a local place to do it. I thought for sure I'd have to go down to the RE's office for this part, which almost certainly would have been an out and back in one day journey, which is a little tiring, so I was more than happy to entertain the option of doing it locally. Except the place they referred me to yesterday doesn't do that procedure. So I called several different places, some of which did not perform the procedure and some which did, but couldn't schedule me soon enough. One that I called, just about 25 minutes away, told me that they could only do it if I was on certain days of my menstrual cycle, while the nurse at my RE's office said that I could have it done at any time because I'm on the pill (I'm lucky I'm a repeat surro and I knew that this procedure usually has to happen at a certain time; several weeks ago I asked my counselor how that would work and she reached out to the RE's office and they told me to start the pill so our timing would be more open since we're in a little bit of a hurry at the moment). So I told the RE's office about this place, and they talked to them, and then the nurse told me to call the place up and schedule my appointment, telling them that today is the first day of my cycle. I guess they know what they're doing. So we're all scheduled to shove some salt water up into my uterus on Thursday and take some pictures.

And that, my friends, is the last box we need to check before I get to start poking myself and then get knocked up. And we're looking to do that in August. Because of this whole awesome Europe trip we have planned for pretty much the whole month of July. :-D But after we return stateside, it's baby-making time!

It's interesting how different agencies have different schedules for getting all this pre-game stuff done. I was a little thrown this time by the way our agency does the medical portion. Not that it's bad, just different, and I kept needing clarification on when we were wrapping medical screenings up. One advantage is that, previously, I had to go down to LA for psych and med screenings, and it looks like we'll only be heading down there for transfer this time 'round.
Agency #1-Paperwork, match meeting, psych and full medical screening, (hypothetically, I never got farther than passing the screenings), contract, meds and then transfer.
Agency #2-Paperwork, psych and full medical screening, match meeting, lawyer retainer paperwork, contract, meds, transfer
Agency #3(our agency)-Paperwork (including lawyer retainer), initial medical screening (by my doctor), psych screening, blood work, match meeting, contract, final medical (sonohysterogram), meds, transfer