Still here!

Hello Everyone!
I am so sorry it has been so long. I do have a reason for this though. This site was to be my journal through surrogacy. Well, that journey ended on June 16. I will probably pop in here once in a while to let you know what is going on with my life but right now we are not at all focusing on a baby. I just wanted you to know that I am doing very well. My doctor put me on 20mg of Paxil and is still working on getting my sleeping regulated. Ellie is still such a huge blessing to our lives and we don't want to take anything away from our time with her by adding a baby to our family right now. I started a new job as an elementary school librarian and I absolutely love it. AND I am taking flute lessons. I am repairing my relationship with God--which I struggled with after our surrogate's D&C in mid-June. My infertility care group which I lead at our church may have two new ladies come to the next meeting! I thank you all for your support. Yes, we are considering adoption. We are considering an egg donor. But we have SO much debt we want to try to pay some of it off before we embark on another adventure. I hope all of you are doing well. Please write anytime. :)

Our New Baby!

Hello my friends! We are back. We had the most amazing summer. Besides the European cruise that I posted about already we went to Oregon for about 5 weeks and to the Caribbean for a week. The Caribbean cruise with my brother-in-law and his girlfriend was much better than I thought it would be. We had a good time and made some good memories. He is off at college in another state so I am glad we had that time together.

OK, now for the big news!!! We adopted Ellie last Thursday. Here is the back story--Last May I subbed for a class that went on a field trip. I was sitting next to another teacher on the bus and tried to make conversation. I asked her if she had any pets. She told me this long old story about how her husband just brought home a dog one day recently. She seemed pretty pissed about it. She has two small children, job shares as a 3rd grade teacher and her husband works 12-15 hour days--7 days a week. She had no interest in having a dog, let alone training one. So I asked her what kind of dog it was...She said a min pin!!! I absolutely freaked out. I started asking questions. Come to find out her name is Peanut she is now 6.5 months old, about 6.5 pounds and since no one had time for her she WAS JUST LIVING OUT IN THE BACKYARD!!!!!!!!!!! It was still really cold at night in May and thinking of a tiny baby min pin curled up under a bush just made my heart break into a billion pieces over and over. I gave the teacher my phone number and said if she was interested in giving her a new home we would gladly take her. It has been a very long, slow process of e-mailing back and forth, not hearing anything for weeks, and just feeling sick to my stomach about the whole thing since we couldn't get her until mid-Aug. BUT we got home from Oregon late Wed. night and went to pick up Peanut (Ellie) the next evening.

Neither of us can believe that we have another dog, let alone another min-pin. She looks and acts so much like Killer it is like seeing a ghost sometimes. We just love her so much already. She is sooooo good. I think she realizes how good she has it and wants to please us. It is such a strange feeling to actually WANT to get up in the morning, to be home all day and not depressed, to laugh again. She is sleeping on my lap right now as I type this--all is right with the world.

Finally updating (a little)

Hello all,

Here is one picture. I have approximately 310 more but that is a bit overwhelming. This is an amazing cathedral in St. Petersburg, Russia.

We have been in Oregon for the past few weeks and have had a few days at home now. We are leaving Friday for a Caribbean cruise with my brother-in-law and his girlfriend. I am rooming with his girlfriend and Aaron is rooming with his brother. That may make an interesting post when I get back. :)

For a quick update on me. I actually have not been doing well. I have LOST weight (usually I gain about a half a pound a day on cruises), I am not sleeping, I am breaking out, my blood pressure was high, my sugar was high, I am having constant panic attacks, and I am utterly and desperately depressed. These symptoms have been going on for a few years but have really gotten worse, a lot worse, in the past couple of months.

We had lunch with J and her family this week and she is doing surprisingly well. We didn't discuss another round, we didn't actually discuss anything baby related. I have no idea if she would even consider transferring the last embryo we have frozen. I know I wouldn't and I don't think I can even ask her to go through all that again. I don't want to go through all that again.

Thank you all for your patience with me. I hope you are all doing well.

Sorry

Hello my friends. Sorry I have not updated in a long time. I have been avoiding it. As you can probably guess the heartbeat stopped while we were in Europe. J had a D&C on June 16th. We were in Russia when we found out the news--my dad called the ship. We were/are devastated.

The cruise was amazing. We loved London and are so glad we planned three days there before we got on the cruise. I am just now starting to get back on this time zone. We were up to 11 hours off at one point on the trip. Talk about jet lag. We got home on the night of the 19th did tons of laundry, paid some bills, had a couple dr. appts and drove 14 hours to Oregon on the 22nd. My parents have a lake house that is our favorite getaway. We look forward to it every summer and couldn't wait to get here. We are in Oregon now and doing a whole lot of nothing. We are spending a lot of time talking and trying to figure out what to do next. We have one frozen embryo left and it is pretty clear that it isn't worth it for me to go through another IVF. Money is a huge concern right now since we will be in debt for the next 25 years just from this last attempt.

Again, I am sorry for avoiding posting. I have just been taking a vacation from everything. I hope you are all doing well. I will try to get around to posting some pics from Europe soon.

We are Outta Here!

After counting down this day for months it has finally arrived. We are leaving for Europe in the morning. We will not be back until the 19th of June and I am sure I will have lots to report when I get home. And lots to catch up on with all of you. Take care!

Quick Update

I have been putting off writing this all day but I just need to get it over with. Our ultrasound today didn't go well. The baby is now measuring a week and three days too small and the heartbeat is only 94 bpm. The doctor told me that we definitely have "reason to worry." This is exactly the same scenario we had with our last pregnancy last year with the exact timing and problems. This does not bode well for any future attempts. We are expecting the heartbeat to stop by Saturday. The next ultrasound will be next Tues. to see what is going on. We are obviously more than devastated and really don't know where to turn. We have exhausted all options of having a biological child and this breaks our hearts. Thank you for your prayers during this time. I will post again soon when I feel more up to it. I just wanted to give you the quick update.

School is Almost Out!

Since my husband and I both work for the school district we have the summer off. We are actually traveling even more than normal this summer. Hence, the diptheria shot I mentioned a few posts ago. In six short days we are off to London! We have been planning this trip since last Sept. when we got the phone call with our last negative BETA. We had no more frozen embryos and no more parental financial support. In tears, I called our wonderful travel agent and told her to book me a cruise to Europe. She found us a great deal and I can't believe we are actually going. Since it was such a long time away we just figured that if we were pregnant by now we would cancel it and get a full refund. We discussed this trip with our surrogate and the agency. We didn't want J to feel like we took off to Europe and left her behind to do the dirty work. Everyone encouraged us to go. I am SO glad we are going. First of all, it has been something for me to look forward to. Second, we really just need to get away from everything for awhile--together.

We are flying to London next Sat. (June 3) and we are staying there for 3 days. Then we board a ship in Harwich for a 12-night Northern European cruise. Europe is a trip we have put off for 6 years now. A very cool thing is that we will be celebrating our 6 year anniversary on the ship. We will still have access to our e-mail but I will not be able to post while we are gone. If you guys post comments here I will get them though. :)

I will still be around for a few more days and will definitely let you know how the ultrasound on Tuesday goes. I am still trying to be hopeful about it all. We will be leaving for London at 8 weeks 4 days into the pregnancy. Last year the heartbeat stopped at 8 weeks 5 days. Needless to say we will be checking our e-mail alot and trying not to worry while we are away.

Ultrasound

Well, as always for me it is the worst-best case scenario. Always enough to make it one more step but not enough to leave us feeling relieved. There IS a heartbeat. If we could just leave it at that we would be fine. Then the measuring started. When I miscarried last year the baby was measuring 2 days behind at this point. So today we were saying that would be the worst (while still getting a heartbeat of course.) We were shocked when the doctor told us the baby is measuring 5 weeks 6 days--we are 6 weeks 6 days!!! That is a full week behind. According to the dr. it is still ok (but he said that last time--so it is hard.)

There were two sacs-meaning we did start off with twins and lost one early on. That made me sad. Having one not implant seems easier than having it implant and not survive for some reason. Since the numbers were so low to begin with we know it didn't hang on for very long at all.

So, once again, we move forward--still hanging on. We have another ultrasound next Tues.
We don't really know how to feel about all of this. Having been through all this before and losing the baby at 8 1/2 weeks. We just can't handle that possibility right now.

Baby Shower

This weekend was my sister-in-law's baby shower. I rented out the community clubhouse in our housing development and it turned out very nice. I am not even sure how many women ended up coming--at least 40 I would say. My other s-i-l planned all the games and my m-i-l made all the wonderful food. I was the official 'greeter.' Which is very funny to me since 1) I didn't know anybody 2) I detest baby showers 3) I was/am sick and 4) I am majorly introverted. I agreed to do it and it went ok. My choices were to be a greeter and assistant m/c or work in the kitchen. I will do almost anything to NOT have to work in the kitchen.

I psyched myself up by getting a new haircut the day before (and a diptheria/tetinus shot--more on that later) and wearing a cute skirt with flip flops. The part that made the day bearable was the fact that my surrogate attended. I had brunch at her table and sat with her and her mom for the gift unwrapping. The gifts are always the hardest part for me. I just sit and wonder if I will ever unwrap wee clothes, shoes, toys...etc. All the cutesy stuff that means baby. I did ok though. I made THE official crib bedding and was kind of stressed about it. My s-i-l and I have very different tastes and these are the colors she wanted. I am not very fond of them. She ended up loving it (or at least said she did) and the surprise went over well.

That afternoon we stopped by J's house to drop off some more stuff from the pharmacy. I noticed she was wearing jeans again and I was kind of bummed. When she was at Disneyland two weeks ago she had to buy sweats in the middle of the day because she was uncomfortable. That was exciting to me. (It is sad what excites me these days.) So, I asked her about it. She said they were from the maternity store 0-3 months and had an elastic waist! Is that the strangest thing to be happy over or what?!

This Tuesday is our first ultrasound. J will be 6 weeks and 6 days. There should be a heartbeat by now. We are all very anxious for Tuesday to come.

Very Quick Update (updated)

Well, the numbers are still going up. They are going up even slower than before but they are still rising. We were doubling at a 74 hour rate and now it is at a 90 hour rate. (48-72 hours is how often they are supposed to double.) The ultrasound is scheduled for next Tues. May 23. I think I am doing ok; I had a really emotional weekend and kind of a melt down on Friday night. At least the numbers are still rising, right?

14dp5dt-470
16dp5dt-737
21dp5dt-1853 yikes.

Update to the update--Good news. Actually two pieces of good news. First of all, my very good friend, K, had her first ultrasound today and there was a heartbeat!! One more milestone passed. The second piece of good news is that K found a chart about doubling rates. It says that after the numbers hit 1200 they slow down a bit and the doubling time is between 72 and 96 hours! We are within range!!!

Some people just don't think.

Today has been a pretty hard day to say the least. We have sunk more into this endeavor than Aaron and I made TOGETHER last YEAR. We are going to be in debt for the next 25 years unless we can pay the second mortgage back before then--by some miracle of a rich uncle dying that neither of us have. We are trying to be hopeful but it is so hard when we have already been down this road before.

Tonight Aaron, my friend K, and I were at this place where we assemble dinners for the month and then take them home and freeze them. It is a great idea and we have been doing it for months. (I wrote about my friend, K, several posts ago--she is a week ahead of me in all of this after many miscarriages and her numbers weren't doubling. As far as we know it is still going ok though because the numbers picked up. Her ultrasound is next Monday.) K-if you read this I hope it is ok that I wrote that. :)

Anyway, the owner of this dinner making establishment knows us very well. In Feb. 2005 they assembled all of our meals for us the day we had to put Killer to sleep--for $50--but she was so empathetic. We have discussed our infertility journey a little bit since many times between K and myself we were either doing the shots, feeling crazy, or just about to have an egg retrieval (or all of the above.) A few times K's DH came and put the meals together when she was on bed rest!

So, we got there tonight and put on our aprons. (Yes, my husband is wonderful. He assembles all the difficult meals so K and I can talk without messing up the measuring.) We were ready to get right to work and the owner said her hellos and then said, "There is a group of new ladies here that are assembling meals for new moms for Mother's Day, isn't that nice? Wouldn't it be wonderful to have all these meals as a new mom?" K and I looked at each other and wanted to puke but we smiled and finished tying our aprons. We must have given the owner a look or something--that she obviously really misread--because next she said under her breath, "Yeah, better them than us!" Huh? Did she just say what I think she said? K and I walked away and thank God K was there with me so we could stare at eachother in awe. Did she think we just left our 10 kids at home with a nanny and are so relieved that we have these precious few hours away from the madness?!

Oh, what I would give to be able to celebrate a Mother's Day. It is looking more and more like that may not ever be a reality. Today of all days, why did she have to say that? It took quite a bit of energy to peel myself out of bed this morning after the doctor's phone call. The last thing I needed was someone rubbing my face in the fact I am childless and evidently should be happy about it. I know she had no idea that what she was saying was offensive. Maybe she missed the whole "infertile" part of the past 2 years of us going there. I don't know.

Losing Hope

Well, I FINALLY got my results.

14dp5dt-470
16dp5dt-737

I am just a mess. That is 74 hour doubling time. Is there any hope? I am so sick of all of this.

You have GOT to be kidding.

Ok, I am royally ticked off right now. You are NOT going to believe this. At about 1 today my M-I-L, S-I-L, and my 11 month old niece came over to wait for "the call" with me. I was so thankful to not have to wait alone today. The office staff gets back from lunch at 2:30 and that is when I typically recieve these calls. ('Cuz who doesn't need a two hour lunch every day!!) Anyway, the only time they have waited until closing at 4 is when they were calling with negatives. By 2:30 I had already worked myself into a frenzy--most likely really concerning my in-laws about my mental stability. At 2:45 my S-I-L said, "Just call THEM." I have NEVER given in before but this time I did--and I called. Nice nurse says, "Hmmm, the results aren't here yet, let me call the lab and see." She calls back saying, "The paper wasn't marked STAT so they haven't done it yet!!! It will be done in an hour." The poor woman waited to go home, waiting for my results. They never came. She called the lab again and was told the results won't be done until several hours after the lab has closed tonight. So now we have to wait until tomorrow. My wonderful M-I-L and S-I-L waited with me all the way until 5 pm tonight. I am so thankful for them. Needless to say I may have to be committed soon. This wait is killing me.

Why?

Why do things have to be so hard? The average HCG levels for 14dp5dt is 1061. J is at 470. That makes it pretty obvious that we have already lost one and that the last one is hanging on with his/her arm buds. I am just sick about it. She has another bloodtest on Wed. to make sure the numbers are doubling. I really don't know what else to say.

Feeling Anxious

Hello my friends. Tomorrow is the first BETA and I am quite nervous about it. I have spent the past 13 days in my happy bubble--the last 7 of those days knowing J was getting positive HPTs. But, she is not really feeling all that pregnant. She said with her girls she was feeling really sick by now. I know that every pregnancy is different but I am having a hard time being positive right now. I have spent the past few days trying to figure out what the numbers 'should' be for twins on Day 14. Now I am just hoping for numbers. Obviously I don't want her miserable and sick but I will feel a lot better when we have some confirmation that things are going ok in there. Tomorrow's wait will be SO hard for me. She is going in at 8 am but I probably won't get any results until 1 or 2 pm at the earliest. Any words of encouragement?

No BETA today.

Just a quick post to let you know the first BETA is still on for next Monday. All I would do with numbers right now is stress out about them. Now I don't have to worry about that until next week. J said she is still doing great and that the test line is darker than the control line on her HPTs now. On Saturday I am having a bunch of my friends over to scrapbook. It is an all day event and usually pretty tiring. I am hoping to get some of my own srapbooking done but I doubt I will. Are you doing anything fun this weekend?

Waiting

Now we wait. Our first BETA is supposed to be next Monday. Day 14! I only had to wait until Day 10 for mine so I asked the Dr. about it. He said any day after Day 10 is fine but Day 14 is the best. Whatever. I told J that she could decide when it is convenient for her to go. I don't know what she has decided yet. As far as we know everything is still ok. I have to tell myself that. Until I hear otherwise we are going to be excited and expect a baby (or babies) in 36 weeks. Thank you all for your good wishes. I know many of you are going through hard times right now and I know what it is like to be on your end. Excited for me--yet devastated for yourself right now. I am so sorry. I wish I could share this with you all or make it happen soon for you too. It is a weird place for me to be after almost 6 years.

Day 6 HPTs

This morning J took a different brand it came up with a faint +. This evening she took another one--the digital one and here it is!!! She said she had been avoiding me for the last few days because she had been feeling sick but didn't want me to get my hopes up since it was so early. I am seriously thinking twins now...oh my gosh.

I e-mailed my RE today asking if we can have the first BETA on Thurs. instead of next Monday. When I had my 5 day transfer I only had to wait till Day 10. I am confused as to why they would want her to wait until Day 14. Especially since she has had positive HPTs since Day 5! We will see. For now--all is good. I can't believe it. 5 1/2 years of waiting for this moment and now that I am here I don't know what to do with myself. Do I do what 99% of people do when they get pregnant? Do I think about it constantly, think of names, dream of what it will be like to ACTUALLY have a baby? Aaron and I stopped thinking like that about 3 years ago when it really became apparent that it wasn't going to happen 'the old fashioned way.' I don't want this moment to end. I want to allow myself to think like that, even if only for a few weeks. I don't want to spend the next weeks stressing about the numbers, saying I will wait to get excited when we have the first ultrasound and find out that 'they' are the right size. I want to bask in my moment like most women do. Am I crazy? Am I setting myself up for more heartache?

A FAINT PINK LINE!!!!!!!

I am almost shaking too much to even type this! J just called and said she tested tonight again and there is a faint pink line. We are in shock. Is this real? Is this it? Oh crap, is it twins? We would be thrilled with one or two, boy or girl, who cares?! I am going to go throw up. I will post the pic of the pee stick when she sends it to me.

On a more serious note. For those of you who pray--please pray for my friend, K, her numbers didn't double with today's bloodtest. Although all could still be ok she has been through hell and, of course, expects the worst.

First Day of Testing

After dreaming about it all night--which surprised me--I finally got an e-mail from J just now. It says, "Nothing yet." It would be very early to have it be positive, I know. But still, wouldn't that be cool? Since I have never had a positive HPT all of this seems oddly foreign. I just think, "Well of course it is negative...what else would it be?" Not in a sarcastic way, just in a realistic way being all that I know.

This morning I started bleeding which freaked me out. I am not expecting my period until the end of next week. I usually have a day or two of spotting too. Hmmmm. My body is still really messed up from all the shots and my BBs are KILLING me. I always thought it was from all the progesterone they gave me after the transfer but since I haven't had any this time it must be from all the shots. I will actually be glad to have this cycle overwith so my body can go back to 'normal.' Whatever that is.