Contract!

Today I opened an email from our attorney, with a very special attachment:)  It was the first draft of our contract.  I haven't had a chance to look at all of it yet, but they spelled Lady L's name wrong, so I know it will take a little work anyway.  I am hoping that there is nothing major that needs revising, but I guess I will find out very soon.  Anyway, probably not overly exciting to most people, but for us, each step is progress, and that means we are one day closer to becoming parents.  Woo hoo!

First Day of Injections for Lady L

Today is the first day of injections for Lady L.  She is taking .5 cc's of Lupron once a day to shut her ovaries off for the month.   In a few days, it will be second nature to her, but injecting anything into yourself is very nerve wracking!  After she has the syringe ready, she cleans off her belly, and pushes a needle in, and then injects the medication.  She will be on this for the next 4 weeks, and her belly will be filled with purple and green (but mostly painless) bruises by then.

I am happy to say that I got a text this morning that her fist injection was complete.  She was a little nervous, but got it done!  That's my girl!!!!

This is one of many sacrifices that she is willing to make to help Aaron and I.  There are very special VIP rooms in Heaven for compassionate surrogates.

Way to go Lady L!

One month

Lady L just pointed out that our transfer is set for exactly one month from today!  We are hoping that turns out to be the magical day that changes our lives forever.  Of course, we will still have to wait 2 weeks after that to determine whether or not it worked, but one month, wowza!  I can't believe this is really happening.

Orientation

Today= HUGE success!  Today we went over most of the FDA regulations regarding our embryos and the results of all of our tests.  Lady L will have to have her blood work repeated again, as she needs to have the tests run within 30 days of the transfer.  Drum roll please... we have a transfer date!  IF all goes well, we will transfer on March 22, 2012!  We are thrilled, and know that we will have many prayers coming from us and all of those around us in the next 5 weeks. 
Things have gone as smoothly as possible so far, and we can only hope that things continue to move along nicely for the next ten months.

As always thanks for all of your love and support.
xoxo


The 4 of us at the clinic today


Lady L, our Reproductive Endocrinologist, and me today.

Tomorrow

Our computer took it's final breaths last weekend, and I will say it has been SOO freeing!  If I didn't need to finish our taxes, I would probably stay off of the computer for a while; I have accomplished so much more than I normally do without the distraction of the Internet.
Anyway, tomorrow is the big day for the four of us.  Lady L, her husband, myself, and Aaron will all be at the clinic at 9am for our 3 hour orientation.  We truly could not be more excited.  I will have to take some Tylenol pm tonight or I will toss and turn until the rooster crows!  We are hoping for some type of timeline or at least an idea of when things could be happening.  We haven't heard much from our attorney, other than a statement showing he opened a file on us.  We trust that he is hard at work getting our contract written so perfectly that it won't need any changes or revisions:)  Okay, maybe that's a bit much, but we trust that he's working hard on it anyway. 
Aaron and I have both been swamped at work, and Aaron has been getting some side jobs done as well.  We have been brainstorming some fundraising ideas to help us fund this project, and hopefully this summer will have a plan of action.

That's it for today, I will update tomorrow if I can get to a computer, otherwise within a few days.  Please keep us in your prayers; even though tomorrow there isn't anything medically happening, it's still a big day for us. 

We hope you had a very happy Valentine's Day, and enjoy the upcoming President's Day weekend.

Fantastic News

We are overly thrilled to announce that we are infectious and communicable disease-free!  I got a call from the woman in the lab, who told me that although she was not a physician, and couldn't technically go over the results of the tests with us, that there was "no reason to change our plans, and proceed ahead."  Or something like that;)  Anyway, since the mail already went out today, tomorrow we will be mailing in our retainer fee and contract with our attorney to begin this phase.
More good news- the lady in the lab said that she would schedule the March transfer from Reprotech (where our embryos are stored) for whenever we (meaning Lady L's baby-cooker) are ready for them, so we won't actually have to pay the transfer fee.  We are thrilled about that, because every penny counts;)
Only 2 weeks until the "orientation," and I don't anticipate much happening before then, so I probably won't have much to update until then.

Frazzled

On Monday, Aaron and I had our blood and urine tests.  I called this morning, inquiring about our results.  I guess the clinic doesn't have all of the results back yet, but they should have them "early next week."  Normally, I would be fine with this.  However, we have our retainer signed, a check written, and ready to be sent to our attorney.  We are nervous about sending off a large chunk of money, only to find that either Aaron or I has a blood disorder or something that would prevent us from continuing on this journey... 
On the other hand, if we wait, we could run into the obstacle of not having our contract finalized when Lady L's uterus is ready for the embryo transfer. 
I emailed our coordinator, asking if, based on the lab results that ARE back, there was any reason that we should put a hold on sending in our retainer.  I received an out of office reply.  Wouldn't you know, she isn't in the office today?  Just our luck, lol. 
I am not sure what the best thing to do would be, but we are going to hold off sending in the retainer, at least until tomorrow. 
In other news, I ran farther that I have in years (with no breaks) on Tuesday, and hope to do the same tonight.  I fell on the sidewalk on my way out the door to a conference on dealing with difficult children (much like I was, ha ha) yesterday, so I am not sure if I am a little sore from the run or the spill:)

Good Stuff

I was going to post some information earlier this morning, but I am glad that I waited.  This afternoon, Lady L and her cheer team won the state championship!  But, it gets better- she was named "State Coach of the Year!"  What a great way to spend a Saturday, right? 
Yesterday we finally got the answers we were looking for from our clinic regarding the FDA required testing.  On Monday, Aaron and I will go in and have some blood tests, and a urine test.  We hope to get our results for that within a few days, and the very second that we get our approval to proceed, we will send in our retainer to begin the contract phase. 
On February 17th, we have our final orientation with Lady L, her husband, Aaron, and myself.  After that appointment, we should have a tentative plan for the medical preparations and embryo transfer.  We are hoping for Lady L's good luck to continue, and rub off on us:)

Update

Lady L passed her tests with flying colors:)  We are beyond excited about this.  We are still waiting to learn what we need to have done as far as blood work for the FDA requirements, grrrrr (I was hoping that would have been done about 3 weeks ago.)  Then we have to set up an orientation session, which needs to include the 4 of us.  I guess they only do these sessions on Fridays, so it may take a few weeks to get all 4 of us coordinated.  We will also need to transfer our embryos back to Mayo, and finally, Lady L will begin her medical protocol to get her baby party started:)  I guess March is still a possibility, but I won't hold my breath on that, there is a lot to get done in the meantime.

WOOO HOOOO!  Congratulations on your beautiful uterus, Lady L:)

Today

Alright, any of you who are reading this, please keep all of us in your prayers today.  Lady L will go in for her final portion of the testing phase this afternoon.  She is hoping that she will be able to get her "reports appointment" done after the testing, but last we heard they were looking into it; not knowing if there were any available openings. 
Luckily, report cards are due tomorrow, so I have enough things to keep my mind occupied for most of the day today.  Fingers crossed, palms together:)

I'll update later either way.

Bump in the Road

It turns out that our embryos didn't miss the bus, they were not allowed on the bus!  I called Reprotech again today, and they told me that they had them ready to go, and then when they called Mayo to confirm the transfer, the lab wasn't ready for them yet.  Because we are now using a gestational carrier, we haven't had as much testing as we would have if we had originally only been planning to use a carrier, and not myself, during our first attempts with IVF.  The FDA requires us to have "donor" testing done, to make sure we can't infect Lady L with anything.  I guess that because of this, our embryos would have to be in quarantine, and Mayo doesn't have the space for that.  Anyway, we will end up paying the transfer fee, and hopefully have our blood tests done soon so that we can get cleared to get the embryos back here.  I called our program coordinator at the clinic, and hope to hear back from her today.
Otherwise, things are good.  We had pizza with Lady L and her family yesterday, and we are very excited that in just 3 days, we will be done with the mock transfer and uterus ultrasound.  We are praying with everything we have that it goes well.  This will be a big day, and we have a lot riding on the tests Thursday.

Ying and Yang

The good news, in ONE WEEK from today, Lady L will have her mock transfer and ultrasound!  Woo hoo:) 
The bad news, for some strange reason, our embryos "missed the bus" and nobody that I talked to could explain why.  Tomorrow the manager is supposedly calling me, and hopefully it will be rectified right away.  Luckily I called to check on them.  It will all work out, but annoying that I have to even worry about it.  I still have my fingers crossed for March or April.

Competition

Yesterday, I went with Lady L and her cheerleading team to a competition.  She coaches a middle school team (grades 4-8) and they are phenomenal!  Watching Lady L in her coaching role was a lot of fun.  She is able to manage 34 cheerleaders, and has earned the respect of them all.  They nominated her for "coach of the year," an award that 6 other cheer coaches throughout the state are in the running for, and the winner will be announced in 2 weeks.  Her team won the championship in their category, which was fun to see.  Her season will be done in less than a month- around the same time we will hopefully be talking about a transfer date!  How coincidental that she will have a lot less on her plate around the same time that we will be hoping to add more to her plate, lol.  Anyway, I am glad that we are not trying to do a transfer in November, December, or January, because she is so busy during those months, I would feel bad to add so much more stress to her life!  So, I still have in my mind that a late spring transfer is possible, but that will all depend how Lady L's ultrasound and mock transfer go.  She is thinking that will be in the next few weeks.  Cheers to Lady L!

Notarized

Over the weekend, we got the information we need to fill out from Reprotech- the storage unit in St. Paul where our 4 frozen embryos have been hanging out since 2011 (or little city-kids:)) We had to have some document notarized, so I called Lady L to see if we could get our schedules together, as Aaron, myself, and her all needed to be present for the "signing." As usual, she had a hook-up! Her aunt is a notary at a bank in a neighboring town, so we met her and her 2 kiddos there, and got it done yesterday, so we had the documents in the mail today!  The good news about this is that we will save about $215.00 in transfer fees, as the Mayo Clinic has a quarterly scheduled transfer scheduled for January 17th, coincidence? Anyway, that part is done. We have chosen an attorney, who will be representing Aaron and I on our journey. He has a couple of recommendations for Lady L and her family, so hopefully he will send us their contact information and we can get in touch with them soon.

This is getting more real by the second.  Still a possibility to have a late spring transfer.  Fingers are crossed, and prayers are said daily.

Getting There

Well, yesterday, Lady L got her initial report from her communicable disease blood work- one thing in particular they needed to test for was pregnancy.  She passed- wouldn't that put an interesting spin on things...:)  Anyway, since she is not pregnant, last night she began taking a medication to get her cycle moving in the right direction for (uterus) testing and a "mock embryo transfer"-a practice transfer where they measure the uterus, and find the best place to place an embryo.
So, slowly but surely, we are moving along.  As long as the wait seemed to get to the initial appointment, it was nice to have a couple of months to think about things, research, and just plan in general for the "what ifs."  We still have a long road ahead of us, but we are so excited about this. 
Keep your fingers crossed- so far, so good:)

Step One

Today was a HUGE day for all of us.  We met the the reproductive endocrinology team at Mayo, who we love, and are feeling much better about our plans.  We started the day with Lady L and her husband discussing their plans with the doctors, then Aaron and I were called back to discuss the plan.  It sounds like things may be happening in the next 8 weeks or so! That's even faster than I imagined.  Lady L and her husband had 2 (by accident) blood draws for communicable diseases, which Aaron and I will have to have in about a month.  We had a nice lunch together, and then had our psych evaluation in the afternoon.  It was fun, we joked around a lot, and shared our journey with our psychologist.  As far as we know, we all passed:) 
Lady L was given a prescription to get herself ready for a final ultrasound-test, which should be in the next 3 weeks.  If all goes well with that, I think we will all go back in for an orientation, and then begin getting Lady L to receive our precious cargo into her uterus:)    The doctors are recommending that we transfer 2, as not all embryos will survive a thaw.  We are comfortable with that if Lady L and her husband are both on board.  I called the "storage unit" where our frozen embabies are, and they are sending the paperwork that Aaron and I need to fill out for them to send them back to Rochester. 
I called one of the attorneys that we liked, and asked if he would represent all four of us, and got a big fat "no" back.  I am more stressed out with the financial aspect than anything else right now.  We stopped at the business office at Mayo, and feel like we are making good progress with the process.  Next step, Lady L's ultrasound, and I think that will be the final "test" for the process:) 
We will keep our fingers crossed in a boy scout knot that things go well.  As always, thanks for your prayers and well wishes on this amazing trip!

2011

2011 will forever taste bittersweet to Aaron and I.  We accomplished so much, were blessed with so much, and lost so much all in such a short time.  We are happy to move past 2011, and hope for a better fate in 2012, but are saddened to walk further and further away for the time that we did have with our sweet children, Savannah and Charlie. 
With 2012 comes new hopes, dreams, wishes, and goals.  We are looking forward to another journey, and are so incredibly thankful for our wonderful friends and family who have treated us so amazingly well through this last year.  We have been blessed so richly in that department.  We have chosen our friends wisely, but my family, well, that was just pure luck to have been born into such a loving, generous, and kind place.
We have been interviewing attorneys, for both Aaron and I, and for Lady L and her family.  We have been looking into taking a life insurance policy out on Lady L, but I guess we aren't actually able to do that until after she becomes pregnant.  Of course we are doing the best we can to set aside some money, as this is going to be another HUGE investment for us, but we know all will be worth it one sweet day.  In just over a week, the 4 of us will go to the Mayo Clinic for our "Surrogacy Consultation" in the morning, followed by some blood tests for communicable diseases, and we should end our day with our psych evaluations.  Please keep us in your prayers that all goes well with this.  It seems a bit silly to type this, as I am still not ready to share this blog with anybody yet.  Maybe somehow you will get the vibe that we need a few extra prayers, and will toss a few our way, lol.  I was hoping that by now I would feel ready to share this, but I guess I have become a little guarded about this.  I hope that it passes soon, so that you can all join in our excitement.
xoxo

Cautioiusly Optimistic

Last night, Lady L and I met with a woman who had been a gestational carrier for her friend, and had a wonderful time.  The carrier shared her story (which was a great story by the way) with us, and talked about how the process moved along for them.  Aaron and I are getting more and more excited about this by the second, and Aaron's engineer mind has been generating a plethora of ideas about this.  Of course, we are proceeding with caution, and are terrified of being devastated again, but are very cautiously optimistic:)  Bring it, 2012!

Shameless

On November 9th, 2.5 weeks ago, I did something fairly obnoxious.  I posted a note on my facebook wall that Aaron and I were looking to find a gestational carrier, and that if anybody knew of someone who had ever expressed interest, to send them our way.  Amazingly, there were several wonderful, unselfish, beautiful women who came forward showing interest.  The one that sent me a message right away was a relative of mine.  She has two beautiful children, and has been interested in becoming a surrogate for some time.  She had filled out an application for an agency, but wanted to tie a few loose ends up before comitting to become a surrogate, and was getting close to sending in her app.  Then she saw my facebook note, and couldn't believe it. She loved being pregnant, and said that if the situation were reversed, she hoped that somebody would be able to help her out.  She went to have a physical within a few days, and was given a clean bill of health:) 
Since then, we have been trying to figure out what in the heck we are supposed to do to get this ball rolling.  Since I have not asked her how comfortable she is with me announcing her identity to everybody, I will refer to her as "Lady L."  She has been an angel to start this journey with, as she has probably done more research on this than we have. 
There are a few random issues to figure out, like health insurance, contract/attorneys, life insurance, etc.  However, all 4 of us have an appointment set up for January 4th for a "gestational carrier consult" with the Mayo Clinic.  I know that after that, we will each have to pass a psych eval, and then I believe Lady L will have to go in for the injections training, mock transfer, etc.  So, even though January 4th seems like forever away, it does give us some time to figure out all of the other housekeeping items.  We don't have a specific timeline in play, but to keep my own sanity, I am imagining a late spring-ish transfer.  I don't know if that's realisic or not, but that's my plan:)
On a side note, I am so glad that we have the ball rolling on this.  Today was actually our full term due date with Savannah and Charlie, and knowing that we may have another opportunity makes today slightly less miserable. 
Although I think it's ridiculous that we still haven't heard whether or not we have been accepted to work with our adoption agency, we do know that God works in mysterious ways.  Aaron and I have talked about how it just may be a blessing in disguise, as if we had been accepted with the adoption agency, we would have wanted to start the home study right away, and would not have put that note on my facebook.  We still think that adoption is a fantastic way to become parents, and know that we may choose to pursue adopting again someday.
We are still praying for patience, but we are much more calm, as we know some of the steps that are ahead for us.  We pray for our miracle to happen, however unconventional it may be.  Neither Aaron nor myself have ever been super traditional, and are not about to start now, lol.  We have lived our lives as if they were an open book lately,  and we will continue to do so.  Shamelessly and thankfully.

Surrogacy

Well, our change of heart was definite!  I was very saddened as I was reading others' blogs about infertility and adoption.  It just doesn't make sense for us to adopt, take the chance for another family away, when we have 4 frozen embryos being stored right now.   We had intended to donate them to other couples, but it seems like the stars are not aligned for our adoption journey after all...  So, we are planning a surrogacy journey.  Not sure when, how, etc., but we'll get there. 

Day 38

I think we have had a change of heart.  I will have to change the title of this blog to Heidi and Aaron's Journey.  We still have not heard back from the agency, and I handed in our application 5.5 weeks ago. 
I could deal with the wait, and so could Aaron, but we are struggling with something else.  There are some people who have been waiting for over 7 years to adopt their first child.  These people don't have other options, such as finding a gestational carrier.  Aaron and I know how heartbreaking the wait to become parents is, and there are people who have been waiting, hoping, and praying for much longer than us.  If we were to adopt a child, that is a child that can't be adopted by another couple.  We have four healthy frozen embryos that we are currently storing.  If we don't attempt to use them now, when will we?

Day 33

Still no news.  No email, no mail, no phone call, no fax, no anything.  Ugh.

Day 30

Well, it was officially 4 weeks ago yesterday that I hand delivered our application.  I am losing faith by the second.  The only thing that I can compare this to is the 10 day wait, ladies, to find out if you are pregnant or not.  I am quite familiar with the 10 day wait...  Now, triple that.  And then at least triple the 9 months of waiting to meet you child.  That is what we are facing, which we would be so excited about, if the ball were actually rolling.  It feels like we are at a standstill, and I am frustrated with that.  We have talked to other people who said they heard back within 5 days of applying, and started the homestudy within two weeks.  Maybe this path was not meant to be after all?  Am I missing something here???
We continue to pray for patience, and hope to hear back soon.

Day 21

AAAAARGH- still no word whether we have been accepted or not.  Last Friday we got a letter in the mail that stated that they recieved our application and would let us know when they heard back from our doctor and our priest.  Scary that these two references are so huge.  So, we sit, and we wait.  Just as we have done for the last four and a half years.  If the wait to get started is this stressful for us, I can't imagine how the next four years will go.  Pray for us, please!

Day 14

Well, we have not heard anything back yet.  I am hoping this is not a bad sign.  Of course, this long wait has me second guessing our decision, and turning the anxiety on again.  Ugh, how will I ever make it through a 6 month interview, and a 3-4 year wait?  What doesn't kill us makes us stronger, right?  I am seriously hoping for the latter!  Aaron and I have been keeping busy with a lot of things, which makes this wait a little less frustrating.  I think during the next 3-4 years, we will continue to be very busy people!  Passing the time is much better with hobbies, goals, and activities.  Now that it's getting colder outside, we will start going to the YMCA more often, and going for fewer walks.  My fingers are crossed to hear from our social worker in the next few days:)

Day 2

Alright, I know I promised to try to be a patient human being, and I will be soon enough.  In the meantime, I have been a researching maniac, trying to decide if there is anything we should be doing before our home study process begins.  I am hoping to hear back from our Social Worker within two weeks.  If we haven't heard anything by the end of the month, I will probably call to see if we missed anything in our packet. 
The application itself was not terribly difficult, but it was time consuming, as we had to describe in detail our life history.  The home study will be the more difficult process.  We will have to describe in detail our parenting philosophy, our extended families' backgrounds, our upbringings and relationships we have with our siblings, parents, friends, and coworkers.  As excited as I am to begin this journey, I know there will be moments of stress for both Aaron and I.  We will also have a lot of training courses to attend.  While we look forward to the adventure, we are a big ball of nerves right now!
If I was a nail biter, they'd be down to the bone, lol:)

The Ball is Rolling!

Even though I don't plan to invite anybody to view this for quite some time, today was a momentous day for us, and it should be documented.  We completed and turned in our application to be considered for adoption to the adoption agency that we thought was the best match for us.  I am feeling about ten thousand emotions as I consider how huge of a step this was for us.  First, we are so excited to embark on this journey.  We are not disillusioned into believing this will be an easy, fast, or uncomplicated path, but we are so excited to see how it all unfolds.  We are anxious to begin the next steps, which will be to complete a home study after we pass the state required background checks, and the references required by our agency.  And part of us will always be heartbroken, as we start this new chapter, we are reminded of the miracles that were ours for too short of a time, our sweet twins, Savannah and Charlie.  We remember how close we were to having all of our dreams come true, and how very quickly things changed for us.  While we will never understand why they weren't here to stay, we appreciate the time we spent with them, and are thankful that they left together, and will have each other for eternity.  Our dreams have changed, and our plan has changed, but the outcome hasn't.  Our goal has been to become parents, and there are more children in store for us.  We are thrilled to prepare for our future children, and can't wait to begin the next portion of the process.  Tonight, while saying our bedtime prayers, we will continue to include patience for ourselves, and we will also pray that we don't drive our social worker crazy as we are so eager to begin:)