Sticky patches and such

I had my weekly monitoring appointment today to check my hormone levels and uterine lining. By now I think you all know how much of a worrier I am. I apologize if I come off as negative or pessimistic, but I WILL find something to worry about, even though I can't stand the feeling of worrying and I hate that I annoy others around me who know that I'm worrying and I HATE hearing the words "don't worry" until I have proof that I have no need to worry :).

For those of you who do not understand all of this crazy surrogacy stuff, I'll do my best to explain just the very few basic necessary details to understand why I worry about these monitoring appointments (leading up to the embryo transfer). Every clinic is different, but most will want your uterine lining to be anywhere from 7mm-12mm thick in order to transfer embryos. Naturally, everyone's lining changes throughout their cycle, so they're constantly monitoring to see that it first thins (after a period) and then thickens. The thicker the better, usually. The estrogen is responsible for thickening a surrogate's lining. If a surrogate's lining is "too thin", they will not transfer the embryos and will have to start all over, or even worse, they will decline the surrogate and instruct intended parents to find a new one. I have seen this happen on a few occasions with surrogates who come through the agency and it is another thing I worry about (of course:) and my heart breaks for the surrogates and intended parents who experience this.

Today my lining was at .7. Please note the "." before the number 7. My first thought was "What?! That's like.......invisible!" I HAVE had just two doses of my estrogen (I inject estrogen, intramuscular, every Monday and Thursday), so I do not expect my lining to just fluffen up overnight, by any means. Last time, I was also instructed to increase my estrogen and add estrogen patches to my regime. This time, same thing, so I really hope it works again.

I'm disappointed but my fingers are tightly crossed that, come next Wednesday, my lining will have thickened quite a bit and we'll be on our way to baby baking come February 15th.