Her Eggs My Basket

I started my journey to surrogacy two years ago this month, and it's been a life changing process that has been filled with so much knowledge and patience and hope. During the matching process with Baby Mama and Baby Daddy I began to talk about what surrogacy was with my friends, family and my children. Everyone always asks me what my kids think about all this. Do they understand that this baby isn't a sibling for them? Do I think they'll be sad when we don't bring this baby home? Do they get upset when I can't do things with them because I'm pregnant? Surrogacy is a complicated subject to discuss with lots of adults. They question the ethics of it. They question my attachment to the baby. A lot of grown ups just can't wrap their minds around why a person would do such a thing. Women tell me they could never "give up the baby". They'd want to keep anything growing in their wombs. And I totally get it! But kids are surprisingly easy to talk ...

*YAAAAAAWWWWWNNNNNNN* Oh excuse me I just woke up from my first trimester nap! I realize it's been a while since I updated, but I've just been hibernating waiting for the worst part of pregnancy to pass. I've never been one of those third trimester "get this baby outta me" people. I'm the person who HATES the first trimester with a passion. It's not so much the morning (read: all day) sickness. It's not the extreme exhaustion. It's not even the fact that this is the portion of the pregnancy where I feel the most "pregnant" symptoms but just look generally jiggly and bloated. It's the mental anguish. The first trimester is like a breath holding contest. It's just waiting for that dreaded appointment where you find out everything's not as ok as it seems. Luckily we had SEVERAL wonderful appointments where everything was in fact ok. But the first trimester is just the absolute worst. So I just put my head down and tried t...

Welp we are officially graduates of Reproductive Endocrinology. We had our final appointment with Dr. B today and it was beautiful. We saw little Gummy Bear, and she was wiggling about like a little dancing queen. Baby Mama saw her heart just fluttering away. I'm not sure what they clocked it at, but I thought it was somewhere around 160? Maybe it was higher. Either way, Dr. B was super happy with it. Babe was measuring 8w6d, which is actually about right. I think we're truly a Friday week change, but they put us as a Wednesday week change. When little Gummy got still and we could make out her sweet face a little bit I said "Say hi to your Mommy!" and she totally wiggled a paddle! I almost fell off the table, and we all squealed. It was such a great visit, and they officially dismissed me to midwife care. I brought up the midwife with Dr. B again, so Baby Mama and Baby Daddy could get her opinion on the practice. Dr. B had great things to say about midwives, w...

Beta number two this morning! Friday's numbers came in at 433, and in a typical healthy pregnancy that number will double every 2 days at this stage of the game. So to be on the safe side we were looking for something in the 1,200 range. My morning sickness subsided so I got a little nervous and took another test this morning before I left. I say a little nervous because I honestly didn't expect to be sick this soon anyway. Plus I am peeing every 5 seconds so there are good signs. Let's be honest. I just love pee sticks. Anyway, the clinic called me back lickety split this morning and said my levels were FABULOUS! 1,802! Progesterone and thyroid look swell too. Baby Mama was definitely excited for those numbers as was I. We'd talked about delaying our ultrasound until 8 weeks just because everything is so darn fragile in there. But the clinic has their reasons. So our first ultrasound is next Friday! I'll be 6 weeks, and I'm mostly excited with a smidge o...

Keep your pants on boys. This filly can't be bred.  Thaaatttsss right. As we speak there's a little bundle of life settling in at Chez Uterus. I reserved the deluxe penthouse suite with 100% organic locally grown lining linens. Only the best for this guest.  The transfer was bumped up from Tuesday to Monday. The embryologist called this weekend mid thaw and thought noon would be a good time to knock me up.  So I got to sleep in, then get up and nosh on the breakfast of champions Brisket taco with guac. Ya know...for the iron. Tacos and burritos are kind of my thing with Baby Mama.  Then Hubs and I dropped the kids off with my mom. They brought her a hand picked bouquet from our yard since today is her bday. Happy Bday Ma!  Then we headed to the clinic. We stopped on the way for a lucky transfer smoothie (with pineapple of course).  I had my lucky green shirt and flip flops and my turtle earrings for good fertile turtle vibes.  The smoothie also helped ...

My ovaries channeled Snoop last night and they dropped that egg as if it were quite warm. OVULATION COMPLETE! Had my ultrasound this morning, and my lining is still looking "beautiful." My follicle is now considered a corpus luteum and it is quite deflated indicating that I did in fact drop that egg like a bad habit. And I had some fluid floating around my uterus, which is another good ovulatory signal. I got my HCG trigger shot yesterday around 3:15. So basically I got a positive OPK (ovulation predictor kit) on Tuesday evening indicating an LH surge, which just means I would ovulate in 24-48 hours. The HCG shot also stimulates ovulation, so yesterday about an hour after I got the shot I felt some light cramping that lasted until about 10 p.m. So I can assume ovulation occurred yesterday evening. I'm so jazzed the natural cycle worked! OMG...my uterus is so crunchy. I think I'll go buy it some patchouli incense and spring for a pair of Birkenstocks f...

Well the saline ultrasound went swimmingly. Dr. B blew some liquid up in my lady parts to get a good look at the baby baker, and again she used the word "Beautiful." So voila! Step one: success. The oven is now preheating, and we are less than 4 weeks away from T Day! And already I'm stocking up on pee tests. Target had a clearance sale and mommy went bananas. In other news I went to my own doctor because I'd been having some mildly concerning symptoms. Once a month since I weaned Sweet Pea I've been getting a migraine so bad I can't function. The only time I didn't get these headaches was when I was cycling for our last transfer oddly enough. I also have been extremely fatigued. Like we're talking every day when I'm driving to pick up Sunshine from school I feel so tired I sometimes have to pull over because my eyes are closing narcolepsy style. I've also gained a crap ton of weight. Like ridiculous. The part that really pisses me of...

Well hello again! It's been a while I know since we last chatted, but it's finally time to dust off the ol' blogeroo. Because I got a very special package in the mail this week. Yes friends I am so very very happy to report that it is once again happy drug time in my world! I actually just finished my first Lupron injection and it's just like riding a little pokey stabby bicycle. These are just the little baby needles. The big mamas don't start for another few weeks. Ok so to back it up...last I wrote my IPs were on the hunt for an egg donor. For various reasons they decided not to put Baby Mama through another retrieval. The idea is to just complete their family, and to do that they needed another player in the game. Hooray! The more the merrier. Team Baby Makin' welcomes her aboard. It took some searching, as I'm sure it would for any of us. Trying to scour through the list of donors to find the person who will contribute half the DNA of your awesom...

We had our psych evaluation today, and I'm happy to report that I am not "clinically" insane. They don't actually tell you that, but I'm guessing because I answered most of the questions about punching people out or doing lots of drugs with "Mostly untrue" that means I pass. Hubs and I dropped the kids off with some friends of ours so they could do VBS while we got psyched out. After we picked the kids up I asked how VBS went. Sunshine said "I uh....I don't want to talk about it." After some provocation I learned that a little boy in her class took part of a house she was building, so she decked him Christian style. I asked what the teacher said, and she told me the teacher told her "Oh it's ok." I forgot we moved back to Texas. Stand your ground laws and what not... Sweet Pea had a different experience. She's a bit of a mama's girl, so I was curious as to how she handled not only going to a new place but being...

I arose bright and early this morning and bee bopped into the kitchen. I opened the refrigerator and grabbed a glass of sweet tea a little cup of crack Trader Joe's mangos and cream yogurt. 6:30 a.m. is a strange time in my house. The air is almost thick with silence because the monkeys are still sleeping. I savored the mangos and silence for a moment as I let my plans for the day sink in. I don't normally crack into Bush's sweet tea at 6:30 a.m., but my Friday the 13th plans called for the strong stuff. The Hubs was meeting me at RMA (the fertility clinic) for our blood work and mock transfer this morning, so I needed some pep in my step. Normally 6:30 a.m. is a grumpy groggy time for me. But this morning I was too excited to drag. As Sweet Pea toddled into the kitchen and rubbed her sleepy little eyes, I just thought my heart would burst. I am just so lucky to have this chubby little bunny standing before me in her too-big t-shirt and those big blue eyes. I ...

Holy cow it's real!! I finished my initial consult on Friday and I'm already scheduled this Friday for blood work and an ultrasound and a procedure that one of my amazingly ivf experienced friends described as "shooting dyes in your lady straws".  Doctors like to call it an hsg test. I have to get a special one done since I have issues with shellfish. I'm guessing there is iodine involved because they want me to take a cocktail of Benadryl and steroids so I don't blow up.  I've never had an issue with iodine topically so I can't imagine I'd have a reaction. But they'll take no chances.  I also picked up my birth control and prenatals last night!! I've never been this jazzed to be on birth control before. But every step is one step closer to the transfer! We also started contracts this week, so I guess once we get those settled it'll be on like donkey kong.  Some folks have asked if I get compensated for all this. The answer is yes. But ...

I had my first appointment with RMA today and it went great! The doc was so warm and friendly. I'm super excited to work with her.  She walked me through what IVF entails and the basic timeline and procedures. Thank goodness Hubs came to help wrangle the girls. They were kind of bonkers, but since these people are in the business of making gremlins for people who desperately want them they all acted completely charmed by my crazy monsters.  Once the chatting portion of the program was over it was time for the physical exam and ultrasound. I grabbed the sexy gown and took a deep breath.  It's the first time since we started this whole thing that I got a little nervous and it really seemed real. Even meeting the IPs wasn't quite the same because they could've thought I was a total weirdo and called it off.  But this. This was real. As I sat in my super stylish gown waiting for the doc, the ultrasound machine sat with its grainy black and white grin. I never thought I'...

I think my love of pregnancy stems from my mother. She always talked about her pregnancy with me as the most beautiful time in her life. She was always so positive and uplifting when describing her pregnancies that I think she partially brainwashed me into thinking pregnancy was magical and wonderful.  My own pregnancies were every bit as amazing as I imagined they would be. I was plagued with morning sickness before I even got my first positive pregnancy test. I had severe backaches and my cankles were glorious. My acne flared up, and my hair got so thick it seemed greasy. People kindly told me I was "all belly", but I think they actually meant that my entire body looked like a swollen gut. But none of it distracted me from the fascination I felt the first time I took a foot to the ribcage. The entire process of growing a human being inside my body completely blows my mind to this day.  I was the crazy pregnant lady who knew what day my baby would grow fingernails or when...