The first ultrasound

One would assume that a positive blood test would mean I was pregnant, end of story. Not so much when you are a surrogate. That test must be repeated to ensure that the hCG levels are rising, which is indicative of a viable pregnancy. SO... my first level on 10/7 was 959, wry much pregnant since a level of 25 is the minimum to be considered pregnant. The doctors want to see that number double by the next draw. On 10\7 my level was at 4,551 and on 10/10 it was 9,059, hormones are needless to say, rising nicely. Now the not so good part. Because this is a surrogate pregnancy the doctors are extremely cautious about everything. Did any one with a normal pregnancy every hear a word about estrogen or progestrogen levels? Me either! This time it is something they watch. My first draw everything was great, but the second time my progesterone dipped to 23.3 and they want it above 25. Now I consulted Google and found that my level is still "normal" for a pregnancy, just not where HRC likes it so I had to increase my progesterone injections to 1.5cc daily. No big deal, right? WRONG! See I had some mild nausea by this point, after the increase that turned to daily vomiting. And the knots from the injections got bigger, so big that it was uncomfortable to wear jeans! I tried everything I could think of to get them to go away. TONS of heat, George massaging them like crazy and Tylenol. I finally broke down and asked my nurse for help. Now that the pregnancy is confirmed (I'll get to that later) I can switch to an oral progesterone lozenge! Such a relief. Well, except for the fact that they are the consistency of slightly hardened jello with a wax coating. They also taste horrid, something like a crayon dipped in grape cough syrup. BUT choking that down for 4 more weeks is way better than the knots from the shots!! Now, I am not shot free, I will still do estrogen injections every 3 days, but they are nothing! Aside from the last week and a half that was rough, I feel good. I have not vomited in 3 days and can wear pants again! I am tired though, as to be expected. I schedule in my daily naps! My family has been a huge help. George is picking up my slack and massaging knots like crazy! The girls are helping out as much as possible too. One morning they even got Noah dressed, fed and in the car for me so we could get out the door on time!
   Now the fun part! We had our first ultrasound on 10/18. It was so cool! Kaylee (my 10 year old) got to go with me. The doctor was great at explaining to us both what we were looking at and the most exciting part.... We got to see the tiny little heart beat! Fetal development is so amazing! I am 6 weeks pregnant and the baby is the size of a lentil, but we could see that little heart beating away! Everything looked good and the doctor confirmed that there is only one baby, so good news all around. We will have another ultrasound on 10/31 to check development.
  Another fun fact..... with my last pregnancy my niece Dallys would say that I was not having a baby, it was a squid. So after the first transfer she decided that this pregnancy was a snail, or escargot. Just the idea seemed gross! At the ultrasound Kaylee thought that the baby looked like a little potato so our official nick name for this little one is French Fry! Nick names are something that everyone on my mothers side of the family have. My grandfather, who passed away 15 years ago, used to give everyone their names. After his passing the names stopped, except for my kids and the names Dallys gave them, so this little nick name is our family's contribution to the baking of this baby!
  So I leave you with French Fry's first photo! It is a bit blurry because it took quite a bit of zooming to get it big enough to see, but you get the idea. The arrow is pointing at it's little heart! It is so amazing to finally be on the way to helping my IPs have their family! I love hearing how excited they are and how they are already preparing for the baby! This little French Fry will be so loved!!

The results are in...

   The moment we have all been waiting for, the official test results! A hcG level of at least 25 is needed to be considered pregnant. My hcG level was 959, so we are PREGNANT! Of course it is still quite early and I will have to go back for more blood tests on Monday and again on Thursday to make sure that those hormone levels keep rising indicating a healthy pregnancy. The next big step is October 17th, this is the "pregnancy confirmation" ultrasound where we will hopefully get to hear the heart beat for the first time!
   Now as I mentioned before I did take a home pregnancy test 4 days after the transfer and got a VERY faint positive. I had mixed feelings about that. Last time I got a similar faint positive, but not until 7 days after the transfer. So of course, I had to continue to test daily to make sure that the line kept getting stronger..... AND IT DID! At 5 days I thought I would try a digital test, it came back saying that I was pregnant!

   Now to the fun part, how have I been feeling? Pretty good. I am pretty tired, since I am doing my practicum 3-4 days a week, going to school 3 nights a week and taking care of my kids and now pregnant, being tired is not a surprise. As expected my boobs are super sore, and I have had a few headaches. I also have my pregnancy "super nose" where I smell everything and most of it is gross! I have started in the last few days getting some morning sickness. Now I am not running to puke all of the time, but there is a daily debate of if I take my medicines on an empty stomach I will feel like I am going to puke BUT if I eat I will also be nauseated. I got some protein shakes in hopes that they will be easier to stomach. It is pretty consistent that if I eat any sort of big meal, or anything with too strong of flavoring, no matter what time of day I will be feeling it. I am also getting some pretty big knots from all of the injections. After every shot I apply heat and massage the injection site for a few minutes but every couple of days I have to have George REALLY rub it HARD. This hurts a bit but it seems to help loosen up the knots. None of the symptoms are too bad or so disturbing that I am not able to go on with my day to day activities, I am just a little slower!
   I am excited that we are finally pregnant and my IPs are on their way to becoming parents. I am hopeful that the high hormone levels are going to be a good sign that we will remain pregnant and that there will be no more complications. This is such an amazing journey and I have been very blessed with so much support from friends, family and my IPs. My mom, kids and husband have been so much help. They are really trying to pick up the slack and help with the things that I am unable to do right now. The dr told me to take things easy and not to pick up anything! That is harder than it sounds, probably one of the hardest restriction (besides the pelvic rest). Someone else has to lift Noah into his car seat and he really doesn't get why mommy can't pick him up. There are tons of daily things that require lifting too. Like carrying in groceries or taking laundry baskets to and from the washer. Little things that I never considered, but I am figuring it out. My family has had to do some adjusting with their dinners too! I am gone 3 nights a week and I am tired so they have had easy meals! I'm thinking tonight is grilled cheese!

Transfer #2

Friday morning we dropped all of the kids off at school then started our trip south. We stopped in Red Bluff for coffee and then walked through Ide Adobe State Park. That is a tiny little historical park in Red Bluff. Then we stopped at a few little shops along the way before having lunch in Sacramento and hitting the Spirit store! It was a nice relaxing trip since we had plenty of time to get there before our flight. The flight was on time and uneventful :) We flew into the Bob Hope Airport in Burbank, it is much smaller than LAX and much closer to the hotel! After checking in we went to dinner at a cute little Mexican restaurant and they took our pictures! They give you a complimentary post card and since it has been forever since George and I had pics done, we bought more!

 

Yes, that is my last margarita in the background and it was YUMMY!

 



 

After dinner we walked around a bit and then headed back to the hotel. The beds are awesome at the hotel and I was sleeping really good (rare for me) when at 1:30 am we were woke up by the loudest group of drunks ever! It turns out that there was a Latin wedding earlier in the day and they REALLY party afterwards! It wasn't a big deal though because the morning of the transfer I actually got to SLEEP IN! It was so nice! We left the hotel a little after 10 and were at the clinic by 10:30. The doctor had been in Texas and we literally saw him running in the door a few minutes prior to our appointment!

 

Here is the infamous waiting pic

 

 

 

 

Same thing as last time, it was very quick and easy, although I don't think the doctor appreciated my jokes about how cold the speculum was! That's ok, George and I thought it was funny! Here is a pic of the actual transfer. If you look REALLY closely in the center of the picture there is a tiny white dot. That is the embryo in my uterus!

 

 

After the procedure I had to hang out on the table for almost an hour. That was so boring!! Then back to the hotel for bed rest!. Earlier that morning George thought he would watch TV while I was in the shower, turns out our tv was possessed! The volume would go up to the max on its own and then it would turn itself on. We let the hotel desk know when we left but of course it was not fixed by the time we got beck so George unplugged it and then plugged it in again and it worked fine! I mostly read the new Nicholas Sparks book though. It was really good!

  The next day I stayed in bed until it was time to go home. We had an hour delay on the way home but the flight was smooth and easy.

 

Now we are a week into the two week wait, my official pregnancy test is October 3. Of course I really debated doing home pregnancy test, but if you know me at all, you know that I HATE surprises and have no will power when it comes to that stuff! So I tested this morning but I won't be sharing the results until the official blood test!!





Final monitoring appointment

   Shortly after I wrote my last blog I got an email that my ultrasound results were NOT great. They thought that my lining was thickening too slowly. To help things along I was instructed to increase the hormones! I went from taking two tablets a day to four and from injecting .1 cc every three days to injecting .2cc EVERY day! BUT it worked! At my last appointment my lining was at a nice fluffy 9 with 11 days before transfer. So it is a go! 9/21 we will try again to make my IPs parents!
  Another strange thing that I have had happen twice this time and never before, it seems I have hit a vein when doing my injections! How do I know this? Well I turned to put the syringe into the sharps container and felt something running down my leg, what do I see? Blood shooting out of the injection site all over me and the floor! It didn't hurt or anything, just bleeding all over. So gross! It stopped with a little pressure and was no big deal, just a surprise to see blood literally shooting out of my body!
   Transfer plans are that we will fly out Friday afternoon, transfer Saturday and come home Sunday. I am a little nervous about the flight though. We have had so much smoke in the air that I have had a sinus headache for days. I am working on clearing it up with my secret potion.... Apple Cider vinegar. It tastes horrid but it thins the mucus so that hopefully I am not in pain this flight.
   That's all for now, I'll update again after transfer.

Monitoring

   Today I had monitoring appointment #2 of 3. I am pretty sure that everything is going well. My uterine lining is thickening up as expected and everything on the ultrasound looked good. Last week I started on many of the medications again. Currently I am taking 3 prenatal vitamins, 2 estridol tablets, DHA, folate, baby aspirin and a shot of Delestrogen every 3 days. I am feeling well and the shots are totally painless. We are only 18 days away from transfer.  This is still an emotional roller coaster. I am excited and thinking positive that this WILL work this time, but the doubt that it may not still looms. I know that it is out of my control, that is probably what is so scary about it! I am dedicated to this though, and I will try however many times it takes us to get pregnant. I have struggled to even blog about the process this time. It seems like there is not much new to share as the process is the exact same as last time. It is much nicer to go through the process with my OB, partially because there is not much of a drive, but mostly because I will be able to have the same person through it all. He has done the monitoring, he will monitor the pregnancy and then he will, hopefully, be there for the delivery. It is very reassuring that I will not have to explain the situation over and over to different doctors. As much as I like sharing the experience of this journey, it gets tiring to repeat things to every professional I come in contact with. I have learned that there are not a lot of people in this community that know much about surrogacy.
   I am asked a lot of questions when people find out I am a surrogate, the first one is almost always "how are you going to give the baby up" to which I get to explain the process of how it is not mine and that there is no genetic connection. The next question is usually about my mental stability when I share that my goal is to TRY to deliver without an epidural! There are a lot of questions about the medical process and the shots. It is really hard for others to fathom that it really is not hard to give myself shots or to have my husband do it. Then there is always the BIG question: How will I handle being pregnant, caring for 3 kids, going to classes, attending a practicum site, being a wife and taking care of my house? Well, just like I do everything else, one day at a time and with very careful scheduling! I am VERY dependent on my planner. Everything has to be written down or there is no way I will remember it! From there things just work out. I am trying to accept that I cannot do everything and be everywhere. I will have to miss some of Kimberly's swim meets, I cannot volunteer in Noah's class as much as I would like but I do as much as I can! I have also learned to ask for help. When I look at my calendar I am SO glad that I will not have to throw the care of a newborn into the mix! I am happy to answer the questions that people have. I wish that there was more publicity on the positive surrogacy stories. There are so many stories out there of when things go wrong, but there are also many untold stories of happy journeys and families that would not be without surrogacy. My ultimate goal would be that I could encourage at least one other woman to help someone else have a family. I have had a few inquiries but no one actually start the process. Even though we are early in the journey, it has changed my life, my children's life and my families beliefs. That on it's own in a huge accomplishment!

 

    

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!