Forgetfulness

I have so little hope for this upcoming transfer at the local clinic that I keep forgetting my surrogate is even preparing for it.

That caught up with me today when my surrogate called to tell me she got forms from the clinic in the mail to sign and wanted to know if she could just bring them with her to sign there. Suddenly, I remembered that my DH and I usually sign consent forms before they thaw the embryos and I hadn't received anything. Since they are only Day 2 embryos, they'll need to start thawing several days in advance.

So, I called the nurse there and, sure enough, they need us to sign consent forms and have them notarized and we need to get them back to her ASAP. She faxed them over to me.

Then, this evening my surrogate called me again and asked shouldn't she have progesterone since she needs to start it Thursday night after the lining check? Then, I realized we had never gotten a prescription from the nurse for the progesterone for her. She had leftover patches from last time so we got started with those then everyone forgot about the progesterone. She doesn't even have the lining check at the clinic where the transfer is being done. It's too far away so she's getting it done locally and they can't help.

This is so unlike me. I'm usually so on top of this kind of thing. Normally, this wouldn't be a huge dilemma because I could call my clinic tomorrow and have them send a prescription to an overnight pharmacy for delivery to her on Thursday. The problem is my surrogate works all day Thursday and no one will be home to sign for it. Everyone she knows is unavailable Thurs. as well. I live 2 hours away from her. I called a mail order pharmacy and they said that, no, progesterone shouldn't be sitting out in 80 degree heat for several hours so waiving the signature isn't an option. I need to find a pharmacy local to her that carries it but, of course, by the time we realized there was a problem all of the specialty pharmacies I tried calling had closed.

Hopefully, I can get this resolved tomorrow. I'm feeling really bad because my apathy is resulting in extra headaches for my surrogate. It's not just with the transfer. It's with everything lately. I forgot to pay a bill on time for the first time in I don't know how long. Our house is a disorganized mess. DH keeps trying to pack for trips and doesn't have clean laundry. The thing is it's not like I'm lying around in bed all day. It seems like I'm constantly doing something, but I'm just so unfocused and distracted lately that everything I do seems to take me twice as long. It's like I'm a hamster running around a wheel expending a ton of energy but not getting anything useful done. I don't know what is wrong with me.

M-Day Weekend

I don't even feel like writing out the whole word. I had to pick out gifts for MIL, my mother and stepmother this week. Every time I go in the grocery store, I see all the flowers and balloons. My e-mail in box is full of M-Day sales notices. For me, it's just yet another holiday that I have to watch pass by from the sidelines.

My mood has been going progressively downhill all week and I have to think this has something to do with it. It isn't helped by the fact that I'm on cycle day 42 (no, I'm definitely not) and have been having PMS for about 2 weeks now. I've been on the pill so much lately in preparation for cycles that I had forgotten that going back to my long, unpredictable cycles which seem to be even more messed up after all the IVF's is not much better than dealing with the pill. I feel really good for about two weeks then PMS kicks in and that lasts for the 5 or 6 weeks it then takes for AF to show up.

I did decide to just not worry about the whole issue of my potential surrogate's husband. For one, I truly like her and can tell she wants to make this work for us. I do feel like I can trust her. I'm also going to go out on a limb and give her husband the benefit of the doubt. She's been married to him for a very long time so surely he has some good qualities. Maybe he was just nervous or uncomfortable with the whole situation. And, even if not, it just seems like he's not going to be playing much of a role in this process. As long as he's supportive of her (which I assume he is since she's done this 4 times prior), that's really all that matters....right?

Dilemma

My DH is out in Vegas this week for work so we arranged for him to meet the potential surrogate there. She brought her husband along.

I was kind of anxious yesterday about how it would go. Due to the time difference, I never got to talk with my DH last night when he got home. I did get an e-mail from her saying that things went well and that they were all very comfortable around each other.

This morning my DH called to tell me how things went. I could tell by his tone that it was not going to be a rave review. He said she was very nice. Actually, if he had just met with her, he probably would have been very positive.

He felt uncomfortable around her husband though. He couldn't quite articulate it but he said there was just something strange about him. He also said he was childish acting (he's 41). He made one comment in particular that really stood out to my DH as being completely inappropriate. Apparently, the potential surrogate said something about how her husband has been good to put up with all of her hormonal mood swings throughout all of these pregnancies and her husband said "Well, I get something out of it because she usually needs a lot of extra attention about halfway through." She tried to deflect what he was saying and said "yeah, I ask for a lot of foot massages, etc." and he didn't get the hint and said "Not that kind of attention; you know what I mean". Well, needless to say, even though we don't exactly expect whoever does this for us to remain abstinent for 9 months, the image of the couple who is carrying our child having sex is not exactly one that we want planted into our heads. So, anyway, my husband just found that highly inappropriate.

I guess we were lucky with my other surrogate because we both found her husband to be very respectful and polite and he acted appropriately in various social situations. He was a gentleman and we liked him. That doesn't seem like it will be the case with what we are getting into.

So, I guess the big question is, does it matter? I did question my DH further and asked who seemed to be the boss in the relationship and he said that she did and that he basically acted more like a child. He said the one positive thing he could find to say was that they did seem to be affectionate towards one another. They have been married for 19 years so wouldn't that at least indicate some level of stability?

I'm thinking that this would only be a major issue if we lived close by and were having more interaction with him. Just given the distance factor, I just don't see us really having too much involvement with him. It seems like the most important thing would be my relationship with her and the two of us seem to get along very well. I do like her. Is that good enough for this to work? I know she would like to have some sort of continued relationship after a pregnancy. I mean it's not like she's demanding it, but I can tell from how she's talked about her experiences with past couples that she would hope for that. I figure that, if I become friends with whoever is my GS, of course I would send occasional e-mails, pictures and stay in touch. My DH commented that her DH being so unpleasant to be around would make a continued relationship more unlikely. But, again, with the distance factor I'm not seeing it being that big an issue. I have plenty of friends whose husbands I don't really have any interaction with because occasions just don't come up where I'm around them....especially those that live any distance away.

Any opinions? I'm really struggling with this.

My DH did say maybe her husband was just uncomfortable with or intimidated by the situation and that accounted for some of his behavior. I could tell he knew I was disappointed and he was trying his best to give him the benefit of the doubt.

We've already had her do the DQ alpha testing and are just waiting on the results. They said we should have them back by the 27th.

I think I've found her

Well, I think I have my perfect surrogate for our embryos in Vegas.  The lady who I wrote about in my prior post and I have now exchanged many e-mails and pictures.  She really seems like the right one to do this for DH and I and she said she feels like we are the IP's she's been waiting for.    It's the same situation as with my last surrogate where I feel like she is someone I could be friends with.  That's the kind of relationship I'd ideally like to have with the person who might possibly be carrying our child.  I'd like for it to be more than just a business transaction.    I know there are some IP's and surrogates out there who do operate under those terms and who actually prefer it that way.  That's just not something I'm very comfortable with.  

We'll be talking on the phone today and my husband will be out in Vegas for work next week so they will try to get together for a cup of coffee.

We will still have to get the DQ Alpha matching test run on her before we can proceed with having a contract done or anything else.  At best, I would think we're looking at a July transfer. It will more likely be August but we're aiming for July.

Now the question is should I do another fresh cycle and, if so, when?  The earliest I could even do a fresh cycle would be July so I'm thinking it makes more sense to have the transfer done in Vegas and see what results then do another cycle if necessary.   Yet, the issue there is my Dr. only has upcoming cycles in July, Aug, and Oct.   So, if the transfer failed and I wanted to do another cycle, by that point in time I wouldn't be able to do it until Oct.; 1 month away from turning 39.  Cripes, it seems like I just barely turned 38.  Where did the time go? 

I also would strongly prefer to transfer 2 tested embryos to her if possible instead of just the 1 tested and 2 untested.  The thing is, based on what happened last time, there is a decent chance we wouldn't even get any normal embryos again.  And, to be honest, I'm just not feeling like I have another cycle in me right at the moment.  I still don't feel 100 percent recovered from the last one.  Yet, October is a long time to wait when egg quality is rapidly declining even further. 

I don't know what to do. :{

Making Some Progress

I feel like I've been making some progress on all fronts.

1.) I had the consult with my Dr.

He did not see a need for a repeat Day 3 FSH/LH test. He said he would increase my medications were I to try again. He admitted that, even though I had 18 eggs, that was considerably less than the previous 2 times and I also got off to a very slow start with their having to increase my medications on Day 8 when I got out there. I don't think this was ideal for egg quality.

He also said, next time, he would test the eggs instead of the embryos. He said that, 90% of the time a normal egg will go on to make a normal embryo. When he initially started doing CGH testing, he was testing the polar body of the egg, but then he switched to testing the embryo. Now he is saying that he thinks testing the egg would be better...at least in our case. He said something about it being less stress on the embryo. I'm a little confused by that and will have to ask him some more questions because I had thought it was the other way around. Unfortunately, this is the problem with taking advantage of new technology. Things are in a state of constant change as the more cycles and testing they do, the more things they discover and that leads to modifications. At my age though, I really don't have the luxury of waiting several years until they know everything there is to know.

Anyway, that was some information that I got out of the phone consult.

2.) I have everything in place now for my current surrogate to go ahead with the transfer of

our embryos at the local clinic in May and the ET will be the week of May 19.

I'm really feeling bad though because she is very hopeful of having it work and I'm just not feeling any optimism. This will be the 3rd transfer from that batch of embryos and we used all the best ones first so are kind of down to the last resort embryos. There are 2 blasts frozen but they are Day 6 and I'm not even sure what the quality is.

3.) I talked with a surrogacy agency yesterday, filled out a long profile for them and faxed over my DH's DQ Alpha results. I've also been making contact with independent surrogates.

The lady who runs the agency works frequently with my Dr.'s patients (she's actually his daughter) so some of her surrogates have already had the testing done. She was going to check to see if there were any surrogates that met our other qualifications that didn't have the match and will send me some profiles. She was nice enough to do this for me before I commit to anything. I'd only have to send in the first half of the fee if there is a surrogate I like and want to exchange information with. The problem here is the agency fee is $ 13,000 and, from my research, it's standard for these agencies to charge anywhere from $ 12,000 to $ 18,000. That's another fresh cycle!

This fee includes matching, scheduling travel arrangements for the surrogate if needed, managing the escrow account and acting as a liason throughout the process. This does not include any of the actual compensation for the surrogate or the attorney's fees to do the contract. Last time I found my own surrogate so, other than her compensation, we only had to pay an attorney $ 1,500 for the contract (we used the same one my surrogate had with her previous couple so the attorney charged $ 1,000 less than normal) and $ 1,000 to manage the escrow account.

The good news is I've been connecting with surrogates on a message board and have been e-mailing back and forth with one in particular who seems like she might be perfect. She actually lives out in Vegas and has done this 4 times (couldn't ask for more experience than that). She is also 38, is married and has two older teenage children and 2 cats. She seems really sweet. So, perhaps something will come of this. Although, it seems too good to be true that I would find the right person that quickly!

I'm just not convinced the agency can do anything for me that I can't do on my own. I have the time and plenty of experience coordinating all of this stuff at this point.

So, that's where things are at right now. I never thought I would have the energy to pick myself back up and do all of this stuff but, day by day, I am somehow getting it done. And, honestly, I have to admit enjoying exchanging e-mails with women on the surrogacy board. These are women who have some amazing stories to tell. It's pretty evident that, while many of them can use the money, it's not their primary motivation for doing it at all. They really enjoy developing a relationship with the IP's (Intended Parents) and being able to help them bring their child into the world.

Phone consult with Dr.

Yes, I changed the color of my blog. I do love pink and will confess to having a pink cell phone, pink Nintendo DS (What can I say? I like playing word and puzzle games on it), and a fair amount of pink clothes. I decided my blog doesn't need to be pink too though....especially not nauseating hot pink.

I'm sitting hear waiting for my Dr. from the Vegas office to call me for a consultation. I have a huge list of questions typed up to ask him. I've yet to have a consult with any RE that has actually proved very useful so I'm not expecting much. I really feel a need for some answers, but I don't think anyone has them.

I guess what I'm hoping is that he'll give me some indication of whether another cycle might yield better results than last time.

Is there anything we could do differently?

Should we test both the eggs and the embryo to try to determine if it's mainly an egg or sperm issue at this point? If we found out, for example, that I didn't have any normal eggs on a next cycle then I think donor eggs would be indicated. If I had several normal eggs but they became abnormal embryos, then maybe the Dr. would suggest donor sperm.

Of course, all of this would involve more cycles and more money. I'm just not sure if we could even swing it. Ideally, I'd like to transfer the embryos we already have there to a surrogate first. Yet, I don't know how long it will take me to find one and complete the whole process again. One agency I called to ask some questions yesterday told me it would likely be 3 to 6 months just to match me with someone. Factor in at least another month (probably more like 2 or 3) for psychological testing, the DQ alpha testing, negotiating a contract and then having to wait for her cycle to start bcp's. At 38, I don't feel like I have much time to be sitting around doing nothing.

A plan is forming...

I can't say it's a good plan, but it's the best I can come up with under duress.

Yesterday, I spoke with a Dr. at the local clinic DH and I got treatment at prior to the one we're at now. He's actually the one who did the last transfer to my GS. We do still have some embryos frozen there. I haven't said much about them because they are untested. And, out of the 3 blasts transferred to me from that batch back when I did the fresh cycle and 3 blasts transferred to my GS back in Nov., we only had the one pregnancy which she miscarried due to an abnormal embryo. So, I'm far from optimistic for the remaining embryos. We have 2 Day 6 blasts, 3 Day 2 two cells and 3 Day 2 three cells. At best, I'm thinking 1 of the Day 2's may make it to blast and we'd be able to transfer 3 (assuming both blasts even survive).

Anyway, the Dr. there said DQ Alpha/HLA matching was something that was a popular topic of interest with a group of Dr.'s back in the 90's. However, no good research ever came out to prove it has an effect. He did a search for me of current research but did not find anything. He said some Dr.'s rely on their own anecdotal experiences with their patients to support their theories. He doesn't feel it's an issue and they don't even test for it (which seems to be the case with most clinics). However, I did go to the Las Vegas clinic because they deal with more difficult cases so it's reasonable to believe there are more obscure issues behind the failures. I'm not sure what to think at this point. I do feel comfortable with just going ahead and transferring the remaining embryos at the local clinic to my current GS. She is geared up to do a transfer. We do have to use those embryos at some point. And, granted, I suppose there is a tiny chance one normal one might sitting there in the few we haven't used yet. And, despite what the other Dr. said, I'm still quite convinced that she has a better chance for a good outcome than I do. Nonetheless, we're all setting our expectations even lower than very low for this one. Since she was on bcp's, we're just converting her over to this clinic's protocol and should be able to have a transfer around the same time in May as we were expecting to at the other clinic.

The other part of my plan is still the same. I'm still searching for a new GS for the embryos at the Las Vegas clinic. I really do not want to resort to using an agency (and the extra $ 13,000-$15,000 fee they charge) but may have to since I'm not having any luck finding someone on my own so far.

DH and I still haven't decided about doing an 8th fresh cycle. I feel like, if we're going to such a huge expense to get another surrogate, isn't it kind of silly not to do more than one transfer if one doesn't work? Usually, contracts cover up to 3 transfers. Then again, doing another cycle would also cost a lot of money and, after last time, I'm not feeling very optimistic we would get anything out of it.

Meanwhile, after completion of our last fresh cycle (which we thought was our last), DH has reverted back to his bad habits (well, bad for sperm anyway) of having a few beers after work, taking scalding hot baths and not taking any of his antioxidants. I feel like that puts us at least 3 months away from another cycle as it is. He told me to let him know if we're doing another cycle so he can go back to his "Quaker lifestyle". I really can't decide what to do. :{

What now?

I've spent most of the last 24 hours struggling to figure out what to do next. Over the last year, a large pile of books on different topics has gradually accumulated on the floor near my side of the bed; books about surrogacy, adoption, egg donors, and remaining childless. On top of them all is a "chick lit" book to conceal them from DH (so he doesn't realize the level of insanity his wife has reached).

Anyway, I was rereading bits of all of them last night struggling to find an answer but not coming up with any clear cut path. At the moment my mind is a jumbled mess of options and I find myself considering moving forward with adoption, using a surrogate, doing another fresh cycle and possibly using half donor sperm, and doing an egg donor cycle all at the same time. Yeah, I know. Even if we did have the unlimited money this would cost, it's probably not a great idea. I'm just feeling so desperate right now.

I guess part of the issue is that there are some serious issues for us with any of the alternative options.

When it comes to adoption, we are just not comfortable with open adoption, which seems to be rather prevalent these days. I am also worried that our being Jewish might work against us when it comes to being chosen by birthparents. Ironically, I was raised as a Roman Catholic but converted to Judaism before DH and I married. Part of the reason was to be able to raise our children not feeling confused about religion yet, when it comes to adoption, our odds of getting a child may have been better if at least one of us was Roman Catholic. I sometimes regret converting for other reasons. I have great respect for Judaism and felt very strongly about converting at the time. Maybe the issue is just that I haven't taken any effort to participate in the customs or holidays, but it's hard when DH doesn't. I know we would both make the effort if we had children. Anyway, I'm getting into a whole different topic here.

Back to adoption... In all honesty, I also have to admit that adopting a child just seems like such a huge leap of faith to me. I worry about whether I'd be able to bond with the child. Would it feel like having a stranger in my home? Logically, I know from speaking to others who have adopted that it can be a great way to build a family and I'd feel like the children were truly mine. They would be mine. I love my cat like my own child so is it really that big a stretch to believe I'd love a child like my own child? That leads me into the positive aspects of adoption. We would get a child. It might be a very long wait but, if we were persistent, it would happen. I can't say the same about any of the other options. I also feel like adoption is something I could be proud of. We would be doing something altruistic by giving a child a great home and parents. Both of our families are fully supportive of it.

When it comes to egg donation, the first problem is that we aren't certain egg quality is our issue. And, if it is, we don't know if that's our only issue. Would we need an egg donor and a surrogate? If so, then we negate what many regard as a big positive factor with egg donation; being able to carry the child.

When I first started thinking about egg donation, the imbalance it might create in our marriage was a big concern to me. I've been able to convince myself that wouldn't be a problem and, sure, if there is some way at least one of us can have a genetic connection that would be great. It would somewhat ease my fears about the baby feeling like a stranger if I knew there was part of DH in there.

Another issue, though, is we would not be able to tell anyone. DH's mother would be the only one who would know (and, even then, only because we would need his parents help financially if we went that route... especially if we used a surrogate as well ). I wouldn't want to live my whole life putting up with stupid comments or subjecting the child to them. I don't like the feeling of having to keep secrets. I know that many who decide not to tell say it is really no one else's business (except for perhaps the child's) how they conceived. I would just feel a little strange about my parents thinking there was some sort of genetic link between them and the child when, in fact, there wasn't? So, there are definitely some issues here. And, of course, one big issue is that there is no guarantee donor eggs would work for us.

Then we have the option of trying donor sperm. Again, we have no clear cut need for donor sperm in light of ICSI being available. According to many Dr.'s, a sperm can be completely terrible in terms of quality yet still do it's job properly once they have injected it into the egg.

My DH is also not very receptive to this idea. He would do it if a Dr. were to tell him that he was 100 percent certain his sperm were the issue behind our very low percentage of normal embryos but has a problem doing it just as a part of trial and error to see what might work for us. Using donor sperm would also mean my doing another IVF cycle.....and I don't think we'd be willing to try that until we did one more cycle first with our own eggs and sperm to see if not having any normal embryos last time was just an aberration. So, that would bring me up to Fresh Cycle 9. I don't know if I have that in me, mentally or physically not to mention the financial impact it would have on us.

The only conclusion I've managed to reach for now is that I will try to search for a new surrogate for the embryos in Las Vegas. Meanwhile, I'm sure I'll spend everyday thinking about all of the above.

They match

The title pretty much says it all. I got the result today and my surrogate and DH have the DQ/HLA match.

My Dr. said he strongly advises against my using her. I even asked him if the choice came down to transferring to myself or to this surrogate, what would he advise and he said definitely transferring them to me. To put this in perspective, I had 16 embryos (all were Day 5 or 6 except 3 which were Day 3) transferred to myself with only one chemical pregnancy before switching to his clinic. I then had two transfers of embryos that were tested to be free of abnormalities and, after 2 normal ones were transferred, I became pregnant with a singleton and miscarried at around 8 1/2 weeks. Then, I transferred 1 tested embryo and had a short lived chemical pregnancy. So, he is saying he would rather transfer to me than to a lady who has had 5 children successfully. Needless to say, that makes me think he really believes this HLA matching issue is a very serious problem. Part of me would just like to ignore him and proceed with the transfer but then, if it didn't work, I would have it in my head that this was the reason. We went to this Dr. because he is an expert with difficult cases so it seems like it'd be foolish to then ignore his advice.

I've been crying for the last couple hours. I just don't know what to do now. I don't think transferring to myself is even an option at this point. We can't take any chances with our last embryos....especially the one that is tested. It seems so overwhelming to go all the way back to Square one with trying to find a surrogate I can trust and going through all the intial stages of getting things set up.

Meanwhile, I still have to tell my surrogate about this. She is at work right now. I'm dreading having to tell her. She has been so great and we've really become good friends throughout all of this. I felt so comfortable having her do this for us. I know she really wanted to give us our children. She knew that doing a transfer at this clinic hinged on this test result, but neither of us ever thought we'd be this unlucky.

Waiting......

I had spent so much time worrying about the CGH test results and whether they would be back in time for my surrogate to prepare for the May cycle. Of course, I got those with plenty of time to spare but am now still waiting on the DQ/HLA test results. The clinic I go to requires this test even though I'm using a surrogate since it's possible (although unlikely) that she could have a match with my husband. I won't go into explaining the whole DQ/HLA matching theory. I'm not even sure I could explain it properly. I've never spent much time researching it since my DH and I did not have the match. Suffice it to say that having a match is bad....so bad that if by some small chance my surrogate has the match with DH they will strongly advise us not to transfer to her.

My surrogate is supposed to start lupron on Sunday. The problem is the clinic won't do up her official calendar or issue her prescriptions until they have the test result back. The lab that processes the results is not a part of the clinic. They received my surrogate's blood on the 8th and told us the results would take 7-10 business days. We thought that gave us plenty of time. Then, we were informed that they don't count Fridays as business days. Even so, I figured we would be okay since yesterday was Day 10 according to the lab's business days. When we hadn't heard anything, I asked my nurse to call them. She did so and was told to call back Friday by 2:00. This is a big problem. Friday afternoon there is 3 hours later here and I don't think we could have a pharmacy ship out meds. for Saturday receipt so late in the day. My nurse said if I wanted to try contact the lab myself to explain the situation and see if they'd have some sympathy to go ahead. She said they didn't have any for her.

So, even though I was feeling quite angry with the lab since they promised results by the 10th business day (which according to their calendar was already a ridiculously long time) yet were now telling us we couldn't have them until the 12th business day, I forced myself to take a few deep breaths and pick up the phone. I knew I probably wouldn't get far if I called them and was accusatory. I just got an answering machine so I sent over a fax explaining how important getting this result on Thursday was to us. I called about an hour later and spoke with someone who said she received it and had brought it to the attention of the Dr. but that he was still "calibrating the result and it was not even in the system yet." I'm not sure exactly what that means but it didn't sound good. I told her I was about ready to have a nervous breakdown not knowing if we'd have the result in time or not and could she please give me a call if she found out. I didn't receive a call back yesterday.

Postponing the cycle isn't even an option as my surrogate has already requested specific days off from work (she had to tell them last week before they did the schedule for next month). Her supervisor gave her a hard time so she had to go to the person above her to get approval. There is just no way she could get things changed around now without losing her job.

So, either I get this result or I no longer have a surrogate. Of course, I'm also worried about the possibility that she will have a match with my DH in which case I also no longer have a surrogate.

It's going to be a long day.