We left our house bright and early to make our 8:00 appointment in the city. Of course it started snowing again, I mean it's only March 20th, and the official start of spring, so why wouldn't it snow? Today we were meeting as group with the psychologist at Northwestern to find out our next steps. I didn't really know what was going to happen, but our surro told us that we should expect to cry today. Awesome. I'm super emotional as is, so that was exactly how I wanted to start the day. Thankfully, the appointment was a breeze. We did however talk about some issues that I wouldn't have thought of if they hadn't been addressed. Anyone going through the process might want to give these a thought or two before diving in.
1. How will you tell your child, and the child(ren) of your surrogate about the process? There are actually books on this topic. Currently, we are leaning toward the Kangaroo Pouch, but there is also another book that uses a garden analogy, which we may use. We will cross that bridge when we get there. Along with this comes the discussion of when will we tell our child, or her children. We haven't really gotten there yet, so we don't have a definite answer, but it's in the back of our minds.
2. How will you respond to the questions of your child/your surrogates child(ren)? Kids ask a lot of questions, and one of the follow up questions after talking to them about surrogacy, may be "Are they my brother/sister?" and "Is she my mom then?" That obviously leads into the deeper birds and bees conversation, but you need to be prepared.
3. How will we tell our child about my medical history? I would be freaked out if I heard my mom had a funny heart, so B and I have to work on how we will explain our reasons for needing a surrogate to our child without making them think I am sick, or that something may happen to me.
4. Who can be there at appointments? At the birth? Can we get all in her business as the miracle of life is happening? I have a pretty tough stomach, and given my medical history, not much phases me, but B? This was a rough one for him, he turned quite pink at the idea of being down under while our child graces this world. He wants to be in the room, but may need to take a break, and will be standing at the head of the bed for sure. Our surrogate is also cool with whatever, so we have her blessing to get as close, or far as we are comfortable with.
5. Data? Today we heard a lot of it. We learned that this may not work the first time, and that is OK. Odds are good that after the 2nd shot, there will be a baby in the works. Also, because of my age, our miscarriage rate is low (normal) at 15%, which is good, but still a possibility. That was a hard one to hear, we are doing this because right now, if I carried a child, my miscarriage rate (due to heath) is at about 30%, so we made the assumption that we were out of the woods with that. The fact of the matter is that it is still there, but way, way less. My AMH is low, but that doesn't mean they won't get anything from me or that I can't produce eggs. It was the most positive conversation I've had about that stupid number, and my stupid ovaries. It just means I might need a more aggressive treatment. The plus side of this is that I am at a lower risk for overstimulation, which was a concern of my cardiologist. Silver linings people.
6. Twins? While I would love to have two snuggly bundles of joy to take home, and my anxiety would feel better if we popped two eggs in there, it only increases the risk to our babies. Bottom line, if we put two in, the odds of us getting two are high. Those odds, lead to lower birth weight, premature delivery, and if they are born to early, there is a very high rate of Cerebral Palsy. We already have to be on hyper alert for cardiac defects, and I can't put the odds higher in the health risk category for this kid.
7. Gender? We can find out at 10 weeks, when we have a chromosome scan. Boom! Winning. Get ready for the gender reveal party people.
8. Timing? still June. We are trying to get our class (on how to give shots) sometime in May so we can sync up my May-June cycle, and do the retrieval at the end of the month. That is in about 12 weeks. Holy soon batman!
9. Did we pass? Think about who you are talking to. B graduated Cum Laude, I have a 4.0 in grad school. Obviously we passed, plus our surrogate rocked that psych eval. The exact words were, you did awesome on that test. We are overachievers and proud of it.
10. Only child? Our surrogate offered to have baby #2 for us today as well. Can't process that information, so I am moving along.
11. The places where men have to go for their tests? Some of the most sterile and uncomfortable places ever. The waiting room had a TV screen of sperm, all different shapes and sizes. There were some real weird photographs there. Plus, they had a keypad for their bathroom in the hallway, which you had to know the code for to get in, and their elevators had no buttons on the the inside. Strange, awkward place. Also on our way home, we saw a truck for the Nut Stop. So many puns were made, poor B.
12. Next? We have to meet with a Nurse at Northwestern who will run more labs on us. Edward Cullen would be going crazy with the amount of blood they have taken from me. Then we have our class appointment, and get our drugs. It's getting super close, now we just have to get our contract all squared away, and boom, we will be cooking this baby!
Today was a huge weight off of all of our chests, and we are on to phase two!
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