More Discussions, More Decisions, More Waiting

 Spring Break is almost here! Another couple of months have passed in the life of this stork, and as usual, they have been filled with constant activity, decision making and change. When we last caught up, Ellie and Matt were in the process of grieving the loss of their second and last embryo, and I was in a state of uncertainty about where that left us on this stork adventure. A couple of weeks after my last post, the three of us sat down on for a Skype chat to discuss where we were at and what direction we were going. Ellie and Matt had a call with the RE earlier in the week and were able to ask all of the questions that they had to try to wrap their minds around how they got to this point. In my second-hand version of that conversation, it sounded like the RE told them that they were victims of bad luck. He told them that the success rate of PGD normal embryos is about 70%, and that he didn't see any reason for the two failures other than being unlucky enough to fall into the 30% group both times. He offered to perform a wide range of testing on me if it would make them feel more comfortable before the next transfer. I later was able to have a call of my own with him where he told me that he thought such testing would show that there's no definable explanation, but rule out any fears that they may have about my ability to carry. As I understand, the testing is quite expensive, but I told Ellie and Matt that I would be on board with any testing that they may want the RE to do. They told me that they wanted to take some time to consider all of their options. When they started this journey, they never imagined that it would take more than one transfer to get pregnant. When the first transfer failed, they were certain that the second one would succeed. So when the second embryo miscarried, they found themselves in a situation that they had not at all expected or planned for, emotionally or financially. They asked me if I was willing to wait a few months while they investigated other clinics and protocols, and saved some money for future retrievals and transfers. Later in the conversation, Ellie eluded to an estimated November or December transfer which was a bit longer than I had anticipated.

Afterwards, I was talking to Scott and wondering if I would go stir crazy waiting nearly a year for the next transfer. In the meantime, I received a call from my previous agency asking if I was currently working with any IPs and suggesting a couple that they would love to match me with. Omph! Here was a tough decision. I love Ellie and Matt, and want nothing more than to help them build their family. But as you know, I was not blessed with an abundance of patience. I decided that the best way to determine the next steps was to open the topic up to Ellie and Matt to see what they thought. I wasn't sure if they really were hoping for a December transfer, or wanted more time but were afraid that I wouldn't hang on for longer than that. I presented them with the idea of terminating our current contract and reactivating it when they are ready with 12-18 months in between where I could help another couple in building their family. After thinking about it for a while, Ellie let me know that she and Matt agreed that it would be a good idea for everyone if we went that route. Rather than terminating our contract though, we are amending it to be on hold until we reactivate it at a later date.

That brought me to a point of deciding which couple I would be working with. The agency had called me about a specific couple, but I really would like to work with a couple that is at the same clinic that Matt and Ellie use so that I don't have to repeat the medical screening and psychological evaluation. I also would like to work with IPs that have frozen embryos and are ready to transfer quickly. I found a couple that are very kind and sweet with 4 high quality PGD tested frozen embryos. My first instinct is that I would love to help them, but they are very set on their clinic on the East Coast. I dipped my toes into the water to see if their clinic would at least accept my medical screening and/or psychological screening from the previous clinic. They were not open to that, so I am a bit reluctant on this match, although I did send in my records for review with their clinic. As I understand it, their clinic is extra picky about the surrogates that they approve in order to maximize their success rates. This also makes me a bit reluctant in thinking that we could get a couple of months into this process only to have the clinic decide that they won't work with me for some reason. In the meantime, I connected with a set of IPs with 9 frozen PGD tested embryos at the clinic in TransferCity. I spoke with them over the phone and had a pretty good conversation. In the following week they were in touch to say that they would really like to match and move quickly, but only if I was willing to pay for expenses incurred at the IVF clinic because my insurance wouldn't cover them. I politely bowed out of the matching discussion and wished them well. This week, the agency called me to say that they have another couple that they would like me to meet. This couple is local, and we had a great phone conversation last night. At this point, I'm not sure if I'm leaning more toward the local couple or the East Coast couple, but I'm going to have to make a decision and go with it soon. I'm keenly aware that the longer the matching process takes, the longer the break is for Ellie and Matt.

Parents and Paperwork

Happy Easter! It was a wonderful and relaxing holiday in our home. It's been a few weeks since my last blog post, and as I promised, a parent decision has been made. After taking some time to consider all of the potential parents and communicating with them openly, the decision became very clear. The future parents, Ellie and Matt, are an international couple that, incidentally, share commonalities with me such as age, education, career and life ambitions. They have a wonderful sense of humor, and are open to the fun and excitement that lie ahead. Unfortunately, infertility can be fraught with devastation and disappointment to the point of creating anxiety-riddled pessimism in people that, otherwise, have very happy-go-lucky personalities. I consider myself extraordinarily lucky to have connected with a great set of future parents that are glowing with a beautiful inner light of optimism, eagerness, and enthusiasm. After weeks of emailing and a fantastic Skype conversation, I am elated to to be sharing this experience with them. I can't wait for the moment when the obstetrician hands them their goo-covered bundle of joy, and they realize that all of their efforts have culminated in this one moment of sheer bliss. To be honest, that's exactly what motivated to me to become a stork in the first place.

So here we are, at the precipice of a truly awe-inspiring, life altering experience, and it starts just like any other major undertaking: with paperwork. There are about 7,359 different forms to fill out or signatures to be gathered. Medical records from previous pregnancies and deliveries must be compiled and reviewed, an extensive questionnaire must be completed to assess my lifestyle and ideological viewpoints, and a background check and psychological evaluation must be completed (for good reason: If you're looking for some jaw-dropping, head-shaking, dumbfounding type of entertainment, check out some of the online advertisements and forum discussions regarding surrogacy). Once all of that information is pulled together and properly appraised, the IVF clinic will need additional paperwork to establish me as a patient, and then they'll schedule an appointment to collect copious amounts of blood and get a good long look at my girl bits. Upon clearing all of the red tape, we'll do some legal paperwork, and get down to the business of making a miracle happen. Hopefully, by my next update, we will have sorted through the jungle of documents, and have penciled out some dates for making the scientific magic happen.

50 First Dates

It's been an interesting few weeks since I last checked in. As of my last post, the agency that I'm working with sent my profile off to the first set of potential parents, and we all sat back with bated breath and waited. And waited. And waited some more. Spring break came and went, and the agency called to say that all of my medical records had arrived, and everything looked good. In my usual, impatient style, I spent a great amount of time combing through the threads on various surrogacy forums. I tried my best to not think about what the potential parents could be considering - I mean, it's a Skype call, not a marriage proposal! But alas, my impatience won out once again, and I leisurely perused the classified ads of the aforementioned forums.

I find them intriguing, both from the standpoint of a potential stork, as well as wondering what potential parents must think of some of these ads that other storks post. I had visited these ads many times, and always thought that if there was an ad from a set of parents that really jumped up and grabbed me, that I would go ahead and send them a reply. That never actually happened, but it made me wonder if there were some awesome parents out there, hovering over the ads everyday, thinking "If there was an ad from a stork that really jumped up and grabbed me, I would totally send them a reply." And so it was; a relatively fleeting thought that manifested itself into an ad placed on one of those forums. An ad that emphasized that I was looking for parents to share the adventure and excitement of the journey with.

I'm not sure exactly what I expected, but the responses were numerous, and varied in their approach. I heard from several couples at various stages of their surrogacy journey, from just finding out that they would need to use a gestational carrier to having previously used a carrier and looking for a carrier to bring a sibling into the family. Interestingly enough, all of those emails came from intended mothers. I also received several from agencies trying to recruit me, but I simply deleted those. I love the agency I'm working with and have no desire to switch. Then there were the weird ones: A single middle-eastern man that wanted to have a child to aid him in securing a wife, and offered "double what the agency will pay" while writing to me in a tone that indicated that he believed that I was a commodity to be purchased for this period of incubation. There was also an intended father that emailed to ask a host of standard questions, along with a thorough list of questions probing every facet of my religious affiliation and activity level, which seemed a little too assertive for the first interaction. Oh, and I can't forget about the intended mother that asked me about my stance on termination, and when she wasn't happy with my response, sent me a reply stressing that my opinion was wrong and I needed to adopt hers. When I failed to reply, she emailed again a week later with an additional attempt to persuade me into her opinion. I politely responded to her, noting that it seemed that we were not on the same page with that issue, and that I had emphasized in the ad my desire for a strong relationship with the parents, which it didn't seem like we were developing, so I would not likely be her best option for a carrier. To my surprise, she responded again to say that, like the previous point, on this, too, I was wrong. That there is nothing in a surrogacy contract that requires parents to have a relationship with their surrogate, and rarely do surrogates get any contact after the birth of the child. Me choosing not to respond was the only way to stop that madness. But in the midst of the myriad of emails, there were a handful of gems.

There were emails from 5 different intended mothers that hit right on the bullseye. These women were exactly what I had envisioned: watching the ads, hoping for a stork to place an ad that really grabbed them, and looking for someone that they could really develop a relationship with throughout the process. We've spent the past couple of weeks emailing back and forth. Three of them live in the same state that I do, one is a plane trip away, and one is abroad. Over the course of the email conversations, the more finite details of each of our goals and wishlist items have come out, which has allowed me to encourage three of them on to finding a slightly better stork for their wishlists, and left me with two sets of parents that I know that I would love to work with. In a matter of a couple of weeks, I went from impatiently waiting for one set of parents to respond to having more parents than I have womb space for.

In the meantime, the agency called to say that they have a different set of parents that they think would be a good match, and sent me a profile to look over; no mention of the first set of parents, but that's probably a good thing at this point. The agency director asked if I would have a phone meeting with them later in the week, to which I agreed and figured that it would help me to make some final decisions on which set of parents to work with. So at the end of the week, we had a phone meeting that went really well, and these potential parents want to set up a face-to-face meeting in the near future. Just to recap, after what has felt like 50 first (email/phone) dates, I am now looking at a set of potential parents that I've had great casual email communication with that live abroad (parents A), a set of parents that I have only met through the agency, but have talked to and really like their personalities (parents B), and a set of potential parents that I've had very in-depth bonding email communications with that live several states away (parents C). I have no idea which way I'm leaning at this point. At any given moment, I oscillate from one to the next for one specific reason or another. All 3 sets of parents would be amazing to work with, and I sincerely wish that I could help all of them. As of today, I'm not sure which direction this will go in, but I'm sure that by the next time I sit down to blog, a decision will have be made.

Finding the Parents

Did I end my last post with "patiently waiting"?? Well, I have to admit that patience has never been my greatest attribute. Although I take a slow, cautious and thoughtful approach to most things in life, once I've made up my mind about something, I have the patience of a child in the days leading up to their birthday. And making the decision to take the leap into being the stork is no different.

As I noted last week, it had been about one week since I sent all of my paperwork over to the agency. They now had a full-profile to share with potential parents, and all of the forms that they needed to pull my OB-related medical records. I knew that I needed to wait for them to put all of the records together, look over them to ensure that there are no medical issues of concern, then start considering potential parents that they know of that are looking for a stork. Did I mention that waiting patiently isn't really my thing? The impatience got the better of me on Monday, and I sent my agency director an email to check on how things were going. She responded quickly and told me that although she doesn't yet have all of my medical records, that she had attached the profile of a set of parents that she has in mind that she would like me to consider.

There was a flood of excitement in knowing that I was holding information on, what could be, the parents of my first stork delivery. I dove into speed-reading through the pages. As I took it all in, I circled back to several key pieces of information; the infertility struggle, the preferred transfer method, and most importantly, the desired relationship between parents, stork, and the future babe. Studying and re-reading these sections is where the impatient side of me took a backseat to the slow, cautious, thoughtful side. As I approach this adventure, I know, without a doubt, that my main goal is to make someone's long-held dream of being a parent come true. All of the other aspects of the adventure are secondary to fostering the joy and excitement that will come from finally realizing the amazing rush of pure happiness that they have been waiting so long for. In order to lay the foundation for that type of experience, I think that it's very important to embark on this adventure with parents that want to be involved in the process, are hoping for a close relationship with the stork, and are open to maintaining communication and updates after delivery.

So I sat on the profile for a couple of days, re-reading it several times and asking my husband to read through it before we talked about our impressions of it. After letting it all sink in, I sent the director an email saying that I thought there was potential, although I had a couple of hesitations; most notably that the desired relationship sounded less involved than I was hoping for. On the other hand, I recognize that it can be very difficult to read something like that in a short paragraph. Again she responded quickly and let me know that she has had the opportunity to meet and interact with these potential parents on multiple occasions, and that she believes that they are hoping for a similar level of involvement and relationship development as I am. She suggested that we meet via Skype in a couple of weeks, allowing me an opportunity to get a better glimpse of the potential parents personalities and level of involvement, then determine if I think it's a good fit, or if I still have reservations. That sounds like a solid plan to me, so I'll once again (patiently?) standby for the next step in the stork adventure.