“Dr.Orders”…..

It was two nights ago Kev and I were both on edge with EVERYTHING going on in our daily lives. We decided to email our team to inquire where we are at in regards to our next cycle (implantation). As paranoid as we both are in regards to..well surrogacy, we immediately had our email bounce back from Dr.Samit address. Of course we freaked out and immediately emailed Lexi and Anjani. They both reassured us that “the little glitch in our doctor’s email address is being worked on. And to please not be worried for everything is good and striving. Please don’t worry:.

Okay, well… understand this….in the past two and a half years we have been meeting with, interviewing and observing many agencies (middle man in between us and India) that exist here in the United States. Come to learn, one of the few we were considering turned out to be not so good. Having said that much, of course we are both on the defense when something of the sort comes about. Over paranoid, over anxious, yes I will say so. Please understand we are taking our future and putting it in the hands of experts half way around the world.

To much of our dismay we received an email that reassured us and pushed us into our faith once more from Dr.Samit.

“I believe my email not working for a day gave you some anxious moments. I understand how this process has been emotionally as well as physically draining for you two, however as your Doctor I would like to give you a suggestion/advice-try to be as calm as possible and as positive as possible about this journey to parenthood. It is very important that you have full faith and trust on us during this journey.  We are here to help you in every possible way. We will interact with you regularly; we will answer all of your queries. Sometimes there might be a little delay because of logistics, but we will not leave you alone on this journey.  We are with you every step of the way.

The grading of the embryos can sometimes change post thawing. However we will transfer a mix of Grade A and B quality embryos (best for implantation).

All surrogate’s are given optimal Luteal phase support in the form of progesterone Injections 100 mg/daily and Vaginal pessaries/suppositories,200 mg/daily.

We are a clinic that specializes solely in fertility care and treatments. We are up to date with all happenings in the field of infertility all across the globe and if our seniors/team feel the need to incorporate any latest state of the art developments to improve pregnancy and live take home baby rates, it is done immediately.

Please take my email in the right sense and remember we will and are doing everything possible to help you both become parents in the shortest amount of time.

The surrogate stops birth control pills today.  She will get her menses by weekend. So we are looking at an embryo transfer between 24^th to 28^th of march.

We shall update you again”.

That was it. That was all we needed to hear from our doctor. I will say that I have every once of faith and belief in KIC.  My worries..my apprehension was put to rest when our doctor, Dr. Samit reassured us that he and his team are and will continue to do everything they can to provide us with a child(ren ).

Need I say more?? Thank you again to Dr.Samit and his team for reassuring us to stay positive, believe and keep faith. I will say, this much. Kevin and I are 100% thankful that we choose KIC for our future.

Until next…

Waiting to Exhale...

Today has been the toughest day on me yet. My job is more demanding then ever. And my faith in becoming a mother has subside immensely.  Perhaps it's the week I've had that has lead me to believe that this box I'm in is growing smaller and smaller. I feel the weight of my future growing heavier and thinner as years go by.

I often think about every other blogs that exist about surrogacy and how people share with us their story...their journey. How each person/or couple can relate to my story, to each of our story.

I think about my life and where it has lead me. To my husband and I..our story, and how difficult and hard these years have been for us. I think today I need a reassurance that  my struggle...our prayers are heard and are kept to be blessed with.

It's just one of those days..that a girl goes through.

A little bit of heart and soul....

As I sat in my doctor's office today, she asked  me what has been going on in our lives, including an update to our surrogacy journey. I was taken back a bit by her question. I wasn't prepared for this question so early in the AM, let alone by her. However, I explained to her the end results that had occurred in the last month. At the end of our visit together she told me" Angela, do not give up hope. You have come too far to let your dream go. I know you can get through this tough time. Have Faith...have hope...you will seek guidance."
As I left the doc's office,  I thought to myself, "don't wallow in self pity. You've been down this road too many times before. That does not kill me, will make me stronger". I then began to sing to myself, "have a little bit of heart and soul..give a little bit of love to grow...please Lord hear my pray for our child to come....give me a sign I need to know you're here...A little bit of heart and soul".
As hard as it is for me to move forward each week, I do. I have no idea what our next cycle will have in store for us. I don't know what I am capable of accepting or letting go of? All I know is this life of infertility has been much to hard at times to bare the weight of my shedding tears, fears and anger. I do believe that all things are possible. What that possibility is, I couldn't tell you. All I know is I've found the man I want to love forever. I am living the life I've look for many, many years. And know I am blessed by all of Gods providing thus far. I just ask this..if I can be a mother to a child I have longed for, I will be forever blessed and loved by His Holy Spirit.

As Kevin and I move on to another new month,so do our dreams. Our second cycle should hopefully begin between March 14th through March 21st. I know there are so many couples that are beginning or in the middle of their process with surrogacy through  KIC. We welcome you all to please share your story with us and others. The more support there is for all of us, the more it makes us feel like we are not alone.

Until our next post, be well and God bless.

Choosing one or two???

It was five days ago Kevin asked me what I thought about two surrogates this time around. At first I thought “double the chances, double the babies”. Then I began to understand what it was he was trying to ask me.  We want double the reassurance with little to lose. KIC offers two separate surrogate implantation at one time. We thought, why not take the chance? Today makes four weeks to the next implantation and we are nervous and filled with so much appreciation.  We thought our best run with the best implantation was with fresh embryos. But as many things in life, our first run didn’t work out. Right now, we are so scared that the second implantation will be harder to accept if something goes wrong. We then turned to Dr.Samit for advice and suggestions. As always, Dr.Samit was kind and straight to the point,

 “We freeze 2 embryos per straw.

So we thaw 2 embryos at a time.

So if we plan to transfer 4 embryos, we thaw 2 straws.

It is your choice to opt for 1 or 2 surrogates.

With two surrogates your chances of pregnancy definitely increase but so do your chances of 3 or 4 babies at one go. It is a difficult decision. Please let me know and I shall do so accordingly.”

As you can imagine, we’ve been thinking non stop about this discussion day and night.

All day long today I’ve been trying so hard to think with a clear head. Yeah, a lot of good that did me. I was all over the map. Thinking about everything I had to get through at work for month end close (I do accounting for a big automotive group).  My sister’s blessing arrived yesterday afternoon at 2:04pm. She delivered a girl, Summer Lynne, 8 pounds, 11 ounces, 20 inches long. She’s in the Intensive Care Unit as of this morning. Her blood work came back with a high blood cell count. This tells the doctor’s that there is a bacteria infection somewhere in her little body. She also fractured her collar bone coming down the birth canal. Poor thing is struggling. She isn’t moving her right arm. The nurses will put her arm in a sling and wrap it against her body to help speed up the healing process of her collar bone. They’ve already started giving her antibiotics for her infection. I then find myself drifting into deep thought about the discussion we need to make. I did everything I could today to hold myself up and move forward.

When we finally had a moment to breathe tonight, I looked at Kevin and said "I need a moment to think and process everything”. What seemed like a week that the time finally came when Kevin and I sat down together and agreed that rather than two surrogates, one is more logical, emotionally and financially suitable for us.

So we emailed Dr.Samit. We informed him that after weighing our options we decided that we want to go with only one surrogate. We told him that we definitely would like the best opportunity for twins so what ever he thinks is best, we will agree with his decision. We informed him the only thing we are concerned about is that there are only 7 embryos left.  We assume that not all of them will make it past the thawing process. Again his response to our questions is stated above. Thaw two straws, transfer four embryos. Which straws he choices? We don’t know as of yet. We are assuming the two stronger straws that hold the higher grade of embryos will be the two he chooses.

I’m asking myself at this exact moment "where do broken hearts go?” I struggle with my infertility everyday.  I shed tears of joy for my family and friends that birth a new life each year. At the same time…I find myself crying tears of heartache, frustration and loss.

Will I ever be blessed with a child to call my own? Am I asking too much in life for a child? Am I meant to be a mother? Or am I here to help others in need? I don’t know? Only time will tell.