A 6 a.m. Surprise

We’ve been traveling the past week so apologies for not having updated the blog sooner. While we were driving through Mexico, we got an update that the yolk was detected in the ultrasound and that was a good next step. It appeared a few days later than normal, but the fact that it appeared was a good thing.

We were glad to hear that all was well, but not thrilled that everything was showing up a few days later than normal.

Oh wait, it gets better.

So we’ve been waiting for the full report to come back with a picture of the ultrasound. At 6 a.m. this morning, we received an email from Dr. Samit that put this entire “a few days late” scenario into context.

I’m going to share the exact note with you so that you can get the same impact that we did reading it:

Mr. E,

I think this will take you by surprise as it did us. You have TWINS.

Yes that is right.

There are two gestational sacs and heartbeat is present in both. However one sac appeared late and is smaller in size than the other one.

This is seen often in twin pregnancies, however as the pregnancy continues they will catch up with each other.

We still have to keep monitoring closely though. We will keep you abreast of the scene.

And that was our 6 a.m. note.

This, more than any other of the updates has really hit home and emotionally has gotten us excited. There is still a long road ahead though and we know that none of this is for sure and that we really can’t get too excited about any of this quite yet.

Crazy, huh?

Twins.

"I am Optimistic"

“I am optimistic.”

Those were the three words that really stood out in Dr. Samit’s latest email update. We didn’t get detailed numbers as to the size or the beta hcg levels or any of that, but we did get a positive email.

The second ultrasound was scheduled for Tuesday and it sounds like it went well. You tell me:

“good news the sac is growing in size. Her blood work is all normal. I am optimistic. We just have to wait. I shall give you a pic as soon as possible.”

All I can think of is: “Are we really just seven months and a few weeks from little baby Hyderabad (no that’s not the name we chose) coming into the world?” Seriously?

I know, many more hurdles and much more waiting. But this is good news for now.

And “I am optimistic” that we’re going to have a celebratory drink or two this weekend with friends in DC.

PS- I really want this first trimester to pass so that we can start to buy cute things, think about baby’s room, and start to act like excited parents-to-be instead of worried humans waiting for medical updates every week :)

No Jumping the Gun

No jumping the gun.

That's what I have to keep telling myself. C and I have become pros at Google-ing the very limited info that we receive and quickly becoming "pros" at surrogacy. Actually, we have no idea what end is up really and it's kind of funny how wrong we are sometimes.

Over the weekend, we received an update from Dr. Samit. It started with "Finally some luck.' And then said that they did the ultrasound on Saturday and they did find a "tiny gestational sac." I'd post pics but they weren't able to send them due to "technical reasons." The gestational sac appeared a few days later than usual but according to the doc, this can happen sometimes.

He also let us know that the surrogate is on complete bed rest and they will do a scan again on Tuesday to check on further growth.

With this information in hand, we quickly resorted to Google where we found out that a small gestational sac could be a problem... that if it doesn't grow and measure properly, the pregnancy will likely not be viable... that showing up late could be an issue... and on and on.

I sent a note to the doc thanking him for the news and asking if it was indeed not as positive as we had hoped for. He quickly responded and said that actually, this is exactly what we hoped for and that the gestational sac is good news.

In our rush to figure out what this all meant and to try and put some sense to it all, we missed the fact that finding a gestational sac on the ultrasound was exactly what we should have been waiting for. Google has changed the world, for the better I think as knowledge can spread like a wildfire now. But it's also caused a bit of information overload. Case at point.

So for now we're in a good place. And we wait to hear more following the next ultrasound.

Thanks to everyone who has given their support and perspective to the situation. It's what makes sense of this entire thing.

Patience is Overrated

As you've probably gathered by now, we're taking the Apple iPhone 4 route to dealing with the waiting part of this whole process. That is, we're pretending nothing is wrong and avoiding really analyzing things day to day.

Ha.

No seriously though, things have been super busy at work and in general so time is going somewhat fast. But not fast enough. The ultrasound was done yesterday and late, late last night we got an email from the doctor saying that:

"the endometrium is thick and the blood levels are good but the gestational sac has not appeared on usg. sometimes the sac appears late. we will repeat another scan on saturday morning. no reason to panic."

Hmmm. What does this mean? It means (at the very least) that we now have to wait until sometime Saturday to get another update on this. Though we're a bit discouraged since you'd think that they should have been able to see the sac. Right?

It's been one of those days...and not necessarily the news we wanted. But, I guess we have to be patient and see what happens.

But patience, truly, is overrated.

Fireworks

It was a rainy day yesterday and the gloom made me sleepy. A big Thai dinner helped put me into a solid sleep... Until 3 a.m. when C decided to roll over and wake me up and ask me to check my email to see if we heard anything from Dr. Samit (since it was now Friday afternoon in India).

Like clockwork, we got an email at 2:22 a.m. that said we have a "good sign" and that the surrogate's beta hcg levels have more than doubled since Wednesday afternoon and are now at 64.32 miu. Yippeeee. That's the news we were waiting for. After laying in bed with my mind racing, we both eventually fell back asleep. Until the dogs decided they needed to play at 5:45 a.m.

We're excited. And nervous again. Because now that we've gotten good news, we have to wait. How long, you ask? 10 days or so. That's when good 'ol Samit will do an ultrasound to detect a potential heartbeat and gestational sac. Good news for now though, and that's all we can ask for.

It's been an interesting process thus far. We've had the most interesting signs. C having dreams of little baby girls, our favorite TV shows all the sudden focusing on babies or surrogacy (ie. Brothers and Sisters). The night we await a response from the doctor about the latest beta hcg levels, we're woken up every few hours by noise, by dogs, by C. And interestingly, C was frustrated the other night and went out to take a walk and the first thing he saw was a baby's one-piece shirt thingy laying on the ground. He turned around and came back upstairs...in a bit of shock.

I know we can't look into every little thing for a sign of hope, but there have been different things that have happened that you couldn't easily turn a blind eye to.

We're off to have a late-morning margarita shortly. It's the 4th of July weekend after all. And deep down, we have something really great to celebrate.

Happy Fourth of July.

23:42

Thanks to work being insane, the past week and a half has flown by... with very little time to worry about when we were going to receive our first email update from India.

Much to our surprise, it came today. I say this with reservation and hesitation because things can change at the blink of an eye... but the first blood test was POSITIVE for pregnancy!

Here's the catch though... they will do another blood test in two days and by then the beta hcg levels should have doubled. Today, they are 23.42 miu and that's 12 days after the embryo transfer. Dr. Samit's email said that is a "decent reading" but that we're "not out of the woods yet."

We contained our excitement when we woke up to the email this morning and were very rational about it and said that this only means that things are progressing well, not that we are sure that in 8.5 months we'll be back in India to welcome our little one into the world.

It's really tough. C and I were talking about how we want to jump up for joy and celebrate, but that it's so early we have to keep a level head about it so that we don't have a major let down if in two days the levels don't double or in two weeks, there is no heartbeat.

But for now, all is good. That's super positive. And screw it, we'll have a celebratory drink tonight anyway.

Here's to doubling down in two days time.

What time zone am I in?

So it's Sunday afternoon now and it's been an insane few days travel and work-wise. So insane, that I forgot exactly which day it was and couldn't figure out why C kept asking me if I heard from the doctor (more than usual). It was Friday, you see. The day we were supposed to know about the embryo transfer.

Holy shit. How could I not realize it was Friday and why wasn't I on pins and needles waiting for a call. Here's why:

I was in India all week last week. Got home on Sunday morning and then Monday went to New York. Tuesday afternoon, I flew back home. Got stuck in traffic for nearly two hours, unpacked, repacked and Wednesday left for Paris. Got to Paris Thursday and went straight into the office. Changed and went to a work dinner...crashed for 4 hours (waking up every hour, on the hour). Had a major presentation that was part of an all-day meeting on Friday. Did that, bolted out of there for the airport so that I could get to Italy. Flew to Italy to see friends for Saturday and now it's Sunday and I'm back in France for the week for work.

That's how I didn't realize it was Friday. I thought it was Thursday.

With that all out of the way, here's the latest...

I got a note from Dr. Samit on Friday that said out of the 20 eggs retrieved, they were able to make 14 embryos of grade 1 or 2 quality. That apparently means good quality embryos. He said that they were going to implant four embryos into the surrogate. Why four? He said that by doing four, it left the best chance of one taking and the least chance of ending up with triplets.

Think of it this way: One baby...decent chance; Two babies....less of a chance; Three babies...even less of a chance; Four babies...like winning the lottery (meaning nearly no chance...not dreaming of it happening).

The implant apparently happened yesterday afternoon with the four embryos. I say apparently because I haven't heard anything further on it. But the last email we exchanged said it was happening "in about an hour," so I suppose since I haven't heard anything further, it all went smoothly and now we wait.

Waiting sucks. I'm not patient. And in this case, neither is C. I want to skip ahead three months. Then we'll be more comfortable (aka freaking out). Then we can start planning (aka freaking out). And then we don't have to sit on pins and needles (aka freaking out).

If we're unusually quiet on the blog, it's because we now wait for July 3 or 4 or 5 to hear how the blood work looks. If it looks like some certain something levels are increasing (I know, very technical), then we say yippppeeeee and we wait for another two weeks (around July 17-18-19) for an ultrasound.

So there it is. The very latest. And I'll do my best not to mix up the days next time.