Blood robbers, betas, and boobs

Rewind back to when I initially began my monitoring appointments prior to the transfer. Before this process began, one of the things I secretly hated the most was having my blood drawn. I've always managed to keep my cool and pretend everything is fine, while in my head I'm freaking out and dread every single moment of it; the tying of the rubber band, the tapping on my vein, the cold feeling and smell of the alcohol swap (because I know what follows), the term "here's a little stick", the TERM stick, the initial stick, sitting there and hoping they're almost done and don't have to stick me again, and the feeling of the needle coming out and having to put pressure on the gauze afterwards. Oh and just the mere SIGHT of the bruise afterwards as an ugly reminder of something I absolutely despise. For most people, having their blood drawn is not this complicated. I don't know why it bothers me so much. I'll never forget when I was about 10 or 12 years old and some pregnant lady told me that you have to have your blood drawn a lot during pregnancy, my first thought was "well I'M NEVER having children then!". I know I mentioned this in my post about my first appointment at La Jolla because the nurse had to draw 7 vials and I couldn't (and still can't) get over how she managed to draw that much blood while I laid there and didn't feel a thing. Almost every time I have my blood drawn, for my own purposes and for the surrogacy, I know there is a strong chance that I will wind up feeling faint, see spots, go pale as a ghost, get all sweaty, with my head between my knees, and about to pass out (or worse, actually pass out). So far, I haven't had any issues with the blood draws and I've even graduated from laying down for them to sitting in the chair like a normal person. That was until I had a different nurse at the monitoring clinic who drew my blood a couple of weeks ago, it hurt like hell for some reason, and it left a really nasty blood blister and bruise. Every appointment thereafter I crossed my fingers that she wasn't the one to draw my blood. Nice lady......but drawing blood is definitely not a strength of hers. I remember when she was getting everything prepared and how she was fumbling, I could just tell it wasn't one of her better skills. Monday the nurse I usually have was trying to find another vein to use because my one and only was so bruised and abused. Ick. She wound up using it anyways. I think the phrase "one and done" was all she needed to hear from me and she decided to just go with it :) This morning while sitting in the waiting room, I wondered "where are they going to try to draw from now?", because, yes, I seriously worry about this way too much. I'm also nervous and have adrenaline rushing through me because TODAY is THE day. Wouldn't you know it, in walks the "nurse from blood drawing hell". She's really a nice lady, I just don't want her drawing my blood. I couldn't fathom hurting her feelings and hoped that the last time was just a bad day for her. Let's be optimistic! Well, it wasn't the case, today was just as bad. I want to throw up just thinking about it.

Fast forward to 11:30am; my phone vibrates and it's La Jolla. I wasn't expecting them to call so early. In fact, I had planned to take a very long lunch just so I could sit in my car, in privacy, and wait for the call just in case the results weren't what I wanted to hear. When I picked up, my co-workers came into the room to hear the results right along with me. I was SO nervous. My heart was in my throat! The results...........197! They more than tripled in 72 hours! That's SO wonderful! It sounds like we have one comfortable little embryo sticking around for the long haul :) I know that T&Y are hoping for twins (one from each), and I would love to give that to them, but at this point we're all happy just to have a positive with a behaving beta! 

Over the past few days I've been feeling a lot of cramping and have been holding on to hope that it's a little one or two making some room in "here". I chalk most side affects up to the meds at this point, although I don't have very many, thank God! For side affects, I am currently experiencing; big, sore boobs (I'll take what I can get, thank you very much!), acne, and that's about it! Now if I could just keep the boobs and lose the acne we'd be golden!

I have a repeat beta on Monday and then I'm not sure whether I'll have another one or not within the week. I seriously hope not. Can they just put a port in my arm?

Beta, beta, who's got the beta?

7:15am, blood drawn, check! The monitoring clinic happens to be just 2 miles down the road from work, so I made it to work very early to get some things done and wait..........and wait.........and wait. By the time the mid afternoon rolled around, we decided to look into what was taking so long to get the results. The lab claimed to have sent the results and the clinic claimed that they still hadn't received them..........several times over the next hour until FINALLY, my phone rings.......it's Dr. Smotrich and he sounds so nice, as always. He says my beta number is 58.........what?! I seriously felt like someone just punched me in the gut. I understand that "anything over 50 is considered positive", but I hear beta numbers coming in to our agency all the time and 58 was the lowest "positive" if it is even positive. I was expecting the numbers to be at least double that at this point, or simply nothing at all. I was expecting a "yes, you're really pregnant!" or a "no, I'm sorry, you're not, but we'll try again soon", not this "well, you COULD be, we'll know more Thursday." I still don't know how to feel and I've had a full nights sleep. I know I feel bummed, sad, and anxious for Thursday to come. I also told the clinic that I think it would be best if they were the ones to tell my IPs. My IPs were on a long flight back to Israel and would be returning around 7:00pm (my time) tonight.............or so I thought! My phone rang at 7:45am and it was them, wondering what the results were. I did my best to stifle my disappointment but it was hard. I told them that I am cautiously optimistic and that Dr. Smotrich is, too. I feel bad that I don't have the exciting, promising, long awaited results to share with them after their long trip home. I had envisioned what it would be like to tell T&Y good news, and this was nothing like what I had hoped. But they said they are with me 100% and that is exactly why I feel that I couldn't have been matched with a better couple.......they are simply amazing and so supportive. All of my friends, family, co-workers, Melissa, I am so thankful to have people cheering me on and supporting me, I couldn't ask for a better support system.



Thursday can't come soon enough!

During the 2 week wait and my butt

After returning home from La Jolla, we were exhausted and Terry caught one of the millions of sicknesses that everyone seemed to have on the plane and everywhere else, ick! He's been out of work for the past 3 days and I have managed to squeak by without catching anything so far, although I've been suffering from a tremendously sore behind from my PIO. It got to the point where I could barely stand it (painful, not just sore), so I took the nurse's suggestion and planted my butt on a heating pad for an evening and BOY did THAT work wonders! I could barely move yesterday and today I feel "normal". My nurse also requested a picture of my butt to show her where I've been injecting the PIO and Delestrogen. For those of you who do not know me very well, I am extremely self conscious of my butt (so much so that I never allow Terry a direct visual of my butt). Although I hide it well in clothing and I'm average.......my butt is not. It has absolutely no shape to it at all and plenty of fat on it, it's just plain ugly to me. So it took me approximately 29 shots with the camera before I finally found an angle that would show the areas that I circled and also made my butt look "ok" :). I sent the picture from personal e-mail address to my work e-mail address so I could send that to her once I returned to work the next morning. When I opened my work inbox today..........it was no where to be found. All I could think was "oh...my.....God.......someone, somewhere, has a picture of my naked circle-filled, heat-pad burned ass, in their inbox!!". I double checked and sure enough I had sent it to the correct e-mail address, it just didn't make it to my work inbox. So my co-worker said "hmmm, must be something wrong with the server, can you show me the e-mail you sent from your home e-mail account?" First words out of my mouth is "ok, before I do that, I have some explaining to do........the picture is of my butt and....so on and so forth". Good thing my co-workers work along with me with women who are pregnant or trying to get pregnant........we have seemed to have heard and seen almost everything, so a picture of my butt was really no big deal.

Now on to the good stuff! I took a home pregnancy test (hpt) on Monday evening and it was POSITIVE. I took one on Tuesday and the line was even darker. Today......even darker. My beta blood test to confirm pregnancy is on Monday the 24th and this will be the "official" pregnancy test. My intended parents are not aware that I chose to test at home with hpt's and I have not and will not tell them that I have tested until AFTER it is confirmed by blood test. The reason that the agency and other surrogates choose not to tell their intended parents (and intended parents choose to have their surrogate keep this information to themselves) is because a beta blood test is really the only way to know for sure if the pregnancy is truly "viable" versus a "chemical pregnancy". We need to see the beta numbers double every couple of days to ensure a viable pregnancy, whereas hpt's only pick up the hormone HCG and it could be a very low level of HCG but it still shows up positive on a hpt. Yes there ARE such things as false positives! I just hope I'm not one of them!

I have included a picture; it is of the 6dp5dt (6 days post 5 day transfer - which basically means it is 6 days after my embryo transfer).

I'm excited, thrilled that this could quite possibly be IT, overjoyed for my IPs and can't wait to find out on Monday what my numbers are! I had a dream before we even transferred that my beta number was 393, which is pretty high for a first beta - so I'm not counting on that :). 

I'm also tired (but that's typical for me) and although I'm not nauseous, I don't have an appetite. My boobs are bigger (NO complaints there!), and I'm having the wonderful hormonal break-outs, but nothing too terrible. I feel full in my abdomen and remember this feeling when I was pregnant with Kaleb.

Until next time!

Embryo Transfer, bed rest, 2WW, oh my!

Tuesday, September 11th, we flew from Minneapolis to San Diego. After we checked in to our hotel, we sped off to my appointment at the clinic for another quick ultrasound and blood draw. I was SO relieved to hear that my lining was looking great and that everything was still on track to transfer on Wednesday. We went back to the hotel to get ready to meet my T & Y for the first time and boy was I nervous! "What would they think? Would there be awkward silence?" Those feelings were quickly put to rest when I went in to the lobby to meet them and hug them for the first time. First of all...........they are TALL! They had told me earlier that they are tall, so I jokingly worried about how big the baby/ies would be. They handed me a gift (skin care products from the dead sea, I remember a friend telling me how much she loved hers so I'm really excited to try it when I get home!).

We decided to walk around the harbor to check things out and then headed to find a place to eat. We wound up eating at this Italian restaurant that seemed very "weird" because it was in the back of a deli. I'm pretty sure T & Y were not too impressed, but the portions were fit to feed an army and it really was great food. T & Y are such great people and have lots to share. I still can't believe how lucky I am to be matched with them.

Wednesday morning we headed to the clinic for the transfer. Terry, T & Y were in the room with me during the transfer and for the 30 minutes of rest time afterwards while I was tipped somewhat upside down :). The procedure itself lasted about 10 minutes and was painless. After the transfer, the physician said a prayer in Hebrew (T & Y are Jewish) and then wished us good luck. It was really an emotional time for all of us. The physician and embryologist gave us pictures of the embryos and of my uterus after the transfer. 

Now I am on day 2 of bed rest with about 35 hours to go................but who's counting?! We've watched movies, ate home made food that T & Y brought when they visited, slushies (we're having those now), napped (just did that again), and have tried to enjoy this down time that I've never had before. I will admit, I'm antsy and would love to lay out in the sun while it's so beautiful here. But watching movies and eating in bed for 3 days isn't so bad, either :)

Here's to being optimistic that these "babies" will stick on the first try and we'll be 38 weeks from meeting them :)

Less than one week and it's GO time!

Yesterday was my last monitoring appointment before going out to the fertility clinic. After each appointment, I patiently (just kidding...I'm bluffing, I'm definitely not patient) await my phone call from the nurse to tell me what the next step will be. I've been nervous about my uterine lining for the past 2 weeks. I feel like I should FEEL different and that the delestrogen injections couldn't possibly be THIS easy. How the hell did I get off scott-free from any side-effects? I deal with tiredness on a daily basis anyways, so I'm going to chalk my drowsiness up to my usual tiredness plus seasonal allergies. Over the past two monitoring appointments, I've learned that my uterine lining went from 6.9mm to 7.86mm. I keep hearing "10mm is ideal", so of course I have this swimming around in my head, too. Always something to worry about because I so badly want this to work for all of us!

My phone rang and it was the doctor himself. He said that the egg retrieval will be on Friday so that means the embryo transfer will happen on the 12th (Wednesday) instead of the 13th. GASP! The nurse talked to me afterwards and explained the new medications that I will be taking, starting tomorrow (Friday). I will start the intramuscular injections of Progesterone in oil (PIO), prometrium, an antibiotic, and a steroid. I will be on the PIO and prometrium every day for several weeks in to the pregnancy. Progesterone and prometrium are supposed to "trick" my body into thinking it's pregnant and to fluffen my uterine lining even more to create a nice little temporary home for these embryos. The anti-biotic and steroid are to prepare for the embryo transfer and I believe it is to help prevent my body from fighting the new inhabitants :). The most common complaint in regards to PIO is getting lumps in the butt (the oil is thick and it leaves lumps even after massaging), and bruising. Now that I've been on delestrogen injections for a couple of weeks, I'm not as nervous about intramuscular injections, but I'm not making any promises about not whining about the lumpy butt and bruising. Thankfully I have more than enough butt to find new injection sites every day!

My intended parents Skyped me this afternoon to tell me that they had lunch with their donor (she's not anonymous, obviously). Everything went well and they seem nervous and excited. We were hoping to have at least a full day before the transfer to meander around and get to know each other, but now it seems that we will be pushing it for time and they will have to see me laid up in bed at the hotel while getting to know me better.

Now my lovely coordinator has to try to bump up my flight to La Jolla to accommodate the change in plans :).

I'm nervous, excited, in disbelief that this is finally going to happen for all of us, anxious, and did I mention nervous........yes :)