Dual purposed blog: a journal of my experience as an intended parent through surrogacy, and a resource for others going through the same experience.
Also visit my surrogate's blog (Link on the right) for the other half of the story!

Friday, November 19, 2010

Blighted Ovum

Found out today that the sac is empty. No baby was ever there in the first place.  Although this is very sad news I was actually a bit relieved.  'For some reason it is easier to have never had something in the first place than it is to have it and loose it.  So, now we have to wait for Jane's body to discard the empty sac and her pregnancy blood levels to go back to zero and then we can transfer 2 more embryos and try again. 
I find it all of this that I keep looking for someone to blame.  I thought it must be the fault of the clinic, and then I thought it must be Jane's fault.  But in researching it I found that most likely it was just genetically bad (which would make it my fault).   I guess maybe it makes it easier to find someone to place the blame on.  But it is just a cruel trick of Mother Nature.

Monday, November 8, 2010

The ugly truth of it

So the Doctor just called me to tell me how Jane's ultrasound went.  She said that they can see a sac there, but that there is bleeding around it.  She also said that the HCG levels only went up from 212 to 236.  She gives this pregnancy an 85% chance of miscarriage.  Impending doom. 

I'm hesitant to write this in a blog for fear of judgement, but I'm going to write it nevertheless because I want to be honest about this strange surrogacy experience I'm going through (for the benifit of others considering doing it in the future).  When I got the previous bad-news phone call last week my first reaction was "oh no!!!  My babies are going to be even further appart now.  Ok, we'll just have to try again."   I was at work at the time doing absolutely nothing so I got to thinking a bit deeper about it all.  I had just been told I would likely loose my child.  I thought about my previous loss last January (medically necessary abortion) and how it broke me to pieces.  HELLO!!!  I'm loosing my child again!! 
I find it very interesting that when I told S the bad news he had the same exact reaction as me.  "Oh no!  That is terrible-- Well we'll just have to try again."  Neither of us initially thought about the fact that we had an actual baby that we were loosing.  It felt more like the pregnancy had never worked in the first place.  I think that it is crazy how easy it is to distance yourself from it when it is not in your own womb.  We are not cold un-feeling people.  We want a baby with all of our hearts, it is just strange/terrible how easy it is to distance yourself from your own child when someone else is carrying it for you.  

Friday, November 5, 2010

Not looking good

Truth be told:  ever since the last blood draw (a week ago?) I've had a feeling this baby is going to miscarry.  It is one of those things that you don't want to say out loud, but i definitely felt that way.  In fact, I told S yesterday that I just felt like the baby would miscarry. 

So today when my phone rang and I saw who was calling I answered it and braced myself for bad news. The nurse from the fertility center told me " the HCG levels are in the 200's.  They are supposed to be in the thousands by now"
 "So does that mean the baby is going to miscarry?"
  "I asked the Nurse Practitioner and she said she has only seen 2 babies make it through a pregnancy with low number...but those babies had numbers in the high hundreds at this point and yours are in the low hundreds.  The NP said she has NEVER seen numbers so low at this point.  So your surrogate is going to have an ultrasound monday to check for an ectopic pregnancy or anything else."  

So basically there is a tiny chance everything could be fine, but it isn't likely.  Very disappointing, but like I said, I was expecting bad news.  So, nothing to do but wait for more bad news.