The Lupron shots have been a breeze. I really haven't had any side effects. DH thinks I have been a little grouchy, but I think he has been a little grouchy between DD not sleeping normally and work stressing him out. Who knows. Either way, not too bad:o)
Last Thursday (the 2nd), I took my last BCP. AF graced me with her pesence Monday and I had my second monitoring appointment Tuesday. My endometrium (uterine lining) measured 2 mm, which was perfect, since it was shedding. The nurse called Tuesday afternoon and told me I was clear to start Estrogen support and vitamins. Estrogen support consists of Estrace (a pill taken orally) twice a day and an Intramuscular (IM) Delestrogen injection every third day (starting yesterday). The Estrogen is used to thicken my lining for transfer. The vitamins are a prenatal thrice daily plus DHA, Folate and another once per day. The injection wasn't bad at all. It took a little figuring out because you use one, bigger needle to withdraw the medication from the vial into the syringe (because the medication is thicker), then you switch needles to a smaller one for the injection. I will try to take pictures of the needles for my next post, so you can see what is going into my poor booty.
I have my next monitoring appointment Tuesday. They will check my lining and Estrodiol level. The goal is for my lining to be 10 mm or more and show a triple stripe by transfer. Possibly by my appointment, but I will have time if it isn't there yet.
Thursday, August 9, 2012
Monday, July 30, 2012
Cycle Calendar
The last 2 weeks have been a little crazy. Before we left on vacation, I got my box of meds!
I had my first monitoring appointment this morning, which involved a blood draw to check my Estrodiol (E2) level and a vaginal ultrasound to check my uterine lining, ovaries and follicles. The Dr. and staff were pretty nice and I really love that it is so close to my house:D I should hear from the nurse this evening to start Lupron. It is a very small needle, injected sub-cutaneously into the fat of the lower belly. Lupron is used to supress my naturally-ocurring hormones, so they can be controlled through the meds and to prevent ovulation. Hopefully, Lupron will take it easy on me:o) I have my next monitoring appointment next Tuesday, the 7th.
We have a projected egg retrieval date of August 24th, which would give us a 3 day transfer on Aug 27 or 5 day transfer on Aug 29. Of course that date is dependent on how the ED (mostly her) and I respond to meds. I start a week earlier than she does, so I am ready to go whenever she is.
Saturday, we enjoyed a "Skype date" with our IPs. It was awesome to get to talk to them in that casual setting and they got to "meet" our daughter!
I will leave you with a picture of my sweet girl from our vacation to San Diego. I think she loves the beach almost as much as her daddy does:o)
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Things are Moving
We got the final draft of the contract tonight, so after we initial the heck out of it and sign it, that is done! The ED is med and legal cleared and our legal clearance should be sent out this week!
This week I had to get a blood test to see if I have enough immunity for Hep B and, of course, my number was 9 when it needs to be greater than 10:( No biggee really, I just had to go get a single dose booster and we are good to go (though for a few hours I thought I was going to have to get the accelerated version with all 3 doses in 21 days):)
Hopefully we will get our cycle calendars very soon, which means shots will be right around the corner. I don't know exactly when, but I expect it will be sometime the last week of July! Surrogates have got to be some of the few people that get excited and want to celebrate the start of daily injections;o)
We will be on vacation that week, but hopefully the Lupron (which I think is the first thing I do) won't make me feel too cruddy. As I start the meds, I will try to get and provide here the purpose of each drug.
We also have a Skype date with R and T after we get back, so that should be fun:o)
Hopefully I will have more news soon!
This week I had to get a blood test to see if I have enough immunity for Hep B and, of course, my number was 9 when it needs to be greater than 10:( No biggee really, I just had to go get a single dose booster and we are good to go (though for a few hours I thought I was going to have to get the accelerated version with all 3 doses in 21 days):)
Hopefully we will get our cycle calendars very soon, which means shots will be right around the corner. I don't know exactly when, but I expect it will be sometime the last week of July! Surrogates have got to be some of the few people that get excited and want to celebrate the start of daily injections;o)
We will be on vacation that week, but hopefully the Lupron (which I think is the first thing I do) won't make me feel too cruddy. As I start the meds, I will try to get and provide here the purpose of each drug.
We also have a Skype date with R and T after we get back, so that should be fun:o)
Hopefully I will have more news soon!
Thursday, June 7, 2012
Onward and Upward
Since the official match a few things have happened. We have started communication with the IFs (R and T), agreed on a transfer window and signed the legal retainer.
Since we kinda missed out on the getting to know you, casual part of the match meeting, I was really excited to get contact information and think about how we can develop our relationship with the guys from so far away. When I first started this blog, I did a Getting to Know Me post. I thought it would be fun for DH, R and T to answer the questions, as an ice breaker, of sorts. It ended up being a really fun way to find out a little bit about each other, even if they are silly, trivial facts:o)
I also gave R and T the address for my blog and asked them how they felt about it. As you can see, they OKed the use of their first initials, but are very private people, so I will respect that and limit the specific information about them:o)
While we wait for the fun to begin, we hope to have a couple of Skype dates, since we all agree that the more comfortable we are with each other on Transfer Day, the better it will be.
In my last post, I mentioned that I thought we would be aiming for a late July/early August transfer, but as R and T looked at their August calendar, between work, personal stuff and those silly olympics (;o)), August wasn't looking so flexible, which is what the transfer window will be. So, they asked us if we would be OK with shooting for early September. Honestly, that was better for us anyways, as DH is taking the PE (the big engineers' licensing test) April 12th, 2013. A July 27th egg retrieval would have given us a singleton due date of April 19th. We could have made it work, but it would not have been ideal. After GG talked to the ED, we bumped it up a smidge, to the last week of August, since she is in school and September would not have worked for her. Overall, I was super thrilled with the way this discussion took place. R and T asked us first, before taking it to GG and GG contacted me to make sure I was in the loop, so it was double information, but WAY better than no information and those open lines of communication among all involved are what will make this successful:o) We have a vacation planned for mid-late October, so hopefully, we will be able to work around that. The slightly earlier date is actually better for that, and should have me delivering after hubby takes his test, even if it is twins.
We have officially started the legal part (the surrogate agreement/contract). I expect this to be a lot of hurry up, wait, hurry up, wait. When the ball is in our court we will hurry up, read, ask questions and when it is in the IFs court, we will sit and wait and wonder. This whole process is very fascinating to me. I am very curious to see this agreement, how long it is and what it includes. There are so many moving parts and it is amazing how it all comes together to create such a miracle!
DH and I celebrated our 8 year wedding Anniversary this week! I feel like I haven't included enough pictures in my blog, so I will leave you with a couple from that beautiful day, 8 years ago!
Since we kinda missed out on the getting to know you, casual part of the match meeting, I was really excited to get contact information and think about how we can develop our relationship with the guys from so far away. When I first started this blog, I did a Getting to Know Me post. I thought it would be fun for DH, R and T to answer the questions, as an ice breaker, of sorts. It ended up being a really fun way to find out a little bit about each other, even if they are silly, trivial facts:o)
I also gave R and T the address for my blog and asked them how they felt about it. As you can see, they OKed the use of their first initials, but are very private people, so I will respect that and limit the specific information about them:o)
While we wait for the fun to begin, we hope to have a couple of Skype dates, since we all agree that the more comfortable we are with each other on Transfer Day, the better it will be.
In my last post, I mentioned that I thought we would be aiming for a late July/early August transfer, but as R and T looked at their August calendar, between work, personal stuff and those silly olympics (;o)), August wasn't looking so flexible, which is what the transfer window will be. So, they asked us if we would be OK with shooting for early September. Honestly, that was better for us anyways, as DH is taking the PE (the big engineers' licensing test) April 12th, 2013. A July 27th egg retrieval would have given us a singleton due date of April 19th. We could have made it work, but it would not have been ideal. After GG talked to the ED, we bumped it up a smidge, to the last week of August, since she is in school and September would not have worked for her. Overall, I was super thrilled with the way this discussion took place. R and T asked us first, before taking it to GG and GG contacted me to make sure I was in the loop, so it was double information, but WAY better than no information and those open lines of communication among all involved are what will make this successful:o) We have a vacation planned for mid-late October, so hopefully, we will be able to work around that. The slightly earlier date is actually better for that, and should have me delivering after hubby takes his test, even if it is twins.
We have officially started the legal part (the surrogate agreement/contract). I expect this to be a lot of hurry up, wait, hurry up, wait. When the ball is in our court we will hurry up, read, ask questions and when it is in the IFs court, we will sit and wait and wonder. This whole process is very fascinating to me. I am very curious to see this agreement, how long it is and what it includes. There are so many moving parts and it is amazing how it all comes together to create such a miracle!
DH and I celebrated our 8 year wedding Anniversary this week! I feel like I haven't included enough pictures in my blog, so I will leave you with a couple from that beautiful day, 8 years ago!
Monday, May 14, 2012
Houston, We Have a Match!
That's right, you read correctly! We got the e-mail this morning that the guys liked us and want to move forward, so we are officially matched. Now we get to start a relationship with these great guys and help them welcome a baby or babies into their family! Now comes the part where we hammer out all of the details, and, hopefully, we will be ready to have a July Med Start and August Transfer:o)
Friday, May 11, 2012
Match Meeting
So, we had our match meeting this morning via video conference call. It went really well! I felt like we were just starting to get comfortable and the meeting was over:o( Hopefully it was just the first of MANY conversations/meetings. We got a little more information about their families and future plans. They really seem like they want to be involved in the pregnancy, which is the important part to me:o) We also talked quite a bit about communication which is the foundation of this process and its success. Hopefully, we will have a significant amount of time to hang out with them when we all go to LA for the transfer in a couple of months (assuming they liked us and want to move forward)! So, here we are again- did they like us? Hopefully they decide quickly and maybe we will hear something today, otherwise it will probably be Monday. Boo! Fingers crossed:o) If they want to move forward, the next step will be legal, (another hurry up and wait process) but one step closer to making a baby(ies) for this wonderful couple:o) We also took Haley next door to daycare for the first time, while we had our meeting. We have only left her with my parents so far. She did great (as we knew she would):o) She is such an easy-going little girl and I love that:o) I think DH was a little nervous about leaving her with a "stranger". It was pretty cute;o)
Monday, April 30, 2012
1 Step Closer to a Match
Tuesday the IPs got our profile and we found out that one of them was out of town, so they were going to need through the weekend to sit down and discuss it. So, we spent the week anxiously waiting for Monday. This morning, our Client Services Coordinator, Lacey (who will be our go to GG person for the rest of this journey) called. When the phone rang, I totally got butterflies because, even though I think I am a pretty good catch (in surrogate terms), I was still nervous that maybe they wouldn't like us.
The good news is, they LIKED us! They want to meet us! Then she proceeded to tell me that we would have to do the match meeting via video conference call because the guys are in London. Then, she told me they just moved there and will be there for a few years. Bummer, but no biggee:o) One of the things I liked was that it seemed like they wanted to be pretty involved. Does this change that? Will they still be here for the transfer? 20 week ultrasound? any other times? Why did they move? What do they do for a living? The questions were flying through my mind. I asked Lacey a couple of them and can ask the guys when we have our meeting. It was just a shift in our thinking. We had SoCal and all of the things that would mean in our head. A few things will be different, but hopefully most of the journey will be unchanged. Lacey told me that the guys are required to meet us in person before the transfer, which is good. It could be a month from now, it could be in conjunction with the transfer, but we will meet them in person:o) Hopefully, we will be able to schedule the "Match Meeting" for sometime next week. I am sure this is just the first of at least a few things that won't go exactly as planned. Good thing I am flexible. We have always wanted to go to London, maybe this will be a good excuse:o)
The good news is, they LIKED us! They want to meet us! Then she proceeded to tell me that we would have to do the match meeting via video conference call because the guys are in London. Then, she told me they just moved there and will be there for a few years. Bummer, but no biggee:o) One of the things I liked was that it seemed like they wanted to be pretty involved. Does this change that? Will they still be here for the transfer? 20 week ultrasound? any other times? Why did they move? What do they do for a living? The questions were flying through my mind. I asked Lacey a couple of them and can ask the guys when we have our meeting. It was just a shift in our thinking. We had SoCal and all of the things that would mean in our head. A few things will be different, but hopefully most of the journey will be unchanged. Lacey told me that the guys are required to meet us in person before the transfer, which is good. It could be a month from now, it could be in conjunction with the transfer, but we will meet them in person:o) Hopefully, we will be able to schedule the "Match Meeting" for sometime next week. I am sure this is just the first of at least a few things that won't go exactly as planned. Good thing I am flexible. We have always wanted to go to London, maybe this will be a good excuse:o)
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