The 20 Year old surrogate

In my support group on FB a lovely lady took the initiative to coordinate a holiday gift exchange, I thought that would be a great way to connect with someone that has been or is going through infertility. Yesterday I was assigned a partner, I added her, read her blog and gathered that she was a 20 year old surrogate that has 4 kids. My initial reaction was; No! Why is she in this group anyway?! We have nothing in common!. I know I sound really bitchy right now, I tried to keep an open mind but I feel like I can't take her seriously. The image that keeps popping in my head "Juno". 
I disagree with the concept of surrogacy, apart from all the good intentions, it's basically reproductive prostitution. The negative ethical, legal, social and psychological repercussions  outweigh the positive. I think people who have lost their ability to carry their own child, and want to be parents should adopt. That's just my opinion. 
Sorry for the bitchiness I had to get it off my chest :)  

Can't help but worry

I have so many worries about the whole reproduction process. Other than the pain of IVF, and the possible over stimulation. I'm really scared of a high risk pregnancy with a Cerculage; will I find a good perinatalogist? Will I be on bed rest? Will I have to quit my job? Will I lose my baby again? Will it put a stress on my marriage? I know all of this is contradictory to my last post about "Positive Thinking" but I really can't help over analyze every aspect of it. I need to hope for the best and be prepared for the worst. 
My faith in God gives me the conviction that all blessings and misfortunes are tests, it's how we deal with our test that we are judged. If I'm patient and grateful I know I will be compensated sooner or later.
I start stimulation drugs next week, it may sound funny but I like this part. My husband and I get to play Doctor at home :) cuz he gives me all my shots.


3 happy side notes; I get my cast off next week. I fractured my foot 4 months ago, it didn't heal with an air cast (removable boot). So another Dr put a cast on it. I'm so happy to finally get it off, hopefully it's healed.
And my sister comes in to town next week for business, I'm super excited to spend a few days with her. 
And the weather is so beautiful these days; nice breeze, blue sky's, and warm sunshine. The weather has a great affect on my mood, walking out of my house every morning I feel happy and positive!    

Positive Thinking

A few months after we lost our son, my husband and I both lost our jobs. Well not really lost more like volunteered to resign; the company we worked for needed to downsize and offered cash settlements to anyone willing to leave. We were really sick of the commute and thought it wouldn't take us more than 4 months to find something else. 4 months turned into a year and finally 2 months ago we both started new jobs, much closer to home (Thank God).  The job situation was what was keeping us from trying IVF again. So now I'm ready, and I'm jumping in with both feet! I'm not going to think of any reason not to go ahead with it, I just feel it's the right time. I'm feeling very positive.

Imagining, seeing, believing I will get what I want. Today my husband and I had lunch at our favorite Italian place; as we're eating I see the waiter going to tables with a big bottle filled with numbers, they always play this game, pick a number from 1-100, if your # is drawn your meal is free. So, as I watch another table play I say to my husband "I hope we get our meal free today". At the end of our meal the waiter comes to our table and says pick a number? The first number that came to my mind was the date of my upcoming egg retrieval 14, he shakes the numbers tips over the bottle takes a number and puts it on the table. It was 14! That moment felt so surreal, like I had won because of positive thinking. I know it was just a silly game, and the meal was only $40. But I knew at that moment that positive thinking really does affect the outcome.

My pregnancy in detail

I was finally pregnant, my HCG levels were rising and I was having morning sickness, I was really pregnant. I knew I couldn't get too excited just yet. I had to pass the 3 month mark to start telling people. My husband and I didn't realized how much we wanted it until we saw the heartbeat at 6 weeks, it brought tears to our eyes.
At 9 weeks I borrowed a Doppler from a friend and listened to my baby's heartbeat every night. At 10 weeks my Dr said I could stop taking the progesterone shots and aspirin. 
When we passed the 12 week mark we started telling people the good news, and I started feeling like "this is really happening"
I couldn't wait for our 16 week scan so we could find out the sex, the Dr said he wasn't sure but it looks like a boy! :) He said to have a 3D scan at 19 weeks to confirm and to make sure everything was fine.
At 19 weeks we saw our beautiful baby in 3D, and they confirmed it was a boy, And everything looked perfect! We left that appointment walking on air, we called our families, sent them the pictures of the scan... and at that moment life felt so right.





4 days after that appointment I started spotting, I didn't think it was anything serious so I continued my day normally. My husbands aunt (she's my 2nd mother, since my mom lives in another country) insisted I go to the ER just to be sure everything is ok. While I waited for a dr to see me I went to the toilet, as I stood up off the toilet I felt something strange; it felt like an air bubble, I put my hand down there and felt something hard, which I thought at the time was the baby's head. At that point I became hysterical. The dr finally came and did an ultrasound; I was 3cm dilated and the membranes were funneling into my cervix, but my baby was still alive I heard his heartbeat and that gave me some comfort. The dr said if the membranes go back in they can sew my cervix shut "Cerclage", but I had a 50-50 chance of that happening.  

I spent 3 days laying in a hospital bed praying that we would be able to save our son's life. On the morning of the 3rd day I started having very bad contractions every 2 minutes. I had my husband on my left and my mother on my right holding my hands as I screamed for someone to come help me. 
After 15 minutes the physical pain stopped my water along with my heart broke. It was the saddest moment of my life, as they wheeled me to the labor and delivery unit knowing my baby was dying inside of me.
I pushed him out, but i couldn't bring myself to hold him or look at him. I didn't want to remember him that way. After that they took me to surgery for a D&C, and my husband took our son Ahmed to be buried.
I've been healing from that ever since, it's been exactly 2 years since Ahmed was conceived. We're ready to try again.
I know now that I have an Incompetent Cervix, and that I will need a cerclage in any future pregnancies. It's a stitch placed in the cervix at 10-12 weeks of pregnancy, it stays there until the end of the pregnancy. It has a 70-90% success rate.
I now embark on my last attempt at motherhood. If it doesn't work this time, I will take it as a sign that I am not meant to have children in this life. But I will always have my son Ahmed waiting for me in heaven.  

My history, I write...

I'm a happy and content person for the most part, I have my opinions and feelings (which aren't always so happy) towards how my life is going. But for the most part I'm living in the moment and very happy.
I'll start from the very beginning; I met my husband at the age of 18, fell in love (or whatever it's called when you're 18) and was married at 21. I was never the maternal type of person, I wanted to wait to have kids. I wanted to travel, party, have a career, and thought kids would just be another milestone that would happen eventually.
I found out I had endometriosis and infertility issues when I went in for a routine check up and they found a 9cm cyst on my ovary. We had been married 5 years and hadn't yet started trying to conceive. I had surgery to remove the cyst after which the dr confirmed the Endo diagnosis and said we have %10 chance of conceiving naturally, people don't usually get that kind of news until after a couple years of trying. So to me it was quite a shock.
Even though I didn't really want kids at that time, hearing that I couldn't conceive made me want it even more. (Us humans are quite stubborn like that, always want what we can't have). We tried for a year naturally nothing happened. So after putting it off for a few months I gave in and started IVF.


My experience with IVF; 1st time they harvested 19 eggs, 10 fertilized, 3 transferred and the rest were frozen. Unfortunately it didn't work. 9 months later 2nd IVF : out of the 7 frozen embryos 3 defrosted and were transferred. Again it didn't work. A year and a half later I tried again with a fresh cycle; 10 eggs harvested, 3 embryos made it to "Blastocyst" and were transferred. It finally worked, I was pregnant!