One Year Ago

Did that really just happen? Did a whole year really just pass?? One year ago today. I remember laying upside down in a doctors office letting 2 tiny embryos try to attach. What was I doing? This is crazy! I can't believe I am getting the chance to do this. I can't believe this is REALLY happening! I was about to become pregnant with someone else's child. At that point only my close friends and family knew what I was doing. I was nervous to come out publicly about being a surrogate. Even though honestly I didn't care how people felt it still made me nervous thinking about all the negative things people could say. I didn't want to publicly come out until I knew I was pregnant because pretty soon it'd be a little difficult to hide.

On November 2nd I had 2 embryos transferred. Not just 1 but 2.. I COULD HAVE BECAME PREGNANT WITH TWINS!! Can you imagine me pregnant with twins! That'd be a sight to see.. At 6 weeks pregnant we found out only 1 embryo stuck. The little surrobaby miracle. It was such an amazing experience and a much different pregnancy experience.


Even though I did have a few very minor complications the pregnancy was pretty easy. No morning sickness, no bedrest, nothing too crazy.. Towards the end of my pregnancy they realized I had extremely low iron and had me take 2 iron pills a day along with my prenatal. And I had to start eating more iron enriched foods. THEN it started. I some how mid pregnancy became lactose intolerant. And it was BAD I mean REALLY REALLY BAD! So I had to cut dairy out which made my iron tank even more. And by the time we realized how low it was it was baby time. Surrobaby decided to come 2 weeks early.

Around 18 weeks we found out surrobaby was going to be a girl. At least that what it looked like haha. I remember the ultrasound tech saying. Well its NOT a boy so that only leaves a girl. But little miss was so stubborn and did not want to let anyone see her. J&J came down for the very first ultrasound, the anatomy scan, and then the delivery. So we got to enjoy some time with them before baby girl came. I was always taking lots of belly pictures and videos to send to them. We talked weekly about what all was going on. And we still talk about every other week now and I love getting updates about surrobaby. I know they are busy with having a new baby and I'm also busy with the kids.

I still look back and think WOW! I did that. I helped complete a family. Not only did my husband and I make 2 amazing kiddos but I also gave another family a child of their own. Some people look at surrogacy and think its like adoption. It is not. I just carried a baby for someone else I did not carry my own child and place them for adoption. I am not on the birth certificate. I am not on any legal documents. Surrobaby was not my child. Ever. From day 1 she has always been J&J's baby.

People ask me all the time if I'd do it again. All I can say is in a heartbeat. I don't know if I ever will do it again. But if I had to go back I would do it all over again. Maybe not the glucose test but everything else yes. That glucose test is DISGUSTING! If I ever had another child I would call around and choose my doctor on how they do their glucose testing.. I'm dead serious. Being on such a sugar high and then having that bad of a crash afterwards is something I have never experienced before and honestly I didn't think it was a real thing until I did the 3 hour glucose test.

My family was my main concern with me being a surrogate. I was so scared of what it would do to them. How they would handle it. How would my husband feel about me being pregnant with someone else's child. How would my children feel about me being pregnant and then not bringing a baby home. Would they think surrobaby was their brother or sister? How would they feel about J&J? I never once questioned my own feelings. And through out the whole pregnancy I felt great I never wondered if I would become attached to her or if it'd be hard giving her to her parents when the time came. Then right before the delivery I started to worry. I started to get scared that as soon as she was born I would form this bond with her and want her for myself. I was scared I would get post partum depression and that I would just completely shut out my family. It worried me. But as soon as she was born their was nothing no connection, no bond, no feeling that I felt with my own children. I genuinely cared for her. And was worried about her wellbeing but that was it. I also was so excited for her parents to meet her. Adam did amazing during the delivery and the whole pregnancy. He was extremely supportive, he liked J&J, he did a lot of foot rubbing (I had some really swollen sausage link toes and elephant ankles haha), and when it came time for delivery he did great. He always does great. Brett and Brynna always knew surrobaby as J&J's baby. They never once called her their sister. Never once asked why she wasn't coming home with us. They also did great.

J&J missed the birth but they were there shortly after. Honestly though I think it was probably a good thing they weren't there to witness my exorcism birthing experience. If you would like to read about the delivery you can click here and it will take you to the birth story. You can also go to the bottom of my blog and see some of the more popular blog post. By the way, did you know that if I was a whale I would still be pregnant!! Whales are pregnant for a year! And elephants are pregnant for about 22 months! Now that is CRAZY! Who wants to be pregnant for almost 2 years. I don't even like going past 40 weeks haha.

We now live about 5 hours from J&J and will probably be making a trip down to see them sometime in the next couple of months. I can't wait to see sweet surrobaby in person again. She has grown so much just in the past 4 months and she is so cute and chubby.

2 Months Have Come and Gone..

Some days I look back and just cannot believe all that has happened this past year.. Our whole lives changed. It has now been a little over 2 months and surrobaby is doing great. I love when I get pictures of her and talk with her parents. We actually just talked today and they said she was baptized recently and she's starting to smile more and more. I am still pumping and shipping but my supply is taking a big dip :( I am hoping to get it back up but we will just have to see. Even though this pregnancy was my hardest out of all of them and even though emotionally I went through a lot during this pregnancy I would still do it all over again. I am so thankful I was able to be a surrogate.

I have had a lot of people tell me they have thought about being a surrogate and ask me questions about it. That is the main reason I did this blog. To educated people on surrogacy. So they not only see the ugly that the news reports but also the good.

A lot of people are still asking if I will be a surrogate again. Well I finally have somewhat of an answer. It's the best one you will get for now. I have considered doing another journey but for now the Army and NY laws will be preventing that.. Adam's orders were changed from Alaska to New York and in New York surrogacy is illegal. Sad I know. I doubt I would have done another surrogacy in the next 2 years but I still dislike the fact that I can't even if I wanted to. And once we move from New York we may be trying to move to Germany or Italy and I won't do surrogacy there either. So we will see what happens later on.

I enjoyed doing this blog so I decided to start a new lifestyle blog about our upcoming travels and changes in life. If you'd like to follow that blog you can go to it by clicking here. It will take you to my new blog. Or you can go to www.movingwiththemorenos.blogspot.com. I will continue updating this blog from time to time but not as much as I once did. If you'd like to get updates whenever I do post a blog post go to the right of my and you can enter your email and subscribe. So when I do update on here you will get it right in your email. I will probably update every few months on here but don't hesitate to ever ask me questions. I really don't mind them..

Thank you to everyone who supported me during this journey in life and for everyone who followed and read my blog post.

A Few Minor Complications..

I have had 2 extremely easy complication free pregnancies. With Brett I had low iron which was no big deal I took prenatal pills and was fine. With Brynna I had no complications what so ever. So whenever the surrogacy agency and RE reviewed my pregnancy and birth records I was cleared in that area because I had no complications. This pregnancy has seemed to be the complete opposite!! I have had a few complications that yall know about and a few that I haven't posted on here. Thankfully though none of the complications have affected the baby but the thing is their is very little they can do to help me because I'm pregnant and am limited on what I can use/take while pregnant.

 

This morning I had a 9am doctors appointment before the doctors appointment I'd drink the drink for the glucose test and then see my OB and once I was done with my OB visit I'd wait to have my blood drawn. The glucose test is just a 1 hour glucose test and it test you for gestational diabetes. From the get go I knew I'd pass this test. I have never failed it before why would I fail it now? Well turns out I was wrong. My OB wants the results to be 130 or lower and mine was 153. They let me know that its very common to fail the 1 hour test and a lot of people that fail the 1 hour end up passing the 3 hour test. So tomorrow morning I go to another lab to do the 3 hour test. Oh JOY! I am so nervous about this test but hopefully it will come back normal. Well whenever they did the 1 hour glucose test they also checked my iron and turns out my iron levels were low. They want it to be no lower than 11 and my iron level was a 9.. So we ended up switching my prenatal pills. I'm not taking iron pills just yet but we switched to a different prenatal that has a little more iron than the ones I'm taking now. They also gave me a list of foods high in iron. So hopefully that will help get my iron levels up. I was so upset whenever they told me I failed my 1 hour test and THEN told me I had low iron levels. I felt like such a failure. I felt like I failed my IP's. I had 2 perfectly healthy pregnancies of my own but then get pregnant with their child and have all these complications. Yes I know they are very minor complications and it could always be worse but I don't want them to have to worry about any complications. PLUS its more money for them to spend. I don't want them to have to spend money on things they shouldn't have to. They could be saving this money for other things. But hopefully tomorrow I will pass this 3 hour test with flying colors. My only issue is I will have to get my blood drawn 4 times!! In 3 hours!! Have I told yall before I have horrible veins :(

Well besides my blood work coming back with bad results, everything else looked good :) The OB said my belly is measuring right on track at 26 weeks and the baby's heartbeat was strong. So I'm happy about that. I also found out exactly how much weight I've gained. With this being a surrogacy pregnancy my weight has been tracked since before I became pregnant so I have 2 different amounts for you haha. I gained 9 pounds from the IVF meds and then once I started seeing my OB for the pregnancy I have gained 9 pounds from then. So if we are going off my OB I have gained 9 pounds. BUT I will be wanting to lose 18 pounds total once I deliver. Tomorrow once I get my 3 hour glucose test results I will update the questionnaire part because that will be exactly a week after my last questionnaire.

I thought I'd also show yall what we did this past weekend :) The weather was gorgeous this past weekend so we ended up taking the kids down to the beach. Myrtle Beach is only about a 2 1/2 hour drive from us so we packed up a cooler, took some beach toys, and headed to the beach. We stayed the night Saturday night and really enjoyed our time there my only complaint is we were being cheap and didn't want to spend the money on a nice hotel when we were seriously just using the shower and sleeping in it.. Next time I won't be cheap I'll spend the money for a bit nicer hotel. The water was freezing but Brett didn't care and Brynna prefers playing in the sand over the water.

Upcoming Dates:
April  15th- 3hr Glucose Test
April 16th- Chiropractor Appointment
April 29th- OB Appointment
May 5th-  Brett's orthopedic follow up(not surrogacy related I know but still important)

I Think My Husband Is Trying To Tell Me I'm FAT!!

So this morning as my husband and I were getting ready he starts to tell me how fat I look! Just kidding he's not that mean of a husband. I'm only 8 weeks pregnant and with Brett it took me forever before I started showing. Brynna I started showing a little bit sooner. This one is a LOT sooner. But apparently the more you have the sooner you show! AWESOME! Well as we were getting ready he says "Babe, don't get your feelings hurt BUT your starting to show.." THANKS BABE! haha not really but he followed with. "You don't look fat because its not saggy and hanging its more poking out so it doesn't look bad or anything." I couldn't help but laugh. Don't worry he didn't hurt my feelings I know I'm not a size 0 anymore and I knew I'd probably start showing sooner than I wanted to. But I am only 8 weeks pregnant ITS TOO SOON!! I mean if I was pregnant with twins I'd be a little more accepting because their would be 2 in there but their is only 1!! BTW there is a color run that is September 2014 my goal is to run the color run whenever it gets here and that will be my first 5k after the delivery. I will deliver in July so it'll give me 2 months to prepare. Well really a little over a month because I have to wait to be cleared after delivery. I'm also going to make Adam and the kids run it with me. I just hope Adam will be able to :)

Well after the name calling episode I dropped Adam off at work and then Brynna and I headed to Cary. I know I told y'all I would be going to get my ultrasound yesterday(Monday) well the RE's office had a little mix up and thought that I had been seeing the monitoring clinic all along when I was really seeing my local OB so that I didn't have to make the 1 1/2 hour drive anymore. Well my local OB didn't want to see me again until next week and my RE wanted me to have an u/s again at 8 weeks(now) so I had to go back to my monitoring clinic. SO me being the genius I am I decided to call the monitoring clinic yesterday before I made the drive to make sure they had the paperwork needed for them to do the u/s. Sure enough they did NOT! So I had to wait another hour before the RE's office opened up before I could call them and ask them to send the paperwork and by that time it would be past the walk in hours. So I ended up having to wait to go today. Thankfully it was just another u/s and nothing that we needed done ASAP! And in the end it worked out for the best because yesterday we had a lot of doctors appointments for Brynna(on her actual birthday). The 1 1/2 hour drive was horrible today! It was almost nap time(for me), very gloomy out, and then we hit the rain. Darn you weather. So what did I do! Turned up the music and sang my heart out. If you ever see me driving in the car and I am just rocking out know that I am extremely exhausted and I mean almost to the delirious stage. And that is how I prevent myself from falling asleep :) this first trimester is kicking my butt!!!

Finally we get to the monitoring clinic and even though I was told by the RE's office that they scheduled me an appointment for 11am the monitoring clinic said no you were supposed to come during walk in hours. So we will have to see when we can squeeze you in. WHY do I constantly feel like I am playing telephone with the RE's office?? Thankfully I didn't have to be back to pick Brett up anytime soon but it was NAP TIME! I could have came during walk in hours and been in and out in less than an hour and been home in time for nap time haha. Finally I was called back and we got to see J&J's baby :) it was so awesome! We have really been looking forward to hearing the heart beat but the monitoring clinics machine only looks at the baby :( so we still didn't get to hear it BUT you could see it!! And the baby was wiggling away! It didn't look so much like a little blob this time it actually looked like a baby. You could see his/her arms and legs and the outline of the head. It was amazing. Last u/s I measured a little behind but this time I measured perfect! I am technically 8 weeks and 1 day even though the RE's office has me at 8 weeks and 3 days. I have no idea how they added those 2 extra days on but due to the monitoring clinic and the IVF calculators I'm 8 weeks and 1 day so that will be what I go with from now on. I have another u/s on the 18th and I'm so excited. REALLY hoping we can hear the heartbeat this time because I know J&J have really been looking forward to hearing it. Here are some pictures for y'all to enjoy until next week :)


Head is at the top right butt is at the bottom left. BTW there is still one.

8 weeks 1 day pregnant

Who Can Really Wait Two Weeks??

I have no self control right now for some reason!! I got home Tuesday morning and Kelly picked me up from the airport! Thank God for Kelly because I honestly have no idea what I'd do without her!! Well she brought me home and I took a great nap. Whenever Adam got home Brynna and I woke up from our nap and we all went to pick Brett up from school and then went grocery shopping. Seeing how excited Brett was whenever he saw me in the car melted my heart. I broke down and bought a pack of pregnancy test. I knew it'd be to early but just couldn't wait. I got home and took a test. Negative... I wasn't worried yet because their is a IVF rule. Whenever the transfer number and days past transfer number equal 10 you test. I did a 5 day transfer so a lot of people wont get a positive until day 5.. I tested again the next morning at 9am and another negative(it still was too early so I wasn't getting worried yet BUT I really wanted a positive). So I went and bought another test and around 3pm I took another test.. This test for some reason I couldn't look at it. I didn't want to look at it, I was nervous about seeing a positive and nervous about seeing a negative. It was only 4dp5dt(4days past 5 day transfer) so it still wasn't 10 days yet and I had a feeling it'd still be negative.. I finally go back and what do I see?? The picture looks much better on my phone but for some reason its not as noticeable on here.

I yelled WOO HOO!! Went and showed Adam the test to make sure my eyes weren't playing tricks on me and even though I knew the line was there he still said no he didn't see anything(even though he really did) so I went and asked Brynna and she said she saw 2 lines. That's when I knew it was positive!! BUT it was only 1 test. I wasn't ready to make it official just yet.. I needed more tests. So the next morning I had Brynna's dermatologist appointment and on my way home I went and bought one more pack of test(2 test in a pack) and took another one as soon as I got home.. ANOTHER POSITIVE! And the line was a little darker. Both test were done around noon so not the first morning pee..

 I have 2 more test, one more first response and one digital test. I will be waiting to use those on day 7(tomorrow) and day 8(Sunday). Then I have my beta test on the 12th. A beta test will measure the numeric amount of hCG in my blood. Anything above 5 is considered pregnant but if it's below 100 I will have to go back 2 days later and have another beta test done. Then sometime around thanksgiving I will have my first ultrasound to see the baby/babies. As of today(11/8/13) I am 3 weeks and 4 days pregnant and am due July 21, 2014.. I already feel like I'm showing but I know I'm not. It's just some major bloating lol. BTW so I have a picture I can compared before and after too.. These are my before transfer picture :) ignore the leggings I was trying on clothes haha.

I have not told J&J yet. I asked them before transfer if they wanted to know if I got a positive pregnancy test and they wanted to wait until beta. So I am respecting their wishes and waiting until beta. I am wanting to send them a little gift right around beta but I have no idea what to send. I know I will send their picture of the embryos. But I honestly have no idea what else to send.. Any ideas??

Here are the 5 day embryos again. Now to just wait and see how many implanted...

My Muscular Butt!!

I have had an awesome weekend with my mom in Cali.. I don't think we have laughed this much in a long time. We have laughed so much we've peed ourselves(just a little bit though not too much) and also almost vomited because we were laughing, crying, coughing, holding in our pee, etc and it was all just too much for us to handle. So last night it was day 3. Those of y'all that read my blog know what day 3 means.. 2 shots :( my mom has been giving me my shots while here in Cali and she has surprisingly been doing very well. So last night I call her over to do both shots. We get to talking and then get to cracking up, crying, and holding ourselves trying not to pee. Then we both have to go pee. No we need to focus before I'm going to let her put a needle in my butt! Finally I tell her she can give me the shot. Do you know what she does.. Starts COUNTING!! NO I don't think so just DO IT! You can't count.. So then we start to laughing again. And peeing on ourselves. So another 20 minutes go by. And FINALLY its time for us to do the shots again. So she FINALLY pokes me with the needle and I make this noise not a scream or anything just a noise because yes it did hurt and what do I see in the mirror THE NEEDLE!!! SHE PULLED THE NEEDLE OUT!!! Once the needle goes in you do not pull it back out unless you hit a vein or your done!!! So then we start laughing again uncontrollably. Turns out she was playing DARTS WITH MY BUTT!!  She said she went to give me the shot and the needle bounced off my muscular butt! What in the world did she do wrong?? Oh well we tried again and I told her she better not poke me in the same exact spot and she promised she wouldn't because she could see the blood from where she poked me the first time. Awesome mom glad to know.. So finally we were done with both shots. I'm so thankful that was the last time she will be giving me my shot. Because I think I trust Adam more even though my mom and I get some good laughs each night when it becomes shot time haha. I'm sad she is going back to Texas tonight and I'm going back to NC but only a month and a half until Adam, the kids, and I head to Texas for Christmas!! WOW less than 2 months until Christmas! I hope yall are ready or almost ready :) BTW apparently I have to do these shots for another 8 weeks if I'm pregnant!! If not we start all over. So hopefully I'm pregnant and only have 8 weeks left!

BTW this is more of a spur of the moment blog not really thought out. Also if I'm not to tired tomorrow I will be going to buy a pregnancy test so I can test tomorrow night.. I may wait until Wednesday but either way I will update soon. Some people don't get positives until day 6+ so I wont be to worried if I don't get a positive just yet. It's still early.

What to Expect When Your Expecting..

Before I get into detail about today let me tell you about dinner last night and breakfast this morning!
Last night as you read in my previous blog post we got in late due to the shooting at LAX so whenever my mom and I finally met up at enterprise we decided to go straight to dinner. Since I am in L.A. I HAD to get my favorite... SUSHI!!!! I am in love with this place called B.A.D. Sushi. OH MY GOSH! IT IS AMAZING! My mom agrees :)

This was their sweet green tea and it was so good!

My mom got some 911 sushi and I got the dragon roll. 

After dinner we came home and got ready for the next day. BTW my mom had to give me a shot thankfully she did pretty good because after my shots on Halloween night I was terrified(Adam hit a vein on Halloween night but thankfully he didn't inject the shot it was just not fun that he had to pull the shot out and stick me again in a different spot) 

This morning I woke up at 5:45am!! I guess I'm still stuck on NC time. We ended up going to eat breakfast at a place called Headlines right by the fertility clinic. It was a cute diner and the food was very good. The only thing is if you ask for water be specific and ask for bottled water because my mom got carbonated water.

After breakfast we headed to the clinic to get ready for the transfer. They walked me back to the transfer room and it was GO TIME! Well the doctor came in and informed me that he spoke with J&J about the embryo quality and since the embryo quality wasn't that great they decided they wanted to transfer 2 embryo's instead of 1. I had already thought about them wanting to transfer 2 and I'm okay with that. I would never agree to transfer 3+ but 2 okay. I am still hoping only 1 takes but if 2 takes it will be an extra blessing for them. Also J&J did not come to the transfer because they are wanting to come visit us in NC during the pregnancy instead of going to the transfer. The transfer part wasn't too bad just uncomfortable very uncomfortable. The worst part was probably holding my full bladder for so long and trying so hard to not pee on myself while I was laughing at my mom being goofy..

5 day embryo's

After the transfer I had to lay in the bed kind of upside down for an hour and then bed rest for 24-36 hours. So we headed home and ordered room service and watched movies for the rest of the day. Now let me say I am so thankful that I have never been on bed rest and am hoping that I never have to be. This bed rest is for the birds.. We are so bored sitting in this hotel room when we should be out enjoying beautiful Cali. but we have racked up $35 in hotel movies so far and I have learned that I am the worst at eating in bed.. I think I dropped more food on my bed than I actually ate. Now time for the 2WW(two week wait) to see if the transferred embryos implanted.

BTW I keep mentioning my mom and haven't given you a picture. This is my crazy mother. I don't take her out in public often because she doesn't know how to act ;) haha but really we have had a great time while here in California and had tons of laughs :) I'm so glad she was able to come with me.

So take a guess.. Do you think there will be 1 or 2 babies in there? I have a big feeling it will be 2 but I am hoping for only 1..

My Almost 12 Hour Flight...

Days like today is why I prefer to drive instead of fly. I was raised with 4 brothers and every time we traveled another family member went with us so total we had 7 people going on vacation with us. Instead of spending thousands of dollars just on a flight we drove. Well lately I have been doing a lot of flying and each time I HATE IT! Now before I get any future let me correct myself or else whenever my husband reads this he will leave a comment about it haha. I don’t like driving I like riding along and enjoying the drive. I am not a good long distance driver. I can drive about 4-5 hours and I’m done… For the day. :) Driving makes me so tired and pretty much puts me to sleep but if I’m riding I can stay awake the whole time.

So today I got up at 6am with Adam because he had to leave for work and I wanted to see him before I left. Once he left I got back in bed for about 20 minutes and then started getting ready.. At 7am Brett’s alarm when off and I put him in the shower and then I woke Brynna up about 15 minutes later. Kelly (my friend) picked us up and we dropped the boys off with a friend of ours and headed to the airport. Thankfully the travel agent was able to find me a flight in budget that was out of the Fayetteville Airport that was only 30 minutes away. I got to the airport and for some reason everyone I dealt with was super cranky and just in a foul mood but I didn’t let that get me down. I was on my way to L.A.! Who can have a bad day when going to CALI? Well once we got on our plane they informed us that we were going to be delayed a bit due to weather in Charlotte. We ended up delayed about 30 minutes and then even more. My flight ended up landing in Charlotte at 11:15ish and my second flight was supposed to take off at 11:22. So I got my luggage and RAN to the next flight. Praying that for some random reason the flight was still there. Even though deep down inside I knew it was already gone or the door would be shut. I had to run, in flip flops, from Terminal E all the way to Terminal B and THEN to the end of Terminal B. Once I FINALLY got to my gate I was so excited because I saw people at the desk and the door was open. I was like YES!! I MADE IT! Then realized NOOO!!! It is departing to Atlanta NOT Los Angeles! I MISSED IT :( Instead of walking off and going to the starbucks that was calling my name, I ran up and asked if this was the plane to LAX and she said yes! OH MY GOSH I could have kissed her I was so happy. She said they actually shut the door 10 minutes ago but had to reopen due to all the delayed flights. I was the 2^nd to the last person to get on the flight and they shut the doors right behind us.

About 2-3 hours into the flight rumors started going around about someone getting shot or a shooting happened.. Finally we were told that a TSA agent was shot at the LAX airport!!!! WHAT IN THE WORLD?? I was terrified. I had no idea where my mom was. I had no idea what was happening. I didn’t know how bad LAX was. Was it a crazy person? A terrorist? Was this just the beginning of something worse? No one really knew. So the pilot came on and told us what he could and what was going to happen. Our flight was rerouted to Phoenix, AZ because the LAX airport had been completely shut down. No flights in or out! We ended up landing at the Phoenix airport and thankfully they let us off the plane until they got word that the airport opened back up. I called my mom immediately and turned out she didn’t even leave Dallas yet. The shooting happened before her flight left so they canceled her flight completely. I waited a bit just to see if we were going to leave soon and the flight attendant ended up saying that there was a chance we would not be leaving at all until the morning time!! Well my transfer is scheduled for 9am and I had to be there TONIGHT! So I called the travel agent that booked my flight and talked with her. Right when she was booking a new flight for my mom and me to land in Orange County my mom informed me that they were letting them board her flight in DFW. The travel agent ended up leaving our flight the same and I played the waiting game.
At 1:45pm we were told we would board at 3pm. 2:45pm came and it moved to 4pm. 4pm came and nothing BUT they started boarding other flights to LAX so I waited and waited and WAITED! Finally all flights to LAX were called to board their planes. Instead of going right then I waited 10-15 minutes, I could see my gate from where I was sitting and I waited until the line died down a LOT.

This is not the best picture but behind the people walking towards me, behind them is all the people waiting to get on their planes gate A30-A18 were all flights to LAX and they were boarding all the planes at one time.

We were finally all on the plane and the door was shut. Well then we find out we are stuck waiting for another hour. An hour turns into an hour and a half and then an hour and 45 minutes! I was thankful though that we could still use our electronic devices. So while I waited I started typing up a blog post and texted Adam for a bit. I am bummed that today didn’t turn out quite like I wanted it too but I am extremely thankful that my mom and I were not at the LAX airport whenever the shooting happened. Even though my whole day was spent flying and my plans were ruined I met and talked with some great people today that I will probably never see again. I got some AWESOME coffee and everything worked out :) I have a heavy heart for the family members of the TSA agent who was killed today at the LAX airport and I will be praying for them. I am also praying for the people who were injured. I am also thankful that they only had 1 casualty and that things didn’t end up worse. I still haven’t seen the news but it seems like they acted quickly and were able to save a lot of lives and capture the shooter.
My mom landed in LAX before I took off in the plane but we took off about 10 minutes after she landed. They were not letting vehicles in the airport so we had to take a bus to the rental car place. She ended up going right away to get the car and I was to meet her there. When I finally landed at LAX I went to baggage claim and didn't even wait to see if my suitcase was there. I just had this feeling it didn't make it. Heck I barely made it I double they had enough time to get my suitcase and move it to my plane. Turns out I was correct and my suitcase was on the next plane coming from Charlotte that also happened to land in Phoenix so I waited. AND WAITED(this day has been full of waiting cant you tell haha).

Turns out the plane was at LAX but was waiting on the tarmac and they had no idea when it'd get to a gate. So I told them I was starving and I'd come pick it up tomorrow. Thankfully I was smart and also took a carry on bag also and in my carry on I had transfer day clothes, a pair of pj's, my toothbrush, my laptop, the medications I have to take, and a dinner outfit for dinner last night(we didn't end up changing we just went straight to dinner because we were starving). So I was fine. The other things I knew my mom would have so I was finally done with flying and airports haha. FREEDOM!! Or so I thought. I still had to wait for the shuttle to go to enterprise to rent our car because due to the shooting they were not allowing vehicles into the airport but thankfully that part didn't take too long. Tomorrow I will update about the transfer. Wish me luck :)

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

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.