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I'm a wife, mom, and gestational surrogate. I've been blessed to be able to have 2 beautiful daughters of my own and 2 cute little surro babes for IPs. With the support of my WONDERFUL family and friends, I'm doing it again!! Follow me on my journey...

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Progress

I know I haven't blogged much about where I am in the surrogacy process since we had the failed transfer so I thought I'd give you an update.
After we got the results of the beta back my IM had to schedule a consult with the Dr. in CO; the earliest appointment was 2 weeks from then, so I was just waiting to hear back from her after that. The news from the Dr was pretty much expected, but was still quite a let down for my IM. He encouraged her to look into using a donor for eggs b/c he said that there would only be a 15% chance of a transfer working if we use her eggs versus an 80% chance with a donor. She called me and we talked about it and it seemed like a pretty cut and dry situation if you're just looking at percentages. She and her husband decided that they were going to look at a donor database and would let me know when/if they found a donor that they liked. No problem, my uterus isn't goin' anywhere. :-)
Long story short, my IM called me last night and told me about their not so cool adventure in looking at a donor database. Without going into too much detail, let me just tell you that my IM is very animated and I would have been rolling on the floor laughing at her rendition of their first experience looking at donors, if it weren't equally as sad. Needless to say, after their traumatization, (yes I made up that word) they really re-evaluated their options and have decided to give it another try with her eggs. I have to say that I don't blame them. If I were in their shoes I would probably do the same thing, for peace of mind, to know that at least I've exhausted all my options and I won't have any regrets later. 15% is better than ZERO!! And my IM has a friend that got pregnant with a 5% chance! So phooey to those doctors! (Sometimes I think they just throw out random numbers to try to get you to do what they ultimately want you to do)
So anywho, my IM has also decided to change clinics and use one that's closer to her, which means it's closer to me too! :-) She's used them before, so we're not going in blind! It's just more economical and really makes more sense. I'm excited again!
Things are on the fast track now. I have an appointment at the new clinic this Friday morning so that I can meet with the Dr. and probably (inevitably) get some blood drawn...my favorite thing. My IM already started her BCP's and I should be starting my cycle in the next day or 2, so who knows, we might be having another transfer mid February if all goes well! ***Fingers crossed***

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Hanging my head in shame

Remember my wonderful post about holding myself accountable? Yea, this one...
Well people, I haven't been doing such a great job on that front. :-( I didn't want to post about it, but hey, $h!+ happens, right? At least that's what I'm telling myself.
I started off great. Did (almost) everything I said I would do, go walk/jog on my lunch breaks, re-started P90X; just didn't get to attend my water aerobics class, but that was no biggie.
Let me just tell you, I got sooooooo sore from P90X that I could barely walk. I'm serious. I don't know if I was being extremely intense with it this time or if I'm just that out of shape, but I wasn't that sore the 1st time I did P90X and I know I was way more out of shape then!
Anyway, needless to say I had to lay off of P90X for the next few days, since I was damn near a paraplegic and all. I figured since I hadn't really gotten thru the first friggin' week that I'd start, yet again, after my body came back from being in shock. Well I didn't. I suck, I know.
Here's the thing, I am not a morning person! I don't think I have ever been, so for me to get up at 5am to exercise was a feat in itself. And if don't go to bed at a decent enough hour then I damn sure ain't gettin' up at 5 o'clock in tha mornin', you can forget it! I think I'm just gonna have to go back to exercising after I get off of work, the evening seems to be better even though that's the time for dinner, homework, and any other domestic thing you can think of. I'd rather stay up late than wake up early! Weird, I know.
Well the good news is that at least I'm still exercising on my lunches (although this week has been harder w/ doing some last minute shopping on my break) but doesn't power-walking at the mall count? Lol.
Just wanted to give you all an update. I promise I'll do better. :-) And if I have to I'll post *fat* pictures of myself on here as extra motivation! (AAAHHHHH....just the thought of that makes me want to run 5 miles!)

**Hey! That gives me an idea! I think I'll post my P90X 30, 60, and 90 day pictures on here so you can actually see my progress. Yep, that's what I'm gonna do!**

P.S. Look past the stretch marks!!!!! Lol.

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Frustrated!

I just wanna say that right now I'm a bit frustrated! I hope this entry doesn't turn into one of those long a** blogs that no one wants to read, but whatever if it does!

Let me give you the "quick" version:

I got matched with my IP's back in May. Since then I've had 3 different caseworkers, which brings me to a grand total of 4 caseworkers since I've been working with this agency. Now, I might stop to think and wonder if I'm running these ladies off, lol. But in all seriousness, they've just had some crazy a**, unexplained turnover. That's not the problem, my issue is with the non-communication. They obviously don't update each other as to the status of their surrogates and they sure as hell don't let their surrogates know what's going on!Since my last caseworker left, not to long after I got matched, I have yet to hear from anyone at my so-called agency.
No email.
No phone call.
No letter.
Hell, no carrier pigeon. 
My IM and I have literally been doing EVERYTHING on our own. Coordinating travel, negotiating contracts, getting updates from the RE, anything you would think the agency should (and promised to) handle, we have been doing. We both, quite often, wish we had just found each other on our own so that we could have gone independent.
Nonetheless, the agency was also supposed to be having monthly support group meetings of which I have yet to be informed about until....................................................
Yesterday!

Yea, so after my IM got a BS bill in the mail from the agency trying to charge her for support group meeting/setup blah blah, she confirmed with me that the agency has, indeed, not been in touch with me and she disputed the charge! (Way to go, girl!) :-)
So magically on Tuesday I got a phone call from none other than...can you guess...? That's right, the agency! The "Director" of the agency, which is now assigned as our half-ass caseworker called me. Our conversation lasted all of 40 seconds and then her other phone started ringing and she said "oh, I have to take this, it's a fertility clinic, I'll call you right back." Ummmm...ok...
Well thankfully I didn't hold my breath for that call back b/c I'd be dead right now...the beeyotch still hasn't called me!
Oh, but it gets better. THEN I got an email yesterday from the director that was basically nothing but a bunch of forwarded emails that I've apparently been overlooked on. Gee thanks. And whadayaknow? It has a list of all of our support group dates/times. Oh and look! There's a meeting on December 12th....hmmmm....to bad it was DECEMBER 15TH when I got the fkn email! There aren't enough expletives in the English language to convey my irritation right now.
And  then to add insult to injury, I emailed my IM just to vent (she's good at letting me bitch :-)) and she told me that the agency told her "Well Krystal missed last Sunday's meeting." WTF!? You little #&$*$)*%(@#_(%$*)#$(%$*)&@#(&#@_%&#_(%&!! (insert your own words here) Had I been told about ANY of the fkn meetings you know good and darn well I wold have been there! UGH! Thankfully my IM already knows that I'm on the ball about those types of things so she knew that heifer wasn't being truthful.
I'm just disgusted with them right now, and it kinda makes me sad b/c I loved them so much at first, they were really supportive and knew what was going on with me, idk what happened from then to now...

Thanks for letting me vent :-) I promise to be nice now...well, until the next person pisses me off...

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

I couldn't help myself...

Merry Christmas! :-)

...IDK why it's cutting off some of the vid, but here's the link if u wanna see the whole thing CLICK HERE!

Thursday, December 9, 2010

Holding myself accountable

This entry has nothing to do with surrogacy, but everything to do with accountability.

Here's the thing, for those of you that may not know, after I had my (surro) miscarriage in March I was pretty devastated. I guess as an automatic reflex my subconscious decided that I needed to do something to keep my mind off of the loss. I started off going walking at a park on my lunch breaks. Then I progressed to going to "aqua boot camp" twice a week, which turned in to 3 times a week. Then I added in P90X! (And yes, I was doing this all at the same time) I would walk/jog on my lunch, get off of work and go to water aerobics, then leave water aerobics and do P90X at home.

I'm pretty sure I was off my rocker at some point.

Nonetheless, within about a month I was seeing some pretty awesome results, and after almost 3 months of being an exercise Nazi I was down 20lbs and 3 pant sizes! Not to mention I was feeling pretty darn good about myself, especially the fact that I had started this routine on my own and had been sticking to it. You couldn't tell me that I didn't look good! :-)
But for some reason that I can't seem to pinpoint, I stopped it all. First the walks at work, then I cut back on how often I would go to my class, and then P90X ended at the 90 day mark. There's really nothing that I can blame it on except myself. My drive. My will. I think I did what a lot of people do after having success with exercise; I got complacent. Not good.
I would tell myself "Oh, I did so well, I'm just gonna take a break in between starting again." Yeah right.

Well NO MORE EXCUSES! Today I am holding myself accountable. Today I will be the Krystal I know I can be. I will not succumb to the little voice in my head that says "I can't, I don't want to". Today, I will simply do.

I made a plan with one of my co-workers, and she and I will be going to workout together on our lunches at the park I used to frequent. I will also make my butt get up in the morning to start another round of P90X! And I will surely be at my next aerobics class tonight! I'm excited and a little scared that I've called myself out like this, but it's all good, I know if I don't keep myself motivated my hubby will or maybe one of my loyal followers will. :-)

I'll blog about my progress along the way so I will have that accountability, good or not so good. Although at some point I will have to stop the high impact exercises once we start cycling for another transfer, but that doesn't mean I can't still do my walks and some low impact (approved) exercises. NO EXCUSES! There are pregnancy-friendly workout plans too. :-)

Lord, give me the will and strength!