The Results are In..

So before I get to the exciting part let me tell you about how we got there.. The monitoring clinic we use is a 1 1/2 hour drive. They have local monitoring clinics but most monitoring clinics take 24 hours to get results back. Only a few of them take about 4 hours. The closest one to me is the one in Cary. Also for the whole month of November Adam is in a class from 9am-noon. Since we only have one vehicle if I need the car during that time I have to be able to drop him off by 8:45am and pick him up by noon.. Well we had to figure out a way for me to make it to my appointment and him to be in class on time and get picked up on time.. And thanks to my amazing friend Kelly it all worked out.. Have I mentioned how AWESOME Kelly is. If not, she is freaking AWESOME!!! I ended up being able to leave at 7am and she took the boys to school, then took Adam to work, AND watched Brynna for me. Yup Kelly's amazing :)

On my way to the monitoring clinic I get a phone call from Brett's school saying he forgot his folder and glasses. Great! But thankfully Adam was able to drop off Brett's stuff on his way to class. Then I get a text from Adam saying he left his beret in the car. AWESOME! Those of y'all that don't know what a beret is, here's a picture of him wearing it. Anytime he is in his military uniform he has to wear his beret. If he is indoors he takes it off but outside he has to wear it so he has to have it to get to class..


Even IF I turned around to take it to him I would not get home in time to get it to him. Thankfully he was able to find his PC(patrol cap) and wore that. So now he has realized why he needs to buy another beret OR stop leaving his in the car..

Finally I get to the monitoring clinic and the lady has no record of my appointment. I tell her it's a walk in appointment and she said she is still supposed to get some type of paperwork.. That's when I realized CRAP they sent the form to me to bring and I completely forgot to print it out. So I asked her if I could email it to her and she could print it out. Thankfully she let me do that. She finally let me go back and get my blood work done for my beta test.. That lady drove me crazy! Last time I went to my monitoring appointment she was very nice but this time she was so rude and negative. The form I had didn't have a date in the date spot but the date that was on the form was the date of transfer so she thought I was supposed to get my blood work done then. Ummm.. NO! My transfer was done on the listed dated YOU are supposed to fill out the date spot. I'm supposed to get my beta done 10 days AFTER transfer! She kept telling me I'll let you get the blood work but if it's wrong it's on you... Finally got my blood work done and then headed home. I made it back in time to pick Adam up :) this is my nasty bump from the needle.. My vein felt like it had a rock in it. :(




Once I got home it was time for the waiting game.. I tried to take a nap.. That lasted about 45 minutes :( all I wanted were my beta results!!!! Finally 4pm comes around and I can't wait anymore. I should have gotten my results no later than 2pm what is going on. I had a feeling it was the monitoring clinic that screwed something up. So I call my Cali office that did the transfer(they are the ones who were supposed to call me with the results). I asked them about my beta results and they still had no record.. This is 7 hours AFTER my blood work. It should not take this long. At 5:30pm they call me back and told me they didn't receive my results in time and that we'd have to wait until tomorrow... Ummm... ARE YOU KIDDING ME!! I knew it wasn't their fault it was the monitoring clinics fault BUT I just drove 3 hours for something I could have done local and the results would be ready by tomorrow morning. So I emailed J&J and I don't know what they did but an hour later I get another phone call from the Cali office and somehow my results were in..... Drum roll please...... 380!!!!!! My baby making parts are such over achievers.. Every doctor has their own rules but I was told anything over 20 is pregnant for them and anything over 100 is great.. If it was under 100 I'd have to go back to Cary in 2 days and get another blood test done but if it was over 100 I was for sure pregnant and can schedule my ultrasounds :) so I am FOR SURE PREGNANT!! Now I have to wait 2 more weeks and I will get an ultrasound to confirm how many babies are cozy in my uterus.. I am so excited for J&J to become parents. I am so excited to give them this gift of a child. And cannot wait to go through all the amazing life changing experiences with them and my family.

I have said before that I was going to tell my kids about what I'm doing and now that we know for sure I'm pregnant Adam and I will be telling them this weekend. So be on the look out for a blog post about that :) btw I did not proof read this. I'm on my iPad and I like to proof read it on the computer so if I have tons of typos I'm sorry. I also really wanted to get this posted tonight for everyone to read :)

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 30 Hour LA Visit

I had an AWESOME time in LA. It was amazing. I completely forgot that it gets chilly there in the evening but thankfully it wasn't too bad.

Thursday morning I dropped the kids off with Kelly, a friend of ours who lives down the street, and headed to the Raleigh airport. For those of yall that dont know Kelly was one of the first 3 people I told about me wanting to be a surrogate(she may not even know this haha) I had to tell a few people and use them as references. Well one had to be near me and not be my husband. Kelly and I had just recently started hanging out with the kids and she was NORMAL! I have met other normal people but its very rare to come by haha. I liked hanging out with her and the kids liked her kids. I didn't want her to take it badly and not want to ever hang out again. Thankfully she took it great and offered to help anytime I needed it. I didn't want to abuse her offer but I REALLY needed someone to keep the kids while I went to LA. Adam was warned ahead of time he'd be in the field and I have no family here. I thought about interviewing people asap but was really nervous about some random person watching my kids for 2-3 days(I was leaving Thursday morning and wouldn't be home until Saturday morning. Adam was told he would be home Friday but you never know with the military he could of came home Sunday for all we knew haha) these kids are my life. I already knew I trusted her and the she has a son the same age as Brett and Brynna doesn't care as long as she's with Brett. PLUS she also has a baby and Brynna LOVES babies. Finally I asked her and SHE SAID YES! This took a huge weight off my shoulders but still made me super nervous. Not because I didn't trust her but because of what I was trusting her with. My babies. This was the first time Brett and Brynna have ever stayed overnight with ANYONE other than family. And I will show you the picture she sent me the first night that shows how the sleepover went. Another girl I know that lives across the street from us(I don't want to post her name because I don't know if she wants me to or not) offered to watch Boidoe for me while I was gone. She didn't know why I was leaving because I hadn't made it public yet but they were both HUGE lifesavers and helped out tremendously. Just because it wasn't my kids doesn't mean I would say yes to anyone who wanted to help with Boidoe. I needed to trust this person in my house. I had a few people offer but I was giving someone a key to come into my home without me there. And also Boidoe is our 3rd child if yall haven't noticed on facebook :) haha. So I wanted to give a BIG thank you to both of them :) Now back to the LA trip.

As you can tell they had a great time :)

My flight left at 11am but I had to leave at 7am to get there on time. Well I could of left about 8am but thankfully I left by 7:30 because what I didn't know was that the highway I PLANNED on taking was shut down and I had to go back and take a different route. Finally got to the airport and got on the plane..

Yup I got the VERY back of the plane. It was extremely LOUD! And to top it off there was no window? You know whenever you get on the plane or get your ticket and your like YES WINDOW SEAT? I don't know about you but I love the window seat. Then you get back to your seat at the VERY back of the plane and guess what Sorry about your bad luck we had a budget cut and couldn't afford a window for this row? BUT you get to enjoy the wonderful smell of human pee and crap. Hope you enjoy your flight. As soon as we landed for my second flight I went to the delta desk and asked to change my seat for the second flight. They only had one option available. It was only like 8 seats up but I didn't care haha. My second flight I tried sleeping but it just didn't work out. When I sleep I'm a mouth breather and I sleep with my mouth completely open. It's far from cute. And every time I'd start to doze off I felt my jaw drop open and I'd wake back up. So for the rest of the flight I played games.

I felt so old doing crosswords and drinking coffee but this flight was kicking my butt and I needed something to keep me awake. The coffee was disgusting but I just dealt with it. I NEEDED COFFEE!  

I played candy crush A LOT on this flight and even during the trip because I had a lot of down time. Well GUESS WHAT? I still have not passed this darn level. I even paid $2 extra to try and pass it and NOPE! (BTW don't tell Adam about me paying money for a game haha)

I finally got to the airport and the super shuttle picked me up and took me to my hotel. OMG TRAFFIC WAS HORRIBLE! I have only been to LA once and it was years ago we didn't really stop we just drove through. So I was glad I did not get a rental car. I got to the hotel and at first was a little disappointed. I thought it was an outside hotel. You know like those cheap motel/hotels where the doors are OUTSIDE and it just seems cheap and scary. Well once I really looked around I realized that it was an indoor hotel its just that the breakfast area was in the center of the hotel and that they had that open. It's hard to explain haha. 

I got to my room and was ready for bed but also starving. I knew I really wanted sushi but I also didn't want to go too far so I decided I'd just walk down the street and see what I found. Well as I was walking out the door I decided to ask the people at the front desk and they recommended a place called BAD Sushi and it was about 1/2 a mile walk but I was fine with that

The Sushi was AMAZING! And then I treated myself to some ice cream afterwards.

The next morning I woke up and got breakfast then got ready for the day.

Breakfast was okay. The coffee wasn't all that great but I'm picky when it comes to coffee so thats to be expected. It was better than the airplane coffee though haha. The chocolate muffin was good and the eggs were okay.. The cinnamon roll was a little too sweet. All in all I had a good, stay customer service was great and the people were really friendly. 

Friday afternoon around 11ish I finished packing and getting ready and at 11:45am they called for me a taxi to take my to my appointment. I got in the taxi and he asked me for the address I gave him the address and it took him a minute to figure out where it was. I didn't want him to know I was not from Cali so I told him it's about 5 minutes away(I mapped it on my iphone before we left) and he laughed and said "more like 20" then I realized CRAP I'm in LA not Fayetteville! LA traffic SUCKS! It was horrible! Thankfully it only took about 15 minutes but that was a $10 taxi ride and we only drove 2 miles! So I finally got to the appointment around noon and my appointment was at 12:30 so what did I do while I was there facebook, instagram, and took pictures. This office was GORGEOUS! Like I wanted to live bring my blanket and just move in haha. 

YES I had to make it EXTRA LARGE so you could see all the gorgeous details! It had 2 flat screen tvs, a pretty bench that is not pictured, Some coffee thing that I was too scared to use it made all different types of drinks, these 2 neat bench/seating things, and a bunch of pretty chairs. Oh and those pretty flowers. Just everything was gorgeous. Now lets move on haha.

So I got called back to the Doctors office. He had a bunch of questions. Do I smoke? No. Do I drink? On occasiona. Where do I live? Fayetteville. How many times I've been pregnant? Twice. How many children do I have? 2. Have I had an IUD? Yes. CRAP! I did not want him to ask me this. I already knew what would happen if he asked me this. WHY DID HE HAVE TO ASK THIS?? Well if you have had an IUD you have to go through something called a Mock Cycle? What is a Mock Cycle you ask? It is where you go through all of the pain and suffering for the transfer BUT you don't really do the transfer. The reason they do this is because say if my uterus has scarring from the IUD then my body would not react correctly to the mock cycle and they would not approve me to be a surrogate yet. So he gave me the prescriptions for the mock cycle medications and the instructions on what to do. I was so bummed out this was extra time and money being spent to see if I was going to be approved or not. I seriously wanted to cry. BUT I sucked it up and dealt with it. Then we went into a room and I had to have a ultrasound to check my uterine lining, ovaries, and just see how my baby making parts looked. His exact words were, "Well you know how I told you, you needed a mock cycle??" "Forget I ever said that." I was so confused and terrified? What was wrong? Was I pregnant? Did the IUD screw up my uterus THAT MUCH? WHAT? So all I can say was Oh no whats wrong? And he said, "Your uterine lining is perfect." YAY!! NO MOCK CYCLE!!! I was so excited! GO KAYLA AND MY SUPER BABY MAKING PARTS! After that I had to have my blood pressure checked. My blood pressure is normally 110/70 even pregnant my blood pressure is never over 120/80. The night before I started thinking to myself watch my blood pressure go high during the screening and them disqualify me for my stupid blood pressure. Well they checked my blood pressure and GUESS WHAT? It was 141/82? WHAT THE HECK! I was literally freaking out. I kept telling the nurse how my blood pressure had NEVER EVER been that high. So she checked it on the other arm. It went up to something like 144/84 or something like that. I was freaking out. Didn't understand why it was so high. So she told me to quit thinking about it, they would do the rest of the screening and someone else would check it. So I had my blood drawn.

I HATE getting blood drawn. My veins SUCK. I mean literally SUCK! Do you see a vein there? Nope! NOTHING! Thankfully they could faintly see the vein and only had to poke me once. The first nurse didn't want to do it because she didn't want to chance me having to get poked more than once. THANK GOD! Because that would of been a record breaker! Even though my veins are most of the time not visible I have only been poked once every time I have had to give blood. Now bad to getting my blood pressure taken again. HOPEFULLY for the last time.. A new nurse checked it and this time it was.... DRUM ROLL PLEASE.....  150/90!!!!!!!!!!!! ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME! Was I dying? So the doctor came in and told me to lay down for a little bit and he would personally come check it... 30 minutes later he came back and check it manually and THANK YOU JESUS IT WAS BACK TO NORMAL! 104/74 or something like that I don't remember it was just NORMAL! 

YAY! I was able to leave the clinic now and go get something to eat. Last time I ate was breakfast around 8:30am and it was now 3:30pm! I WAS STARVING! So I started walking right across the street was this cute pizza joint and on the sign it said it was healthy. Healthy pizza? Sure why not haha. I got a veggie pizza to make myself feel a little better about it :) and it was delicious! I mean really really good. A lot better than pizza hut and papa johns ;) 

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After I was done with pizza I thought about calling for a taxi to take me to the mall or something but instead remembered I saw a massage place down the street.. It wasn't really down the street it was like a mile away but I still decided to walk. It felt great out and I just wanted to see what all was around the area since I would end up going back in a few months. So I walked, and walked, and WALKED. It seemed like it took forever but I finally got there. I was SO excited to get a massage it had been months since I last had a massage. I planned on getting one on vacation but it was like $280 for Adam and I to get a massage at the condo so we decided thanks but no thanks. This place in Cali was only $45 for an hour. She told me to get undressed. I was only expecting a back massage so I took off my shirt and bra and kept my pants on. She laughed and told me to take everything off. So I took everything off but my panties. I cover up and lay down and she came back in. The first thing she did was pull my panties ALL the way off my butt! I was a little freaked out but I REALLY wanted this massage! She covered me up with towels and massage first on top of towels. I was like PLEASE dont let this be what she does the WHOLE HOUR! Where is the lotion and the skin to skin I want a real massage. 5 minutes go by and nothing. FINALLY she takes the towels off and gets the lotion! You don't know how excited this got me! My back has been killing me lately and she could tell once she went to work haha. That massage was AWESOME! I was a little uncomfortable and at times WAITING for her finger to go up my butt or something and that would of crossed the line. I would of grabbed my clothes and bag and ran out of the place BUTT NAKED! Not even kidding. The massage went great and I got over the fact that God and the massage therapist could see my butt for the whole hour massage. BTW WHILE I was getting this massage my phone kept ringing. I had it on silent but it still vibrates. I secretly charged it while I was getting the massage. I was using their outlets because my phone only had 8% left. I thought it was Adam but before I went into the massage place I text him and told him I was leaving the phone behind a counter to charge and not to call me because I wouldn't hear it. So I didn't know why he was calling. I think my phone vibrated like 10 different times. And it was not short vibrates they were long and loud -___- So once I was done and got dressed I looked at my phone. I had 6 missed calls and 2 text from MY MOM! I called her back and the first thing she says is "I thought you were kidnapped! Why didn't you answer my calls?" I told her mom I was getting a massage and you kept trying to interrupt me! She was like your in another state far away don't scare me like that! I didn't understand why you told Adam you were putting your phone behind a counter what counter were you using? You could of been kidnapped Kayla! I was like MOM I didn't put it behind a counter I just wanted to wait until AFTER the massage to tell Adam haha. But I was busted about half way through. I paid for the massage with my card and we have a joint account so he checked out account when my mom started to worry and that's when he realized that I wasn't kidnapped I was just getting a massage.. BUSTED! But whenever he realized that it was a 1 hour FULL body massage for just $45 he didn't care haha. Plus it could of been worse. 

I COULD OF BEEN KIDNAPPED! ;)

After that I headed back to the hotel. It was about another mile walk but I was in no rush. During that walk I saw about 8 different homeless people and seriously wanted to feed every single one of them. If I would of passed an atm or something I would of pulled out cash for each of them. It seriously broke my heart.. I have seen homeless people before but nothing like this. Once I got to my hotel I still had another 2 hours to kill. So I headed to BAD Sushi again! If yall can't tell. I'm in love with Sushi and this place is AMAZING! I plan on going back to this place whenever I go back to Cali for the transfer. This time I took my time walking and looked at all the different stores that were near it. I found a place called Blick or something like that. It was an art store and I almost didn't go in. But I saw these ugly cute stuffed animals in the window and decided to spend a few minutes in there to see if I found anything for the kids. I found something called a munny for Brett and got Brynna the ugly cute stuffed animal.

 If you must know what a munny is I have no idea. They have different kinds and colors. I got the iron man one because Bretts room is the avengers and it matched his room theme. Brett was so excited to put all the stickers on it whenever I gave it to him. Whenever I got back I will probably get a few more because he loved them.

I honestly had no idea what to get Brynna but she loves stuffed animals and loves pink so I got her this ugly cute stuffed thing. And she loved it! 

Once I was done with getting them these things I went and ate sushi and headed back to the hotel to wait for my shuttle. I got to my hotel probably 10 minutes before my pick up window started. My pick up window was from 7:30-7:45pm. The guy didn't get there until 8pm! I wasn't that worried UNTIL I realized holy crap we are picking up other people! PLEASE DON'T MAKE ME MISS THIS FLIGHT! I WANT TO GO HOME! Thankfully it was only one other person after me and we headed to the airport. It was 3 girls in the car along with the male driver and what do girls do? We talk haha. One of the girls and I were flying delta and the other girl was flying Korean Air. Turns out she was flying back home to Korea! A lot of yall may not know but about 11 months ago I moved back home from Korea. Adam was stationed in Korea for a year and the kids and I ended up moving there with him part of the time he was there. It was so neat meeting with someone who did kind of the exact opposite and moved from Korea to the US. She asked me how I liked it and I told her I LOVED IT! I asked her how she liked it and she said it was different but she really enjoyed it. She told me thank you for liking her country and I told her I was glad she enjoyed it here. It was so neat meeting here. SO I HAD to take a picture with her. She was so sweet and more than happy to take a picture with me.

Not the best picture but it was night time and I was using my front facing iphone camera and its not always the greatest. I got to my area printed out my boarding pass, got through security with no issues. Then got to my gate, sat down, and charged my phone. All the charging docks at the airport were taken so me being the rebel I am I sat down by an outlet that was not marked for charging purposes. Yep, I know.. I'm hardcore :) 

My flight was supposed to take off at 10pm. Do flights EVER take off on time??? NO! This did not make me happy. I was already exhausted. It was 1am North Carolina time. And I'm normally in bed and asleep before 11pm at home. They finally had us all loaded around 10:30 and we finally took off! This was the MOST uncomfortable plane ride! You know that massage I had earlier.. I needed another one. But just the butt massage part. My butt was SO numb and uncomfortable. It was miserable. I'm fine with tight spaces but the seat needed a LOT more cushion. I'd fall asleep for a few minutes and wake right back up. It was not a good sleep like I was expecting.. BUT on a good note. I sat 4 rows back from first class so I was considered at the FRONT of the plane. AND I got a window seat!! BIG BALLA!! I was so excited. Also I HAD A WINDOW. You remember at the beginning of this blog where I said my row did NOT have a window seat because I was the VERY last row of the plane. Well this time I got the window seat AND a window. I was pretty excited about that :) 

My plane landed at 6am North Carolina time. And they could not get me off that plane fast enough.. I was so uncomfortable, exhausted, I STUNK, and I needed sleep! But I was not cranky. I was still super friendly to everyone. Thats my southern hospitality in me :) So I got in my car turned on pandora and JAMMED OUT! I mean hardcore. My volume was on 30+ it ranged haha. Those of yall that think 30 isn't that loud.. Well in my car... IT IS! It only goes up to 40. I think? But I seriously JAMMED OUT! The whole way home. If I didn't know a song. O well I acted like I did. If I knew a song I sang it loud and proud like I was singing on stage for thousands to hear. THE WHOLE WAY HOME! I sang and sang and sang. That is what I do when I drive tired. Because if I don't sing. I chance falling asleep. And I did not want to do that. So I SANG! BTW it wasn't a short trip it was about 1 1/2 hours. I got home and guess what. I DIDN'T HAVE A HOUSE KEY! I gave one house key to the dog sitter and Adam had the spare. So I called Adam and thankfully he answered on the first try. I got home a little after 8am and crashed out. 

I was miserably tired but I MADE IT! Yes this is me after a 4-5 hour flight and about a 2 hour drive on about 3 hours of sleep! I don't look that bad do I haha.

I honestly have no clue if EVERYTHING is in here and right now I don't want to go back through and proof read. I'm so darn lazy haha. I will go back and reread it in a few days. My blog post will VERY rarely ever be this long because I'm not a fan of long blog post. But there was a lot that went on in those 30 hours it was hard to make this post short. So I hope you enjoyed reading it.

Kayla