Monday, April 30, 2012

And then there was silence...

I've sent two emails to the surrogacy department at the Boston hospital since Friday (one Friday, one last night) and no response yet. I know it hasn't been that long, but I'm already kind of like, "WTF?"

In both emails I sent over various records they had requested and in my last one asked if we could get this show started now as soon as Gabby comes back.

Previously, my emails had been answered almost immediately. so even this short wait is making me anxious. Ugh.

One good piece of news to come back was hearing from the Dana Farber Cancer Institute on Friday that my cancer genetic screening came back negative for BRCA 1/2. So that is one less thing we'll need to look for - in fact I think we just need to do the more general PGS (screening) now instead of PGD (diagnosis) as both my heart defect can back negative for genetic and now the cancer genes.

L's hasn't come back yet because his insurance is giving them a tough time (insurance apparently doesn't care as much about if you have the cancer gene if you're a guy). They told us they wrote up additional justification for the insurance but if they don't cover it we have to decide whether to pay for it out of pocket or not. We're leaning towards no. Since I don't have it we don't have to worry about us both contributing a BRCA 1/2 gene to any embryo (one more reason for our miscarriages we can throw out). It would be nice to know, but it's not that big a deal. We can always get any daughter of ours tested in the future.

After the excitement of last week, there's such a lull now. Gabby's in Mexico, and I'm twiddling my thumbs hoping this starts soon so we can fit it in before our vacation in June.

Haven't heard anything from the adoption agency lately.

I cried last night. I'm still really sad/upset today. Nothing has happened to make me, but I just feel really really sad. I just want this cycle over with, I want Gabby pregnant, I want to be off this roller coaster.

Friday, April 27, 2012

Pre-Screening Complete!

All of a sudden, I think commenting is working for me again! I feel something weird went down this week with Blogger, because I got an email telling me I have an unmigrated legacy Blogger account. I tried to follow the directions but they don't seem to have done anything. I hope I'm not shut out of my blog in May sometime.

Yesterday we were in Boston and saw Gabby and her husband again! We had dinner with them after our full day of testing. You know, surrogacy costs A LOT, but after spending the day there yesterday, I just don't think I could be a surrogate for all they have to go through. When you think about it, $25K is just not that much for not only 9 months of pregnancy and giving birth, but all the stuff you have to do BEFORE you even get pregnant. If they got paid the full amount of what we are paying for surrogacy, then I might think it more worth it, but they only get a small portion of what surrogacy really costs.

Earlier in the week (of even at the end of last week) I'd gotten a call that the genetic testing for my heart that we had done at my last appointment in Boston 2 weeks ago was going to be in in time for our appointment yesterday, so we set up a 12pm appointment to discuss the results before the rest of our appointments with the doctors and social workers starting at 1pm. So we dropped the dog off at doggy day care and headed to Boston, getting there 15 minutes late, actually. And then we realized we may be at the wrong location, because they couldn't find out appointment!

Thank god I still had the number in my phone that they had called me from the previous week so I called the number and got a hold of Erin, the genetics counselor. It turns out she had gotten the wrong week. She thought we were coming NEXT week. Well, I had to tell her that we weren't going to be coming back next week just for the genetics info (honestly there's no reason they can't do that over the phone anyway), and she said that some info had actually come back the day before but they needed a little more time to go over it. She apologized profusely, which was nice, and said that I actually DON'T have a genetic heart defect. No DiGeorge's - no 22Q deletion for me!! Which on the one hand is GREAT of course, because now any child of ours has really no extra chance of coming down with a heart condition, but of course proves I'm a mutant :) So that's no fun.

But in addition to that she also said that even though there's no DiGeorge's, they did find a few other things, but they still had to go over them "to see what they mean." So my thinking is that, PERHAPS there's other genetic issues, but there's also the fact that no one on this planet has a PERFECT genetic sequence - there's deletions and mutations for everything and they just need to make sure all of my changes don't equal any major genetic defect. I think if there was something big, they would have recognized it right away, and they didn't, so they're just going to go over it in detail to make sure they didn't miss anything. Overall, I'm pretty relieved!

We would have been super late to this meeting anyway, so it's probably just as well. At least this meant that we got to our first real appointment of the day early! We checked in and sat down, L went to find a bathroom and all of a sudden I hear a screech and "Ducky!!!" (ok she used my real name :) from my left (I was reading my Kindle). And it was Gabby and her husband. She disappeared from view and then a few seconds later ran over to her husband with a cup of coffee in her hand exclaiming, "I LOVE free stuff!" (They had free K-cups of coffee in the waiting room). It just totally brought a smile to my face. She is always so upbeat and cheery and HYPER and totally doesn't need any coffee!

So we got called into do our social worker appointment, and they got called in to see the nurse, and we did all our stuff separately, but in between would see each other in the waiting room and chatted. I had to get a full physical (ugh) and they did a pap smear because I'm so close to the one year (I got one while I was pregnant last May) (double ugh). I had 8 vials of blood taken, Gabby had a bunch as well (she texted me a picture while she was having it done), even her husband - who is contributing nothing (except moral support) to this future pregnancy had 3 vials drawn - I think just to make sure no one has any communicable diseases, and L had 15!!! More than anyone else! It was very strange.

Finally we had our joint social worker appointment and it was great. The social worker (who had met with me and L separately, and Gabby and her husband separately, first) basically said, "All of you are the most high functioning adults I think we've ever seen here, and we've done a LOT of surrogacy here."

She thought we were all great, all perfect for each other and it was quite the ego boost. Although, I was thinking, holy cow, who do they usually see here??????

Afterwards we were supposed to be done but L and I had never met with the nurse to find out the protocol so we asked if Gabby and her husband would wait since we were supposed to have dinner afterwards. They said definitely, to take our time, and I told them it would be really quick. Yea, an HOUR later we were finally done, and I felt terrible!!

So I really feel the Boston doctor has really tried to craft a protocol that she thinks will work for me. I mean, it remains to be seen if it does, but I can see the level of detail and time she's taken to review my previous cycles and find out what will work, because NONE of my previous IVF cycles have been great, even though one ended up in twins.

IVF #1 - Agonist cycle. Never got above 1300 E2. Only 12 eggs, on 7 fertilized, none made it to freeze. Chemical.

IVF #2 - Agonist cycle. Never got above 1400 E2, then plunged to 349 day before retrieval. Got 18 eggs, but only 4 were mature. They let the others mature overnight and amazingly 12 fertilized. Ended up with twins that cycle and 4 frozen.

IVF #3 - Antagonist cycle. Got to 2100 E2, 17 retrieved, 11 fertilized, but only 3 were around still on Day 5 transfer. Plus even though my E2 was only 2100, I got a very painful case of OHSS. So weird.


So I really wanted to know if they were going to put me on Lupron or not. Because my E2 rises SO SLOWLY on lupron, but clearly in the cycle they didn't my embryos didn't live very long. So they are putting me on lupron, but they are diluting it, so I'm only going to get at first about 40% of the normal dosage of lupron and then they will drop it to 20% at a certain point. That is very cool and shows she really looked at what happened to me previously.

They're also putting me on Gonal F, which I've NEVER used before and comes in a really cool PEN looking device, and menopur, which I used for the first time last cycle. I've only ever used Bravelle and have about 5 boxes of it at home. I really need to do something with it, donate it or try to get some money back for it or something because it's a shame to waste it because IVF meds are SO expensive.

So I'm very excited about this protocol and hope it makes for some great eggs!!

As for timing, I'm really not sure how that's going to work out. They won't have our b/w back until the middle of next week when Gabby will be on vacation. Then we have some FDA requirements that we have to go through because we're putting my cells in someone else's body. And I had two "flags" go up in the questionnaire they gave me. The first is that I lived in the U.K. for more than 3 months between 1980-1996. Yep, my dad got transferred to England in 1980 when I was not even 2 and we lived there till 1984 or so. I was very young but I guess it counts. And apparently it has to do with mad cow disease or something back then. Considering it's been about 30 years I think I would know if I had it by now, no? Sort of funny.

The other red flag is that I've had an animal cell put in my body. As in I have a pig valve (it might be a bovine valve, I don't know, but definitely an animal) put in during my heart surgeries (I had one put in my first one, and they replaced it with another one in my second surgery). So that is also problematic.

At first I thought that meant this was going to ruin our cycle, but it turns out it just adds an extra layer of bureaucracy because we can still do it, but Gabby just has to consent to it. So she has to go in and meet with the doctors and sign some forms saying she's ok with it. Which she's willing to do (I explained to her at dinner about these red flags - she knew about my heart surgeries, but I had honestly never even thought about bringing up my living in England when I was kid before), but it's going to just delay us even more.

So I don't really know if this is all going to fit in before we go on vacation in June. I almost wish I could postpone vacation but we have friends counting on us and really excited about it, so I can't back out now. So it may have to wait till after vacation - ugh!!

Anyway, afterwards they took us to this microbrewery and pub (since L loves those) for dinner and we had wonderful conversation and I just like them so so much. I wish they lived closer to us, they are just such nice people and I don't know how we got so lucky! We even had the nurse tell us that they had no idea how our surrogate decided she wanted to BE a surrogate because she's just so perfect!

After dinner we made our long trek back to NY and when almost home I got a text from Gabby talking about taking her prenatals and how much she loves skittle and it was just really nice and friendly. If she gets pregnant I will mail her CASES of skittles if it makes her happy! :)

So I hope this stuff happens fast, because not having anything to write about for the next 2 months will kill me. We are both SO READY TO GO!

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

The Countdown is On!

Random question as I watch a commercial for the movie Dark Shadows: Does Tim Burton do any movie without Johnny Depp?

Got a call re: my surgical consult for the gallbladder. It's not scheduled until May 8th, proving to me it's not all that important. Yay! If it can be done, I think I'm going to schedule surgery for late May/early June right after retrieval so I can just be laid up the whole week.

Just in case, I emailed Holly to ask her if anything related to my gallbladder could affect egg quality in our upcoming cycle. She said nope but just to keep an eye on the pain and go to the doctor if there's any bad pain. I can do that!

Gabby went for her psych appt. at the Boston hospital on Monday and texted me afterwards to let me know it was done. They made her take one of those personality quizzes, which makes me giggle. I think I took one once (but can't remember what for) and I think it would be really easy to say all the right things on them. But I'm guessing since I didn't hear anything from the hospital she passed with flying colors!

Next we head to Boston on Thursday to have our joint (all 4 of us) social worker meeting and Gabby is having her hysteroscopy. I just emailed her to ask if they wanted to have dinner and she's up for it! This will be only the second time we've seen each other so I'm excited. As she wrote to me, "only one more day!" After Thursday we should be ready to start! Of course, she's going on vacation on Sunday for a week so they may make us wait till she gets back, but everything will be ready to go. I can't believe it's finally here!

Today's ICLW blogs I've commented on:

1) http://kecharakitten.blogspot.com
2) http://waitingformybaby2012.blogspot.com/
3) http://davidandelizabethadopt.blogspot.com/
4) http://www.stirrup-queens.com/
5) http://bickerstaffblog.blogspot.com/
6) http://lockedwombmystery.blogspot.com/

In case you're wondering why I keep listing them, it's because many of them don't seem to be showing my comments after I've attempted to click "send." I keep hoping some of these ladies will let me know if indeed they've received comments from me or if I have a broken account somewhere - so please do if you see this!!

Monday, April 23, 2012

Guess what I have???

I had an ultrasound on my stomach on Friday, and called Friday afternoon to see what the results were because I didn't want to have to wait all weekend if it was something serious. In particular, I was very worried about ascites - basically where your belly is full of fluid.

I've had ascites once in my life, after my first (bad) heart surgery. Apparently my heart wasn't strong enough after surgery and couldn't pump out all the fluid out of body that it needed to so it started filling up in my belly instead. I never looked full or anything like that but I remember my stomach hurting something fierce. I went to the local hospital at the time and they said they thought it was my gallbladder. But a few days later I went back to the hospital I had my heart surgery done at and they told me it was ascites. They put me on L.asix (a diuretic) for many months until my heart was strong enough again to handle things on its own but that stomach pain has always stayed with me. So when my stomach started hurting a little over a month ago that's immediately what I thought.

Of course, it turns out that I also had an h. pylori infection, so after 2 straight weeks of an 8-pill antibiotic course I thought it should be taken care of. But after horrible stomach pain 2 weekends ago it was clear that that wasn't the only issue going on so I went back to my doctor. He recommended a U/S and an endoscopy to rule out gallbladder and ascites, and see if I have an ulcer.

Well the good thing is, no ascites. I think I should put that out my little head as it's something you only have after surgery and my last surgery was in 2009 (and I didn't have it then). But I finally called back my doctor's office this afternoon since no one has called me and apparently I have gallstones and I need a surgical consult.

I need this like I need another hole in the head.

To quote Teresa Giudice from RHONJ, "Are you kidding me? Are you freakin' kidding me?"

I don't know the details from my U/S just what the nurse on the phone told me and she wasn't helpful. I have no idea when that surgical consult will be scheduled. Hell, it could be more than 1 month from now, what do I know? I asked if this was something I could push off and the nurse was all like, "Well, I don't really know. You don't want it to get into you bile duct because then it can be really dangerous."

You know who else might be really dangerous if she can't start her surrogate cycle next week? Me!!

The hilarious part came when I told her that I can't have surgery done in this town. The nurse said, "oh don't worry about your heart. St. Peter's is really good."

Let me direct you to a post I wrote over a year ago about "how good" St. Peter's is with heart stuff.

The post in which St. Peter's made my life hell.

Yea, there is no way in hell I will be doing any surgery in this town.

So yea, I don't know what to do now. I haven't met with the surgical consult yet and don't know if I will before I start my surrogate cycle. So i don't have all the information. But should I ask the Boston hospital who's doing my cycle if it will be a problem to do a cycle while I have gallstones? Or is that silly? I don't want to bring up an issues if they will make too big a deal of them, but I also don't want to have a bad cycle due to gallstones. (Although really, I don't know why it would affect it, although apparently BCP and hormonal treatments - hello IVF - are big factors for gallstones).

Ahh!!! Tell me I don't have the worst luck.

ICLW Day #3

I think more comments are getting through today, but still not every one. It's sort of discouraging!

Today's blogs I commented on...

1) http://dogmomchasingthestork.wordpress.com/
2) http://saving4ivfbaby.blogspot.com/
3) http://hapahopes.blogspot.com/
4) http://www.breathegently.com/
5) http://beingjamielynn.blogspot.com/
6) http://thetearinamyseye.blogspot.com

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Day 2 of ICLW

I know it's National Infertility Awareness Week, but I'm just not sure what I should write about this week that's different from last week. I'm still here, still technically infertile, year after year, and still unable to completely come out of the closet regarding it. I can't put my finger on why I care so much about "coming out" about it, except for the pity I have gotten from some people I've told. So many of my friends who felt so bad when they got pregnant after I'd been trying for awhile (a few years ago now) are on their second and third kids and who wants to be brought down by my whining about it?

I do think people should quit it with the ultrasound pictures on facebook though. Seriously, no one cares about the U/S pic except you of course, and MAYBE your parents. That's it.

Ok, off my soapbox now :)

Still seem to be having issues commenting and it's driving me crazy! I don't know if anyone's seeing my comments.

Today I have posted on:

1. http://returntogobaby.com
2. http://theadventuresofaninfertilemyrtle.blogspot.com
3. http://www.nonsequiturchica.blogspot.com/
4. http://carneyexploits.blogspot.com/
5. http://createdfamily.com/
6. http://www.naturallyknockedup.com

Saturday, April 21, 2012

TEST

Blogspot just did some new update and now I can't seem to sign in. So this is a just a TEST post while I try to figure it out so I can participate in ICLW!
P.S. - I keep leaving comments and they keep disappearing. I'm really annoyed about this update. Are they just in a queue waiting for the blog owner to approve or are they disappearing? If you see 14 bazillion comments from me on your blog, that is because I didn't know if it was working or disappearing!
P.P.S. - I'm beginning to think they just need to be approved by the blog owner. OMG how embarrassing! I literally tried to repost a comment on one blog about 20 times. Just wait till she finds them! :) Blogs I've posted comments at today - my apologies if you have eleventy million from me!
1) http://babymakingmerrygoround.blogspot.com/
2) http://mrssneakers.blogspot.com/
3) http://journeytobabyg.blogspot.com/
4) http://jo-mojoworking.blogspot.com/ (definitely the one I hit "post" to a billion times)
5) http://lessonsfromaninfertilesocialworker.blogspot.com/
6) https://fromthewaitingroom.wordpress.com

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Rejected

No baby for us :( The birth mom picked another couple who lived in OH, like the birth mom did. It feels like no one wants us. When I made out adoption profile book last fall, I thought it was so great - that we would get picked right away. Boy was I wrong.

Yes, I know it hasn't been THAT LONG (will be 6 months at the end of this month) but everything feels like an eternity at this point.

....
In other news, I'm having new medical issues. I am the winner in the medical lottery, it appears. But Megamillions? No way.

For the last month I've been having awful stomach pain. It's pain right in the middle of my abdomen, just under my rib cage and above my belly button. It got to the point that ANYTHING I ate, whether it was a sip of water or a healthy dinner, made me feel like I'd eaten a 12 course meal and was stuffed to the gills and bloated beyond heck. It was just miserable.

So I went to my PCP and they did bloodwork and apparently found I have h pylori bacteria infection. This can cause ulcers and other things (can even lead to stomach cancer in rare cases) so they gave me about 8 pills a day to swallow for 2 weeks. After 1 week I was feeling so much better. But this weekend, I was in so much pain it wasn't even funny. So back I went today, and rather than do another blood test, he gave me a referral to have an endoscopy done, an ultrasound to rule out it being my gallbladder, and a prescription for N.exium twice a day. He's thinking it may be an ulcer, which N.exium will heal. But I haven't had any burning heartburn or anything at all.

I can't handle anymore invasive procedures so I told him it will be at least July before I get that done. Apparently the only thing to fix an ulcer is to take Nexium for 12 weeks so it may certainly be that long by the time I get around to it. There's just too much going on, driving to Boston often and doing the cycle. Can't. Handle. It.

At least this Friday I'll have the U/S done so we can rule out anything really bad. I am so sick of doctors though.

....
I ran out of BCP on Friday so I started my placebo week as directed by the Boston nurse overseeing our surrogacy group. Her exact words in an email to me, "Go through placebo week I want a good stim from you." Me too!!

I emailed her today though because I wasn't sure when to start the BCP again. On Sunday, only the second day off the pill, I had about 2 hours of moderately heavy bleeding, (TMI) only when I wiped. It never made it to a pad or anything but wiping it was definitely more than just a little. It was almost like breakthrough bleeding. But 2 hours later it stopped and I haven't had anything since. So I've been waiting for AF to come and emailed Holly the nurse to ask. She told me to consider that my period (best period EVER then) and start the pill again tonight. Good thing I emailed! I'm getting excited...it's like we're in the homestretch! At least I hope so, I still don't know exactly when we're starting but we should be ready to go by the end of next week.

Totally exhausted tonight from not sleeping well last night. Hopefully will get some good sleep tonight.

Monday, April 16, 2012

Someone Call Me

Well, it's Monday and there's been no news on that profiling. I have been ridiculously consumed by it - checking my phone umpteen times a day this weekend. She should have received our adoption profile on Friday, and she was due any day, but even if she hasn't given birth yet I just have the feeling she's already picked someone else. And it makes me so, so sad.

I don't know why this one is hitting me so badly. I think because of the half caucasian/half hispanic angle, or the name angle, or the no drugs/alcohol angle or even the "want to keep in touch but not too much touch angle." And the fact that it's a girl. I may have a soft-spot in my heart for girls (although I want ANY baby no matter what!). It just seemed so perfect for us.

The other opportunities I was excited about but definitely not this excited. And there's really no difference in this one vs. the other ones. But this weekend we found out that my SIL is pregnant again after her December miscarriage (she waited slightly longer this time to tell us - 8 weeks) and it just brings back the fact that everyone has kids now/is pregnant and we're just sitting here, alone.

Heh, I even hoped my phone would ring right about 9am this morning, the adoption agency, perhaps not technically "working" over the weekend, calling first thing. So far, it has not happened :(

Our appts. in Boston went well. It was a very long day though. We were up at 5am to make it to Boston by 9:30am and even though we left early we still barely made it on time thanks to rush hour traffic. We started in pre-op anesthesia where I signed the consents for anesthesia for the egg retrieval I'm not even going to have in the next month. I did get to see the Boston doctor who's doing my surrogacy cycle, and gave her the embryo information for my last cycle which she didn't have yet. She told me she had already decided upon a protocol for me based on what I had told her previously but she was going to review the latest information I handed her just to make sure. Sounds like a good plan to me.

After that, we went to the heart center to discuss the genetics of my heart. I had to go over the most inane questions with the fellows and residents. "When did you learn you had a heart condition?" Um, I was born with it. "So you learned about it immediately?" Well, *I* had no idea at approximately 1 day old, duh.

They did a physical exam and don't think that my heart condition is genetic (thereby putting myself into an even smaller anomaly percentage, yay :/) but took blood work anyway just to confirm. If there's no genetic component we don't need to do PGS for any specific heart defect.

After a quick lunch at Au Bon Pain (the only reason to ever go to a hospital in my opinion, is for their oatmeal raisin cookies - which got me through my last heart surgery :), we headed over the to the Dana Farber Cancer Clinic.

This was such a sad place. I've been in hospitals all my life, but with the exception of when I was a child, I don't remember seeing so many visibly sick people in the waiting rooms. I have an image in my mind from when I was young walking down a hallway in a hospital and walking by the thinnest, bluest girl who clearly had a heart condition but was still upright and ever since then I've wondered what happened to her. Is she still alive? Is she long dead? Did she make it to high school?

But here in the Dana Farber clinic there were so many people in wheelchairs, clearly debilitated. Still, cancer must be where the money is because the clinic was beautiful. And they gave away snacks. I've donated money before to the Jimmy Fund and I kind of was annoyed it was so nice. How much donated money goes to making things look pretty when it can be spent on medicine or research?

We met with some genetic counselors there and went over the cancer history in our families. Apparently L is more at risk because of his family's cancer history than mine, but there's still the chance we could both be carrying the BRCA 1 gene. And something new we learned: If we were both to pass on the BRCA 1 gene to a child of ours, it would never survive. Now, there's only a 25% chance with any given pregnancy that we would and I have had 4 pregnancies, so you would think it not likely. And it probably isn't. But since we're totally unexplained I guess it's not out of the realm of possibilities. So we had bloodwork taken for that too. We're not sure our insurance covers the test though so they will check first before running it. If not it's $3300 out of pocket for each of us - $6600 total. Yea, we can't afford that on top of surrogacy.

We headed back home after that and got stuck in so much traffic that it took us more than 5 hours to get home. (it should take us between 2.5-3 hrs normally). It was such a long day.

So now, there's nothing else to do but wait. The last of the prescreening appointments for surrogacy are next week. I ended my BCP pack on Friday and was told to stop taking it and wait for AF to come. Not sure if I will go back on it again or they have some other plan but will need to figure that part out soon.

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Another Profiling!

3 profilings in just a few weeks? Whew!! I read on another blog that is doing adoption they've gotten profiled 8 times and their agency said it's "adoption season." I guess it's true!

I admit, when we don't get this one I'm going to a little crushed by it. It seems SO perfect for us. Mom is due any day and is having a baby girl. She's had prenatal care from 3 months on and has no drug history or exposure or alcohol drug history or exposure. Except she did take vicodin during the first two months of pregnancy and an antibiotic in the 8th month for bronchitis.

She is my age and has 3 kids already (2 teens, one child). Whew! Father as usual is not in the picture. Not much extended medical info given but no major issues told about. She doesn't desire to talk or meet with the adoptive family until after delivery and she only wants pictures/letters/and a phone call for contact.

The baby will be half Hispanic which I would totally love because I am hispanic so it would be awesome to share a culture. Plus the birth mom's name is actually one of the names we were considering for a girl so that would be so fortuitous!

Of course, being born possibly this weekend would throw a serious kink into our plans. We're supposed to go to Boston for the first medical appts. related to the surrogacy cycle - PGD and pre-op anesthesia for retrieval when the time comes. And then next week are the rest of the pre-screening appointments with Gabby and then we start!

So I don't know how it will work out but I'm trying not to care. Probably won't work out anyway, so why worry until it does?

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Turning a Page

Most of the time when I write I just spew out whatever comes to mind, most often, the "news of the day." Despite just writing what comes to mind, I rarely feel like I'm really delving into my emotions. Now, having been off infertility drugs for 4 months (but going back on them very soon for our surrogate cycle) I feel better able to deal with and talk about those feelings in a constructive way.

To those of you who have listened to me and read this blog and will continue to do so, I thank you. I'm very haphazardly (I feel) in the world of infertility - never quite feeling like I can own my place in it. I don't get pregnant very often, but I have gotten pregnant. I can't seem to stay pregnant, but I've been able to have the experience of seeing those two pink lines, the ultrasounds (both internal and external), seeing the white flickering of my baby's heart, and of course the stillness when it stopped...the jumbled body of my baby as it broke down in my womb, weeks after he died.

When I think about it in detail, the tears still come, but there is no longer that horrible, debilitating depression, the feeling that I can never cry enough to get rid of the hole in my heart, that there is no way to get rid of that hole in my heart.

I've always known there was a way (but only one way) to get rid of that hole, by having a child (one way or another, biological or not), but it seemed like an impossible feat.

One year ago about this time I learned I was pregnant again, although I didn't know it was with twins yet. It was both the most exhilarating and subsequently terrible time of my life. I thought it would take years to be fully over it.

And I was right. It will take years. But now, one year later, it's not as painful as it was, and I find that amazing, impossible even. But I know it's because of all the hope I have, the things going on, that allow me to feel better, even a little bit.

I have no idea whether this IVF cycle and surrogacy will work for us. In the event it doesn't, I am sure I will be devastated yet again. But we are on our adoption journey now and I know it WILL happen. Someday I WILL be a mom. For all my crying about how old I am, it will still happen before I am 40 (I'm 33 right now).

I'm like Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally through so much of my life, probably a product of my heart condition and the feeling that I need to get it all done because I think my life will end sooner than for a "normal" person. Keep in mind, I don't even know if that's true, but I have always had that feeling.

Sally: No. But why didn't he want to marry me? What's the matter with me?
Harry: Nothing.
Sally: I'm difficult.
Harry: You're challenging.
Sally: I'm too structured, I'm completely closed off.
Harry: But in a good way.
Sally: No, no, no, I drove him away. AND, I'm gonna be forty.
Harry: When?
Sally: Someday.
Harry: In eight years.

I've been that fatalistic since I was a teen :) Always ahead of life and always not really living in the present. Oh, I KNOW the cliches about it, the quotes like "If you spend your whole life waiting for the storm, you'll never enjoy the sunshine," but I've often felt like life was just one big storm, and I keep waiting for it to pass, yet it continues to rage on. I live for that day when it will be over and I will have everything.

But nobody ever has everything, right? And intellectually I know it. It's hard when you see so many people who have great jobs and great families, and fancy homes and they look like they have it all. And you wish you could have it too.

I may not have the thing I want most in this world, at least not yet. I do have the most fantastic husband with whom I have spent half my life with, a good job/profession, a family with the resources to help us on this journey, and the ability to write (I didn't say well :) my feelings down.

I don't think 6 months ago I could have managed to write down anything positive. Some people have naturally sunny outlooks on life, and some people are very introspective, musing and therefore see bad in a lot of things. That has definitely been me. But I was reading my diary/journal from 2000 today and saw that I used to be so much more introspective and not JUST complaining and I want to be more like that again. I think I've shut myself down a lot in the last few years (maybe more) so that I wouldn't feel as much pain. In the end I don't know if it did any good (maybe it did, but even so the pain was still unbearable so who cares?)...all I know is that I feel like I'm starting to come out of it.

When going through IVF meds, I didn't see how much they affected me at the time. When you're depressed on those meds you think it's just YOU and you suck for being so weak. Off those meds I see what they did to me and am so grateful it's not ME. I really look forward to the day I am done with them and we either have a baby through surrogacy or adoption and we just have unprotected sex again and whatever happens will happen but I won't have to worry about never having a child because I'll already have one.

I will continue to live for that day, but today is filled with possibility, and for once, I'm grasping it.

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

It's Getting Exciting

Things are starting to heat up surrogacy-wise! The Boston hospital certainly jumped on the ball once I paid for the cycle. I got eleventy billion calls from them yesterday trying to schedule appointments. It will mean a few days away from the office here and there to get everything done but then we'll be on our way!

I did not realize that the nuva ring was the same as BCP for IVF purposes! Haha, I feel so 1990s. Gabby has been on it since her IUD was taken out so I was afraid she was going to have to finish a cycle with that and THEN go on BCP for us to start lining up our cycles but it turns out we're already synching up - yay! The week of the 23rd she is doing the psych screening, social worker, hysteroscopy and whatever else needs to be done. L and I are going in for the joint social worker meeting with Gabby and her husband and also doing the IVF "class" (so stupid since we've already done 3 IVF cycles, but I think it will just be a quick and personal refresher), and any b/w we need to do and then we will be ready to go!

Still haven't heard about a protocol, but I finally got a retrieval report sent to me from my local RE for the last cycle I had so I will send it to the doctor and get her thinking about it. Just realized I have no idea what's going on med-wise, but I'm trying not to worry about it. You know what an OCD worrier I am!

Friday, April 6, 2012

Updates

Well, we didn't get picked for that profiling opportunity, but the birth mom did end up picking another family, so I guess I was totally wrong about that! It was really weird. On Tuesday, my agency advocate called and left a message saying she had made a decision and to please call her back because she also had another profiling opportunity.

Ok, so since there's another opportunity, obviously, we weren't picked for the other one. Is there any reason you just can't come out and say that on my VM? And by the time I got the message it was 5:30pm so I couldn't call right away and find out. Ugh, I hate that.

When I called the next morning sure enough, we hadn't been picked. The new profiling opportunity didn't sound as good either. First, the birth mom was in Arizona, and she was due Apr. 14th. It was basically a meth/heroin baby, even though the mother swears she got off it as soon as she found out she was pregnant at 4 months. Ok, there's a reason why there are methadone clinics, because you can't just quit that stuff cold turkey, so I really didn't believe it. She also hadn't had any pre-natal care, so I didn't think she was really taking care of this baby the whole time. But we said we would like to be profiled because hey, you never know.

One day later, yesterday, we get a call saying the birth mom had picked someone else. Whoa, that was really fast. I mean, 1 day to receive our profile (and undoubtedly others) and we're in NY and she's in AZ? I don't think she put much thought into it then. But I think it's probably for the best since we weren't really sure if we were ready for that anyway.

So two profilings in less than a week, and now we're back to zero.

We're almost ready to go surrogacy-wise. We're in agreement on the contract now, so we just need to get it signed and we're good to go. Gabby's been doing her pre-screening and is on BC and getting her hysteroscopy done next week or the week after I think. I've run the cycle through my insurance (finally got that taken care of!) and though we still owe some money after insurance, it's less than it otherwise would be, which is good. We just need to go through the psychological screening and we're set to go!

I got in contact with Boston doctor to let her know because I'm a little more than midway through my BCP pack and she had previously said she didn't want me on it longer than a month, so hoping she can work some magic to get everything done so we can start soon. Gabby is now going on vacation the last week in April (so a week earlier than I thought) which could be good (getting started sooner) or bad (not getting all the prescreening stuff done ahead of time....but we're definitely almost ready to start!

Monday, April 2, 2012

Hubby's Birthday Trip

L and I had such a great weekend in Burlington VT! L's birthday was last week and he doesn't like making a big deal out of it. I on the other hand LOVE celebrating my birthday (or did until infertility put a damper on it with each year passing me by and no baby) and would love to celebrate my day, my week, heck my month if I could :)

So I, of course, had to make a big deal out of it. It was birthday 33 - so not a "big" number or anything, but still. L loves craft breweries, and Vermont has a brewery passport where if you get a certain number of them stamped you can mail in your passport and get little tchotchkes. While we couldn't go to all of them, I devised a plan to go to a number so he could at least get a can opener magnet or something (we came very close to getting enough for a t-shirt, but not quite there!)

So I made a 40 page packet for him telling him what was planned (because I refused to tell him anything about what we were doing or where we were going) and handed it to him when we were just about at the VT border. It was great. I put it in a big manila envelope and included other regular envelopes in there that he had to open according to the directions in the packet. So, to tell him where we were going for lunch, he had to open Envelope D, which was a menu to Das Bierhaus, a really great (it turned out) german bier garden with lots of german beers.

I haven't seen my husband this happy in a long time- and that made me SO happy. At the bierhaus he was looking at the beer menu and exclaiming that he hadn't had some of these beers since he was in Germany about 10 years ago, so he was thrilled. then we went to a bunch of breweries where he bought pint glasses from each one as a souvenir. We went to a tea house (a far east one, not a prissy english one :) and drank some great tea and then a farmhouse restaurant where all the meals were made from locally grown foods. We also did one little thing for me - the Ben and Jerry's ice cream factory nearby! Always wanted to do that! It was a lot of fun.

Now we're back to the daily grind and the stress that often runs our lives.
I still haven't heard back from my surrogate agency regarding what's going on with our insurance coverage in this cycle, nor whether Gabby has signed the contract yet. The last email I had from her she was asking me what I thought about it - that it was so scary - because it contemplates all sorts of crazy things that could happen (intrauterine surgery for the baby, for example) so she was a bit freaked out. Totally understandable. She was supposed to start her prescreening at the hospital today, so I hope she did and that it will go smoothly.

We've heard nothing on that adoption we got profiled for. She was supposedly due last Thursday. I suppose there's a chance she hasn't yet given birth, but my guess is she changed her mind altogether. I'll wait another week before calling my agency again.