Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Longest post ever?

This week I'm doing much better than last week, in which I was pretty much a wreck. My mom came home from the hospital yesterday and is doing as well as can be expected so that is good.

I'll admit, it occurred to me last week that if I had been pregnant, I don't know what would have happened with my mom going in for surgery on Tuesday and me giving birth on Weds. Part of me wonders if that was all in God's plan, and then the other part of me thinks God has given up on me and that's a silly thing to even ponder.

So...an update. You know there will be months and months of nothing going on and then all of a sudden a bunch of things happen on one day? Yea, today feels like that. After being in a bah humbug spirit most of this season, I finally got Christmas cards printed out at CVS (express pick up last night) and I will be mailing them out tomorrow. I guess they should reach everyone by Christmas Eve so I won't be on the naughty list. we've gotten Christmas cards from everyone and all along I've been like, "Ugh, I don't want to do them!" But we took some really cute pictures of my dog last night all wrapped up in ribbon (really it bordered on animal abuse, lol. We made her lie down as I wrapped ribbon all over her body to make it look like she got into it "by accident" and then made funny noises so she would cock her head to one side so we could get the cutest picture. i'll have to post it later. She was covered in sparkles from the ribbon by the time we were done.)

We're moving ahead with surrogacy, as we continue with adoption. Or rather, we've been trying to move ahead with surrogacy. We hashed it all out with my inlaws a couple months ago and we started looking at profiles with one agency. Originally, we got two profiles to look at. One I didn't like at all. I thought I would be pretty open minded about surrogates (as long as they were healthy, didn't do drugs, etc.) but boy did I turn out to be pretty judgmental!

S#1 was about 28, had had one kid only about 5 months before she signed up to be a surrogate but the baby was 10 mos. old by the time we saw her profile). I thought it was odd that she wanted to be a surrogate so soon after having her own baby, but hey maybe she loved being pregnant. She said she didn't take any medications, but had asthma, which I found a little ingenuine. L has mild asthma but still takes an inhaler occasionally and when we filled out our own profile we made sure to write it down.

Here's where the judgmental part really comes in: they are a deeply religious family, apparently. And S#1 refuses to be a surrogate for a homosexual couple. It is fine if it's a single heterosexual woman or man she is carrying for, but a committed homosexual couple is apparently not ok. That really really annoyed me. I'm not homosexual so it doesn't affect us in the least, but the S#1 wrote that she really wanted to be a surrogate to give a loving couple what they wanted most, a child (and I snarkily thought, unless their homosexual, then I guess you don't care). Oh yea, judgy mcjudgerson, that's me. She said that her church wouldn't approve of her carrying for a homosexual and that's why she wouldn't do it.

She also said she wouldn't terminate a pregnancy for any reason. We don't want to terminate for any reason other than no quality of life (i.e. baby couldn't live on its own outside the womb), but get this. She had an abortion in 2004. Was her church ok with that? See the weird thing is that I am very pro-choice. I don't believe in abortion for myself, but I don't believe I have the right to tell others what to do with their body (I certainly don't want anyone telling me what I should do with mine!). So you would think it wouldn't bother me, but it did. BIG TIME. Maybe because she claimed to be so religious. Now, I recognize she could have "found God" after that, but she wrote that she had been religious ever since she was a child.

the other thing that didn't sit well with me in my Judgy Chair was that she had a boob job in 2009. Why am I so judgy about that? I don't know. I think her profile came across as someone who really only wanted to do surrogacy for the money (which lets admit it, that's really the reason why women would do surrogacy for the most part), but combined with her religious beliefs and stuff, maybe she shouldn't have spent money on a boob job then.

Ok, ugh, I know. I never would have guessed in a million years I would have been so judgmental.

S#2 we really loved. My age, has 3 kids, is done with having kids (her youngest is 17 months (closer to 20 mos. now) is a PEDIATRIC NURSE (how awesome is that?). Would carry for anyone, homosexual or not. No meds, very into exercise. And awesomely, gives birth at the hospital I was planning on giving birth at in Boston. How perfect is that? She needed to schedule being induced for her last two kids because she gives birth SO QUICKLY. What an awesome "problem" to have! She is only willing to terminate when there is no quality of life (i.e. not for down syndrome or anything that still has quality of life- which is totally what we want too). Just we match up so well together. We had expressed our interest in her and she looked at our profile and said she was interested, but had a vacation and couldn't do a transfer until April. We were willing to wait until then because we liked her so much (and at this point, geez, it doesn't even matter that much when). Then a week later, the agency came back to us and said she now had ANOTHER vacation and couldn't do it until July.

To us, it sounded like she got cold feet (she's a first time surrogate) because we picked her literally just a few weeks after she applied. So we were disappointed but didn't want someone who was flaky anyway.

So last week we got sent S#3's profile. She was an experienced surrogate - had twins for another couple a few years back - so she's charging $10K more than the other's rates. Geez. But we looked at her anyway. She had two issues: no termination no matter what (even no quality of life), and while she was willing to travel for doctor appts., she wanted to give birth at her local hospital. We were willing to compromise on the first, but given my heart condition, there's a small percentage a baby of ours could have one as well so we wanted her to give birth at a big hospital. We asked if she would compromise - if there was a known issue before birth, she would go to the big hospital, but if there was no issues known we would go to her local hospital.

I thought it was a good compromise, but apparently she didn't, because she flat out said no. I guess we're not a good fit for each other.

So I was just about to give up until January when we got an email from our surrogate agency yesterday saying S#2's vacation was cancelled and she was wondering if we were still interested. (It would be back to transferring in April, which we were originally fine with). Yes! We want to get her locked in before she changes her mind again though (if that's what happened before, which I don't know for sure)...I think once she signs a contract, everything will be fine. We told the agency yes and today got an email saying she and her husband were so excited and want to have a call with us next week. So we will see how that goes - and all of a sudden that seems to be moving. But once that phone call takes place, money will start changing hands so we need to be careful.

AND THEN...
I call up the adoption agency today because it's been yet another month and we still haven't seen our homestudy. Of course, when I call I am told, we just mailed it to you on Friday, so you should have it today! (of course, on the DAY I call). Then I am also told that just yesterday they sent out our profile to someone (I'm not sure who, my mind was going crazy) ...there was a baby born a few weeks ago...it was early- a preemie, but no health issues and is doing great. I didn't even ask what gender! I think it was a referral from another agency because she said time was limited so they sent over our profile without asking us and she was about to call and let us know) and they haven't heard back yet. But she will let us know what the outcome is.

Holy cow. How awesome would that be. Adopt this month/early next AND have another baby around next January? That would just be too perfect.

I don't know how many profiles were sent over. Or the details. I didn't really want to ask because I didn't want to get my hopes up. You know, the more details, the more you start imagining. This is only our first profiling, I'm sure it won't work out. But holy cow!!

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

12/14/11

"The English language lacks the words to mourn an absence. For the loss of a parent, grandparent, spouse, child or friend, we have all manner of words and phrases, some helpful some not. Still we are conditioned to say something, even if it is only “I’m sorry for your loss.” But for an absence, for someone who was never there at all, we are wordless to capture that particular emptiness. For those who deeply want children and are denied them, those missing babies hover like silent ephemeral shadows over their lives. Who can describe the feel of a tiny hand that is never held?" -- Laura Bush

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

In case you were wondering...

Sorry if I left you hanging about beta. It was a BFN.

My mom is having emergency heart surgery today.

My twin's birthday should have been tomorrow.

It's a crummy week.

L and I are talking about driving to FL for New Years...just because we can. And to get out of this hellish rut we are in.

That's all.

Thursday, December 8, 2011

Beta is tomorrow

And I haven't POAS since Tuesday, which was 6dp5dt. That's because it was stark-freaking-white that day, which means I completely broke down and decided not to even go to work. I just couldn't handle it.

So I decided no more peeing on sticks before tomorrow's beta because I couldn't take the chance that would happen again. Not that I think tomorrows beta is going to be positive or anything. But why bring up that moment of misery any sooner by POAS today and seeing it white and crying every hour between now and then? I mean, I'm definitely going to cry tomorrow when it's negative anyway, so it's not like there's any benefit to knowing FOR SURE today.

I just don't understand it. I don't get it at all. I had 2 implant from a really shitty cycle in March, and now nothing from this cycle which was pretty good (as far as my E2 not crashing anyway)?? Why did so many blasts die between fertilization and day 5? Does that mean anything and if so, what should we get tested?

I don't feel any symptoms, unfortunately...boobs are not sore, stomach isn't bothering me much. I know it didn't work, but I think I'm not testing because it gives me the smallest bit of hope - that I'm still PUPO until tomorrow. Because I never will be PUPO again. Cuz there is no further IVF for me...at least where the blasts won't be put into a surrogate, if we ever get there.

3 IVF cycles, 3 IUI cycles, countless clomid/other drugs cycles,and of course, plenty of timed intercourse...no babies to show for it. Nothing "technically" wrong with me to prove why I can't carry babies, nothing wrong with L - we are completely unexplained.

And childless.

This month officially marks 3 years of real trying.

Sunday, December 4, 2011

4dp5dt

Yea, I POAS today. Silly and stupid, but as I got my BFP on 4dp5dt last time I was really hoping.

Then again, it was with twins, so that makes sense. And I really only had 1 "good" embryo this time, even though we put back two...so the chances of twins is less.

I continue to feel better. Now I don't want to - now I want to feel a little bit of OHSS again because that's a signal of pregnancy, that you have HCG in your system which is causing the reappearance of OHSS. But nope...not yet anyway. It's still early, I know.

Not really feeling much in the way of symptoms. Slightly bloated, but nothing bad. Certainly not as bloated as I was feeling earlier in the week or even in the 2ww after my last fresh IVF cycle. My boobs are *occasionally* tender, but not that much. I am having some heartburn, but I don't remember that until a few weeks after I was pregnant last time, certainly not this early.

My due date (or what would have been my due date) with the twins is fast approaching. December 14th. It's gonna be a sucky day.

Liebster Award

Ok, finally feeling so much better than earlier in the week.

Michelle over at Greetings from Nowhere, NM (I LOVE that name BTW) nominated me for the Liebster Award last week. I'm such a stream-of-conscious writer (I put neither much style or cleverness into my posts but certainly all my raw emotion - which is usually why I'm complaining in my posts :) but I'm grateful for the award all the same - thank you Michele!

About the award:
This Award is given to bloggers who have less than 200 followers, all in the spirit of fostering new connections. Leibster is German & means ‘dearest’ or ‘beloved’ but it can also mean ‘favorite’. The idea of the Leibster award is to bring attention to blogs with less than 200 followers.

Here are the rules:

1. Thank the giver and link back to the blogger who gave it to you.
2. Reveal your top five picks and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog. (I'm just doing three)
3. Copy and paste the award on your blog.
4. Hope that the people you’ve sent the award to forward it to their five favorite bloggers and keep it going!


I love small blogs and these are definitely my favorite. Fair warning that E&R and Another Dream are pregnant and giving birth soon! I love that they still comment on my posts even though many times I can't bring myself to comment on their blogs even though I am so so happy for them. They get why.

1. Mommy-in-waiting at Waiting On our Miracle
2. E & R at Dreaming of Babies
3. Another Dream at An Unwanted Path

Thursday, December 1, 2011

Transfer

I have a blog award that I am grateful for and need to post about but will do in a separate post later. I had transfer yesterday and it turns out that only 3 out of 11 embies made it to day 5 and one of those was actually a morula, so I don't even know if it'll make it to freeze. All that drama and all that pain (hyperstim) for almost nothing.

We ended up putting back 2 even though we had talked about putting back only 1 if we had many good ones to choose from. But in the end we only had a 3AA (which looked pretty darn good) and a 2BB which didn't look that good so we just did both.

I'm not having high hopes. I stayed home all day yesterday (different from my first two IVF cycles) and laid in bed because I'm still not feeling great and ended up throwing up later in the day. Man, I cannot get back to normal yet. Today I'm still a little bit better and my cotton mouth is to a more manageable status, though I'm still drinking a ton. I've barely eaten this week which would be a good thing except that I've drank my calories down - all "real" gatorade, Sprite, milkshakes, etc. Any COLD, super cold, liquid has been like gold to me.

So I've got my two embies in me, but I don't feel any connection. I always have before, treated my embies like their my babies already even before a positive pregnancy test. My stomach is still bothering me, I've done nothing all week (at work or at home) and I'm generally just blah. I don't want to have to do another IVF cycle, and it looks like we will if went end up going to the surrogacy route.

I'm not in the Christmas mode this year at all. We were going to go Christmas tree shopping last week until I was so sick I couldn't move and I have a baby shower to attend for my best work friend this Saturday and I kind want to just say f*ck it. I wish L and I could just wisk ourselves off to a caribbean location for christmas and new years and not be forced to think about any baby stuff.