Monday, July 22, 2013

To say that these last couple of months have been frustrating would be a major understatement.  I really thought that we'd be transferring the fertilized embryos to our carrier about this time (if not sooner) but the medical screenings our carrier had to go thru were a bit more time consuming than we had anticipated.  Even then I was hopeful that if we picked our egg donor as recent as last week, we could still transfer by the end of July but that was a pipe dream also.  This whole process is basically a series of "hurry up and wait" steps that has really tested my patience but this blog ends on a good note so let me jump back a bit to share how we got where are are today.  

One of the mandatory requirements for the fertility clinic is a group meeting with a social worker.  Chris and I already had our couples meeting with her back in February but our carrier and her husband had to do one also and then we had had to do a group session with all four of us.  This was scheduled for the beginning of June so we had to quickly make travel arrangements for them.  As the intended parents, we are responsible for all flight and hotel costs in addition to food and other expenses that are incurred during their trip.  So back on June 6th, we were all set to meet and even though we left in what I thought was ample time to make our appointment on time, thanks to the notoriously horrific DC traffic, we were about 30 minutes late.  The carrier and her husband did their couples session right before our group session so everyone was awaiting our arrival.  

We ran into the waiting room, quickly introduced ourselves to the carrier and her husband and we were ushered into the social workers office.  Since we literally only had about 20 seconds to size each other up in the waiting room, the entire hour of the session basically consisted of eight eyes shooting across the room stealing glances and making first impressions.  Both the carrier and her husband were extremely nice people and where the she was pretty timid and shy, her husband was a bit more outgoing.  Also, our carrier is tiny.  I mean really petite; probably 5'2 and 110 pounds.  I couldn't quite picture her carrying twins but Chris swears that it shouldn't be an issue.  Anyway, I'm sure all of us were quite nervous initially but as the session went on, we all seemed to open up a bit more.  During the meeting, the social worker basically went over what we all expect out of each other in regards to visitation both during and after the pregnancy.  We decided that it would be best to fly out to Wisconsin for the first ultrasound, one other time when she's about 6 or 7 months along and of course at the delivery.  After the baby/babies are born, we will send both birthday and Christmas cards with pictures of the child(ren) but no face to face interaction.

After the therapy session, we went to grab a late afternoon snack and a drink just to chat and talk about what we expect from this whole process.  It was nice to just talk without a third party analyzing and writing down notes as the conversation is taking place.  No real deal breakers came up but she prefers a mid-wife while Chris prefers her to see a ob/gyn so we compromised by agreeing for her to see a mid-wife that is employed in a physician group where an actual MD signs off on any treatment plan.  That and confirming that we're ok with the delivery taking place in Wisconsin made for a productive afternoon.  This was important to us because it was at this point where things broke down with the other couple she was initially going to carry for.  We all left the meeting feeling pretty good about the conversation we just had and pretty confident that our attorneys wouldn't hit any road blocks that would stop the entire process.  

Our attorneys contacted us several days after the meeting with the social worker to go over the contract that all parties would need to sign before going forward.  Basically the contract covers the money due to the carrier, her medical responsibilities during the pregnancy and life decisions for the carrier and the embryos in several "what if" scenarios.  This was a non-event really since we already talked this out so the contract was agreed to and signed in a matter of days.  This is also where I started to lose my patience with the fertility clinic.  

Chris and I were both anxious to get started on looking thru the online egg donor database so we could start making some decisions on who our baby mama would be.  The clinic initially told us that we would gain access after our social worker signed off on our chart.  Then we were told that we couldn't gain access until they received confirmation that legal was complete.  And then once our attorneys sent them a signed copy of our contract, we were told that we couldn't have access to the database until our carrier finished her mock EEP cycle (more on than in the next paragraph).  I completely understood the rationale why they made sure all these steps were complete but the bait-and-switch really wore me down to where our agent had to take over communication with the clinic because I wasn't at a place where I could have a calm conversation with them anymore.  

Now that legal was complete, our carrier had to have several procedures and testing to go through to clear the final hurdle before we got the medical clearance to proceed with the transfer and more importantly to gain access to the egg donor database.  All carriers have to go thru a mock EEP cycle to test the uterine lining to make sure it's thick and viable enough for implantation of the embryos.  This is where we hit another small hurdle in our time frame.  Since our carrier has her period at the beginning of each month, we had to wait for her July menses cycle to complete before she could begin her mock cycle where she has to give herself estrogen shots.  This takes about two weeks of self-administered shots every three days followed by an ultrasound to check her uterus.  

We were notified just last week that her mock cycle got the medical thumbs up so now (finally) our complete medical chart was ready to be reviewed by our fertility doctor.  She apparently reviewed our chart, gave it the ok, and provided us access last week but the email from the staff member that deals with the egg donor database (and our access code) was hanging out in my spam folder, which I found out about this morning.  As of just earlier today, we have full access to the donor database and we were given our access code to pick out our donor.  Luckily a couple of weeks ago I was able to convince one of the nurses to give us access to the database with a temporary code so we actually had already made a decision on our egg donor but now we could actually choose her.  You read that right, we have our baby mama!!  Now is when the real fun begins and hopefully things will move at a much faster pace.  We picked our egg donor today but it's not official until we get confirmation (and when our check clears.....ugh) and that should all happen in the next couple of days.  Once we get the confirmation email, I'll describe the egg donor we picked out and go into detail of the next steps.  

Thanks for reading!!