Update

 Had to get a pedicure a few weeks ago to ensure that my feet looked pretty during the delivery!  Plus this is something I'm incapable of actually doing on my own.

 J & T finished babies room a few weeks ago too.  It is adorable and they are definitely ready for this little guy to be here.

 J & T had a baby shower a few weeks ago and it was so fun to see them showered with love and excitement over the baby coming!  We didn't think to take any pictures other than after everyone had already had left.

 I thought I had a leak in my waters the other day and so we took a little trip to the L&D.  We spent a couple hours there to only realize that it wasn't and it was just extra pregnancy symptom.  The nurse even thought that I had a leak or something but both of the tests were negative.  I wasn't quite 37 weeks yet so I was okay with this and wanted him to grow a bit longer.

 J got me the cutest basket of goodies for after I have the baby.  I am sure going to need them too!

I bought all the food we will need for after the baby is born.  I am ready, they are ready.  We have bags packed and ready to go when we need to head to the hospital.  We just need to wait it out now!

Graduated

This post may be all over the place, so please bare with me....



We went to our last ultrasound appointment at the fertility clinic on June 2nd.  Little snowflake was so cute and was moving around a little bit.  Looked like a little gummy bear, I was about 8w2d at that point.  It is so crazy to finally say we are graduated from the clinic and now this is considered just a normal pregnancy.

I am still taking my medication until the 14th but other than that I am good to go, no extra ultrasounds or appointments besides with our OB.  Speaking of our OB we went to her on the 1st and J was able to meet her at the appointment.  Was bummed T couldn't come but we have plenty more appointments to go to that the whole family will meet our amazing doctor.  I can't speak anymore highly of her.  She truly is amazing!

Our OB appointment was great.  We weighed me and I can say I've only gained 2 lbs so far since starting this whole process.  That is a feat since the medication usually add like 5-10 lbs. ha  Dr. L brought in the hand u/s machine and took a little look at my little buddy.  Babies hb was measuring about 180ish which is great news!  Measuring on track!!  I had some blood drawn and left a urine sample and then just needed to wait for those results.  I will post about those later.  We set up our next appointment which was a little tricky.  J&T live in Utah but all their family live in the South, it so happens they are going to be out of two a lot this Summer.  We scheduled our next appointment but only T can make it to that one, J and the kids are going to be out of town during it.  We will be skyping or facetiming with her.

I just have to send my praises to how grateful I am that everything has been going so smoothly with this process.  Besides being super nauseated 24/7 everything has been perfect!  I have been so nervous with every u/s that something bad was going to show up.  Nothing has gone wrong.  Baby is perfect and extremely strong.  The family is amazing and I love having them close and so involved.  This is going to be an amazing process, I mean it already has been.

Racing to start

It is always funny to me with the surrogacy world how eager we are to start and be pregnant right away and how that just doesn't seem to happen.  This time I wasn't even looking at being a carrier again, not a real time frame for me.  I had actually been talking to this couple for other reasons and it was like a light bulb went on, it was a duh moment for me.  Once I put me carrying on the table it just kind of worked.  The best part is this family is local and live in Utah as well.  We actually only live maybe 20 minutes away from each other.

I met with IM in September and I felt like a teenager going on a date for the first time.  I was stressing over what to wear.  What do I bring up?  You see we hadn't even discussed any of the big deal things before.  I really was just kind of not looking or planning on this happening, at least for a couple of years.  I was super nervous and we invited our friend Jen with us.  My IM had actually contacted her and asked if she knew of any surros.  When Jen posted in our little group I put the two together that this was the same person I had been talking to.

Dinner was great and IM was amazing and so sweet.  She is originally from the South and she engulfs every southern trait that I love.  During dinner she kept talking as if I was the one that would carry for them.  It is hard to just assume that we are matched so I had to make sure. ha  Everything was kind of a whirlwind after this, or a lot of hurry up and wait.

We were eager to get this show on the road and had talked about doing a transfer in January.  I was trying to be optimistic but we had a LOT of work to do prior to transfer.  We had to get medical clearance, psychological evaluations done, blood work done, contracts started and finished.  They had a few trips planned and things they needed to get for the lawyers.

In the State of Utah surrogacy is legal and you can do it but you have a few hoops to jump through.  The longest part was they had to get a lot of paperwork and etc ready for the lawyer to submit to the courts.

Contracts were literally a breeze.  We had talked about the big stuff and agreed on the most important things.  We had our contract signed and ready to submit to courts the beginning of March.  Then we just needed to wait it out.  Prior to this we each had lots of blood work done, got medically cleared to carry by the RE, and got a psychological evaluation and was cleared to move forward.  Contracts only took about 2 weeks of back and forth.  It really was a breeze!  Now to wait for a judge to tell us the next step...

I think we heard back from our judge within a week of submitting the contract and all of the documents needed.  Our judge validated our contract and kind enough to waive their home study and a court hearing.  I am so glad our Utah judges are getting better about this.  It was absolute none sense when my FIPs had to get a home study done.  With our paperwork we also submitted to have a PBO verified or validated (not sure the specific wording) to ensure my IPs names are on the birth certificate.  We are legally good to go. :)

Like I said earlier I haven't been in a huge rush to get pregnant, although I would like to just give them the baby now.  So even though it has taken 7 months for us to get to this point it hasn't felt like it.  With how much stuff we were rushing to get done in the last two months I feel like transfer day has snuck up on us.

At first my medication protocol was going to include Lupron and I was extremely nervous to take it.  One I've never done a shot in my stomach and second I have heard the side effects of that drug.  Not pretty.  They ended up changing my medication protocol and I no longer needed the Lupron.   YEAH!!

I started my first dose of estradial on April 3 and was not too bad til the next morning.  My hips are just uncomfortable and a little sore.  Nothing too crazy yet.  My moods though, yikes.  I don't remember being this moody before.  It took a couple doses for my moods to level out a bit, I think with the peak in estrogen my body was freaking out.  My blood levels have all been perfect and where they need to be.  I had my baseline ultrasound on April 3rd as well and my ovaries were being quiet and everything looked good.  I had my first lining since starting medication on the 14th to see what my lining was doing.  I have been taking the medication they recommended and also an extra vitamin E and L'Arginine to help things thicken up and get fluffy.  I was so happy when she said my lining was at an 8 already and I still had over a week before we were to transfer.  We are doing a FET/SET on April 24th which puts their our due date at January 10, 2016!!  I can't wait to share this journey and to hand them a baby at the end of this. :)

My little helper, she was so excited to give me my shot.

I had the nurses circle the area it needed to be in so that I wouldn't hurt as much. :)