6 Months Later - A New Plan: Gestational Carrier!

Wow, it's been about 6 months since I've written. A lot went on in those six months. A lot of sadness and a lot of changes.

We had a rough spring and summer. Lots of counseling. Lots of grieving. Trying to be positive about moving onto adoption.

We finally got to trying to move forward with adoption by mid summer or so. It wasn't B's first choice but he was giving me the room to really say what I could and couldn't do.

I've been wanting adoption for the last 5 years or so. In fact, I remember him saying at one point that he wasn't sure he'd ever be able to adopt and I worried I had made a mistake in my marriage.

But once the path was clear for me/us to move forward with adoption, I had a hard time getting excited about it. I was still seriously bummed about no genetic connection even though I had kept saying this whole time that it didn't matter to me as much. I was recognizing that it did. That I hadn't done all of this for B but for me too. In fact, I don't know how someone can go through as many rounds as we did and not feel strongly for that biological connection.

We met with an adoption lawyer, who turned out also does gestational carrier law. We told her we were possibly wrestling with adoption vs GC, and after hearing how long adoption might take, how much it might cost and how dicey the medical histories could be, I started to feel more compelled toward a GC.

I also think enough time had gone by from our major disappointment, and the thought of cycling again didn't seem so daunting.

I also met with a friend of mine from a support group who had just had her baby via GC and got to hear more about it from she and her husband that it convinced me that I think I could do it.

Did I mention that we had done A LOT of counseling this spring and summer? It was super rough. I guess one of my hesitancies with GC was that the doctors still don't really know why it hasn't worked with us, and there is not a huge guarantee that GC would work, so a lot of work, energy, money to potentially have it still not work... and I had been super anti donor egg. It made me feel like I was replaceable. But what counseling showed me was that this was manifesting from not feeling special enough with my parents, feeling like they like the idea of me but the particulars that make me, me, could be swappable. They barely ask me about things that excite me, things that I'm interested in, and it was interesting for me to see that it was bleeding into how I was feeling about donor egg, like I didn't matter enough.

Once I was able to get over that, I thought I could get on board if our embryos don't work with a donor egg. I know it seems extreme to use donor egg with a GC, but there are a few things that convinced me - knowing the medical condition of this person's genes is attractive, still being able to have a baby that is half B's genes is appealing to me - and to him. And I thought if I can adopt a child that is neither one of our genes, then I could do half. There just seemed to be more of a guarantee of a positive outcome.

Don't get me wrong. If our embryos don't work, I am likely to be very sad, but I think I'll be able to get past it.

And as much as I said all along that I don't necessarily care to experience pregnancy, the thought that I won't is bumming me out a little. Just the thought of B holding my belly and us being able to feel the baby, all that stuff, it's out of our control. But we would be so forever grateful if someone could help us bring our child/children into this world.

I did an egg retrieval about 3 weeks ago and we are waiting for our PGD testing. We were supposed to know a week ago and it's driving me a bit crazy on how much patience we need to exert here.

I feel like I was able to kick 40 in the butt though - this was our BEST cycle ever. We ended up with 7 embryos to test! 4 on Day 5 and 3 on Day 6. I'd never even heard of any needing to make it to Day 6. So, we're hoping for 2-3 from this cycle, and we're gearing up to do another retrieval before Thanksgiving.

We are also talking to two surrogate agencies that our lawyer recommended, so that's moving forward as well.

Oh, and I got to do a lot of fun travel this summer. It was almost like I booked all this stuff as soon as I knew our IVF cycle hadn't worked. I needed my summer packed with fun stuff. I went to Iceland with my best friend for 4 days which was really cool, more just having 4 days together and all that quality, uninterrupted (by her kids!) time together. B and I went to the beach with his friends for a week in SC and then we also did a week in Scotland which was great and traveled around and also saw my good friend and her husband who live there now.

Here's to refreshing the soul, working through some junk and moving onto a new course of action!