OUCH!!! I Think My Husband Is Switching My Shots With Tranquilizers!!

So my shots were starting to get a little easier and I have learned a few things over time to make it less painful. I quit using the band aids the pharmacy sent me because those things hurt worse taking off than the shot actually hurt. I also warm up the liquid in the vial before I get the shot. I keep it in my bra for about 30 minutes to warm it up so it wont be as thick when injected. We have always massaged it afterwards to help the liquid move around and not make my butt "lumpy" haha.

Monday it was time to begin my second shot! I was so not excited about this but it has to be done. I got everything out and prepared it while Adam put the kids to bed. BUT what made this day even worse was that I was not only starting my second shot but it was also day 3 which means I will be doing the 1st shot(my 1st shot I started I only do it every 3 days). NOOO!!! So I had to do 2 shots on Monday. We decided to do them both in the same butt check instead of one in each cheek. I psyched myself out and kept freaking out like always BUT surprisingly whenever I let him give me the shot neither hurt that bad and it was quick and much easier than expected. I was so proud of myself. That night I started talking with another surrogate who is doing the same medication cycle that I'm doing and we were questioning things and comes to find out I read the instructions WRONG!!! For my delestrogen shot(every 3 days) I only take .2cc which is very little. For my progesterone shot I only did .1cc which is TINY!! But then was informed I read the calendar wrong instead of .1cc it was supposed to be 1 WHOLE cc!!!! I was freaking out! 1cc no way that can't be right! But turns out it was. Now let me tell you 1cc is MUCH more painful than .1cc. My butt cheek is STILL in pain and sitting on the toilet is almost impossible. I honestly have no idea how to make the progesterone shots better. But look on the bright side at least I don't have to do these things the WHOLE pregnancy :)  My biggest fear about the shots is him hitting a vein and having to redo the shot(before you inject the liquid you check for blood in the needle and if blood comes in the needle you know you have hit a vein and have to redo the shot)

We now have all mine and my moms travel stuff booked for the transfer! She will land in L.A. are few minutes before me and she will leave L.A. at 7pm and I will leave at 11pm(the joys of living on the east coast). But I am extremely thankful that this time that travel was able to book me a flight flying out of Fayetteville airport instead of Raleigh. I can't believe I will be leaving in 2 days! Adam starts a class that he cannot miss on the 1st so he won't be able to take me to the airport but I have an awesome friend here who will be taking me and picking me up once I get back. That's all for now about the surrogacy I will have LOTS more this weekend while I'm on bed rest :)

So now I have a question for yall. Are any of yall dressing up with your kids this year? If so what? And what are your kids dressing up as? The kids, Adam, and I went to a Halloween party this past weekend and had a blast. I think our costumes turned out great. I wished we could have done a family theme but we let the kids pick their costumes and my plan was Adam and I would match costumes but in the end Adam matched Brynna and I matched Brett. Here's a few pictures from the party

Brett wanted to be a blue Power Ranger so I was the pink Power Ranger. I added the tutu because the costume was pretty much a body suit and I just felt naked wearing it the way it was so I made a tutu.

Brynna wanted to be little red riding hood and I made her tutu dress but not the hood part. Daddy was the lumberjack who saves little red riding hood and her grandma from the wolf. Brynna has this wolf stuffed animal she carries every where with her and it was the big bad wolf.

Here is the back of Brynna's costume. BTW she has her arm around my friends son. It was the cutest thing ever.

Here is our family picture of our costumes :)

 Also if you have missed any of my blog post or if this is your first time read about it you can click here and get updated :) Hope you enjoy.

Kayla

One Week From Now..

Today I had my one and only monitoring appointment. The agency likes to use monitoring clinics that can get the results back to them ASAP because they need the results ASAP. Well the closest monitoring clinic that qualifies is an hour and a half away. So this morning I woke up got ready, then dropped Brynna off with a friend and took Brett and my friends son to school, and headed to the monitoring appointment. I got there about 15 minutes earlier than I planned but it was a walk in appointment so it worked out. I walked in got my blood work done and then waited in the waiting room for my ultrasound. EVERY TIME I got in for an ultrasound I PRAY that I'm not pregnant. No matter what precautions I take I still fear that I'll end up pregnant. Thankfully though this time I wasn't.

The blood work was super easy. I have had lots of blood work and that lady was by far the BEST! She did it so quick and it didn't hurt a bit. Taking the band-aid off hurt worse than getting blood drawn haha. I have a little bruise from being poked but that's all. The redness to the left of my bruise is from the band aid and I took it off 10 minutes after she put it on and that was 10+ hours ago. The ultrasound was the painful part. They don't do the normal sonograms they do an inner vaginal sonogram and I hate those things their so uncomfortable but it went quick. Before the nurse left though I asked her what my lining was and it was a 9!! Which was great!

After the monitoring appointment I headed back home and played the waiting game with Brynna. Thankfully I had other things to do today that kept my mind off the WAITING! haha. So 4:30pm came around and I realized CRAP! I haven't heard from my JC(journey coordinator) so I sent her a quick email before they closed. Turns out she was also in the process of emailing me. Well WE HAVE A DATE! And guess what??? I WILL BE HOME FOR HALLOWEEN!! The transfer is planned for the 2nd which means I will fly out one week from now, the 1st of November. There is a chance we will transfer the 3rd but we are planning for the 2nd. Then I will be back home the evening of the 4th. So thankfully Adam will be with the kids most of the time :)

After the emails I got a phone call from the fertility clinic that will be doing the transfer and they were also updating me about the transfer and what will be going on. She started telling me about the ivf medications. I will start daily shots on Monday and on top of that I will still be doing my shots I've been doing every 3 days. So every 3 days I will be doing 2 shots a day :( Then the day of transfer I will start something that we like to call vagina mints! Well, I will end on that and let you have fun imagining what that means.Plus tonight is day 3 again which means SHOT NIGHT! BOO!!

My First Time..

Yesterday was my birthday and guess what I got to enjoy on my birthday? A shot! Yup you read that right a SHOT, IN MY BUTT! That was probably the least fun thing I have ever done on my birthday BUT we got a big laugh out of it. Plus I'll always remember that my shots began on my birthday. 

I knew before signing my contract that I would have to give myself shots and take pills but may I didn't think it would be that bad. Well I was WRONG! It was horrible! I knew Monday morning whenever I woke up that I would be getting my first shot that evening so I thought about it ALL DAY! That evening we got home and I knew it would have to be done soon. So I got the kids ready for bed and started to get prepared. I got everything out that I needed and laid it on the table. I honestly wanted to take as LONG as possible.

Then it was go time. Now for my first shot I was NOT doing it myself. I was a chicken and made my husband do it. He was a little to excited about giving me a shot but promised he would be gentle. Now before I let him give me a shot we did lots of googling and watched youtube videos to make sure he was injecting the shot in the right area. Google needs to realize whenever I search for glute injection area I am NOT wanting to see women taking "sexy" picture in the bathroom. So now it was time to drop my pants and do the shot. Adam cleaned the area and then I stood there FREAKING OUT for 15 minutes! With my pants still down! I didn't want to pull them back up because then we'd have to use another wipe to clean the area again. It was the most awkward thing ever but he didn't complain he just laughed at me while I was in tears, freaking out, and sweating haha. All I could think about was someone peaking through my window and cracking up at us. Finally I put my big girl panties on and took it like a man(figure of speech I couldn't really put my big girl panties on because the shot was IN MY BUTT!!).

This was after the shot. I told yall he was a little too excited about giving me a shot in my butt. Thankfully the shot didn't hurt too bad. It wasn't as horrible as I mentioned in the beginning of this post it was a tiny poke and didn't last long. What was horrible was me over thinking how painful it'd be. I'm just glad its over with. I have another one tomorrow and then after that its every 3 days. On the 25th I will have a sonogram to check my lining and then begin another shot. So I'll be doing 2 different shots but I'm planning to do some of the shots myself so if my husband isn't around I can just do the shot myself.

After the shots I took my prenatal vitamin instead of taking the whole thing I decided to cut it in half. I thought cutting it in half would make it much easier. So I took half of the pills while sitting in my living room and washed it down with water. I almost threw up on my rug in my living room while watching greys anatomy! The stupid half of a pill got stuck in my throat and caused me to gag and almost vomit. So after that I was scared to take the other half of the prenatal pill. But this time I decided I'd eat something small before I tried to swallow it. 10 minutes later I walk over to the kitchen sink and take the other half of the pill and it went down much easier thankfully.  Hopefully today's pill and tomorrow's shot wont be as bad and wont take me 10-15 minutes to prepare for :)

Kayla

It's Almost Show Time!

Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday were busy days of talking with the agency, the clinic, and waiting. Lots of waiting. Wednesday I got an estimated schedule BUT I was told that J&J were trying to move the date by a few days. Which would actually work out better for me. So we had to wait until Thursday to know for sure. I waited for the email to get the new dates and they decided to keep them the same. So for now as long as nothing changes the transfer will be sometime between November 1st-3rd. I will fly to Los Angeles the day before transfer and then fly home probably 2-3 days later. So I could be in LA a total of 4-5 days. I am hoping that the transfer is either on the 2nd or 3rd because if it is on the 1st I will miss Halloween. I know Halloween may not be a big deal to most people but this year I made my daughters Halloween costume. This year is also the first year my husband is going to be able to go trick or treating with us. Every year he has been working or gone and next year he may not be here for Halloween either so I have really been excited for this Halloween. BUT if I have to miss Halloween I am just thankful that Adam will be able to be with the kids and enjoy Halloween with them.

Well Thursday we got the estimated dates and Thursday I was told that I would receive a package on Friday with all of my meds I will have to take, and they emailed me a cycle schedule. I start my first shot(delestrogen) Sunday or Monday depending on when AF(Aunt Flow) comes. Also if AF doesn't come by Sunday morning I have to go get blood work done at my local monitoring clinic, which is not local at all. It is 1 1/2 hours away. The joys of not living in or near a big city. Even though in my opinion Fayetteville is a big city. Friday I stayed home most of the day waiting and waiting for that package. By 2pm nothing. So I walked down the street to a friends house. We only live like 7 houses down but you can see my house from her house and the FedEx truck passes her house to get to mine. So I knew I'd see it heading to my house. At 3pm I received a phone call from the pharmacy that was mailing the package asking if they could mail it to me Monday.. Umm.. WHAT? I have been waiting for a package that was not even mailed haha. But I explained to them that I needed the meds ASAP because I would have to start them by Sunday or Monday. Thankfully they overnight them and they mailed them that day instead of waiting so I would receive them by Saturday. Well we have been planning to go to a place called Hubb's Corn Maze with a some friends and their kids and guess which day we were going. Saturday. I decided we would still go to the corn maze but PRAY that it came before we left. We weren't planning on leaving until around 12:30 so it should come before then. Plus it didn't need a signature like I thought it did so they would leave the package.
It's funny how things work out... Whenever we were getting in the car to leave the FedEx truck turned down our street and thankfully had the package I needed. So my nerves were put to rest.. Those of y'all that live in NC I really recommend Hubb's Corn Maze my kids(5 and 3 1/2) had a blast and my husband and I also liked it.

This is the jump pillow and they loved it. Brynna face planted but thankfully it didn't hurt.

Both kids loved the slides(daddy did too haha)

Then was time for the corn maze. I have never been to a corn maze before it was really neat. I'm not good at reading maps, I like technology and just listening to my GPS give me directions but it was fun reading the map and finding all the checkpoints.

After the corn maze we let the kids play for a bit and then headed home. We did dinner at a friends house and the kids were going to spend the night afterwards. Well since they only live a few houses down we went home first bathed the kids and then headed over. Adam went first because I still had to get Brynna dressed and he was going to grill his burgers. We were about 5 minutes behind him and whenever I walked in the door everyone yelled SURPRISE! I was not expecting a surprise party. They played it off good. Brynna was even surprised. Kelly made me a cake and it was GOOD!! This is my first birthday away from home and things like that make being away from home a little bit easier.

 

Since AF still had not come we had to be up early to head to the monitoring clinic an hour and a half away. I had to be there at 8:30am but since it was on a Sunday the fertility clinic called me on Friday and told me to call the clinic on Sunday before I drove there to make sure they were open(I'm not sure why they didn't check before they put it on my schedule but o well). So Sunday morning I woke up and AF still had not made her appearance!! So I called the monitoring clinic and no answer plus it said they were closed on Saturday and Sunday on their message. Which meant that I would now have to go Monday morning unless AF decided to finally show. Thankfully a few hours later she finally did and now I wont have to make the drive until the end of next week. I will have blood work and a sonogram to check my lining to make sure it is good to go for transfer. 

Sunday I also went through and made sure everything I needed was in the package and ready to go on Monday. Plus I also wanted to see what I was going to be getting stuck with. I'm going to make Adam give me my shots and I'll probably cry hahaha. I haven't had a shot in 2 1/2 years and that shot was PAINFUL!! I still remember how bad that thing hurt. So lets hope this one isn't as bad because I will be doing it every 3 DAYS!!

Look at how huge the needles on the right are they are 18 1/2 gauge needles. Thankfully those are not the needles I will be injecting myself with. Those are just the ones that I will be using to put the medicine in the syringe. The green needles on the left are the ones I will be injecting myself with(23 1/2 gauge needles)

 

 

Look at these horse pills! Goodness I wonder if I am allowed to cut them in half? I have been swallowing pills for years and have never had an issue with swallowing pills but big pills like this I am not a fan with. I always cut my prenatal pills in half whenever I was pregnant with my kids so hopefully I can do the same with these. 

I guess tomorrow I will update with how painful or painless the shots were and how long it took me to get the balls to let Adam give me a shot haha.

You've Got To Take The Good With The Bad..

So Adam went to Florida for 2 weeks and what I didn't realize was 2 weeks is the longest the kids and I have been by ourselves.. Whenever Adam was in basic(10-11 weeks) and ait(4 weeks) the kids and I lived with my Gigi(grandma) and whenever he was in Korea before we moved with him we stayed living with her. So we were never alone. Adam has been gone before but I think the longest he has been gone is 5 days at the most and I think the furthest he's ever gone was an hour or 2 away and this time it was like 9 hours!! Now for those of y'all that are thinking he's in the military get use to it. Yes I know that but so far we have been lucky and he has not deployed yet(no I don't count Korea as a deployment because it's not a deployment, he doesn't have a deployment patch from it and there are military families living in South Korea with their spouse so no it's not a deployment in my book it's an overseas duty station lol). So I am counting this as practice and in my opinion we've been doing pretty good :).

Instead of being hermits and staying indoors, because getting out with 2 little ones can be pretty hectic by yourself, we have had fun. Brynna and I went grocery shopping and to hobby lobby to get all the supplies needed to make her Halloween costume. She is going to be little red riding hood. I did order the hood/jacket part because I'm not that crafty yet. This is my first tutu thing to ever make and I must say I'm proud of it :) I will be cutting the ties shorter this was just to see how it fit. I can't wait to see how it looks all put together though.

We also had a dinner date with some friends of ours. We went to eat at sonic and then had a movie night at their house. Today I had an frg coffee and a friend down the street kept the kids. They only live a couple houses down from us, normally we just walk over there and today the kids really wanted to walk. Well I wanted to drive because it was super hot out and I just wanted to drop them off and head to the meeting. So I decided I'd let the kids walk and I'd drive next to them. They thought they were so grown up and it was so funny watching them walk "alone".


I have realize that good and bad things will always happen when daddy has to leave. One day one I locked myself out of the bathroom which honestly isn't thatbig of a deal but normally Adam unlocks the doors whenever we look ourselves out haha. Finally 6 days later I decided to go get the key and unlock it. Day 2 Boidoe pooped in the house and normally I make up some lame excuse as to why Adam needs to clean it haha. But I knew if I left it there for 12 days and waited for Adam to get home to clean it that my house would probably really stink so I decided to suck it up and clean it. Another bad thing is the spiders decided now that Adam has left they will all come out and torture me!! They don't live long because I find a shoe and kill them while screaming haha. But some good things are my groceries last a LOT longer. The gas also last a lot longer, the car was only driven like 5 times the whole 2 weeks. I have more room in the bed. And I don't have to work around Adams schedule I can go and do as I please. Now don't get me wrong I miss him when he's gone and I'd rather him be home than be gone but I'm getting better about him being gone. Even though I don't think it's getting easier on the kiddos. The first night they did great but after that it went down hill. If they got to talk on the phone with him or leave him a voicemail they do much better. Here is Brynna one night having a break down about daddy being gone.

This morning when I woke up and checked my email I had an email from J&J and I was so happy to read that the schedule/calendar is being worked on. So I should get the schedule this week and I'm so excited to finally have a transfer date. Which really if you think about it this process really hasn't taken that long. We were matched the end of July and should be transferring in November!! I'm so excited to be going back to Cali. if any of y'all ever go to L.A. and y'all like sushi go to a place called B.A.D. Sushi they are seriously amazing and I can't wait to go back.

"You've got to take the good with the bad, smile with the sad, love what you've got, and remember what you had. Always forgive, but never forget. Learn from mistakes, but never regret."
- Unknown


Kayla