The saying goes "It takes a village..."

So the old saying goes "It takes a village to raise a child" but sometimes it takes a village to create a child!  The average couple it takes a man and a woman and sometimes a bottle of wine or a couple of shots of tequila.  The process of surrogacy most certainly have enough people involved that it could populate a small village!

First lets talk about the obvious players.  Of course my Intended Parents -- They are the key players in this.  They are friends of mine and have been for about 6 years now.   They are wonderful parents to their two little twin boys via surrogacy.  So then I have to thank their previous surrogate for making them parents.  How amazing of a gift did she give them-- that unconditional love that is like no other.  They also used an egg donor to create these embryos as the condition that my Intended Mother had caused her to not have any viable eggs and the medication she continued on was not conducive with carrying a pregnancy at all.  Of course there are the doctors and nursing staff that facilitated all of this for them and used their expertise to bring them to parenthood and my doctor who helps manage my care from here so I don't have to drive 8 hours round trip to the clinic 3 times during a cycle to have my lining checked.  Their family who supported their dreams and provided child care for their boys when they needed it and their friends and families who embraced this crazy journey called surrogacy.  That's a village!! 

We have our own little village of support here in our house as well.  My husband supports my choice to be a surrogate.  It is not without sacrifices.  In our contract we agree to things like abstaining from sexual relations (we have been in contract since February so do the math!) as we cannot chance getting pregnant with our own.  I give up things like swimming in ponds and lakes and traveling certain distances away from our home hospital after a certain gestation or traveling outside of the US at all.  I have to travel from the house for transfer and put trips on hold due to uncertainty of cycling.  My whole family has to suffer when I am moody from the hormones or just feel like crying and not making dinner (the meds are no joke!)  

Finally, the rest of my village is my neighbors.  My neighbors who step up and say "We will help  with childcare and NO we will not take payment!"  My neighbors are part of my support system and they are friends.  Sometimes I need someone to watch my kids at obscene hours in the morning or get my child off of the bus and within moments of posting my request on FB, someone has come forward and offered and the astonishing part is they expect nothing in return.  These ladies are amazing.  I want to acknowledge a few by name as these girls are there for me every step of the way and willing to pitch in and help with child care when I am in a bind--  Amy, Stephanie and Nikki-- Thank you for being an unconditional friend who is there for me no matter what.  You are appreciated!!!  My other friends (near and far!) also message me and ask me how I am.  Just thinking about me or checking in on me is part of making this baby!! 

Of course we have to talk about God being the Mayor of this village.  Yes I know we are 'playing' with science when doing artificial reproduction methods, but without his hand guiding the doctor and making these technologies available these people would not be parents.  God has the biggest hand in this.  

To everyone involved in some way-- You are amazing!! You are making dreams come true!  

Now.... Onto this month's cycle because I know everyone is waiting for that!! I should really do a better job of doing updating in between appointments because my blog posts end up looking like a novel.. 

So this month's transfer was yesterday.  After our failed cycle last month, we dusted ourselves off and started again.  As soon as we had the failed beta results, I stopped progesterone and estrogen and within 2 days, my cycle started.  The next day I started estrogen again.  And fast forward 16 days and transfer was yesterday.  

I dropped the younger two kids off at daycare and made the 4 hour hike to Virginia.  I got to my IPs took a short nap and when I woke up IM (Intended Mother) was on the phone with Daniel, the embryologist with some bad news.  The first embryo that was thawed did not survive the thaw.  It just didn't grow anymore.  They thawed another, it grew a little then collapsed.  They thawed another and it was rated at a fair.  

I also learned that what they thought was 18 embryos on ice was not really 18 embryos.  They had 6 frozen 5 day embryos (Meaning they were grown for 5 days then frozen).  The other 12 were fertilized and frozen within the first day.  These 12 have no grades of quality assigned to them as they had not grown.  It is said 40-50% of these 12 will continue to grow when they are thawed so if you are a math person, that is somewhere around 5 of the 12 will be of any decent quality. The rest will not grow.   So we started with 18 embryos.  6 were 5 day but now there are only 2 of those 5 day left and who knows how they will thaw.  and 12 of unknown quality of which only 4-5 will probably be any good.  Make sense?

We went to transfer and we were waiting for the doctor to come in to the transfer room.  When he came in, he said he had stopped by the embryologists lab and said that the one that had collapsed had resumed growing again but still was poor quality.  The other was rated at only a fair.  He is a very conservative doctor and will only transfer one good quality but we clearly were not dealing with this.  He asked what we wanted to do... This was a hard choice.

I was very much on the single embryo transfer kick... that is what I wanted.  That is what my IPs wanted (it is in our contract) and that is what the doctor usually would recommend.  He gave us time to make our decision and left the room.  We talked it out but yet we still could not come to a conclusion.   He came back and we asked for more time.  Time elapsed and no one felt pressured.  When he came back my IF asked this one question and this one question is what gave us the answer. 

His question was "Doctor, we plan on doing this until we run out of embryos.  Knowing that, would you still transfer 2?" and the doctor said "Yes I would.  Of this quality, I think it is the best chance for success of a singleton pregnancy."  When the embryologist wheeled the embryos in the incubator, he also concurred.

So for all of you experienced surrogates out there shaking your fist at me, I understand.  I know your arguments and they are VERY valid.  We did not just toss back 3 great quality embryos thinking "Multiples won't happen to us"  We did not do this without having a plan or without being lectured by some of my best friends who are also experienced multiples carriers.  I know the risks.  I know the chances of problems with a twin pregnancy.  I considered all of these risks.  I know if I get pregnant, it will be hard.  Harder than I can even anticipate.  We made a very calculated decision, there was nothing careless or dismissive about our decision.  We have a plan in the event of a hard or troubled pregnancy.  We are prepared though you can never be 100% prepared for all of the what ifs of twins or any pregnancy for that matter.  But we are still all hoping for ONE embryo to stick around resulting in a healthy SINGLETON. 

So please, instead of lecturing me, it's already done and over with.  There are two little embryos in me trying to find a place to nestle in.  One can go ahead and stay, the other can say adios to its brother or sister!! 

Here are some photos from our exciting day!  

Typical Transfer Torture Devices!  The gigantic swabs are to clean up the cervix before they thread the catheter through with the hemostats. 

My gorgeous IM and myself just before transfer

Is your bladder full enough to visualize the uterus?  What if I push the U/S probe down to your tailbone?

The transfer is about to happen.  Daniel (the embryologist is about to pull the embryos out)

But first, the proud daddy gets to check them out through the microscope!

Here it goes!! The embryologist is looking on, watching those embryos go to their new home.  

There they are, that little white dot are the embryos in my uterus. 

The embryos.   The top one is the poor quality embryo that collapsed then started to grow again.  This one likely won't hatch out of its shell but we gave it a chance.  The bottom one is the 'fair' embryo.  Ideally the embryo would fill the whole outer circle and look like the below embryo that I snagged a picture from the internet for comparison. 

Before hatching, a blast usually has more than 150 cells. 

This blast is hatching out of its shell. 

As you can see with our blasts compared to the 'good' quality blasts, ours are not as good of quality.  I have heard that ugly embryos can make beautiful babies.  Pray for us to just have ONE stick around for the next 9 months!

Will update in a few days once we start peeing on sticks AND we have a positive.... Stay tuned!