Chapter 4, HCG Levels

My first scheduled beta HCG level was for December 29th.  The two weeks between this date and the transfer felt like forever.  I recently joined a FaceBook page with other surrogates/gestational carriers and some of those girls pee on a stick EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. once they have a transfer.  That makes me crazy!  It just seems irresponsible to waste the money on that many pregnancy tests.  Plus once you have an HCG level high enough to test positive, why must you keep peeing on sticks!?  To compare yesterday's positive test with today's positive test!?  Okay rant over...so that said, I did have a home pregnancy test (from the dollar store!) that I decided to use the day before my blood test.  Within minutes I had my result:  2 lines=POSITIVE

It was such awesome news, I felt so happy that I just had to share with my IPs.  I texted them and asked them to call me, I wanted to tell them together.  Once they called back, I broke the news!  What a wonderful thing to tell somebody!  They have waited a long time and worked so hard to get to this point.

My beta HCG (that's a blood test that measures the actual level) on Monday morning was 403.  Next up was to repeat this lab and make sure the level was climbing.  It should double about every 2 days.  On Wednesday my level was 940. Perfect!!!  I was officially pregnant but with how many?  The put in two embryos and there is always a chance those embryos could split so I was scheduled to have an ultrasound on January 5th.  That ultrasound would also check for an ectopic pregnancy.  

YS= yolk sac, GS= gestational sac

So this image shows just one YS inside the GS which means 1 baby inside my uterus.  It's funny, some people were kinda disappointed that there is only one baby and not twins.  My OB doctor felt totally differently, he texted me after reviewing the ultrasound...and I quote, "Only one. Perfect."
The baby itself is too small to be seen on this ultrasound.  They actually measure the GS to date the pregnancy at this stage.  Next up is to repeat the ultrasound and look for cardiac activity.  We waited 10 days.   

My 2nd US was on January 15th:  The baby has grown!  In just 10 days you can now see the little fetus, the heart was fluttering, 138bpm, and you can still see the yolk sac.  Pretty amazing!

  

The baby measured exactly 6 weeks and 6 days.  My official due date is September 3rd.

The agency I am working with posted this on their FB page, I though it was pretty neat.  It made me feel special at least.

Thanks for reading!  Until next time!

Chapter 3, The Transfer

I am so GRATEFUL to have such a supportive network of family and friends.  Without their support,  I would not be able to be a GC.  So many people helped with my children while Brock was in Peru and I was in Pittsburgh.  I just was to take a minute and THANK Alicia and my mother for watching my littlest boys, Laine and Tara, and Taylor and Jordan for watching Allison and Samson.  Since Brock was in Peru, I had asked my father to come with me back east.  My aunt, his sister, lives about an hour away from Pittsburgh so we planned to stay with her during part of the trip.

My transfer was scheduled for Dec 15th.  Preparations for an IVF transfer start well before that.  I took an oral birth control to time my period.  After that I started taking an estrogen pill to build the lining in my uterus.  When I had first met the doctor back in August, he told me to plan on coming out for about a week when it was time for my transfer because he likes all of his patients to have their pre-transfer ultrasound done in his clinic.  So on Dec 10th, my father and I flew to Pittsburgh for my appointment the next morning.

Friday morning I went in for my ultrasound.  During this ultrasound I received good news and bad news...The estrogen had done its job!  My lining was 10mm!  That's the good news.  The BAD news was there was some fluid in the fundus (the very end) of my uterus.  That is right where they place the embryos.  If you put the embryos into the fluid pocket it's like putting them in a swimming pool. They would be very unlikely to implant.  If the fluid doesn't re absorb then they couldn't do the transfer this cycle.  The clinic had me start on progesterone injections that night, often the progesterone will help the fluid resolve.  We all did a lot of hoping and praying that my next ultrasound would be better news.  It's weird to think I've had a shot every single day since December 11th!

My father and I spent the weekend with my aunt, it was so nice to see family.  On Monday morning we returned to the clinic for another ultrasound that would decide whether or not we would have a transfer the next day.  I was super nervous!  Thankfully, the fluid was gone and my lining was even a bit thicker...closer to 11mm now.  Yay!  They told me to come back in the morning for the transfer.

On Tuesday, December 15th, at 830AM, I was sitting in the clinic ready for my IVF transfer.  Your bladder has to be super full for the transfer.  I think it helps the team with better visualization.  My IPs were there with me.  My dad was patiently waiting in the lobby.  The embryologist came to discuss the embryos with the IM (intended mom).  She explained that they had thawed 2 embryos.  One was from 2011, the other from 2012.  When embryos survive being frozen and then thawed, they are felt  to be heartier or stronger.  One embryo started with 7 cells and divided to 10 cells, the other had started with 6 and dropped to 5.  The doctor said they both looked great and that we would be transferring them both that morning.

Only one person can accompany you into the exam room so my IM suited up and was there at my side during the whole thing.  The actual IVF procedure is very anticlimactic.  You lay on an exam table and with ultrasound guidance they slip a little tube through the cervix and place the embryos into the fundus.  You can't really see them, just the small amount of fluid they are loaded into the tube with.  After the doctor basically flushes them out of the tube, they take the tube back over to the embryologist to check and make sure the tube is empty.  Once we heard the all clear, I was free to go.  I walked out of the exam room, into a bathroom, changed my clothes and  went back to the hotel.  I lounged around that day and most of the next.  Our flight home was scheduled for Thursday morning.

And now we had to wait and see...I wouldn't find out if either or both of the embryos decided they liked their new home until almost two weeks later!

Chapter 2, Preparations

In May 2015, Kolson had just turned a year old and I was dreaming of being a surrogate.  My agent set up a three way call between her, myself and my potential match.  We talked on the phone for at least a half hour, asking each other questions and learning about each other.  That phone call went very well.  This couple had frozen embryos just waiting for the right womb to come along to gestate them!  The clinic where the embryos were frozen needed me to come there in person before they would approve the match.  In August of 2015, Brock and I flew back east to visit the clinic.  I had several appointments spread over 2 days.  They drew blood, I met with the nurses and the doctor, I took a mental health screening exam, I met with a therapist, and we met the Intended Parents in person.  It was a whirl wind trip with a lot accomplished (I have documented proof that I'm not crazy).
Next up was getting our contracts drawn up and finalized.  The legal portion of this journey is a very necessary and clarifying process.  Both parties agree on the terms and the clinic's legal department has to approve it.  Lawyers from both states made sure the contract agreed with the local laws. My contract is super long, 35 pages to be exact.  We still need to submit paperwork to the court to get a document called a "Prebirth Order" that instructs the hospital/birth certificate clerk on who's names leagally belong on the Birth Certificate.

So we started meds and planned for a transfer in October of 2015.  Life gets in the way and even with the best made plans sometimes things come up, unavoidable, painful, and life threatening things come up.  On October 16th, I thought I had either food poisoning or maybe the stomach flu.  2 days later, when I wasn't getting better, Brock took me into the ER and we discovered that I had ruptured my appendix!  I was taken to surgery that afternoon and spent the next 3 days in the hospital being treated for sepsis.  When I saw my surgeon for my postop appointment 2 weeks later he informed me that my appendix had not only ruptured. It had gone gangrene.  I guess that only happens about 6% of the time (but 100% of the time when its a stubborn nurse who thinks going to the ER with abdominal pain is the lamest thing ever and that only a wussy would do that.).  Now that I had just recently had surgery, I needed clearance from the GI surgeon before the clinic would reschedule my IVF transfer.  Thankfully, my surgeon had been able to remove my appendix with laparoscopic technology.  It is my understanding that ruptures often require an incision so that they have better access to the area.  He was totally fine with a pregnancy.  To quote him, "You can do whatever you want."  Which, if you know me, is what I do anyways!  

My new transfer date needed to happen before the holiday "shut down" at the clinic.  So we scheduled it for mid December.  I restarted meds and made travel arrangements with my agency.  There was a new snag in the process though...Brock had planned and payed for a trip to Peru in December so I needed a new travel buddy/ support person to be with me while I was back east.  

That is my cliff hanger for you all, I'll tell you about my transfer on my next post.

Chapter 1, where to even begin?

So way back when Samson (he is 8 now) was around a year old I decided that I wanted to be a surrogate.  I went online and researched all about it.  I found an agency that looked really promising and applied.  The owner of the agency called me the next day and we talked for what felt like forever!  She was once a labor and delivery nurse and had moved into the field of fertility and then eventually opened up her own company to fill the need she saw her fertility patients had as they tried to navigate the surrogacy world.  The company is called "A Woman's Gift" and my agent/ the owner is AWESOME.  
My first match was soon after that and we attempted two transfers.  The first transfer, the clinic transferred 3 frozen/donated embryos but the were low quality and very fragmented.  The second cycle, the embryos did not survive the thawing process, so no actual transfer happened.  The next couple I was paired with was really great.  They came out to Utah to meet me and meet with a potential egg donor here in Utah.  We had an appointment at the U together during their visit to Utah.  While we were at the U, the doctor there told the Mom that her Uterus looked great, just her eggs were no good.  When he scanned me he said, " you'd make a great egg donor!"  This couple then approached me to fill the role of egg donor in place of gestational carrier (that is actually what it's really called).  It felt RIGHT and so shortly after that I completed an egg retrieval.  They retrieved 16, 14 fertilized, they implanted 2 in the mom and froze the other 12.  That transfer resulted in twin boys!  The U called me a few months later and asked me to do another cycle and I said yes.  This time the cycle was anonymous and they retrieved 14 eggs.  I don't know the results of this cycle but the U called me and asked me to do a third round of eggs.  I had to decline this time.  My agency had found another match for me.
This time the mother was using her own eggs.  They retrieved 20 but only one fertilized and divided.  They transferred that single embryo into my uterus but it did not implant.  By now it's fall 2011.  I decide it's time to get my torn ACL replaced.  During my recovery from that surgery I conceived Odinson.  A few months after he was born I met a couple from Utah through a mutual friend that was looking for a carrier.  It felt like a great match.  Unfortunately, while we were starting the process...legal stuff and appointments with the fertility clinics etc... I got pregnant again!  This surprise baby is Kolson.  That phone call to tell this family that I was pregnant was a tough one. I felt so guilty for my own fertility, like I was rubbing it in her face that I could accidentally get pregnant so easily.  They were understanding and asked me to call them after I delivered just to see where we both were at.  I called them about a month after Kolson was born and they were so excited to hear from me.  They said that waiting for me felt right and they still wanted me to be their gestational carrier (GC).  I wanted to nurse Kolson for at least the first six months and so when he was 6 months old we started the legal process again.  I met with the fertility doctor and a lawyer had drawn up our contract.  It looked like things were moving right along.  But before our contract was even finalized the couple ( also known as Intended Parents or IPs for short) stopped everything.  I don't know exactly why they decided to back out.  That decision was a personal one that was theirs alone.  The fees from the lawyers were scary and the potential fees in our contract were huge factors in their decision to stop.  It had been hard negotiating this match because there was no middle man.  We negotiated with each other.  Looking back on the experience, I know working with an agency for the benefits of a neutral third party to negotiate and take care of things like the money is totally worth it!  It keeps the relationship between the GC and the IPs free from that stress.
Sometimes I refer to this whole thing as my little surrogacy project.  I would say I've been working on this project for years.  Really "project" is just another name for goal I would suppose.  Even though things came to an absolute halt with the couple here in Utah, I still felt like I was supposed to continue this pursuit to be a GC.  I called my agent and she took me back!  What is amazing is that my timing was like the stars aligning and the universe was listening.  Right before I had called her she received news that one of her carriers had backed out and she now had a couple that needed a GC and I was the perfect fit.

Everything happens for a reason.  I love that saying that goes something like- when one door closes, another one opens.