First Surrogate Meeting

Tonight is going to be our first meeting with a surrogate. So far, all I know is that she's married with a son, and has had a twin surrogacy for a couple over a year ago. She sounds amazing and her picture made me instantly feel like she'd be someone I would want to be friends with.

I honestly have no idea how this is going to go. I know I'll ask random questions out of anxiousness and hope she doesn't think I'm a total weirdo. I know that if it doesn't go well, we will eventually find someone who is a perfect fit for us.

I didn't get much sleep last night and I'm a bit out of sorts at work today, but I'm just keeping my fingers and toes crossed right now that things will go well. All you can do is hope, right?

Movin' on up!

From last Thursday:

Today is the start of everything - we signed our contract with our surrogacy agency! The whole thing seems surreal and exciting and scary.

We met with the agency owner at Starbucks and went through all the paperwork and she answered our questions (I had a million) and we officially decided to move forward.

Right now there are two surrogates who she has waiting, and possibly a third who delivered twins via surrogacy last year and may be looking to be a surrogate again.

Looking at the pictures of people who could potentially carry your child is crazy. This person will be giving us the greatest gift at all, and someone I'll be thankful for my entire life. I hope that it's someone that Mr. Bee and I both bond well with and someone that I'll be close to. 

Then you have all the questions like:

"Do I go to the appointments?"

"How many days a week do we talk?"

"Will she like me?"

Fingers crossed that everything from here goes smoothly!

Some Days are better than Others

Some nights my heart breaks more than others. I'll be doing laundry and wish I was folding onesies. I love my life, but my life isn't complete.

Last night I had someone at a meeting complain to me about how mad she was to find out that her baby was a boy. She was so annoyed to find out that  her healthy baby wasn't the gender she wanted. And I wanted to break down right there. What I wouldn't give for a baby of either gender!

I don't want my friends to feel like they have to walk on eggshells around me, but I don't know what's going to set me off, and what won't. I know that I need patience and strength to get me through this time, but all the while the inevitability of the fact that I will never carry our children comes out of nowhere and every episode leaves me feeling more hopeless and sad than I've ever been before.

I can't give up hope, and I won't give up hope. My heart is hurting but it's still beating.

Jealousy and 2013

I made it through Christmas mostly ok. Minor breakdown, but overall had a great time with my husband and family.

The thing that got me today was finding out that Kim Kardashian and Kanye West are having a baby together. Someone who is still married to another man and is famous for making a sex tape is pregnant.

I agree with this quote whole-heartedly, and in 2013, I'm going to try my hardest to stop being jealous. It's hard being at the age where everyone is starting to have kids and wanting to be so happy for everyone. Happy to get their Christmas cards and baby announcements. And I love to see them, but boy, do they tear me up inside.

I didn't really have any New Years Resolutions, but my goal is to try to stop being jealous of everyone else's families and be happy with what I do have. I know that things will work out for us eventually, they have to. It's just a long road and so many dead ends and so many tears. But I have to believe that things will work out, that we'll have our children, just not on our timeframe.

Along with it being Christmas, it's been hard thinking that around now, we'd be telling our friends and families that we were pregnant. This is a little TMI, but I was hoarding a positive pregnancy test until last night, when I had to toss it during a cleaning frenzy. And I have to mourn the fact that I will probably never have that again. That I won't be able to carry our children, and that we might not even be able to have biological children. And that hurts, so very much.

I'm praying that 2013 brings more happiness than heartache for everyone. I pray that we're able to find and afford a surrogate sometime sooner rather than later. And I'm thankful for all of you who have been supporting us through all of this. So if I don't say it enough, thank you.

Beating the no Baby Blues

The past two years have been really tough getting through the holidays. People posting pictures of their babies looking at Christmas lights, opening presents, and I think of that void in my life I found this great article called "Beating the no Baby Blues," which offers some helpful tips about getting through the times when not having a child is unbearable.

"The point is that there is no magic bullet that will destroy what is trying to destroy you--whether it be cancer, infertility, divorce, or loneliness. Without implementing positive strategies for dealing with adversity, sooner or later, we are bound to become undone. And so, in the spirit of the holidays, I share the things I’ve found most helpful.

 1.) Go for a hike. Fresh air and exercise are a time-honored prescription for feeling better.
2.) Cry. Opening up to what hurts is one way of making sure it doesn’t take you down.
3.) Hug your ________ (husband, dog, sister, mom, dad, cat, best friend) and tell them you love them. I believe the energy you put out into the world is the energy you get back.
4.) Take charge of your life by mapping out goals and options. Is adoption feasible? Does your acupuncturist know of anyone who might surrogate for you?
5.) Give yourself a break. Take the rock out of your shoe and put it in a mental box. Tie it up with a brightly colored bow and store it in a dark corner of your mind. When you unwrap it again next year, perhaps you’ll have a new perspective."

Here's the rest of the article from Suzanne Rico: http://www.fertilityauthority.com/blogger/suzanne-rico/2012/12/02/beating-no-baby-blues

New Journey - Surrogacy

Today we had our "WTF" appointment with our reproductive doctor, which is never fun to go to. This one in particular was harder than the rest.

We talked about how even though I was able to get pregnant, my lining issues made it so I wouldn't be able to carry the pregnancy. He feels the best option for us is to go the surrogacy route. Even though I knew in my heart that was going to be his answer, it still hurt.

The good news (silver lining) is that we have 4 embryos left, and they are all good quality. He was especially optimistic that because I was able to get pregnant, that the real problem is just my uterus, and not the embryos. So yay embryos!

Our next steps are to save money (a lot of it) and either go the agency route, or find an independent surrogate. My doctor is saying that an ideal surrogate would already have had successful pregnancies, be healthy, and between 20-35.

Right now I'm just thankful for everyone's support, because this is not fun, and it's not ideal. But it's bearable. I need to have patience, which is something that is not easy for me. I keep thinking that if my last IVF cycle had gone well that we could have been telling people around Christmas which is just around the corner. I have friends that are announcing their August 2013 pregnancies, which is after my "due date". Little things pop up that remind me that I'll never be pregnant. But I feel more ok knowing that my doctor is confident in our embryos, and that surrogacy will work for us. Plus, if NPH used surrogacy, it must be awesome.

Thanks for listening and thanks for all of your kind words and good thoughts, they mean the world to me.

Surrogacy: The Next Step

We're still hurting from the chemical pregnancy, but I feel like we have some hope now.

Tonight we met with a surrogacy agency that we really liked and would like to work with. We still have four embryos left, so we would probably not need to complete a new IVF cycle. Costs would just be to the surrogate, the agency, and for medical expenses. It looks like we're still pretty far away from being able to afford surrogacy since we're still down and out from fertility payments, but at least we have some hope.

I don't think anyone envisions that they'll one day have a baby via surrogate. It's not ideal, and I wish I were the one getting pregnant. But I'm ok with working with any hurdles that will get us closer to having our children. I'm hoping that the focus of this blog gets to become a bit more uplifting, as even though I'll have things going on in my life that won't always be pleasant, I feel like the chance at a positive outcome is so much greater.

I don't know why this has happened to us, but I know that there is a reason for everything, and that someone will be brought into my life for a reason to carry our child. And waiting for that will be exciting, and scary.  

I'm sleepy and rambling, but I just wanted to get my feelings out about this new "chapter" in our lives. And thank Mr. Bee for always being the most wonderful, supportive husband I could ever ask for. And thank our family and friends for being so darn supportive. Having you all there for us this last week during our loss made things much less hard.