RE appt

The appointment with the RE was short and sweet. IM met me at the clinic. It was nice to get to talk to her for awhile before being called back. I enjoyed hearing her talk about herself, IF and their kids. I can tell they are a close, loving family. I am thrilled to have a hand in adding to this wonderful family. God willing!

Back to the RE, this is the same doctor IM used to get pregnant with her twins. I’m not sure if I mentioned they have a set of twins through IVF. IM’s pregnancy was great. The complications arose after the delivery. As a result she is unable to carry another pregnancy. I won’t say too much because I want to protect their privacy. I at least want to let you know what made them turn to surrogacy. The embryos we will be using are from the same batch as the twins. The RE mentioned that they were all of great quality. He seems very confident that we will get pregnant. I was happy to hear that. He did say that implanting two embryos should be sufficient. When the IPs and I discussed the number of embryos to implant previously we agreed to three. IF did some research and said that because it is a frozen transfer the chances of the pregnancy taking are of a lower percentage. I did some research as well and found several articles that supported this theory. I also read that the frozen transfer is just as successful as a fresh transfer. Some doctors even suggested frozen were more successful. This is one of the reasons I was anxious to talk to the RE. I wanted his opinion on the matter. IM is happy to do only two embryos. I am going to let her discuss it with IF. I will be seeing them both soon so I will bring it up then and see what they decided.

The RE ordered an ultrasound while I was there. I was aware that I would need one at some point but I was not quite prepared to have it done that day. I was told this appointment was only a consultation and that the ultrasound appointment would probably be the following week. The plan was to have Bill take off the day of the ultrasound appointment so he could drive me. I heard it can be painful so I wanted him there as a backup in case I was too uncomfortable to drive home. Fortunately this ultrasound was not as invasive as the one they originally said they were going to do. Still, not my idea of a good time. The tech was making me laugh. She checked my uterus and then my ovaries. Everything looked good. No unwanted masses, etc, etc. She kept going back to my ovaries. She was fascinated by them. She commented on how fertile I must be. I laughed and told her I had four kids. She said, “I believe it!” LOL. She was cracking me up! At one point she was trying to count the follicles! She seriously acted like this was the highlight of her day!

Now that we have the all clear from the RE all we need to do is some blood work and then we can finally move on to the contract phase. In TX we have to get the court to approve the arrangement. The process could take 2-4wks. As soon as we get the court approval I will start on BCPs. I will be given a shot of Lupron at some point to start my cycle. Then I will start estrogen patches. Before the transfer I will start the PIO(progesterone in oil). This is a shot I will have to give myself daily. Once the pregnancy is confirmed I will hopefully get to switch to a different form of progesterone. I will need to continue that through the first 10wks of the pregnancy. After that I will be released from the REs care to my regular OB.

I will be doing the blood work on the 17th. We plan to meet with the IPs for lunch and then head to the clinic. We are able to do the tests at IF’s office so that allows us to be flexible with the time and date. I’m looking forward to getting our families together for the afternoon. They only got to meet K and M the last time. I think they are looking forward to meeting the rest of my crew. I have already told them so much about the kids. What can I say, I am a proud mama. I am hoping to get to know their little ones better as well. :-) They seem like great kids.