It’s so close. It’s within reach. Things have kept moving forward since our egg retrieval in October, and I’m happy to report that things have been going unbelievably smooth! Praise the Lord!

THE BEST NEWS:

Our GC (gestational carrier) has been fully cleared to carry for us (medically, emotionally, etc).

Our GC was on a mock cycle of estrogen for about 2 1/2 weeks to see how she would respond to the meds. She had her hysteroscopy and lining check on November 13th. My RE did the hysteroscopy and she said her uterus is absolutely beautiful. I kept warning my GC that it would be a tad painful and that she could squeeze my hand if needed. All of a sudden, my RE said she was done and my GC hadn’t made a peep. SHE SAID SHE DIDN’T FEEL A THING. Umm, what? I’ve had about four or five hysteroscopies and WOAH. My GC is a saint. After her hysteroscopy, we went to the ultrasound room to check her lining and it was 11.7! Our clinic looks for anything above 7 to transfer, so that is fabulous!

I have to say, it has been quite the mix of emotions being on this side of things. Going to my clinic, seeing all the nurses, and not being the stripping off clothes and putting my feet in the stirrups feels…weird?! It became SO normal to me. Scary normal, actually. Trust me, 100% I know this is the right direction we needed to go in after our multiple losses, it’s just such a change after years of using my body as a pin cushion.

Both my GC and her husband and my husband and I have finished the psych eval process. Matt & I had our psych eval today, and while I didn’t really know what to expect, it was more emotional than I thought it would be. We had to go over our infertility history, give dates/length of pregnancy for each loss, and we talked about our family dynamic. I had to talk about the loss of my father, and I think it all caught up with me after talking about losing our six babies. Our examiner finished by telling us that we have been through way too much, she wants nothing but the best for us, hopes this is it, and told us if we ever needed someone to talk to, we could call her. It was so thoughtful of her.

Currently, we are in the middle of legal with our attorneys. Matt & I talked with our lawyer the other night for approx. 90 minutes to go over the agreement she had put together and our GC goes over it tonight with her attorney. We aren’t sure how long it will take because we both could keep making chances until we all agree – but it has to be right so we are fine with whatever length it takes.

We did find out out that when our GC makes it to 20 weeks, we will then need to start a “parentage agreement” (as required by the state of Wisconsin) and those legal fees will be anywhere from $5K-$6K. Yikes. We applied for a grant from Baby Quest last month, and should know in the next week or so if we will be a recipient, and that could help us a ton. So far, we have put $25K (yep, twenty five thousand buckaroos) into this surrogacy journey – we have been blessed with medicine donations and some fundraisers that have helped us quite a bit too! So thank you to EVERYONE that has helped us on our journey. 

Everyone around us, supporting us, has honestly warmed my heart and helped us keep pushing forward. We truly are blessed.

I’ve asked my GC, a few times now, how she’s feeling on meds (birth control, estrogen) and I apologize to her often about her future and taking injections…and you know what she ALWAYS tells me? She says, “I’m not worried one bit. God told me to do this for you, so I’m doing it.” My heart is unbelievably full when I hear that. If it weren’t for her keeping it calm 100% of the time during all of this, I would lose my shit. She is a Godsend, literally.

I’m hoping to do a blog post with her in the near future – just a little Q&A sesh – so keep an eye out for it! Feel free to comment on this post if you have any questions for her.

Please continue praying for us as our surrogacy journey gets close to transfer! We aren’t sure when it will be yet, but we are hoping for early 2018.

As always, much love to all of you.

XO,

Erin