Moving on

   The past few weeks have been very hectic both surrogacy related and non surrogacy related. I FINALLY bought the camp trailer that I have been looking for! We are super excited to try it out Labor Day weekend, but we may make a night trip a little sooner if we can.  All three of my children started school this week (at different schools) so we are trying to figure out a workable schedule. I now have one in high school, one in 5th grade and a preschooler. I am really struggling to let go of the teacher in me and just be mom when it come to my preschooler!
   Surrogacy related.... well we are moving forward and trying again. It has been arranged that I will be able to do all of my monitoring appointments with my ob, which is a HUGE relief. I have my first appointment on August 27th, and we are shooting for transfer on 9/21, just a month away! It feels very different this time. I know what to expect so in that aspect it is easier. I am not worried about the shots anymore, by the end I was giving them both myself. However, I am not looking forward to the knots that will form once I start progesterone again. The day after I started those shots I kept looking to see if my hips had giant bruises because that is what it feels like, but if anything there was just a tiny bruise at the injection site. That is a daily shot and some days I felt less tenderness than others. I tried to apply heat and rub the area as much as possible after the injection and that definitely helped. Emotionally I have a wide range of feelings. I am excited to try again and hopeful that we will have a better outcome this time. But I am also leery of having too much hope and worried about all of the what if's around the possibility that this transfer could also not result in a pregnancy. I am also not sure if I will do home pregnancy tests after this transfer, I think it would have been easier to accept the negative last time if I had never seen the positive results. The clinic was very accommodating and was able to set up our transfer for a weekend so that it is not complete craziness for us to travel to Pasadena. It is a lot to ask of someone to help us get the kids to and from school for more than one day ( I drive them all, both ways), plus someone has to keep them all weekend and take care of my dogs. Usually I just have someone stay at our house while we are gone so the kids and dogs are pretty much on their usual routine. I am really trying to be positive and hopeful that this time it will work and that in June my IPs will be meeting their baby! Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers over the next few weeks as we take the next steps in our journey!

The Tests

The past two weeks have been quite difficult. I had no idea the amount of pressure I would feel waiting to see if our transfer had been successful or not. I took my first home pregnancy test 4 days after the transfer, it was negative. I was not worried though since it was so early. I continued to test and get big fat negatives (BFN). Sunday we went to church and Kaylee put her hands on my tummy and prayed for the tests to be positive. Monday morning 7 days past a  day transfer (7dp5dt) I got the faintest of positives!! I was so excited, this was what we had been waiting for! I wanted to wait a day or two to tell my IPs though, just to be sure. The next day the line was even darker! I sent them a picture of the tests. Here is a picture of the some of the daily tests...

The bottom unmarked test is also 10dp5dt. What we were hoping to see is the test line get darker.... It did not. At 11dp5dt the tests were no longer showing positive. I was pretty upset so I quit testing. Monday morning was my beta (pregnancy test), getting that done was hell. I thought it would be a quick in and out thing so I took Kaylee and Noah and went to my normal lab, Quest, only to find out that they could not do the tests and have the results STAT. Neither could Labcorp. Quest sent me to Mercy hospital. Mercy will no longer draw for anyone that is not admitted or an employee! I figured I would try to call HRC and see if they could send me a new order to only have the pregnancy test STAT ant the other 2 ASAP, but there was not a nurse available to talk to and no one ever called me back! I thought I would try the Quest in Redding to see if they could get quicker results than Anderson. There I was told that they could do the draw but only 2 of the 3 tests I needed could be returned the same day and that they would be sending the blood to Shasta Regional Medical center to be processed so it would be faster for me to go there to do the draw. So I loaded up my kids and headed there, 3 and a half hours after I went to the first lab. At this point the kids are tired and hungry and cranky, I am cranky and stressed because I know I need the draw ASAP in order to get the results the same day. I had to go through the admitting process which was crazy. They were really confused by the fact that the lab work was to be billed to another agency and not to my personal insurance! It took us another half hour to get all of the paperwork done and another hour waiting for the draw. SO, it took me 5 hours with a 10 year old and a 3 year old to get ONE blood draw! The most frustrating part was that I knew that it was all so they could give me a BFN. Then while I had not cell service I misses a call from the nurse at HRC wanting to know why I had not gone to my monitoring clinic for the blood work!! Ummm, it would be ridiculous to drive 3 hours one way for a blood draw, and they would have known I was having trouble getting drawn if someone would have bothered to call me back! I finally talked to the nurse and gave her all of the information so she could get the results. And sure enough as I got to class I got the email telling me that the pregnancy test was negative and I was to stop meds immediately and notify their office on the first day of my period so we can prepare to start again.

So what happened? After much research I believe that I had a chemical pregnancy, which is basically a miscarriage that happens before 5 weeks of pregnancy. There are numerous causes and they are quite common. Research suggest that as many as 70% of conceptions end in a chemical pregnancy, and most of the time the women never knows she is pregnant. But in this case you have an obsessive woman (me) who knew that there was a good looking embryo put into perfect conditions for implantation. My first clue that something was wrong was that I only got positive tests on First Response Early Results pregnancy test. Those are the most sensitive and most accurate. In the end I think I must have taken close to 30 tests waiting for the results to be stronger.

What was my reaction? Initially, as I am a simple person, it was " well shit". Over the past few days I have had so many emotions. I have been very disappointed. I was so looking forward to being pregnant and watching my IPs become parents. I was sad for the loss. I was mad at myself for whatever reason. While logically I KNOW that there is no way I caused this. I obsessively take all of my medication exactly as directed, I did not exercise at all, I didn't lift anything heavy, not even my son. I tried to take it as easy as I could. But there was still a part of me that thought just maybe, I did something wrong, maybe I am too old to be trying to get pregnant, maybe it has been too long since I had kids and my baby maker is shut down. Realistically I know none of that is true. I have undergone so many tests to make sure that my body is healthy and ready for a pregnancy. I just have to accept this as part of the process. I also had a moment of despair at the fact that all of the meds I took, all of the shots I have done, and the big painful knots from the shots were all for nothing! I really fought the urge to just sit and feel sorry for myself and for my IPs. Very few people actually understand this situation. Some of the people I am close to cannot understand, or do not take into consideration that it is upsetting to know that I went to bed pregnant and woke up not pregnant. I am so grateful to be connected to a couple groups of surrogates that are so supportive and really understand what we are going through. I had a brief panic about how I am going to fit in 3 trips back to Sacramento for monitoring and another trip to Pasadena for another transfer with the kids starting school. I drive them to and from school. My niece will be in school an can't babysit! I am starting my practicum and will have to dedicate 2 days a week to that. HOW will I do it all? I have no idea how I will do it, but I WILL do it! I always figure something out.

  Today, I am still sad but I am feeling more optimistic about trying again. I will without a doubt work towards trying again as soon as we can. I still believe so strongly that this is God's plan for me and what I need to do. You see that Sunday when we were in church God was preparing me for this. The message was on continuing to follow God's plan even when there are bumps in the road. This journey has had a lot of bumps from day one. I believe that it is a test of my dedication and obedience. I had to accept that it is ok to feel bad, the situation sucks, but at the same time I am stronger now. I feel more driven to see this journey to the end. I also have seen that my IPs can be counted on to be supportive through the good and bad. Even though I know this has been hard on them as well, they took the time to check in on me and assure me that they still love me and I know that they don't blame me for the loss. THAT is why I will find a way to make the schedule work, that is why I will take tons of medications and give myself shots again. Because my IPs deserve to get to look into their child's eyes and feel that love, just like I get to every day!