See! ⬇️ There’s the proof. Well, I guess it’s proof that I’m pregnant, but not that I’m on a surrogacy journey or that the child isn’t mine.
You might have gathered by now that…
I’m a surrogate.
I started my surrogacy journey in March 2018, and now in August 2019, I am 35 weeks pregnant. The due date for the baby is September 6.
Writing about my surrogacy journey is hard, because as I’ve discovered along the way, there are varying levels of understanding around surrogacy. I’ve also found that folks have a lot of questions about it. I’d love to just start someplace, and based off of your comments or questions, I can always add another post to clarify more.
Why don’t I start with an overview of my journey?
The Surrogacy Journey
Back in March 2018 …
…when I started seriously looking into becoming a surrogate, I filled out a long application for a surrogacy agency. After looking at several agencies, I decided on Conceivabilities.
Once accepted, I had a call to learn more about the process. From there, there was a bunch of medical screening we had to do to ensure my past pregnancies or other medical history didn’t raise any red flags for this potential surrogacy.
The medical process took a couple months, but once that was finished, Conceivabilities worked on matching me with a family. They match us based on different aspects about us and also answers to questions about how we would like the surrogacy to go.
Some questions included:
- the number of embryos we’d be ok with transferring,
- whether or not we would like to stay in contact after the surrogacy journey,
- how much interaction we’d like to have during the surrogacy journey,
- our thoughts about genetic testing,
- preferences on the type of family we’re matched with (i.e., same sex, opposite sex, single mom, single dad, no preference),
- how we feel about selective reduction
Once my Conceivabilities Match Manager, Kim, found a potential match for me, the family got to see my profile. That family (what we call the “Intended Parents” or “IPs”) decided to move forward, and the next step was to meet over a video call with myself, my husband (since he’ll naturally be affected), the Intended Mother, the Intended Father, and someone from the agency.
July 4, 2018
In the chat, we talked about basic things, and we also talked through a couple of the questions like the ones I mentioned above. After the call, we each had to decide whether not we wanted to move forward with the other party.
In the end, we all agreed that we felt like a good match! 🎉
From there, we had to fill out some legal paperwork (a contract). I also had to fly to their fertility clinic in Houston to do an additional medical screening. The family also used this time to do genetic testing on the embryos they had retrieved. This is pretty standard, I’ve found, and for us it took another couple of months.
Once all of those things were complete, we were able to schedule the embryo transfer date for November 12, 2018. I would have to fly back to Houston to do it.
The Embryo Transfer
In November 2018…
…I went out to Houston by myself. Normally, surrogates bring their husband or another family member with them. My husband couldn’t make it, and I felt that was OK.
On the 12th, we performed the transfer, which was pretty quick.
After that, I had to stay in the hotel bed for about 1-1/2 days before flying home.
Unfortunately, on my way to the airport to get back to Fort Collins, my rental car broke down in the middle of the highway in Houston (a great way to start my surrogacy journey 🙄)!
I’ll spare you from the drama, but will share that it took about 4 hours and the grace (finally!) of one angel rental car employee, plus one cool Uber driver to get me out of the situation.
Once I finally got home after the embryo transfer, I had to wait about 2 weeks to take the “pregnancy confirmation” blood test, so I took some pregnancy tests just to see if we could get excited early.
While the pregnancy tests look decent, the blood test results (called a “beta”) didn’t. Just past Thanksgiving, we found that the hCG* results were lower than expected.
*hCG is a hormone produced by the placenta, which indicates a viable pregnancy.
Since the results were low, but not low enough to be negative, it could either mean that the embryo successfully implanted, but didn’t survive, or that the embryo attached in my Fallopian tube instead of in my uterus. Either way sounded like rotten news. We took another blood test a couple days later, and it was confirmed that there was no pregnancy.
It was a really sad and odd time! It almost felt like a failure on my part. Thoughts like…
“What could or should I have done to have prevented this,”
…crossed my mind. I knew those weren’t rational, however. I felt terrible for the Intended Parents who just want a child and who have worked so hard to get to this point!
From this stage, the family and I agreed that we’d like to try again. Instead of push the next embryo transfer out to January, we decided to get going straight away. We scheduled the 2nd transfer for December 20th.
I wanted this trip to be as well-planned as possible.
There were a few things I did differently this time. I…
- …asked my mom to come along with me for support (my husband needed to watch the kids and be at work.)
- …planned to stay one more day than last time.
- …used a different rental car company. 🙈
I wasn’t sure if any of these things would play a huge role in success over the last time, but at least I would know that I’d done all I could!
December 20, 2018
We performed the transfer, and it seemed to go just as smoothly as the last transfer.
Post-Christmas 2018
Like last time, I took a few pregnancy tests prior to the blood test.
We took our first “beta” blood test after Christmas, and the hCG results were much higher than my first beta of the last transfer. That was a great sign!
The 2nd beta, a few days later, was even higher. And… the 3rd beta confirmed that I was successfully pregnant, and that the Intended Parents had a little tyke on the way. 💕
The next step was to have the first ultrasound to really validate the pregnancy (lots of validation going on here!) The fertility clinic required that I do this in Houston instead of in Colorado, so I flew out in January for 1 night. I brought a carry-on and one pair of pajamas – that’s it!
January 2019
Unfortunately, the new pregnancy didn’t agree with the flight, and I started bleeding once I hit my hotel.
After a few calls with the doctor and an ultrasound, we decided I should stay for a full week. Remember… I had one pair of clothes… I had kids at home to care for… and I didn’t have a support person with me.
It was a really sad time for everyone. The family was nervous about what this means for their baby, I missed my family, and my husband and father-in-law had to cover for me at home.
Very gratefully, I didn’t have to worry about work, because I work remotely! I was able to work from my hotel bed, which was a blessing.💻 (Thanks, Buffer!)
We did another checkup at the end of the week, and it was determined that the issue was a condition fairly common after IVF. The blood clot dissipated a bit, and the doctor felt like things were going well!
Once I returned home, I had an ultrasound every week for a few weeks to track progression of the blood clot. Everything worked out well, the clot was leaving sight, and the baby was growing beautifully.
From there, the surrogacy journey started to go very smoothly!
I hit two big steps in February. I was…
- …able to get back to working out (which I missed so dearly both on the physical side and the emotional side,) and
- …broke ties with the fertility clinic and see a local OB.
It’s an amazing fertility clinic, but having them in another state added a tricky component. It was nice to become a regular pregnant woman at that point.
August 2019
So, here I am at 35 weeks pregnant now, over a year from when I was first matched with the Intended Parents!
In fact, while I feel huge, I’m still having summer fun at Kid Fun Runs with my kiddos!
Besides normal OB appointments (which now occur every week), I also have a local surrogacy support group that I attend monthly. I’ve attended since August 2018 after being matched with the intended parents in July 2018. We meet to catch up on one another’s surrogacy journeys.
The surrogacy group has been awesome through my surrogacy journey.
It’s a great way to share triumphs and challenges with others who can relate. I don’t know about you, but I haven’t found there to be a ton of surrogates around. Having a group dedicated to surrogate support is really useful. Thanks to Conceivabilities and Tisha, our support group leader, for facilitating it!
And, I guess that ends my post for now. It took me about a year to tell you about this (due to time/priorities, not shyness!). Now that it’s cracked open, don’t be afraid to ask questions in the comments. 🤗
Awesome! So glad you got this organized and posted!
Hehe – me, too! It’s coming down to the wire!
This has definitely been quite a journey!! I’m very proud of you!