Slightly Intimidated...

A bit of nervousness set in Wednesday holding the box of needles and medicine that Fed Ex brought to me.  The clinic tried to put me through a mock cycle last month and I ovulated through the meds, so this month I will be on stronger meds which means I will have to give myself a shot every day for a week or so.  I knew this was coming and I would have to do this close to the time of transfer, which just now means I will have to go through the shots twice to make sure it works.  Honestly this is not the most exciting thing I have looked forward to in this journey.  I have done my research and I know some women have issues with the Lupron shots and others do not.  I will hang onto my positive thoughts and keep in mind most medicines I take for any reason do not give me any side effects.  I know I can do this and it will probably be no big deal, but still the thought of giving myself shots on a daily basis is just a tad intimidating.

The internet is really an awesome tool these days, in anticipation of my upcoming injections, I googled surrogates and Lupron injections, and low and behold there were a number of actual instructional videos on You Tube.  Watching a number of other women do this with no real issues, did give me a little sense of relief.  I live on a farm and have had animals all my life and have actually given many shots and vaccines to animals, but just never to myself.  I’m sure I got this, no biggy (I keep saying to myself) feel the need for winking smiley face here. ;-) 

Well for now we are at the wait and see game (which is one game I do not play well). Have another week or so of meds and ultrasound to check lining of uterus and blood work to be done.  As long as that all goes the way they want, then I think we will be within 4-6 weeks of embryo transfer. 

I guess I will post in a week or so to update on how the injections are going and the ultrasound and blood work.  Keeping fingers crossed it all goes smoothly and as planned.

Clinic Day and Weekend

We had an eventful day planned at the clinic.  We all got up early had a small breakfast and were off to meet my daughter to pass the boys over to her.  All four of us adults then headed to the clinic.  All the ladies working in that clinic were just great!  They were all as nice as they could be and a bit on the funny side also.  Maybe they just thought my husband and I were funny, but we were all laughing most of the day.  We had blood work done, psych test on the computer, psych-educational consult, consult with nurse to learn how to take meds, saline sonogram, and a group psych was also scheduled.

We were shuffled from room to room, person to person, it was a busy day.  Let me tell you, these psych test you have to do on the computer, were about the craziest thing I have ever done.  I think it was like 300 questions and some of those questions were beyond absurd!  All questions you had to answer with a "always", "very likely", "likely", "not likely" or "never", or some variation like that.  With questions or statements like "My favorite past time is to watch the high jump on tv."  LOL  really?? I wondered how many people actually answer always to that? While it was an hour or so of answering some really goofy questions, it was very entertaining.

The two guys had their own pysch consult and then my hubby and I had ours, and the plan was that we were all four suppose to have one with the psychologist together afterward.  The psychologist came and told hubby and me that she felt no need for a group consult.  All four of us were a great match, we all got along well and had same thoughts and plans.  That actually made us feel pretty good although we already knew that, but for a trained professional to see it also, was a little reassuring.

We ended the day at the clinic with the Dr. informing us and the guys that I was in good shape, and my uterus looked great for pregnancy.  So we just had to wait for all the blood work to get back and then we would be on schedule to start cycling me and the egg donor together.  The plan is to make a fresh embryo transfer as the success rate is slightly higher with fresh rather than frozen embryos.  

We went to meet up with my daughter and get the boys back from her.  Of course they had a blast with big sissy and her boyfriend for the day, they went to playland stuff, bowling, laser tag, arcade time and Buffalo Wild Wings for lunch.  We got the boys and followed the guys to a restaurant close to their house, we all had a nice dinner together and time to sit and talk and get excited over the upcoming plans.  Made it back to their house and my boys found the piano to play with, and hubby enjoyed a glass of wine and hot tub time. (outside 15 degrees with lots of snow)  After finally getting my boys to bed, I enjoyed a little hot tub time with hubby.  It was a great end to a busy and fun day.

Saturday we had planned to sight see a bit, new place and things we had never seen before.  Lots of great things for our boys to learn about, we were near a city with rich history.  We had a leisurely breakfast, and headed to one of the guys parents house.  His parents had an suv we could borrow for the day so we could all ride in one vehicle instead of driving two.  So the six of us set out for a fantastic day!  Our boys really buddied up with the guys.  Each boy picking their own favorite to hang with.  My hubby and I sat back and watched and laughed as our boys can be handfuls.  The guys loved it and had a great time with our boys.  We had a wonderful day seeing and learning about some really old history in our country.  The boys even enjoyed every minute of it.  We went back to the parents house, and all went out for dinner.  The soon to be grandparents were wonderful, sweet and very nice.  A soon to be uncle also joined us.  So we had a large crowd going out to eat together and we all had an awesome evening!

Went back to the guys home for the night, had some quiet relaxing time just talking and watching a little tv for all of us.  Off to bed, we wanted to get a somewhat early start on Sunday as we had a long drive home.  Sunday morning they guys cooked another great breakfast, we kind of took our time getting going, we really did enjoy hanging and talking with the guys.  Our boys just loved them, and did not want to go back home.  Finally getting all packed up in the car and ready to head out, we said our "good byes" and "see ya soons" in anticipation of our next arrival for embryo transfer.  We were not done the road very long and our older boy who first had reservations of mommy having another baby for someone else says.... "Hey if you have a baby for them, then we will have friends when we come visit again" LOL So now our boys are really excited for the guys to have kids so they have someone to play with when we visit each other in the future. Have to just love the way little ones think.

Our weekend together was a wonderful time and only solidified my thoughts of doing this for these guys!  My awesome husband felt exactly the same as I did after our weekend.  So making this decision with loving family support only makes it better!  I know the four of us are in for a journey together that will only strengthen our friendship even more. 

Finding the Right Match

So far I have to say, for me finding the right match has been the hardest part of my surrogate journey.  I know many women do this for many different reasons.  To me, I could not do this unless I found the right connection with a couple.  I feel this to be a very intimate connection.  I could not imagine doing this for someone or couple and not growing a strong friendship.  After just about giving up, I had received an email asking me if I was still interested in becoming a surrogate.  I immediately replied with a yes.  After some email conversations I realized that was not the connection for me.  Although it gave me a renewed thought that maybe I could still do this.  So I got back on one of the surrogates sites I had been on previously and started trying to connect with couples again.  I met a few wonderful people I actually still keep in touch with, but just not that "right" connection.  One day I found a link to another site that I had not been to before, so away I went to check it out.  While checking out this other site, I found a very large number of couples that were same sex couples.  Something I had not given any thought to before at all, it just was not on my radar.  I guess I had always imagined in my mind doing this for a woman who physically just could not carry a pregnancy for some reason or another.  Well after reading a number of posts/ads that were same sex couples looking for a surrogate, I decided to respond to a few.  A couple of them just did not have that feel good vibe about them, and then I responded to one I really wanted to talk to more.  I guess the two things that stuck out to me in our initial emails, they were both respectively the same ages as my husband and I, and that they had been together for 20 years.  I do know many couples split up after 20 or more years but I felt that after 20 years they were making the decision to have children, I was sure it was not a decision made lightly.  With each email correspondence I felt very comfortable with these two "wanna be dads".  We then spent a better part of 5 months getting to know each other via emails and phone calls.  They had a clinic that was willing to work with me and my age.  After sending all my previous pregnancy records to their clinic, it was time to meet and go through the medical screening process.

The last day of February was set up for all medical screening and psych screening to be done at their clinic.  We live a few states away from each other, we agreed to drive to their house the night before and stay with them for the whole weekend.  Some people were surprised by this decision, but it was the right one for us.  My husband, our two boys and I set out for a road trip.  My older daughters knew about all the possible plans and thought it was great that I would do this, especially for a gay couple.  Our next thought was how to approach it with the boys since they are much younger and things needed to be more age appropriate.  We told the boys we were going to visit some friends of ours.  We told them they were two guys that were married and really wanted to have a baby or two.  The first thing our older boy said, "well they can't, there is no mommy".  It was a very matter of fact statement.  So my husband then explained to the boys that is what I might do for them, and instantly the older boy piped up again with "I do not want you to have a baby".  Hubby told him the baby would not be ours or for us, he looked a little confused.  So hubby then gave him an analogy from our farm, compared this to our chickens and that how sometimes some hens lay eggs but will not hatch them, and we give them to another hen to hatch.  For some reason this made perfect sense to him and he was good with it. (it was really an interesting and comical conversation)

It was an all day drive from our house to theirs.  We arrived around midnight.  It was a very comfortable meeting instantly!  They treated us as long lost family!  We had a very busy day ahead of us, so there was just a little small talk and off to bed.  My oldest daughter is living part time very close to the guys, so we had planned for our boys to get to spend the day with big sissy so we adults could do all the medical and psych stuff.