Here's my public post from yesterday. It was scary to post this. It still feels like the other shoe will drop at any moment... and I am teary-eyed sharing this but it's out there in the world now and I still can't believe it.
______________________
Happy New Year! What are we most excited for in 2017? Through the gift of surrogacy and our friend L’s amazing heart, we are expecting a new Nats fan! We are still having a hard time finding the right way to describe what feels like a miracle to us. L is helping us to realize a dream come true, by carrying our child and increasing our family by one long-awaited member. We are so humbled and grateful, and cannot wait to meet our baby. And we're going to be surprised by the gender. ETA: July 12.
May your new year feel just as miraculous & abundant with love!
❤️
________________________
So, that's the short version. What happened in the last couple of months is this:
Mon, Oct 24 - L and I went to the transfer together and it was really the first time she and I had spend time together just the two of us. I took her to lunch and our car rides were long enough (20-30 mins each) that we had decent time to chat which was good.
It was nice being in the transfer room with her and really knowing everything that was going on. It also felt weird to be on that side of things and just be an observer. I guess I was more than that, a supporter.
The clinic gave us both a picture of the embryo and it was fun to see her say 'hey buddy' to it. She has a son so I think she's used to talking that way but it was nice that she personalized it and said that she'd never seen an embryo before.
I sent the photo around of me, L and the embryo that we took and my mother in law said the same thing - she'd never seen an embryo before. This was pretty striking to me because B and I have seen soooo many of these photos by now that we are so jaded and never got attached to any of them.
I had told L that I didn't want to see any home pregnancy tests because I didn't want to get my hopes up or whatever. I'll have to go back and look at the exact date but about a week later she texts me early in the morning and says 'are you sure you don't want to see tests?' and I just replied with 'send it over!'
I knew she wouldn't be saying that if there wasn't reason to. And I cried and cried when I saw that positive test with a nice strong second line (my second lines whenever I did have them were always faint). And I cried even more at what she wrote:
A week later at 14 days after transfer her HCG was around 1200 and 2 days later was in the 3000s. So good!
6 Weeks
At 6 weeks, I was so nervous for the heartbeat appt and they were 45 mins late seeing us. But oh wow, I really couldn't hear anything else after I saw that heartbeat and just kept hearing them say "everything looks good", "this is exactly what we want to see", "everything is measuring right"...
Wow, oh, wow! I took a video of the heartbeat and just couldn't stop crying. We'd NEVER gotten to this point. 10 times pregnant and this never happened for us. Can you imagine? And this is 10 years into our marriage and finally. Just finally.
They told us July 12 would be the due date.
Here it is at 6 weeks, just a white spec in the middle of the embryonic black sac attached to it and the large black oval is the uterus:
I also just had to write on their "hopeful" wall. That's what I've had in my home over the last 4 years. Their is called "believe it's possible":
Thanksgiving was that week and we got to celebrate with everyone and especially B's family who we don't get to see often. They made a big deal about it giving us meaningful cards, a beautiful baby print necklace and a frame that says Our Joy. Along with lots of gender neutral baby clothing from our niece and nephew (who are now 5 and 3). I couldn't stop crying.
Part of that is that I wasn't ready for all this celebrating. I was still waiting for the other shoe to drop. I was still super nervous. But it was also because I wasn't used to this celebrating being for ME. For US. It was truly special.
And they got to meet L which was so, so nice, and gave her meaningful cards and a gift which meant a lot to her too.
8 Weeks
Two weeks later we're in for the 8 week appt and still nervous, still hoping that heartbeat is there, and there it is! And this time we got to see it with our actual doctor so it was pretty emotional!
Here it is at 8 weeks, starting to look like a baby!
And at that appt, we 'graduated' from our clinic! Momentous! I even got a text from a friend who has been through this to say happy fertility clinic graduation day! Means so much!!
10 Weeks
Then the 10 week appt with L's OB was interesting. I was kinda nervous. And felt like I was going to feel weird there, an outsider maybe, but the doctor said this was the 3rd surrogate situation to come in that day!! Pretty cool! And the best part was actually HEARING the heartbeat. Oh, it was such a great sound. I got so teary-eyed.
I had the NIPT bloodwork test rushed to make sure there wasn't anything wrong with our baby and really wanted the results before Christmas to enjoy the holidays and put my mind at ease.
Here it is at 10 weeks with little oven mitts for hands!
And the Thursday before Christmas (2 days before), I got the results early and everything looked good. I had the ugliest cry you can imagine. Got down on the floor because I couldn't stop crying at this milestone. We're here. We've done it. We're almost at 12 weeks and everything looks GOOD.
You can't even imagine. I got down on my knees and thanked God.
How incredible. On Wed, we'll be at 13 weeks.
We're having a baby!! :)
