What a beautiful day for a Transfer!

Finally, some exciting news to share after too many rounds of lawyers, clinic appointments, urgent phone calls and frustrated emails! 

Not to mention a very nervous weekend where we all waited breathlessly to find out if two of our Day-2 embryos would thaw and grow to Day 5 ...

But one did, making Monday our Transfer Day! And it went bizarrely well! 

I say it was bizarre because it has felt like the last month was one frustrating stumbling block after another. So I almost expected that the transfer would follow the same path.

But No! At Charmaine's urging, I called the clinic first thing on Monday morning to get an update on our thawed embryos - we hadn't heard anything further since Saturday morning, so were very nervous. 

We had one 'very good looking' blastocyst! I was delighted, but saddened at the thought the other embryo had dropped off. But the technician wasn't finished - we also had a lovely looking Morula that was coming along nicely, if a little more slowly. We immediately dubbed it The Mollusk, as in my excitement I had completely forgotten what the technician called it!

Hubby and I met Charmaine at our FS's office where we chattered like nervous birds and Charmaine downed a litre of water for the ultrasound. One pre-transfer accupuncture appointment and then it was off to the clinic!

We met the technician who gave us each a photo of our beautiful little Blasty, and before we knew it we were being asked who would be in the transfer room. Hubby politely tried to bow out, but Charmaine and I were having none of that!

I had no idea what to expect with the procedure, never having been through a transfer myself. We walked into a very little room, with a huge picture of our Blasty on the screen. Our FS was not far behind us and before I knew it, Charmaine was in the chair and I was asked to hold the ultrasound scanner! Happy to be of help, I jumped at the chance and then tried my best to hold it as steady as possible as we watched a little white jet appear on the screen and our Blasty was off, off and away! Ohhhh my!

And that was it! Hugs all around from our lovely FS and we found ourselves almost immediately out in the hallway. Where I proceeded to tear up and had to hug Hubby and Charmaine again just for the heck of it! 

We hustled to Charmaine's post accupuncture appointment and Hubby and I went to lay in the sun in the park and talk about what an amazing experience we had just been lucky enough to have. 

It feels a little surreal to finally be pregnant until proven otherwise, and I'm still on a huge high! We had an awesome day with Charmaine, with lots and lots of laughs and, hopefully, a little pinch of magic! 

We have a date!

A transfer date, of course!

For the first time in a while, Charmaine and I left our last clinic appointment feeling like we were walking on air!

Looking back over my last few posts, I admit that I haven't been completely honest about how stressful the last few months have been. It wasn't that I doubted we would get the clinic's approval, but more that the waiting and the uncertainty was slowly doing my head in!

For every test we completed or hurdle we jumped, each conversation with the clinic was a repeat of "one step forward, two steps back". I understand that the clinic is trying to do the best they can to ensure we are all in the best possible situation before we proceed. It's only been a few months delay, but when we've waited so long to get to this point ... what can I say? It's hard!

Charmaine has been an inspiration to me over the last few months (even more than usual!). She has been jabbed and prodded and scanned, and she has done it all with a smile and plenty of laughs, even though I know that the delays have been as frustrating for her as they have been for us. It confirms what we already knew - that we could not have found a better, braver or stronger person to trust our hopes to.

And now I can see that, as fantastic as it would have been to have been medically cleared after our very first appointment and proceed straight to transfer within a few weeks, the last few months have meant we've spent a lot of time together, just getting to know each other better. Not just Charmaine and I, but our hubbies and kids and wider families. We've formed a real friendship and a bond that feels stronger with every get-together.

And now all that patience (who am I kidding? I wasn't patient!) has paid off! 

At our latest appointment, our FS helped us plan out a transfer date (and an inevitable due date!) that would suit us all. With a first transfer planned in early September, Charmaine's due date would be ... exactly one year away, to the day! 

Feels like fate!

A little getaway ...

This weekend, hubby and I have been in Sydney and the Blue Mountains, celebrating a big birthday (his, not mine!). We had a couple of lovely catch-up with friends and hubby enjoyed death-defying feats in a surprise aerobatics flight - just to remind him "you're never too old ...!"

This morning we had brunch with old friends of hubby's and their two little boys. Was so nice to be discussing lego and machines and superheroes and crawling around on the floor with the toddler. Something for us to look forward to with our own little one, hopefully ... Though there is definitely no denying the hard work involved.

Our little getaway has been especially bittersweet for me, I think. With any luck, this could be the last trip away with just the two of us for sometime, almost like an unofficial Babymoon (which we saw plenty of couples enjoying here!). It's so exciting and joyful to think about how much our lives are about to change (we hope!), and at the same time, contemplating that change makes these moments together all the more special.

As for the next steps, Charmaine and I have an appointment with our FS later this week. It's been about a month since our last appointment, so it will be good to catch-up and have a proper debrief from the last clinic committee meeting. For various reasons, a June transfer is looking less likely now. But it will be exciting to discuss a more definite timeframe a little later in the year, and for us all to begin to realistically plan around that magic date!

Happy Mothers Day!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Mothers Day yesterday in whichever way they chose to celebrate!

We took the opportunity of a family BBQ to tell my wider family our big news - it was with a little bit of nervousness that we told then, but we got a lot of smiles, tears and hugs! It is so lovely to be starting to tell more and more people, and to get such positive feedback and well wishes for our journey along this path. I hope we have plenty of good news to continue to give them all now!

Things are moving along nicely - This week just past, the clinic’s surrogacy committee met again and I took a call from our FS on Friday, advising that the meeting went very well. The committee has asked that my husband and I undertake counselling from a geneticist before they will give us the big tick, which we will hopefully be able to do in the next few weeks. But otherwise advised we are looking very good to proceed in coming months! Wahoo!

To top it all off, I won a Mothers Day Raffle at work on Friday - pretty amazing as I hardly ever win anything! When I told Charmaine, she said it was a sign - winning a Mothers Day Raffle on the same day we were advised that the committee is happy for us to proceed -  I love the way Charmaine looks at things!

Second counselling appointment - 2 May 2015

It is at about this point where I catch up to myself!

Friday night was an interesting one for us, and many others in Brisbane - a ‘serious weather event’ (aka a storm) flooded many parts of the city and hubby and I took about six hours to get home, with my cousin and a work colleague hitching a ride. We were luckier than some, though, who were on the road much longer than us - in some cases all night!

An early start the next day, and we were at Charmaine’s for our second counselling appointment, which was our group session.

The session started with a bit of good news - hubby and I came back as completely normal in our personality tests! Phew! 

Discussion centred around all things pregnancy, birth and post-partum, as well as our plans for the longer term. We discussed hospitals and options for medical care, what we hoped for from the birth experience, and how we would handle things if they didn’t work out exactly as we wished. 

We spent a lot of time talking about our expectations around the birth in particular. Hubby and I have not had children of our own, so it would be fair to say we are both a little 'vague' on the specifics of labour and birth. Charmaine and Darren on the other hand have a lot of experience of natural birth! We talked about some of the details of what could happen and what was important to each of us, if we were lucky enough to have an ‘ideal’ labour and birth.

We also discussed the possibilities of how our expectations may need to change if things do not go exactly as we hope - things like whether hubby and I would be allowed to be present, especially if there are complications, and whether this may affect our ability to all be together when we meet the baby for the first time. It was such an important part of the session to get an understanding of what these potential curveballs would mean to each of us.

We spent a long time discussing the birth, because it does feel like an important thing to get as ‘right’ as we can. We know we can’t control everything (or very much at all, in reality!), but we agreed we can all put plans in place to help us cope with the unexpected.

Then we moved onto the next part of the journey, and how the birth is ultimately a gateway to a much larger adventure! How we could support each other and the baby during those first days and weeks after the birth, our hopes to continue to be in each others lives and how we can introduce the little one to the amazing story of how they came to be here …

I felt this session was such a valuable thing to do. It gave us all an opportunity to put our cards on the table and talk about what we were hoping for and how we could try to make that happen, while still acknowledging many parts of it could be outside our control. It also helped us to make some really practical decisions about how to move forward.

I think our counsellor thought we had done well too! She advised she would be preparing a letter this week to the clinic to advise them we had completed this part of the process - another tick in the right column!

I hope I will be able to update regularly, especially once we have the real excitement of transfers and hopefully a BFP! I’m not sure if our surrogacy journey (from an IP’s perspective) will be interesting to everyone undertaking a similar journey, but I hope that sharing my experiences may answer some questions for others in the same situation and maybe reveal a little bit about the magic that happens ‘behind the curtain’, which I am certainly finding out as we go!

First counselling appointment - 25 April 2015

We had our first counselling session on Anzac Day (after doing the Dawn Service, hubby and I may not have been at our best, but a strong coffee helped us recover!)

Charmaine and Darren had their session first, with our lovely counsellor who was happy to do the counselling at their house. We were delighted to find her, as I figure anything which makes these processes as easy as possibly for them to attend is well worth it.

We arrived about an hour later and were confronted with a 344 question personality test! Charmaine tried to warn us about some of the weirder questions, but it wasn’t until we saw them for ourselves that we understood! Apparently the test is almost unbeatable, and it knows when you are trying to trick it. That scared me a little, but what really psyched me out was when the counsellor came in after 45 minutes and asked why we weren’t done yet. She seemed to think that this was a concern in itself!

Counselling with hubby and I then took place. It was fairly straight forward, with questions and plenty of discussion to ensure that we were thinking about potential issues and we were all on the same page. 

Some of the questions revolved around issues like:

• What did we think we would do if screening revealed the child may be disabled, mentally or physically?
• What were our plans should any party be injured, die or have a relationship breakdown?
• How did we think we would handle things if we have no successful pregnancies? 
• How did we see the relationship between both couples continuing after the birth?

Luckily for us, Charmaine and Darren and hubby and I had already discussed most of these tough questions over the last few weeks, so we were pretty comfortable with where we all stood on them.

The next step is the group counselling session, which I think we are all really looking forward to, as the counselling report feels a bit like one of the final blessings we need to get the surrogacy committee’s approval. We still need to get the legals and a few other things completed, but this also feels under control and just a matter of time. 

More good news! 24 April 2015

Well, I am slowly catching up! I hope I can be as good about writing down the rest of our experiences as I have been with the last four months! I’m not yet sure whether I will make a faithful blogger …

Charmaine and I recently had a follow-up appointment with our FS to hear the outcome of the second surrogacy committee meeting. The advice was that after the good report from the Obstetrician (as promised!) things are looking positive for us to proceed, though there are still a few additional medical items we need to check off, as well as counselling and legals. 

How exciting!

We spoke to the FS about two possible dates for a transfer - one as early as June, which would work very well as Charmaine will shortly afterwards be on a pacific cruise, where she will be feeling very relaxed for the 2WW!

However, a June transfer will require a lot of things to come together perfectly! Being the realists that we are (Haha!) we also discussed the possibility of a transfer around October, which will also fit in well with Charmaine’s plans for early next year.

I am optimistic about a June transfer, despite the hurdles we need to get over - mostly because once again it seems a little like fate - a transfer in mid-June could mean a birth date of early March, when most of my family seems to have birthday’s clustered together!

We left the appointment feeling even more positive and discussing how Charmaine would be able to get news about a possible BFP to me from onboard a ship in the middle of the Pacific!

A good report! March 2015

With the help of our FS, Charmaine and I were able to attend an appointment with an independent Obstetrician pretty quickly, in order to look at our history and provide a report for the surrogacy committee on any potential risks.

Charmaine was very happy for me to attend the appointment with her so I could hear everything directly from the horse’s mouth (so to speak!). I think the Dr was a bit confused about my role, until half way through the appointment when he told Charmaine she would have to ensure that the IPs were advised of certain things and we revealed that I was the IM, much to his surprise!

One of the things I am so happy for is that Charmaine has been great about involving me wherever she can! At this stage, that has mostly involved attending medical appointments together, and I suspect there will be many more of them, especially once we are underway with the pregnancy, but it is so exciting to be included in these conversations and feel like I have a role to play, even at these very early stages.

And I am learning a lot, just listening in. The Dr was very good to us, spending extra time answering all our questions and clearing up any confusion. At the end of the appointment he told us he would be writing to the committee to give us a good report and he wished us both the best of luck! 

What a relief!

A bump in the road - March 2015

And just when we think things couldn’t be better, something usually happens to bring you back down to earth.

About a week later, I took a call from our FS advising me about a potential concern she had in relation to a future pregnancy. Again, I don’t want to go into much detail, but it was enough for her to question whether we should all proceed together. She recommended some further investigation, but said we first all needed to have a long discussion about our plans to proceed.  

Seconds after hanging up, I checked my messages and found one from Charmaine - She was interstate at the time and had had a similar call from the FS just before me. I could tell that she was very upset with the news, but her main concern was to let us know that she would completely understand if we wanted to pull out. 

And once again, I was struck by the fact that Charmaine was thinking of us rather than herself, despite clearly being devastated at receiving this news. It was also at this moment that I realised for the first time that this really was a partnership - Charmaine was just as invested in this journey as hubby and I and just as eager to see a positive outcome for all of us. 

Charmaine and I talked (a lot) that night and came to the decision that we would do the additional investigation that our FS recommended for us, and then we would proceed based on that advice.

Hubby and I also talked a lot and came to the conclusion that every pregnancy carries some level of risk and this is part of what every couple agrees to (even if unconsciously) when they try for a baby. The difficult thing for us was that it wasn’t me agreeing to take on that risk, we were asking someone else to do it on my behalf, and how can that ever be a fair thing to do.

It was a very hard to see Charmaine upset over the news we had received, but when I look back on that night, I think it was an early test of the strength and resilience of our relationship, both within each couple and as a group. We said from the start that open communication was key to our success, and it was so true that evening. It would have been easy for either couple to back away at the first hurdle, but for hubby and I that would be forgetting the little miracle that our coming together in the first place had been and the feeling that we all had of an instant connection and understanding. 

I’d say, if it had been a test, we all passed with flying colours, and things were set to improve for us!

Meet the family - March 2015

We were also eager to share our exciting news with close family and friends, and I was quick to tell my parents and brother over dinner. I probably could have chosen a slightly better situation to do it in, as we got some very strange looks in the Chinese restaurant when we all started crying and hugging each other over our dumplings!

Charmaine and I organised a family BBQ where we could all get to know each other, and we picked a beautiful early-autumn day at a local park. It was our first opportunity to meet Charmaine and Darren’s children and Charmaine’s mum - I was nervous again, as it felt a little bit like we were getting an unofficial blessing!

Hubby's and my parents were there to say hello and my wonderful brother-in-law played the unofficial photographer! 

Charmaine and Darren’s children are wonderful and all so well behaved (Charmaine will laugh when she reads that, I’m sure, but it’s true!). If I can raise our little one to be as funny and sweet as any of those kids, I will consider myself to have done a fantastic job! 

Our mothers went off to complain about their daughters, and the blokes stood around the BBQ and critiqued hubby’s sausage cooking abilities. The kids were running around and chatting with Charmaine and I about their week, and our puppies got lots of pats - it was a wonderful day, just hanging out with people who already felt like old friends!

Where to from here? February 2015

On a high for weeks afterwards, Charmaine and I chatted constantly, tossing around ideas and plans at the drop of a hat, sending links and little videos of things we could do to prepare for the pregnancy and birth. In fact, that still happens when one of us sees something interesting!

Keen to progress things, we had our first appointment with our Fertility Specialist (FS) a few weeks after agreeing to proceed together. The doctor who had helped hubby and I create our embryos last year had since left the clinic we planned to use, so we were referred to our new FS. As this was a first appointment with this doctor for all of us, I think we were all fairly nervous about what she would make of us!

Interestingly, we did not think that we were moving fast, even though it had been less than a month since we were first introduced - we had all discussed undertaking the preliminary work now to get it out of the way, and to set us up for a possible transfer later in the year, probably in July. As it was only February, this seemed like a very sensible course of action. 

The FS was professional and kind. She met with Charmaine and Darren first, and hubby and I afterwards. She asked us a number of tricky questions, to get us thinking about what we were really undertaking - such as, will you be able to run around after a small child with your medical condition? Our FS seemed to think that both couples were good candidates to proceed with surrogacy, provided the additional testing all came back fine (bloods for everyone, and an Obstetrician appointment and scans for Charmaine). 

Overall, I think we all left that first appointment feeling very positive about our FS’s report to the clinic’s surrogacy committee and hoping to hear some good news soon.

The Answer! January 2015

A few days later, I was going about my usual weekday routine - slowly surfacing from bed, walk the dogs, strong cup of tea and getting ready for work - when I checked my messages just before walking out the door to catch the train.

Sitting there was a little message from Charmaine, offering us what I had hoped for since our earliest chats!

So, of course, I burst into tears! 

I rushed into my husband’s office to show him the message and, not trusting myself to speak without blubbering, composed a message back accepting and insisting that Charmaine and Darren give each other a huge thank you hug from us, as I wasn’t there to deliver one myself.

I was honestly a little stunned for days afterwards - I could not believe that Charmaine and Darren would choose to help ordinary ‘us’ in this incredible way. Of all the deserving IPs out there (believe me, I know many!), it seemed like such a long shot for us to find a perfect match, and even more unlikely for them to think of us in the same way! I still find myself wondering about it - what have I done to deserve this chance, to have the support and faith of this wonderful couple? I don’t know ... but am so thankful!

All I can say is I hope it will be as much of an amazing and joyful experience for them as it will hopefully be for us.

First Meetings - January 2015

Even though I have only just started to write, I am already behind in my chronicling!

Although my husband and I have been searching for a way to complete our family since 2011 and we first put our feet firmly on the path to surrogacy in 2014, it wasn’t until very recently that I first realised my need to keep a record of our story.

Perhaps it is because it finally feels real - we have tentative dates and real plans, we have appointments and follow-up tests and scripts to fill! And we are talking about our baby-to-be as though it is only a matter of time before we get to meet him or her. After years of silently prefacing every sentence I uttered about having a child with a big fat ‘If’, I feel as though I could now start to say ‘When’. Superstitiousness still stops me most of the time, though!

But back to the story, starting at our first meeting with C …

As many of these matchings start, I first met C online. I had been haunting a surrogacy forum for a few months, agonising over posts that hopefully blended the perfect amount of positivity and humour with the unspeakable nerves and anxiety that I imagine most Intended Parent’s (IP’s) feel when searching for ‘the one’!

Putting my story online was always going to be hard for me, as I generally prefer to listen and hang back, letting others do the talking. However, in searching for that perfect someone to undertake a journey as personal as surrogacy with, I figured the only way was to bite the bullet and get myself out there!

In Queensland, where altruistic surrogacy is the only legal option and there are many restrictions around advertising, telling my story online was really the only way I could think of to begin our search. I have no female relatives that would be in a position to help us undertake surrogacy and many of my friends have no children themselves or are only in the early stages of starting families themselves.

C and I were first introduced through another wonderful Queenslander who is undertaking her own surrogacy journey with IPs from Sydney. I think we are both agreed that we can never thank her enough for that fantastic tip-off! Especially when you consider that C and I were not even on the same forums, and if the timing had been just a little different and our amazing friend had not intervened, we may never have known of the other’s existence! Talk about fate, or very good luck, or maybe a little of both!

We chatted online for weeks, and then agreed to the first nerve-wracking face-to-face meeting in January 2015. We came together for the first time for burgers and chips (and Guinness for the blokes) at C’s Local, a place that I am already starting to think of as a second home!

I can’t speak on C and her husband’s part, but I was nervous! My hubby has the perverse nature that when I am stressed, he gets calmer and calmer, so I think he was feeling pretty good that afternoon! But I changed my outfit multiple times, resulting in us running late. I then realised halfway there that I had forgot the flowers I’d bought for C, so made hubby stop so we could get more. And as a result, we were running even later!

C and her husband (D) were wonderful, and without a hint of nerves! They were lovely and funny and easy to talk to, but as we sat with them and learnt more of their story, I also realised that they were both incredibly brave and generous people, and so supportive of each other and all of their friends and loved ones. 

C and D have had their own very difficult path to walk at times, and while I don’t think it would be right for me to share the details of their story here, I can only say that their willingness to assist a couple to achieve their dream despite, or possibly because of their own challenges in life, says everything of their character. 

We stayed late talking, then hugged and said goodbye, promising another catch-up soon. Hubby and I left with big smiles and raved about C and D all the way home. I could hardly sleep that night, my head full of possibilities, wondering if we could ever be lucky enough to have such a great couple choose to help us.

Off to a wonderful start! January 2015

Well, I have decided to start a blog. Not the most inspirational of beginnings, I know!

But I have been lucky enough to be blessed with a pretty inspirational story (at least, that is how I hope this 12-18 month journey will turn out!)

My husband and I are trying to have a baby - not so unusual, I hear you say …

Hubby and I!

I suppose what makes our story something worth writing about is that I was told 4 years ago that carrying a child would probably be the end of me. And yet, here we find ourselves, hoping that sometime next year, we will have a little one of our own!

The missing piece for us was an amazing lady who was prepared to put her own life largely on hold for at least a year, see countless doctors and medical professionals who will poke and prod her and risk her own and her family’s sanity - all this for the sole purpose of helping us achieve our dream to complete our little family. 

This incredible woman tells us that she has agreed to do this because it has long been her own dream to help someone who was unable to carry their own child, and her reward is seeing our happiness and excitement and the joy of creating a new little life. Personally, I can only put her incredible generosity and loving heart down to the fact that she is an angel in disguise!

Next instalment, the truly inspirational part of the story - our wonderful Surrogate, C!