She just called me this morning and said she had her blood drawn but couldn't take waiting around all day so she was going to buy a home test and take it. I figured she'd been taking them all along and just not telling me, but she said the last one she took was at 5dp6dt when I told her not to take anymore. She asked if I wanted her to tell me what the result is or if I wanted to wait for the call from the Dr. I told her if she was taking one anyway then, of course, she might as well tell me the result. So, now I sit here waiting.....of course, thinking maybe there is a small glimmer of hope since the last test she took might have been a day too early. I truly hate hope and wish I could just forever banish it from my emotions.
So, while I sit here waiting for her to call me, I'll explain what is going on with the Las Vegas surrogacy situation. Bear with me because this is confusing.
Back when I had started corresponding with the Las Vegas surrogate, there was also another surrogate out in Las Vegas I had started exchanging e-mails with. She was already potentially matched through an agency with a couple in England and just waiting on her DQ Alpha result.
The couple was working with the same clinic and Dr. I go to and they were using his daughter's surrogacy agency (which I had also made contact with prior to ending up finding someone on my own).
This other surrogate is good friends with the surrogate I had intended to use. So, anyway, she and I e-mailed one another over the month as we anxiously waited for test results to come in.
As it turned out, she found out she had a match with the intended father in England so couldn't work with them. Then, several days later, I found out her friend had the match with my DH (I know....again it makes you really wonder about the "10 percent" chance of a match).
Even though the obvious thought in both our minds was that maybe she and I could work together, both of us were hesitant to even go there because her friend (my former potential surrogate) was really upset that she had ended up matching with my DH. She had tried to get me to consider transferring to her despite the match. She knows it's a rather controversial issue and that a lot of Dr.'s don't buy into it.
The other surrogate and I decided just to get her DQ Alpha results for the sake of comparison with my DH's. We figured that, if she matched, the possibility of working together wouldn't be an option anyway. She was having some difficulty getting her results from the agency and kept having to remind the lady there to send them to her. Last night, when she asked for the 3rd time, the lady questioned why she was so anxious to have them and she said that she just wanted them for her medical records.
Now, when I had discovered my other surrogate matched, my Dr. had passed along what was going on with me to his daughter and she contacted me to say she was sorry I was still having trouble finding someone and that she could check to see if they had anyone already tested who didn't match that might be suitable. She already had DH's test results and our profile because we had been contemplating using her prior to my finding someone. The problem was agency fees for surrogacy are quite steep. We would have had to pay her $ 6,500 had she actually found me someone that I wanted to meet then another $ 6,500 if we moved ahead with things. This doesn't include attorney fees or any other surrogacy costs. It's strictly an agency fee.
And, as hard as it may be to believe, her pricing is actually on the lower end of what these agencies typically charge.
Well, last night the lady at the agency e-mailed me a profile of someone who didn't match who she thought would be perfect for us and, you guessed it. It was the lady I already know and have been communicating with for the past month. What a totally awkward situation.
The surrogate and I decided honesty was the best policy so I wrote to the agency and explained how it was that we happened to already know one another. I also told her the surrogate hadn't told her the truth about why she was looking for her test result because it was far from certain that we would work with one another and she hadn't wanted her to think she had been purposely trying to find a couple on her own. It was just a strange turn of events which resulted in this whole situation.
Fortunately, the lady at the agency was very understanding about the whole thing. She said she was just happy I might have found someone and her main concern had been that the surrogate was trying to match herself with someone else and that she would have shown her profile to me only to have me be disappointed that she wasn't available. So, in that regard, she said she was actually relieved that it was me the surrogate had been in communication with.
She said that if we wanted her to handle our case from this point to the birth (so less the matching part), it would be half the agency fee so $ 6,500. I need to give that more thought since all they'd be doing for us is managing the escrow account and referring us to attorneys and an insurance provider. My concern is what if the transfer doesn't even work? Then we've paid all that money for them to basically make one payment and give us a few referrals.
Now, all this having been said, I really don't know if this surrogate is right for us or not. She's only 23 which is a lot younger than the person I had hoped to find. She's been married for 5 years and has a 3 year old. Apparently, she doesn't want more children. She's also never done this before whereas I had ideally hoped to find someone who had. And her insurance doesn't cover surrogacy pregnancies so getting her insurance that would could add up to a substantial additional cost. I need to investigate that further. In addition, it is rather an uncomfortable situation due to her being friends with the other surrogate who is still harboring some hope that maybe I'll change my mind and use her despite the matching issue.
On the positive side of things, she does seem mature for her age and I know she's spent a lot of times on surrogacy message boards and is friends with women who are surrogates. So, she has done her research and seems fully aware of what this would involve.
Ok, still no call from my other surrogate which probably means she's too upset to call me. I'm sure that, if it had been anything less than a BFN, she would have been on the phone within a minute of taking the test.
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