If you want to make God laugh...

Wow.

I feel like it has been forever since I last updated, and it kind of has been a while. That is partly due to the fact that I was first waiting for anything interesting to happen that would warrant creating a post, and then during that time waiting for surrogacy stuff to happen, life happened.

So basically we are not much further along in the process, but some progress has been made. I received the first draft of contracts, reviewed it with my lawyer, made a few teensy weensy changes and sent it back off to Tori and Mikie's lawyer to review. Hopefully we can all give it the green light and get to the signing and notarizing step! Luckily, everything seems to be going very smoothly with the contract part. That is probably due to the fact that this journey is more at the level of friends, versus a journey with perfect strangers. It really makes things easy when you already have an open line of communication so there aren't any crazy surprises that make you run for the hills or make your heart jump in your throat. I know some matches can fall through due to contract issues, so I am happy to say that in this instance contracts are no big deal.

We are all set up to do our psychological evaluation for April 17th. I had already been cleared a few months back and done my MMPI testing (which is a psychological test of adult personality and psychopathology) by the same counselor, but I have to do a real quick update and then Tori and Mikie will have their private session, And then lastly we will all four have a session together (Tori, Mikie, Ryan, and I). Contracts absolutely have to be finalized at least 14 days prior to a transfer, but the psych evaluation does not have the same time constraints. To be on the safe side, the counselor told us she would go ahead and email our surrogacy coordinator nurse at the clinic to let them know I have been evaluated and cleared previously, so this second screenign is more of a formality and to make sure we are doing things by the book.

They say if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans. God must be rolling on the fluffy, white cloud covered floor of heaven in a fit of laughter then because my period was suppose to arrive around April 19th. That would make me 10 whole days late as of now. PANIC! MAYHEM! PANDEMONIUM! At first I kept telling myself, oh it will show up tonight or tomorrow morning. I've gone almost 6 years now without having any more little 'oops' or accidents. It is seriously not that hard to NOT get pregnant. I'd be damned if it happened the month before I am suppose to get pregnant with someone else's baby. I was 99% certain that I was not pregnant. I've been pregnant before, I know the symptoms and what to look for and I had zero. In fact, I was having all of the normal symptoms of starting my period, such as irritability and breaking out, but without any crimson flow. Just my luck. When you don't want your period to come, it always makes a grand entrance. When you want your period to come, it takes its sweet time. Such is life. Anyways, I decided to try all the trick in the book to jump start aunt flow. One trick I have heard is to megadose on vitamin C. But to do this, I first needed to make sure I was truly not pregnant. I ran to good ol' Walgreen and bought myself a 3 pack of red dye pregnancy tests and immediately went to my sister-in-laws house to pee on them. Her house is sort of becoming the unofficial POAS (short for Pee On A Stick) house. I figured since I have been a high HCG producer in the past, and as already late that if I were pregnant, the line would be clearly visible. So I take the test, wait the required 3 minutes, take a peek, and was satisfied to see that it appeared to be a BFN. Since I share my journey with a FB support group of fellow surrogate and they all knew I was expecting my period, I decided to post a pic of my negative pee stick. to my surprise, instead of them agreeing that it was indeed a BFN, my surro sisters were telling me they saw a squinter! "I think I see a line" "Give it more time to dry and then recheck it", "take a new pic in the natural sunlight" and "Look at it with this filter on the photo" were all the comments I was receiving. So of course my mood flipped from being calm and reassured to HOLY FUCK WHAT IS GOING ON!!! NO NO NO NO NO!! I examined the pee stick in every single room of Kristina's house. Took a million different pictures from different angles, asked for Kristina to look at it with her own eyes, and we both deduced that there did seem to be A line, but it wasn't THE line. Sometimes you eyes can just play cruel tricks on you. When Kristina was trying to get pregnant, she too swore that she saw faint lines on her pee sticks but they were negative. Then there is also something known as an evaporation line, in which a line appears, but it is not always in the correct place where the dye should light up, or its a greyish color, not the pink. I decided to not stress over it and to retest in the morning with some fresh pee. To my relief, there ws absolutely no line whatsoever on the second and 3rd retests, and my surro friends with their super powered surro eyes confirmed that it was indeed probably a fluke and that the following 2 tests definitely looked negative. Phew!

But why am I still not bleeding!? I decided to go to my doctor on Monday and see about getting a prescription for a medication known as Provera. I have had to take it in the past once before due to irregular cycles. I swear, my body is healthy, but sometimes it can just be a little bitch. Excuse my french, but I drop swear words often. So part of getting prescribed Provera pills is that the doctor has to confirm you are not pregnant. Telling them you took at home pregnancy tests and got negatives is not good enough. they need irrefutable proof, so I was sent off for blood work. Everything came back all honky dory, and I picked up my prescription the next day. On top of taking those pills, I also decided to go ahead and put my workouts on hold. I have heard that extreme physical activity can sometimes cause irregular periods, so I would rather miss out on a few days at the gym if it meant my period would finally decide to show her ugly face. There are times in your life when you want the clock to hurry up, and then there are times in your life when you want the clock to just stop ticking or go snail speed. Every day I have wished that the day would not end because it meant another day had passed that I couldn't call up Tori and tell her my period had finally arrived. I hate it. I hate thinking I am being a disappointment or making their hearts freeze in fear. Even though those thoughts have creeped into my head, I have tried to keep them at bay so as not to stress myself out. I know stress can play an important factor in period cycles as well. Man, being a woman is tough! So many factors come into play and have an effect on you. I usually describe myself as a stress-free person. Stress just rolls right off me. Namaste! or maybe it doesn't.... maybe I am just a good faker? Even at faking myself to believe I am not stressed?

I carry a lot of things on my shoulders but I never actually stop to say "OK, help, I am drowning here". Instead I just keep doggy paddling on, trying to catch my breath and saying everything is A-OK. I got this. My mind doesn't feel the weight of the stress, but maybe my MIA period is trying to tell me something. I'm a full time student, work a part time job, and my husband's hours got cut so we are living off of basically half a normal paycheck without all his wonderful overtime pay (oilfield industry.... never thought I'd ask for $3 gas prices to return), have a 5 year old son who participates in some type of sport every season which requires practices and games, shopping for gear, etc. He only attends daycare 3 days a week, which are for the days that I am in school, so my 'off' days I am not really off per se. I am helping my sister in law with her newborn son periodically, babysitting (and getting lots of wonderful snuggles) when she needs to run a few errands, chauffeuring them to doctor appointments, working on an average of 2 papers a week for school, plus a major project, cleaning up after an 85 year old and 5 year old and trying to keep up with the demands of having dinner ready every night like a good little housewife should, although I have admittedly been slacking on the dinners (sorry babe), taking Grandma to get her hair done, which always inevitably ends up taking at least 3 hours out of my day, and to put the cherry on the top of this hot mess, I possibly fractured some part of both my arms  (feels like elbow on left arm and possibly radial or ulnar on my right, I'm not sure) while at a birthday party at a skate rink, so it is off to an orthopedic next week for more xrays and diagnosis. I'm hoping it is nothing serious. Oh, and I was assigned that task of planning a little family vacation for this upcoming weekend. Got it all done, but I am starting to feel drained. And so here I sit, still no period. It is absolutely maddening. I cannot wait to graduate in May and hopefully just be coasting through a pregnancy by then.

It is kind of a weird thing to say.... that pregnancy is calming. Usually when a person gets pregnant is when all hell breaks loose, but to me, pregnancy is the easy part. It is all of the little things that have to be done prior to get there that really piles on the stress. But the growing part is kind of cathartic to me. I'm in my element when I am pregnant. Of course these feelings may change over time as my body gets older and used up, but for now I am relishing in it.

As I mentioned a few sentences earlier, I am going on a little family trip since it is a long weekend due to the Easter holiday. We are taking Hayden to Sea World, staying at a hotel on the River Walk, and then going to Schlitterbahn. I would like to start my period sometime at the beginning of this week so that I can finally go in for screening, but something tells me I should put my money on starting my period while at the water park because that just seems to be how life works. Maybe I need to go put on my nicest panties and white shorts to see if that will coax my period to show, because it obviously has a sick sense of humor.

So that is all for now. Please send me bloody vibes!! Baby Fisher/s said they are getting cold sitting in that freezer at the clinic and can't wait to be in my warm fluffy uterus! Haha!

 The BFN pregnancy test that scared us into thinking it was a BFP,
but it was really just an evap line. Test your eyes... do YOU see anything??

 Our weekly snuggle time with Hutch. Hayden is such a proud cousin

(L) My almost 6 pack, taken right before I quit working out, so now its more like a 1 pack
(R) At the Skate Rink for my sister's 80's themed suprise Bday party where I injured my arms. I was going for the grudge rock look, like K. Stew in the movie The Runaways.

Hurry up and wait

Hello again everyone!

I am trying my best to make sure that I make a new post roughly once a week. Sometimes throughout the journey I may space posts out if there isn't really anything interesting happening, or sometimes I may post more often if there is a lot going on. For now I am just playing it by ear. Also, I am so surprised at the amount of people who have actually read my first blog post, and by all of the loving comments and the overwhelming support. People who I have not seen or talked to in years, people who I only know through the internet, parents of old high school friends who are all taking the time to read/share my blog and come up to me and converse. It is all so cool how technology connects us.

Right now we are still in the contract phase of things. I let Tori and Mikie use my lawyer friend and fellow surrogate friend (she carried triplets in 2013 too so she is pretty much the most amazing person ever!), Simi Denson to represent them, and I am using a lawyer based on Simi's recommendation, Amy Lambert. It feels a bit weird not having Simi as my legal representative this time around because I am so use to her being MY lawyer and so anytime I talk with Tori, I catch myself still saying My lawyer instead of YOUR lawyer in reference to Simi. It is a tough habit to break! Haha. But I feel confident that Simi is going to do a fantastic job at representing them and the whole contract phase will breeze right on by. This is a great example of how carrying for a friend can be the perfect scenario. Sometimes during the contract phase there may be disagreements between surrogates and IPs, and sometimes the disagreements are too difficult to find a compromise and the match ultimately falls through. I have not yet received my first draft of the contract yet, but  it should be any day now that I hear from my lawyer. I expect it to be pretty much perfect since Tori and I already discussed practically everything prior to beginning the legal phase so we are on the same page, coupled with the fact that Simi is involved in the mix and already has a good amount of knowledge of my preferences too since she has represented me once before and is a friend.

I also had to fill out a bunch of health history forms and questionnaires for the IVF clinic, Houston Fertility Institute, and for the FDA. It can be super time consuming and repetitive, but they like to be overly cautious in these matters, which makes sense. I also have to set up an appointment to have blood work done for both me and my husband, as well as a psychological evaluation. They basically want to make sure a person is mentally prepared for all that surrogacy entails. I try not to let too much of my crazy show! Haha, just kidding. For some people, the idea of carrying a baby for 9 months and then giving it away to the IPs can be a difficult thing, but I seem to handle it pretty well. I actually surprised myself by how well I handled the emotional side of things with my first surrogacy. My husband even commented on how I did not cry, not even a single tear, when my surrobaby, Jaden, was born. Nor did I cry in the weeks following the delivery. I balled like a baby when I gave birth to my son, but the birth of my surrobabe was somehow on a different emotional level. The relationship is also more so between me and the intended parents, rather than with any baby that results from a pregnancy. Of course they are cute and cuddly, but the real satisfaction of being a surrogate comes from seeing the look in the parents' eyes as they finally meet their long awaited child. We surros call it "the moment" and it is practically what every surrogate lives for. If it is a good journey with a healthy relationship between the IPs, we do not feel empty or like there is something missing or any sort of loss. I simply feel accomplished and loved in a very unique way. And I definitely expect to feel even more loved in this next journey with Tori and Mikie since we have already had extra time to establish a friendship prior to matching. From here, I expect our relationship to continue to get even closer. Like, super duper close lol. Even though I did not cry at the birth of my first surrobabe, I most likely will cry at the birth of Tori and Mikie's baby girl/girls since we are all so much more emotionally invested. It makes my heart swell just thinking about it!

This past weekend the four of us (Tori, Mikie, Ryan and I) got together for dinner. Even though I have known Tori for roughly a year now, I have never met Mikie due to his busy work schedule. Both were at my sister-in-law's wedding rehearsal dinner, but we sat at opposite ends of the dinner table and therefore did not get to formally meet. Plus, who would have guessed that we would be were we are today! I like to believe that people come into our lives for a reason. I think we discovered our reason lol. Dinner was great! Mikie is hilarious and Tori's laugh is utterly infectious. Tori calls our son her little boyfriend. He is definitely sweet on her. Since we got to the restaurant before Tori and Mikie, Hayden got to pick his seat out and told us he wanted to sit by Miss Tori. When Mikie arrived and sat on the other side of Tori, Hayden was slightly jealous and territorial of her. He's never met Mikie before either (obviously) so the idea of having to share his girlfriend was completely new to him. His facial expressions were priceless. Mikie joked that if his baby came out with any dents in her forehead that he would beat Ryan up and we all busted out laughing. I can imagine how awkward it must be to think about someone in a marriage having "bedroom relations" when they are carrying your baby. Guys often already think it is weird enough to do those things when it is their baby inside their own spouses belly, but add in the fact that it is a surrogacy and it could get uncomfortable. I am just happy that they both had a great sense of humor about it all. Tori also told me that prior to dinner, she kept telling Mikie to change his shirts to something nicer, and he said something along the lines of "We may be trying to put our baby in her, but we aren't trying to actually screw 'em!" Once again, laughter ensued. I wish i had actually remembered to snap a picture of all four of us together. I promise one next time!

I am very anxious and excited to meet their RE doctor too. From the stories Tori tells me, he is very kind and also very funny. She showed him a picture of me and he asked if I was Asian, too. I, indeed, am a quarter Vietnamese. He said he could tell by my eyes, but that they were not as squinty as his! A person who can laugh at themselves is definitely a person I need in my life.

So, to touch on the title of this post, we are hurrying up with all of the required steps, such as legal and clinical work, and then we wait for my monthly cycle to appear, which fortunately won't be too long from now. Once I start my period, I will go in for screening, get my lining checked, and hopefully be sent home with meds and a calendar. I am not the doctor, so I can't be too sure on a time frame, but we are hoping for transfer around the middle to end of April. I was in the Dollar Store yesterday and saw some pregnancy tests on display in the checkout aisle and snapped a pic of them and sent it via text to Tori saying how hard it was to resist the urge to buy all of the tests in preparation for May. I am a Pee-On-A-Stick-oholic! I will likely start taking pregnancy tests on the third day after our transfer and continue to pee up until we have our beta blood drawl. Time is going by so slow it seems. I am ready to be pregnant already with baby Fisher! Until then, I just continue to go about my days; school, work, gym, repeat. It may seem odd that I am working out so often and getting in such good shape when I potentially will be pregnant in a few short months and get "big", but a healthy pregnancy starts before the actual pregnancy, and I hope to be able to continue to lightly workout throughout a pregnancy as well to help make for an easy delivery. Regardless of whether it is a singleton or twins, I hope to have a vaginal delivery. C-sections scare me, although if medically necessary I would not hesitate to have one, because at the end of the day, all that will matter is the safe arrival of their baby girl/girls.

Must. Resist. Urge. To. Buy. All. The. Pregnancy. Tests!

Not Surrogate related, but I just have to brag on my son. A little over a week ago, after I had left for work and before Ryan had made it home from work, our grandmother (known as GG to Hayden) had a fall in the kitchen and busted her face and cut open her hand. Hayden was home alone with her for about 10 -15 minutes until Ryan showed up, and responded so bravely and calmly. He had heard the commotion and came out of his bedroom to find GG on the floor and bleeding profusely. She is on blood thinners, so you can imagine the scene! He immediately came to GG's aide, getting paper towels to apply to the wound and asking her if he should run to the neighbor's house next door (a friend whom mommy often gets help from if GG falls) and get her to come over and help. GG was not comfortable with him leaving the house alone, so he then brought her the phone to call for help. She asked him for the phone book too (don't ask me why she didn't just call 911, she "didn't want to make a big fuss" even though she clearly needed medical attention) but Hayden doesn't exactly know what a phone book is, so he brought her a bible! She said "No, Hayden, the book next to GG's chair" so he goes back and brings her a second, smaller bible. Luckily it wasn't too long before Ryan arrived home and they called 911 and the Fire Department and ambulance arrived within minutes. The Fire Department was particularly proud of Hayden for remaining calm during the crisis and providing as much help to GG as he could. They decided to award him a medal and certificate as an Honorary Junior Fire Fighter and let us tour the station and fire truck, as well as providing us with a hot dog dinner. It was super sweet and Hayden was so excited. He asked to sleep with his medal on tonight. I had to tell him no, since it may be a choking hazard, so he now has it on his bedside table and also asked for permission to bring it to daycare tomorrow to show all of his friends and teachers. And so that is my Proud Mommy Moment of the week!

Also not surrogacy related, but my sweet little nephew is one week old now, and I am dying from his cuteness. I still can't believe he is here and not still in his mommy's tummy! He was smiling for the picture with me, so he obviously already loves his Aunt Jade!

That is pretty much all that I have to update on for now! Pretty soon the real fun starts: injections with huge needles and thick oil based medicines, fluctuating hormones, and transfer day! Wish us luck! We need all that we can get!

Looking Back & Moving Forward

Hi Everyone!

I say "everyone", but realistically there is probably not a lot of you reading this just yet, and that's OK! I am new to this blogging world, but so very excited to begin sharing my experiences, thoughts, and feelings. Let's start off by getting everyone up to speed. I apologize in advance for the length.

So, to give a little background info about myself: My name is Jade. I am 24 years old and married to my high school sweetheart, Ryan. Together we have a 5 year old son named Hayden. Ryan works in the Oil & Gas industry and I attend college full time at WCJC (graduate this May!). I work a part time job at Smoothie Factory, which I love because my coworkers are awesome and the job is very low stress. I also perform all of the duties involved with being a mom and wife. Oh, and probably the most important detail of my current life situation is that I am a proud SURROGATE!

I became interested in surrogacy after the birth of my son. Even though I became a mother at a young age, I have often been told that I have a very mature soul. Maybe it was all of the postpartum hormones, but after I experienced the joy of birth and having this tiny, living human being in my arms and being flooded with emotions of love and devotion, I experienced a second, and rather unexpected flood of emotions of empathy for those who may not ever get to experience holding and caring for their newborn child/children and watching them grow over the course of a lifetime. I began researching ways to help and discovered that I could be a surrogate once I turned 21. Since I was barely 19, I decided to give myself time to think about surrogacy. After all, it is a big commitment and I was unsure of the whole process or how I might feel. Would I even be a good candidate? Is it hard to give the baby to the parents after being responsible for it's safety and development for 9 months? Would anyone actually be interested in using me as their surrogate? All of these questions swirled in my mind, but I had 2 whole years to sit and think on it before I turned 21. And so that is exactly what I did.

During my research into surrogacy, I also discovered egg donation. The minimum age requirements to be an egg donor was set at 18, so I decided to apply to be an egg donor and considered it sort of like a trial run for the next step into surrogacy. I applied with Houston Fertility Specialists and within a year had been selected by 2 different couples to do back to back egg donations. The timing was perfect, as Ryan and I were planning our wedding and needed the extra income to pay for everything. Throughout the blood-work, screening, and psychological evaluations it became apparent to me that I was blessed with good health and mental strength. Even though it was a closed donation, meaning I knew nothing about the intended parents receiving my eggs, or weather it ever resulted in a pregnancy or not, I was extremely satisfied with the experience and even more impressed with my coping abilities.

After our wedding and honeymoon, I reached the age of 21. Surrogacy was still on my mind, and the small seed of the idea had sprouted. I knew I was ready for the next step. The psychologist who did my evaluation for the egg donation program had handed me a flyer for an agency for surrogacy. I am a bit OCD and very organized so I still had the flyer in all of my paperwork and so I immediately looked into it. The agency was called Fertility Resources of Houston. I submitted my application to be a surrogate for them and within a few short months I was screened and going on potential match meetings for IPs (intended parents). It only took  2 meetings with different couples to find my match: an older Asian couple who had been trying to conceive for a few years, but unfortunately had an ectopic pregnancy, which resulted in surgery, and ended in an emergency hysterectomy. Their only options left now were adoption or surrogacy. I always try to encourage people to refrain from judgment of others decisions, because they do not know how incredibly difficult it actually is to decide to go forward with either option. They chose to try having a child via surrogacy, and had a previous surrogate who unfortunately lost their baby at around 14 weeks. Their doctor recommended they look for a new surrogate, and that is when they found me!

It took 2 transfers: the first transfer we used IM's (intended mother's) last 2 frozen embryos. They were graded poor/fair quality. It was not successful, so our second option was to use an egg donor. Once they selected their donor and did the retrieval, we had our second transfer of 2 fresh embryos graded A and A+ quality. 3 days after the transfer I began peeing on pregnancy tests like crazy. and by the end of day 4 we got a faint positive. I continued to pee on sticks and watched them get darker with each passing day. I did not want to give false hope to the IPs so I bit my tongue and waited till beta. My beta numbers came back through the roof! My surrogate coordinator with the agency told me 'Jade, I want you to mentally prepare yourself for twins, because your numbers are crazy high." Not going to lie, I was freaked the F out. How can someone as tiny as me carry twins?! Will they grow to be healthy? Can I keep them in long enough to be viable outside the womb? What will this do to my body? After the initial shock and worry, I actually became excited. This was potentially wonderful news for the IPs if it were in fact twins. When we went in for the ultrasound at 6 weeks to confirm heartbeats, sure enough it was twins! Unfortunately, the RE doctor told us he didn't think the second baby would continue to grow. By my 8 week ultrasound we discovered he was right, there was only one baby left growing in there. I was feeling so many mixed emotions. I had just began to wrap my head around the idea of carrying twins and getting excited, but I was also relieved to know that it would be a much less scary and overall more healthy pregnancy with just one baby occupying my tiny tummy space. I was released to my regular OB at 10 wks. I decided to chose a new OB, not the one who delivered my son, so I got a recommendation from my mom's coworker/friend. My new OB was Dr. Erica Roberts with Advanced OBGYN and I absolutely loved her. She was so gentle and calm, and most importantly listened to how I wanted my pregnancy and delivery to go down. She also spent time with my IPs to make sure they were included in every step and fully understood what was going on throughout the pregnancy (small language barrier due to IPs Asian background). Overall I had a wonderful pregnancy and delivered a healthy baby boy in October of 2013 at 39 weeks gestation. He was 6lbs 14oz nd 21 inches long. My ribs were so happy to not be kicked and jabbed anymore! IPs were over the moon and so wonderfully grateful for the gift of their child. We continue to maintain a relationship with updates and visits.

For the next 14 months I became a milk factory. I had nursed my son for 6 months, but never exclusively pumped before, so I had no idea how I would do. I gifted my IPs milk for the first month, and then signed up with a milk bank called PMB, located in Cali. It became pretty evident by week 3 that I was a huge producer, averaging around 120 ounces per day. My initial goal was to pump for 6 months to help with recovery. For the first 4 months, I was hooked up to the pump every 2 hours for 1.5 hours, around the clock, morning, noon, and night. It was a full time job. No, it was beyond a full time job. So many nights I wanted to cry and throw in the towel. I would somehow find the strength to push through it. Over time it became easier. I began to space my pumps out, even though my ounces dropped to 100opd. I maintained this schedule till around 9 months pp, then I spaced my pumps further part once more and dropped to 85opd. Everyone in my family became used to my pumping life. My friends also got the memo, as I had to decline several invites to go out or hang out. Anytime someone would call me and ask what I was doing, my answer was always the same: "Just sitting here, pumping." It was an extreme love/hate relationship. I will admit, I looked fan-freaking-tastic. Size zero waist, with 34DDD boobs. They were almost too big though. I could never find a bra that was comfortable, and I also did not want to spend $80 dollars on one either, so I lived in sports bras the whole time and would buy new ones whenever they got too stretched out. It seemed to work well. Around the 13 month mark, I decided I was ready to wean and do another surrogacy. All of my fellow surrogates who had delivered around the same time as me were beginning to get pregnant again, either with their own 'keeper' babies, new journeys, or sibling projects. I got prego fever! When all was said and done, I had donated 30,768 ounces to the milk bank. That number does not include the milk I gave to my surrobabe, or the milk I donated to a fellow Surro's triplet surrobabes, or a local momma on a handful of occasions. This was a huge accomplishment for me. Who would have ever thought my little A cup boobies could be such over achievers! Go me!

I began the search for new IPs for surro journey #2. A fellow Surro friend contacted me with a potential couple who seemed would be a good match. They were also of Asian decent, living in Houston and looking to transfer asap. We met and matched, but unfortunately once it came time for contracts we discovered there were a few details that ended up being major factors, resulting in us 'breaking up' so to speak. The main issue being that their IVF doctor wanted to transfer AT LEAST 3 embryos, even though I was only comfortable with carrying twins. This did not sit right with me at all, and so I made the hard decision to back out of the match. Those who know me, know that I am a people pleaser, very non-confrontational and passive aggressive. The letter to the IPs was one of the hardest letters I've ever had to write. I felt like I was letting them down in a big way, but I knew somewhere out there was the perfect match for me. And somewhere out there was the perfect match for them too. They deserved a surrogate who would be OK with all of their needs and wants, it just wasn't me. I love being a surrogate, but I have to do what is best for my body, and my family.

And so I began the hunt for new IPs once more. Throughout this whole time, a close friend of my sister-in-law had been experiencing infertility issues and undergoing IVF treatment for herself. I began to grow closer with her; sharing her journey, comparing medicines and their side effects, swapping IVF stories, giving support and encouragement, telling her silly superstitions to do before, during, and after transfers, and wishing with all of my might that she would have a successful pregnancy. Her name is Tori Fisher, and she is the strongest, most resilient woman I know. You can read her blog here: http://www.thefisherjourney.blogspot.com/

Unfortunately, her transfers were unsuccessful, and her doctor recommended that they start considering surrogacy. I had been on the back burner as a last resort, but we had all hoped I would not actually ever be needed. It is only natural to want to carry your own child and experience all the goods and bads of pregnancy. When Tori told me the news, I felt deep down inside that this was my duty. It did not make sense for the universe to have me, a surrogate, and her, struggling to grow a family be so close and NOT be HER surrogate. Maybe this was in the cards all along. Maybe this was why my previous match fell through. I knew this was not an easy decision to have to make, so I offered my 'services' and prepared myself for an answer either way, telling her that I would be here in whichever way she needed me, as a surrogate, or just as a supportive friend.

Monday Morning I got the text that her and her husband and family had talked it over during the weekend and would like to use me as their surrogate. I was, and still am beyond honored. I went to lunch with my husband and son that day at Pei Wei, and couldn't help but feel as though the universe was giving more signs that all was well. When we ate our fortune cookies, mine said "Your Example will inspire others." Sweet! Who wouldn't want to be a source of inspiration. We all need to be the good we want to see in the world. And then I opened my son's fortune cookie and had yet another nice little affirmation. It read "A small gift can bring joy to the whole family." Well, how could I not read into that as a small gift being a baby/babies and the whole family being mine and Tori's?!? It was just too perfect.

Then, Monday night, just as we were laying down for bed, my husband got the call that his sister's water had broke and they were headed to the hospital. She was only 35.5 weeks pregnant, and this was very unexpected news. As we were heading to the hospital to join her and the rest of the family, I couldn't help but think how my day started with the beginning steps to a pregnancy, and was ending with the final steps of another. Luckily, even with my nephew arriving early, he was a nice size, and healthy as can be. He came into the world via c-section on 3/2/2015 weighing 7lbs 3oz and 19.5inches long, and requiring no NICU time. I am so proud of my sister-in-law for remaining calm throughout the entire situation, lasting through 19 hours of labor, and being at peace with having to have a c-section. Her and her hubby are going to be great parents. I know this because they are phenomenal at being my son's aunt and uncle.

The next steps to come are screening and blood work to determine that I am cleared to carry for Tori and Mike. We are already in the process of working on contracts, and setting up appointments with the clinic. Since Tori and Mike have already had their embryos tested, we know they are all girl embryos. I am so excited at the idea to carry a girl. I have only ever carried 2 boys, and have a suspicion that if I were to try and have another kiddo of my own, it would be another boy. I'm no fortune teller, but it's just a feeling in my gut. Speaking of fortune tellers, I was talking to Tori today while at the hospital visiting my SIL and new baby nephew and was telling her a story about my grandma's fortune teller from Europe. Years ago, the fortune teller told my mother than one of her daughters (there are 3 of us) would give birth to twins. For the longest time we debated on who it would be. As far as I know, our family does not have a history of twins. We suspected that it would be my middle sister, Kayla, but who would have guessed that I would grow up to be a surrogate. Often with IVF, 2 embryos are transferred to increase the odds of at least one embryo sticking. Obviously the likelihood of twins is more common by doing this too. I can't help but think now that maybe the fortune teller was talking about me. She never said which daughter it would be, and she never specified that it would be twins for our family, she simply stated that one of us would give birth to twins. Eerie, I know! So lets see what the future holds!

Thanks for reading this post/book! I will try to keep my future posts short and sweet. Wish us luck as we start our journey to making the Fisher baby/babies!!

Here are a few pics!

- Birth of Surrobaby 2013

- Weekly Milk Donation to PMB!

- My little family (8 months prego with surrobabe)

- My super supportive Hubby

- Tori (IM) and baby Hutch (my nephew!)

-The ever-so-handsome Mr. Hutch