Progesterone is not nice.

     The Progesterone shot was not nice to me last night I woke but with a VERY sore backside and it even bruised.  I only 70 more days of these shots to go... I really hope I can get the hang of them and they are not like this all through the surrogacy. 

     A large part of it hurting so bad is I did the shot too low. I will not be making that mistake EVER again. Another side of the medication is I did not fall asleep until after 6am last night. Looks like I will be contacting the clinic to see if there is any sleeping pills that I can take. 

     Tonight I start two medications Doxycycline, I have already taken this one and learned the hard way no matter what eat before I take this pill. Doxycycline is a antibiotic, it just will make sure that I do not have any infection and will help me not get one from the embryo transfer. 

      Then I also start Medrol, I have not taken Medrol before but I have heard that it is just like Progesterone and I will not be able to sleep while on it. Medrol is a steroid that will suppress my immune function so that way my body (fingers crossed) will accept the embryos. 

Just 5 days until transfer!

Progesterone here we go!

     I have to admit I am a bit nervous about the progesterone shots, I have to admit my bum is sore from the twice a week Delgesterone shots. It is for a good cause though. I am used the big needles from the Delgesterone shots so now it is just getting used to a LOT more medicine in the shot. 

Wish me luck!

Just 6 days until transfer!

     I am planning on hopefully doing at least a quick update every day, at least until transfer. Make sure to come back and read each update!

Counting down

     With surrogacy it seems like I am always counting down to something, 3 days till clearance appointment, 5 days until the Psychological evaluation, 4 days till start of meds, 30 days till transfer.

     Those were old countdowns as of 8/28 here is a current list of my countdowns.

• 1 day until my last lupron shot
• 2 days until I start progesterone
• 8 days until transfer
• 18 days until first pregnancy test
• 20 days until the second pregnancy test
• 73 days until I am done with shots
• 274 days until due date (as long as the transfer works) 

     I sure am counting down a lot of things with surrogacy. It still seems pretty unreal that I am going to be a part of being able to give S+J a child. 

Leave a comment bellow letting me know what are you counting down to? 

Perfect 10 (my lining that is)

     Today I went for my lining check to make sure the meds were doing what they need to do. Good news they are doing exactly what they should!

    First I got more blood drawn (seriously we are up to 19 vials for anyone counting along at home) and yes that is Pink camo tape around my arm, BUT luckily no bruising yet! Fingers crossed!

    We got to the appointment way to early (like half a hour early) I was afraid of being stuck in traffic and made Juan come with me so here is him being bored on his phone. But at least they have Wifi?

     I got my ultrasound to find out how my lining was doing and.... 

     My lining was at a 10 (well 10.78mm to be exact) Yes I am bragging about my uterine lining, who would have ever thought I would be doing that. I have almost a perfect triple stripe and the doctor is confident that I will be where I need to be come the transfer on September 5th.

    For those who do not know they were just hoping my lining would be at a 7 so 10 almost 11 is amazing! and a triple stripe is how they know that the lining is mature and the embryo has a good chance of implanting after transfer!

What is the oddest thing you have bragged about?

I have been married a whole year!

       1 Year ago I finally married my high school sweetheart and love of my life! We were together 8 years before we were married and engaged for 5.

      It was very important for us to have a HUGE wedding with all of our friends and family and we have big families. So we saved up our money and saved and saved, until we could afford the wedding we wanted to have without going to debt.

     Below I am posting some of my favorite pictures from our wedding and our relationship! About 90% of these photos were taken by Perfect Aim Photogaphy.

     Are you Married? How long have you been married for?

Big needles for bigger bellies!

     Monday I started Estrace. The needles are a LOT bigger than the Lupron needles so I am understandably nervous about this shot. I also go from giving myself the shot in my stomach to a IM shot in the behind...

     On the left is the needle for Lupron shots. On the right is the needle from Estrace. BIG difference. I get to do these every Monday and Friday too! Luckily Friday my husband will be home so he will be able to give me that one. 

Have you ever given yourself a shot?

Do you think you could?

How a Surrogate does Shots on a Friday night

Disclaimer this post is for 8/8/2014a

Yep this is how I roll every Friday night!

     One thing about medication is there is NO ALCOHOL at all. That is my clinics policy while on medication. So while on my Facebook feed I see friends going out and dancing this is how I spend my friday nights (then usually cuddling and watching movies)

    This however is my last Friday night that I will only have to do one shot for a while.... (post to come on that) 

How did you spend your Friday Night?

Estradiol how low can you go

     When you are on the 50 million medications you get to get blood tests to make sure that the medication is doing its job, and your body is responding correctly.

That means the blood vial count goes up to 18.

     I am now at the point that getting blood drawn is seriously no big deal with the shots I have been giving myself and blood draw after blood draw, I really don't even feel the needle anymore. 

    The good news is that the medication is doing 100% what they want it to do and I have the Estradoil levels of someone going through menopause! Basically that means I will not ovulate and make it so we have to cancel the cycle! 

Extra hormones.

     The first injection I started is Lupron.

(Source)

     Lupron has been known to make moms feel crazy. Me I was a big huge emotional mess who cried over everything. The first few days were really hard on me. I cried over the silliest smallest things, then would cry about crying, then cry when ever I even talked about crying.

     August first however was the hardest day for me it was my 6th day of Lupron and it was hitting me hard. So to try to make myself feel better after it stopped being to hot to go outside at all I took the kids outside to play and draw with chalk.

 With chalk drawings the first thing they always do is kick of their shoes.

Doesn't my little one have HUGE feet.

This was the star of her Elsa drawing. 

And I just did her hair 5 minutes before this... 

Her hair will not stay in place EVER.

I was starting to feel a little better and decided to leave this

just in case anyone else was having a bad day it might 

help them feel a little bit better too!

     These hormones have not been that easy on me, but I keep telling myself that it is for an amazing cause and S+J would be gladly be doing this if it meant that S could carry the baby herself. 

Last day of this evil little pill

This post is from August 1st, Post dates will be a little messed up while I work on catching the blog up to where we are now in the surrogacy. 

     One thing I have hated was the birth control they put me on. I had to take it at night because it made me feel so sick.

     I had to be on the pill because they were manipulating my cycle (with only taking active pills) so that way we could start meds at any time and not have to worry about waiting for the start of another cycle or rushing to get things done so we wouldn't miss a cycle.

     This little evil pill is no more I am finally off it and officially doing the surrogacy Injections!

Who knew I would be so excited to stab myself with a needle every day...

Meds, Meds, and more Meds...

This post is about July, I am working on getting the blog updated and you will see a lot of "past posts" as I catch up on what has happened in the surrogacy.

     One thing about surrogacy is that I will be on more medication before transfer and the first trimester of the pregnancy, than I have taken in my whole life combined. I got my first set of Medicine.

     Yes all of that Medication (and more) I will be putting into my body to get ready for S+J's Embryo. I will be giving myself 1-2 shots daily until I am 10-12 weeks pregnant. 

     Start of Medication is July 28th and we will be transferring two perfect little embryos (one girl and one boy!) on September 5th! 

What do you think will happen with the July transfer? Will one stick? Will both stick? Will they both stick and split? Or will none stick?

Signed, Sealed, Delivered

This post is about July, I am working on getting the blog updated and you will see a lot of "past posts" as I catch up on what has happened in the surrogacy.

     Finally we officially have contracts done! Luckily everything was done before we went to lawyers so it was just a few quick changes and we were able to sign. 

     Contracts must be done before starting medications, so this is a Huge step in the surrogacy process! Now we can continue on with the surrogacy! 

Starting to think I am going to be seeing this sight a lot.

This post is about July, I am working on getting the blog updated and you will see a lot of "past posts" as I catch up on what has happened in the surrogacy.

     Well my 15 vials of blood was not enough I got to go back to get my Rh- Antibodies and my thyroid rechecked.

     This is a view I have a feeling I am going to be seeing a whole lot of this view. If you do not know as of July 2014 I am up to 17 vials of blood for the surrogacy... I wonder what the final tally will be.

Do you hate getting your blood drawn? or do you see it a a "necessary evil"?

Fingerprinted

     One of the things we had to do for the surrogacy and the contracts was a full background check, My husband and I both went and got fingerprinted and had the full background check done.

     I was a little nervous about going to a police station to get fingerprinted, and I really wasn't looking forward to having ink all over my fingers.

Good news they don't use ink they use a computer now!

     That may be common knowledge to most people but I really had no idea. 

     The officer who took our fingerprints was very nice! We talked to him for about 10 minutes after everything was done. he has very good people skills. 

     We got our fingerprints taken and sent them in to be "examined" Everything came back 100% clean just like we knew they would! 

Have you ever been fingerprinted?

From Pea to Pumpkin!

     For the surrogacy I want to blog the whole thing, but I also want something physical to be able to give S+J at the birth. I found this pregnancy journal that was not as bad about "bringing the baby home references" as others seem to be. I will have to cross out a few things and write new words but not as bad as so many other pregnancy journals are.

     I should also let you know I was not paid to write this for the company this is 100% on my own they do not know I am even writing this post.

    Did you/will you keep a pregnancy journal during pregnancy? If yes what journal did you use?

Psych Screening

Sorry this is another belated post from June. I will be slowly (or quickly) posting about everything that has happened that I have not blogged yet. 

     I have to admit I was nervous about the Psych screening. I think I am pretty normal but crazy people don't know that they are crazy right? What if I was really some weirdo who had Psychological problems. Yes I over think things if you haven't noticed that already.

    The husband and I got lost going up to the appointment. BUT luckily we always leave super early so we still made it to the appointment with 5 minutes to spare. He was not happy with me for getting us lost though, you would think by now he would know I am terrible with directions.

 

     We got to the place and saw this adorable little waiting room. It felt so homey, we were brought back to do some talking and we answered a lot of questions about why I wanted to do surrogacy, If we had a good support system, and many questions about a few difficult things that could happen during the surrogacy.

   Then I sat in front of a computer and answered some of the silliest questions. Like do I think people are trying to steal from me, If I hear voices, and other things like that. I must have passed (I didn't get a copy of the results) because we kept moving forward.

    Have you every had a Psych Screening? If yes what was the strangest  question you were asked?

Lots of Blood vials...

FYI this happened in June I slacked very badly with Blog posts but I am planning on making that up now. 

     I went into the doctor my pre surrogacy Physical and blood work. I did not know how much blood to expect to be taken. I was assuming about 8 but boy was I wrong.

     I went to the lab and I sat down. The man taking my blood asked me what I did to make the doctor so mad, then started pulling vial after vial.... THIS is what I end up seeing before he pokes me with a needle...

     If you don't want to count I will save you the trouble that is 15 blood vials, and yes all 15 were filled with my blood... If you don't believe I will attach a picture of my MANY filled blood vials. 

     After this I didn't even bruise (I normally bruise very bad after getting blood taken), My husband joked it was because I didn't have any blood left.

 How many vials of blood have you had taken at one time?