We May Have an Egg Donor

I hope I hope I hope!!!! My IM said they are working on the donor contract. You wouldn't begin that without having an actual donor right?! I did email her to ask but I haven't heard back yet. That seems to have been the theme of the past few weeks. I am sure IM is very busy, and working hard on the egg donor. I am still, STILL, hoping for a 10/28 transfer. Overly, optimistic is just my thing :) It *could* happen. If I can start meds by 10/7 then a 10/28 transfer is still possible. But on the realistic side, we have to cycle with the egg donor. She may or may not have had all her preliminary testing done. I hope that since the contracts are already in the works, that she has completed them all. Ok so worst case scenario. The donor will need to get af. The donor may not be on bcp and we may have to wait for her next af. Worst case I think that puts us at 11/11/11 for transfer. Hey that would be a cool date!! I'm big on dates, symbolism, etc. :) I did email the clinic too, as I *need* to know everything right now, but my clinic contact did not know what to tell me. She did say she would look into it and let me know. A November transfer may work out better for me than October too. Maybe I will try to convince myself of the 11/11 date, and if it happens sooner, then I will just be really happy :) An 11/11 transfer would give us a due date of 7/30/2012 for a singleton or (37 weeks) 7/8/12 for twins. And there is a chance the morning sickness will not have set in yet for Thanksgiving :)  Oh man, I am so excited!  If we transfer 11/11 I will be 33 weeks 4 days pregnant on my bday :) I'll be turning 27. If its one baby, that won't be too bad, if its twins, I will probably be miserable at that point :) I'm even looking forward to being miserable. And my face gets really pregnant. I will post pictures from my pregnancy with DD. I was only 18 at the time. The first is at 35 weeks, the second is 5 days before she was born, I was 39 weeks......OK well its not letting me post the pictures, but I will once it cooperates. Well I guess this is a form of cooperation, sorry they are sideways.

No News...

So why am I writing? I don't know. I haven't heard from my IPs since 9/21. Nothing. I have been trying to think about other things, and for the most part it's working. Until I get on SMO and see all the other pregnant women, and then I just get impatient again. Maybe I should just take a break from stalking the boards until I hear about an egg donor. I have to find life insurance, which I really don't want. I also am still waiting for my HR dept to provide me the plan description of my new insurance policy. I guess I could fill out the life insurance app and get that over with. ......Waiting......

More waiting

Still more waiting. At first I was a little surprised to learn that we have not picked an egg donor yet, but then I sat and really thought about all that goes into the process and I think I understand now. There are many different types of donor situations as well, and I do not know what my IPs are looking for. I have hinted that I am curious, and I don't want to be rude and pry into their personal, private choices here, but I still don't know any more than they have not matched with one yet. I was really hoping to transfer in October, but if that doesn't happen its no big deal. If it takes long enough there is a chance I could go to the "family reunion" type wedding of my cousin next June. but that also puts me hugely pregnant in the hottest months of the year. Oh well, whatever is meant to be will be. The contracts have all been signed, so it is official, just no time line. I am so looking forward to having a baby belly that it is really hard to be patient. You would think after waiting 9 months to get to this point I would have learned patience, but no apparently not :) I hope they find an egg donor who is as intelligent as they are. I think my IFs looks will be dominant since he has dark hair and eyes. So even if they wanted a blond hair blue eyed donor, the baby(ies) would probably still look like IF. I think it may be harder being so close yet still so far. I guess I should find something else to occupy my time. Perhaps I should actually work at work ;)

Contracts!! and then a rant....

The contract changes we made have been accepted by my IPs. They are signing and mailing the contract to me. I'm so excited. That's one more step completed. And I'm really happy that they accepted the changes I had asked for. These people are just so amazing and are going to make terrific parents. I am so happy to be working with them.

I also hope I can give them twins. I never thought of twins as high risk but based on a lot of reading on SMO, it turns out they are, or should be. I am not supposed to want to carry twins. It really will take a toll on my body. But I just want to give them(IPs) everything that I can. Plus what a cool experience to carry twins. What a nice belly I will have to love on while I bake babies. It honestly excites me. I had a dream a few nights ago that I delivered boy girl twins each with a full head of hair. They were exceptionally smart babies and had leanred to roll over before even leaving the hospital.  Weird dream. I even had to have a c-section in my dream, which is something I am pretty afraid of, but it went fine in my dream :)

So yesterday at work, a nurse was asking me questions about the surrogacy. She is one of the people who know they can not be a surrogate. Fine, whatever, I don't spend my time trying to convince her to become one, but she seems to want me to see things from her side, which is that there is no way to carry a baby without getting attached as if it is your own. Nothing I say is making her feel more confident that I will be fine. We were talking about our previous pregnancies, her children, my child. And I said that when I was pregnant, my DD would push her feet out so hard that I could count her toes. So this lady says "See! That's attachment" So I guess counting the toes of babies would make any person want to kidnap them? Is that what she is saying? That if I were to be able to count the toes of the babies I will be pregnant with for my IPs, that would suddenly change my mind?! Do people think that I have not thought about what it is going to feel like to carry a baby, to feel that baby move, to help it grow, then to return said child to its parents? Do people think I woke up one day and decided that I would just pop out a baby and give it to a random person? What is wrong with people? I UNDERSTAND that I will feel this baby move just like I would feel my own baby. The difference is, this baby is not mine and never was. I don't know why people think I don't understand what I am doing. I met a wonderful couple who can not have a child any other way, than to put their babies into another woman's womb. That sucks in and of itself. But I will try to make it as easy and joyous for them as I can. And when that baby has gotten nice and big and chubby and cute, and is ready to be born, I will deliver this beautiful child to his/her/their waiting parents. I will (hopefully) see the joy and happiness they will feel FINALLY being able to hold their heart's desire. And that is what I get to take with me from the hospital. The fact that I changed someone's life, for the better. I made a difference in the world. People are happy because of me. What more could I ask for?  

Sorry this has turned into a rant.

Anyway, contracts are done. I hope my IPs pick a great egg donor and we can move on to cycle soon!!  I am so excited for this!  (I may not be as thrilled when the morning sickness kicks in, or when I am too huge to even eat, but in the end it is ALL worth it!)

When Moms Are Right

This is not surrogacy related. You know that old wives tale that getting caught in the rain = coming down with a cold? Well I had to walk to my car in a steady rain last night after work. It was probably 3-4 minutes of getting rained on by very cold windy rain. And by about 8 pm I knew I was getting a cold. A big coincidence but it made me think of my mom's words none the less.

I got my mom this wooden sign "If at first you don't succeed, do it like your mother told you."

My First Ever Blog Post

Ok, So I have no real idea what I am doing. I want to record my journey as a gestational surrogate, but I never thought I was witty enough to have a blog. Well after reading many other blogs, I decided one need not be witty to write a blog, no offense. I have always loved to write and chronicle my life, I have the old fashioned hand written logs of my life ( I refuse to call it a diary) that date back to about age 8. I guess now is a good time to venture into the blogsphere. Although, I am not very techie, so we'll see how I can adapt.

When I first officially pursued surrogacy I googled it over and over, and was really hoping more surrogate's blog would come up. Then I found SMO and that has been a life changer. So much good info from real women who have gone through all the what ifs of surrogacy.

For me, surrogacy has always been something I wanted to do. Probably since I was 16, I'm 26 now. I had my first and so far only child when I was 18, and the pride associated with parenthood is truly something everyone should get to experience. I first applied to agencies about 3 years ago and was broken hearted when I was denied. I had no real support system back then, and I have now come to realize just how crucial that part of the journey is. So in December 2010 I started applying to agencies again. I was approved and was speaking with potential IPs (intended parents) with one agency by Jan 2011. However, that all fell through due to things out of my control, and it became apparent that the agency and I were not a good fit. I began to "interview" other agencies, I knew what I was looking for, someone to hold my hand and walk me through this the first time. I eventually found two perfect agencies, after talking with probably 10. I decided to work with one agency based in Connecticut and was matched through them in July 2011. I now have great, hilarious, brilliant, fantastic IPs and a truly amazing agency!

My boyfriend (of 5 years, even if the first 2.5 were rocky, whom I own our house with) and I flew to CT for our marathon testing day on 9/1/11. It was so crazy busy, 2 days felt like 1. I worked 1/2 a day then we flew to Atlanta to connect to fly to CT, arrived about 1130 pm, ate dinner at midnight, slept, woke at 7 am eastern time which is 5 am mountain time (the time we were on) to get ready, met IPs, met agency rep who is also IPs attorney, had psych eval, ultrasounds and bloodwork, then back to the airport, flight was late, almost missed connecting flight in Chicago, back to Denver.  It really was a great trip and I have nothing but amazing things to say about my IPs.

Today we are just waiting for the contracts to be finalized and for an egg donor to be chosen. I am keeping my fingers crossed for an October 28th transfer. I picked that day weeks ago out of the blue, and I stil hope that is the big day.

Anyway, I have found that you either "get" surrogacy or you don't. Women either can do it or can not. There really is no middle in most of this. Women at work tell me they just couldn't give up a baby they had carried in their body. And I just keep telling them "but it's not mine" You know that this baby(ies) does not belong to you. Hence the title of the blog. Its like babysitting. At the end, the baby goes to it's parents, and you go home to your normal life and sleep schedule. From all the people I have talked with, there is very little thinking about the initial reaction. It literally is "I could never do that" or "Hmmm, I could do that too" I have several friends who are tossing around the idea when the time is right in their lives.

So this was long, but its all caught up I think.