Are you ready for this, because I wasn't

As promised my meds arrived and my dear husband has begun injecting me every evening. Yes, you read that right I'm a big baby and am making my needle-phobic husband do my injections. I'm going with the philosophy that this will help him overcome his needle-phobia, so it's a win-win.

Currently I take 10 units of Lupron daily. Leuprolide acts as an agonist at pituitary GnRH receptors. By interrupting the normal pulsatile stimulation and the desensitization of the GnRH receptors; it indirectly down regulates the secretion of gonadotropins luteinizing hormone (LH) and follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) leading to hypogonadism and thus a dramatic reduction in estradiol and testosterone levels in both sexes. Totes stole that from Wikipedia. In a nut shell the Lupron supresses my pituitary glad and prevents my from ovulating.

Now as promised THE BOX.............

Those four bags in front? Yeah all needles. Notice I even have my own hospital grade sharps container. This is serious business. Not that any of you thought it was a joke before, but holy Hell.

I also think I'm going to start a countdown to implantation like some people do for their due date or other major life events,

We are T-minus 27 days to implantation

The meds are coming....the meds are coming...

Like Paul Revere riding through my neighborhood, screaming to my uterus. They actually should have arrived, but I wasn't sent a tracking number, NOT good. How am I suppose to stalk the Fedex truck. I am starting to get nervous, excited nervous but nervous all the same.

I have my first medical checkup this afternoon, the results are supposed to be sent immediately to my doc in CA who will let me know if I start the meds tonight or tomorrow or not at all. And when I say meds this is what I mean.

So that MIGHT be a cow type of needle, but this what they are all going to look like to me in my mind. Hopefully I can get pictures soon of all of them.

From nothing to everything

Yes, it's been 3 months since I last posted, you know why, because I had NOTHING to share. Nothing to write, nothing to say, just twiddling my thumbs. There has been a lot happening, but I was uninvolved and unaware of it all since it all had to do with the egg donor. But now we go into hyper speed..so here's the run down.

Since we last spoke the dad's have been through two egg donors. One didn't work out due to some birth control left in her body after getting the birth control shot a while ago. They immediately choose another donor, but it seriously took 2 months to get her cleared. She had to go through the same mental and physical clearance that I did, then the contracts from legal had to be mailed to everyone, signed and returned. Everything was received last Friday. I'm glad I don't have to figure out the logistics of all of this it's like freaking air traffic control.

Late last night I got my tentative calendar emailed to me, so that's Monday night at 9pm. Friday I have to go in for my first ultra sound so they can check and make sure everything is still there and looks good. This is also the day that I start my injections, oh yeah there are needles involved and daily. For those of you that don't know (like me), the first injection is Lupron and it helps override the pituitary glad so I don't ovulate. We don't need any of my eggs slipping out during this process.

So there we are stuff is happening and happening quickly. Stay tuned, as soon as they arrive I'll share with you my magic box of meds.

A Snail's Pace

So I seriously and naively thought that I would be pregnant by now. You know meet couple, we all like one another, then I would get pregnant. Well apparently I was wrong VERY wrong. Damn I hate being wrong. This process can take a long freaking time.

First the guys needed to get their "stuff" checked to see. Then the egg donor needs to have her vag checked (such fun) and get medically cleared. Then a few weeks for all of us to get our contracts, then all of us have to get our contracts back. THEN we actually get a calendar to start this whole thing. Yeah you heard me right, we haven't even started.

I have no idea what kind of timeline we are talking about. I feel like time is all sorts of suspended. I just wanted to update you all. I'm not pregnant, I haven't even started, but I promise to keep you all sorts of informed.

In other news Geaux Tigers. Yeah I live in PA, but I can still root for my team.

Holy Woowza

Man, talk about some serious traffic. I thought I'd address some comments made on here as well as on Facebook.

So first of all let me address the monetary stuff. Yeah I get paid, but I could die, the likelihood of that happening is slim, but it could happen, I could also loose my uterus, have a stroke, or a myriad of other pleasent things. Even if that doesn't happen, in a few months I won't be able to bend over to load the dishwasher, do laundry, or see my toes. Let's also take into account the physical toll this takes on my body as well as the emotional toll on my marriage, being pregnant has it's moments of greatness but it also has some seriously sucktastic stuff too. And then of course there is my $6 a day ice cream habit, that is still many months away, but it's coming. I also recognize that most of these are first world problems, so yeah I get compensated, but there is no way I could do it if it were for the money, it's not THAT much.


Now to the good stuff.

That is awesome - good for your friend! Is she planning on breastfeeding (well, pumping?) and donating that as well? Yes, I'm a saint, I know, I am hoping to be memorialized after this, whatevs, if you heard me cursing last night at my hen night you would definitely think differently. Back to the question at hand, the parents haven't made any ovation regarding breast milk. I nursed my son until he weaned himself, but for over half the time he was nursing I had to pump on one side, plus the parents live in another country, so I don't know if it would work.

Hmm this is Interesting...i am currently considering becoming a surrogate myself. Where did you get information about becoming one? Im looking at The Surrogacy Source right now. I am using the same company a friend of mine did when she donated her eggs. I will have to check with them to make sure it's OK for me to use the company's name, I'm sure it is, but it's Christmas and I don't want to get a lump of coal.
 

Do you plan to stay in touch with them after the baby is born? You should read the book THEN CAME YOU by Jennifer Weiner I just C&P'd weiner in my blog, I wonder how many great searches from 13 year old boys I'm going to get now. To the point, I don't know what will happen communication wise. It really depends on how our relationship develops. We may turn out to be great friends and I'm their new hag, and we're like BFF's 4 Life, or it may be that we exchange Christmas cards, school pictures and see each other during our travels. Who knows, but I can't wait to find out.

I'm SURE there is a musical somewhere featuring a mexican gay couple. There is not, I have checked.

So, not much is going to happen in the next 10-14 days, so please put this in your reader, but don't check every day with baited breath and be so disappointed when you don't see my lovely words typed perfectly with my amazingly painted grey nails. (Seriously though this nail polish is fabulous). If you choose to do so, have a Happy Christmas, if not have a great Sunday. 




-Mary-Tyler


 

Some BIG NEWS!

So I've taken a break from blogging because this thing is about to go into a whole new direction. John and I are going to be gestational surrogates for a family that can't have their own kids. OK, so are your jaws on the floor? I'll give you a minute......ready to move on?

John and I talked about doing this before Brooks was even a thought, but you have to have given birth to be a surrogate. Duh, oh naive one. Once Brooks turned one year we opened the door and reached out to an agency. After 5 months, we are ready to get knocked up. Here's the process so far.

Contact agency and fill out paperwork akin to getting top secret federal security clearance. This is of course necessary to make sure you are not a total weirdo. Then send all of your medical records from kindergarten through birth. Since I'm fat, I also had to do a glucose test. Once you pass all of this, you go for a medical and psychiatric evaluation, I was concerned about the medical eval, but my friends were apparently more concerned with my psych eval, I don't know how good these friends are when I think about it. Once I found out that I passed all of these, we were sent the profile of a couple, on paper they seemed great, so our profile was passed along to them. Then we met.

I can't even begin to tell you how awkward the meeting was. It was like a blind date and job interview at the same time. Have to figure out in an hour all the nitty gritty of what we both expect during this journey, as well as legal stuff, and then of course are we even going to get along. Fortunately, we seemed to get along swimmingly. After the formal meeting we went to a coffee shop and talked about our family lives, careers, and other bullshit fill in the blank stuff.

Before chronicling any of this I wanted to make sure it was OK with the parents first, but I am going to give them pseudonyms, something cool like spy names like Boris and Sebastian, but maybe that's just pretentious, but we'll go with musical names since that's more true to my form,  they will be referred to as Kander & Ebb (totally a musical theater geeky reference).

A few last things, this child will not be genetically mine or John's. They will be using an egg donor and one of their sperm will be used to fertilize. I'm just the oven, the vessel to grow the babe. I've been asked how am I going to be able to hand over the baby? That's easy, it's not my baby, again, I'm the vessel, the oven only. I'm excited to go through pregnancy again, and help out a family that can't conceive on their own.


OK back to convalescing, I have strep throat and Brooks has an ear and throat infection. I'll keep ya'll posted on details.

The Great Noonie Caper

First and foremost, a noonie (noon ee) is the name for Brooks' pacifier. So get your head out of the gutter this has nothing to do with boobs.


The caper was quick, well as quick as toddlers can move, and started so innocently with kids banging on the sliding glass door. Then the culprit swiped Brooks' noonie and ran as quick as her little legs would go. Upon reaching the precipitous of the step up into the dining room, the culprit had to actually crawl to the top. The victim was hot on her heels, fussing the whole way, that is until she required assistance, there was a pause of game until she regained her footing. Once she was up, the chase and fussing were back on. The culprit toddled all the way across the house and only slowed once she came up on the rocking house, she mounted her steed to make a speedy get away when the victim finally caught up to her, he was able to retrieve the stolen noonie. He promptly placed the noonie in his mouth and the fussing ceased. The culprit was last seen giggling her way into the sunset.

We miss Miss K and I think she enjoys teasing Brooks.