THE MOMENT YOU HAVE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR!!!

Six weeks have come and gone and today was the day everyone including myself and J&J have been so anxiously waiting for.. I was asked numerous times by many different people if I knew and until now I didn't. BUT NOW I KNOW! So first lets talk about dinner last night!
Sunday afternoon J&J flew in to Fayetteville and Sunday evening we met them for dinner. I decided not to take the kids for our first dinner and first time meeting face to face. I wanted to be able to enjoy that time out as adults and be able to socialize without constant "BRETT dont touch that.." "Brynna dont eat that." "MOMMY I HAVE TO PEE!" or "MOMMY Brynna took my color!" etc etc haha. Don't get my wrong I love taking my kids out and enjoying family time but for this first dinner I wanted it to be the 4 of us. So Sunday evening the kids stayed with my friend Kelly and we headed to dinner. We did dinner at 5:30pm and we didn't leave until about 7:40pm. It was great talking with them and really getting to know each other more personally. It made me like them that much more! We were all so excited for the next morning and just couldn't wait to finally know. BTW it is colder here in NC than it is in NYC!! YES IT'S FREEZING HERE!! So we headed home after dinner.

I woke up around 5:57am and was not able to really go back to sleep after that. I was so ready for 8:30am to hurry up and be here! Time flew quick and we were starting to run late. Since I had to be gone by 7:50am Kelly took the kids to school and I dropped Adam off and headed to the doctors appointment. Due to on post traffic and catching EVERY RED LIGHT I made it RIGHT ON TIME! But thankfully I was able to fill out all my paperwork at home and had it ready so I didn't need to be there early. So it worked out. J&J ended up getting a tad bit lost but made it right before I was called back. I was weighed before I headed back to do the ultrasound and man I weigh less than I expected :) So that made me happy. Instead of gaining weight I'm just super bloated haha. We were put in another waiting room and then called back to see the doctor. The doctor I am seeing is actually working with about 4 other surrogates right now so I'm glad to know that he is familiar with it. FINALLY it was time to go get the ultrasound.. Since its still very early in the pregnancy I had to have a vaginal sonogram so I had to undress from the waist down. So everyone waited outside and once I was ready they all came in. And that's when we finally were told.. Most of yall were WRONG!!! It's one baby! I just knew it'd be twins but turns out I was also wrong. I was so prepared for it to be twins and that I'd be wider than I am taller haha. But nope only one :) either way I was okay with a singleton or twins but with a single pregnancy I know I can handle it. I know I have carried one baby before. I have delivered one baby before. I know what to expect for the most part. With twins it'd be a whole new experience for me. BUT I am glad we finally know :) That little spot that looks like a ring. The part that looks like it could be a diamond is the baby yup its THAT TINY! We could see the heart beating but couldn't hear it. I will have another appointment next week and we may hear it then. Now I have to go get Brynna ready because we are heading to lunch in just a bit :)

Also I again did not proof read this post. I will probably proof read it this evening so don't judge all my misspelled words or bad grammar :)

Since Ya'll Have Been Asking :)

I have been asked a few times when will I have my first ultrasound to see if I am carrying one or two babies. So I decided since I haven't made a blog post in a few days I will update my blog. My ultrasound will be Monday morning at 8:30am and I will be 6 weeks and 2 day pregnant. I am so nervous but also so excited. The main reason I am nervous is because I could be carrying more than 2 babies, and I am nervous to find out how many. But the reason I am excited is because I am just ready to know how many! I'm praying its only 1 but if it is more than 1 I'm hoping its at most 2! I would flip if one split and their was more than 2! Also I'm nervous and excited because J&J will be coming down for the appointment! They will fly in Sunday late afternoon and we will be going to dinner with them. Then Monday morning they will go to the ultrasound. Even though this is not mine and Adams child I kind of wish he could come to the appointment. But he has a very important test a few days later so he can't miss his classes. So be on the look out for my blog posts coming up about the dinner and ultrasound.

Also I know a few of y'all have been trying to keep up with my blog posts there are 2 ways to subscribe to my blogs so you don't have to go searching for them. On the right side of my blog there is a place to subscribe by email and my blog post will go directly to you email anytime I post. Also if you have a blog of your own you can still follow me by email or you can just go right below that and see where it says follow and follow me there. :)

The Baby I will NOT be Giving Away..

Tonight as I got off the phone with my Granny I realized that I needed to do a blog post about something a lot of y'all may not know.. And I don't blame y'all. I don't think you're stupid or uneducated. Surrogacy isn't publicized like adoption or abortion is. People don't talk about it. For most of y'all I am probably the first person you have ever know to be a surrogate. My Granny asked a few questions that a lot of y'all probably are thinking but don't want to ask. So this post is going to be my post to tell y'all exactly what I'm doing. I am a gestational surrogate NOT a traditional surrogate. The baby I am carrying is NOT my baby. I am not giving away Brett or Brynna's sibling.. The DNA this baby will have will not come from my DNA and it won't have any of my features. J&J looked through profiles and found an ED(egg donor) so it will have her DNA. Whenever the baby is born I will not be giving it away because it is not my baby to give away. It has been and always will be J&J's baby. I am just the incubator for the first 9 months.

Also let me use this post to say during this journey I am pretty much an open book. I want people to ask me questions and become more familiar with surrogacy. Even the "dumb" questions or the awkward questions that you are scared to ask me. ASK! There are very few things I won't answer, one of them is anything about money I prefer to not talk about that. You can google anything about that and get an estimated answer. You can post your questions on my blog, message me on fb, text me, call me, or comment on my fb posts lol.


Kayla

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

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...

FOOD and FUN in Cali

While in Cali all we did was EAT!! I knew I didn't want to eat places I could eat at home. I wanted to eat at different places I've never had before. And we did :) Our first night there we ate at my favorite sushi place and my mom loved it!! It was amazing. The morning of the transfer we had breakfast at Headlines and man that place was SO good!! My only complaint is that I was really wanting some hash browns and I'm not sure if its a Cali/west coast thing or just what they do but the hash browns were liked sliced potatoes but my mom and I got the healthy omelet and it was so good!

 

After breakfast we headed to the transfer and then back to the hotel after that. Since I was on bed rest for 24 hours we took advantage of room service/the hotel restaurant. We stayed at Hotel Angeleno and those beds were AWESOME!! The room service was great! My mom and I ordered the Chicken Cobb Salad and it was so good!! We also got an appetizer but it wasn't that great(I can't remember what it was called though).

After 24 hours was up I still took it easy. My mom and I went to my new favorite coffee place, Peet's, to have some coffee and breakfast. I am seriously obsessed with that place but we don't have one any where that I know of :( So I took advantage of it while in Cali. After Peet's we headed to a nail salon that I happened to look up the night before. I wanted to find one with good reviews BUT was in our price range not in LA price range. Wynn Nail Spa seemed to have a nice atmosphere and be in a decent price range.. Once we got there we realized they didn't open until later than we expected so we did some sightseeing. It was so neat seeing all the different houses and areas. It was crazy seeing how the houses were painted. I would NEVER paint my house the color some of those houses were but on that house, in that area, in Cali it looked good. Finally we got back to the nail salon and I am so glad we went with that place. They were so friendly and did a great job. I don't remember how much everything cost but it was a good price. My mom and I both got a pedicure, eye brows waxed, my mom got her gel nails redone, and we had tons of laughs. During my pedicure I almost kicked the lady in the face!! And this time it was not due to my extremely ticklish feet! During the pedicure they did lots of foot rubs. BUT during one foot rub she put some liquid on my foot and my foot reacted by pulling away extremely fast. It was a little warm. Not too bad but I was expecting cold so the warm scared the crap out of my foot apparently. Thankfully though I didn't kick her and we all laughed about it.

 

 Some other places we ate at were Danny's for lunch. The service was HORRIBLE! But the food was amazing! The bus boy was the one who took care of us most of the time, the server was not good.

My flight home from Cali was supposed to leave at 10:55pm on Monday well my mom and I decided we would go to the airport that morning and see if we could get me on an earlier flight. Well the ONLY flight that left before my flight was 11:10am so we had to head up there early. Before we headed to the airport we went to get breakfast. Traffic was horrible(DUH! It was Monday morning in LA!!) so we decided to go to a place near the airport. I used google and found a place called Good Stuff and that's where we went. My mom had another omelete but I went with french toast. They were both really good. BUT what was amazing was the fresh squeezed orange juice and the salsa!! That salsa was AMAZING!!!!U.S.. Airways wouldn't allow me to get on an earlier flight because of their rule, the only way you can try and fly stand by on an earlier flight is if the flight is no more than 6 hours before your original flight! Well the ONLY flight before my original flight was 11 1/2 hours before it so we did more sight seeing and more eating. So once we left the airport we went to Pete's again so we could get free wifi and kill time.

After a few hours we headed to the beach to see what we could find around there. Cali beaches are SO cold but so peaceful! Once we started walking away from the beach an older man struck up a conversation with us and towards the end we asked if he knew of any food places near that he would recommend. That's how we found a place called The Counter, its a burger place kind of like which wich. They give you a paper and you mark what kind of burger(beef, turkey, chicken, veggie, ect), bun, sauce, veggies, etc. if you don't know what you want you can go off the menu and just mark what each burger on the menu has. Then they come get the menu and paper from you and go make your burger. MAN I was not expecting such a HUGE burger! But it was amazing!!!

After all the food places we headed to the mall so I could get a backpack to carry the rest of my luggage that I got while in Cali and from my mom.. Out of all the food places I'd have to say my FAVORITE place was Danny's, besides the crappy service. So if any of yall are going to Cali(LA) area you might want to stop by at least one of these places :) Also if you like Sushi you HAVE to try B.A.D. Sushi it seriously is delicious sushi! I've only been to Cali twice but have eaten there 4 times now haha. My mom also loved it. Hope y'all enjoyed my reviews :)

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.