A+ Psychological Evaluation!

I just got off the phone with the therapist for my psychological evaluation. The call went smoothly and quickly; only lasted about 17 minutes and ended with "....everything looks great!....". :) Some of the questions that were asked were very similar to the ones that are included in my profile. She had to ask me these questions in order to build knowledge of me as she will be seeing me through this entire surrogacy journey. She will also be checking up on me on a monthly basis to offer support. 


Here is what she asked me: Name; age; birth place; hometown; my parent's background; family medical history; siblings; relationship status with family members (Mom, Dad, Sister, Husband, Children); when/how did my husband and I meet; how long have we been married; my character strengths and weaknesses; my hobbies; why I want to be a surrogate; how do I feel about selective reduction, amniocentesis, and carrying multiples; do I have support from family if I have to go on bed-rest; how I will feel after delivery and handing the baby over; what I plan to do with the money that I am compensated for being a surrogate; what type of relationship I would like with my IP's; and would I want a continued relationship with my IP's after the birth.


This psych eval was nothing compared to the written test that I had to take during my home visit a few months ago. There were over 300 questions; and silly ones at that! Example: Do you like to collect stamps? Umm, no.

No Crazies Over Here!

I am scheduled for a psych eval tomorrow morning. This will be handled over the phone and should last about 30mins. I am confident that this will go smoothly. 


After that, paperwork will be filled out to apply for medical insurance. Once my insurance is activated, I will then have an appointment scheduled to see E & A's doctor for a medical evaluation. This part I am nervous about, as I mentioned in my previous post. It will most likely be another few weeks until I go in for the medical eval, so until then, I don't want to think about it and get myself all worked up.


In the meantime, I have been spending a lot of quality time with my family. We took the kids to San Diego Zoo this past weekend and also spent time visiting with my Husband's Aunt and Uncle while we were in the area. With Christmas coming up (so quickly!) I am looking forward to many more memories made with my family. This is our favorite time of the year! Happy Holidays, Everyone!!

I Am Thankful

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I'd like to share what I am most thankful for this year.

I am most Thankful for my Husband, Eric. 

Without him, I wouldn't be where I am at today. Without him, I wouldn't be in love and happily married. Without him, I wouldn't have the most amazing, beautiful, happy, healthy children. Without him, I wouldn't have such an awesome set of in-laws. Without him, I wouldn't have a beautiful sister in-law that I adore. Without him, I wouldn't be an Auntie. Without him, I wouldn't be able to stay at home with my children. Without him, I wouldn't be able to sleep soundly at night. Without him, I wouldn't know what true love really is. Without him, I wouldn't have enough support be a surrogate mother. Without him, I wouldn't be me.  My husband completes me. I am so very blessed to have him in my life. I love him dearly. He is an amazing father to our children. He supports me. He loves me unconditionally. He makes me laugh. Eric, Thank You for loving me. Thank You for supporting me. Thank You for all that you have blessed me with. I love you.

Surrogacy Support Group

While I'm waiting to fill out insurance paperwork to begin my surrogacy journey with my IP's, I thought I'd do a quick informational post. :)

Most of my online surro-mom friends already know about Surrogate Mother's Online, LLC, but for those of you who are new to surrogacy--whether you are the Surrogate or the IP's--I encourage you to check out Surrogate Mother's Online, if you haven't already done so. This website is FILLED with a TON of information to include but not limit to:

• Surrogacy Articles
• Birth Announcements
• Message Boards
• Classifieds
• Surrogacy, infertility, egg donor, pregnancy, postpartum, ect. links
• Sample contracts
• Success stories
• And much more!

To be redirected to Surrogate Mother's Online, please click HERE. 

I am new to the Surrogate Mother's Online Message Boards and still familiarizing myself. I plan to use it to the fullest during my surrogacy journey for support from other surro-mommies. 

Bellybuds

I just purchased my first little gift for my soon-to-be surro-baby/ies. :) 

Bellybuds

Play music and voices to the womb!

You can share loving messages with baby from parents, grandparents, other relatives and friends. This way, when baby meets the person who recorded the message for the first time, their voice will already be familiar. 

Military moms are playing recorded messages from husbands overseas.
Adopting couples are sending their voices for the birth mom to play to her belly.
OB/GYNs are helping turn the baby “toward camera” for ultrasound pictures.
Surrogacy couples are familiarizing their baby-to-be with their voices.
Moms with breech babies are helping turn the baby downwards.

I can't wait to share this with E & A and have them record themselves maybe reading a book so that I can play it to their baby/ies while they are growing in my womb!

Surrogacy Insurance

We are waiting. Again. I'm starting to get used to this whole hurry-up-and-wait game.....But, that doesn't mean that I like it. I know that once things start to get rolling; once I start my injections; once I see two pink lines; it's all craziness from then on...and I'm excited about that! I am thankful though that I get to take it easy and focus on my family during the upcoming holidays. This is my favorite time of the year!


My IP's (E & A) are in the final stages of choosing an insurance company that will cover me through the surrogacy and allow for me to deliver at Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach. Being that I will have a c-section and will be spending a few days in the hospital, this was important to me--I wanted a room with an ocean view while recovering from my battle wounds!! Hoag Hospital is a perfect location for the delivery and equal distance for us all--about a 15 to 20 minute drive. Hoag's Women's Pavilion is also home to an expert Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) staff of highly trained nurses and neonatologist who provide specialized, around-the-clock care for infants born prematurely, or with complications.


While the insurance paperwork is about to be filled out by all parties and then processed by the ins. co. (this will probably take another few weeks *deep sigh*), I will (hopefully) in the meantime take care of speaking with the psychologist to get that part out of the way. Once my insurance coverage goes active, we can then schedule my appointment and physical with E & A's fertility doctor, Dr. Paulson. This part worries me a little. I'm worried that Dr. Paulson will find something...maybe a tumor, or a cyst, or find that my uterine lining is too thin, or something that will no longer allow me to be a surrogate for E & A. I would be devastated. I know E & A would be devastated. This just would not be good. So, prayers please!!! Please, please, please, please pray that my physical with Dr. Paulson goes smoothly and we receive great results and are given the thumbs up to move forward with the contract and finally start injections....YAY!!! (ouch!)

Match Making SUCCESS!

This couldn't be anymore perfect. Really. I am so very thankful that this is all shaping out to be "the surrogacy of my dreams". Seriously. I'm not even sugar-coating anything. This really is perfect--Thank You God for my answered prayers!


We had our Match Meeting yesterday. Eric and I...well ok, just me--I was so nervous! I woke up at 7:00am. I felt "off" and I'm sure it was because of the time change (seriously, is the time change thing really necessary?!). I felt like I was late already, even though we really weren't--meeting wasn't until 10:15am. So I jumped out of bed, hopped into the shower, hurried around to get dressed, got the kids up, yelled at Eric to get out of bed (sorry babe, I love you!), did my hair, put my face on, Eric took care of getting the kids ready and the car gassed up, we loaded up in the car, stopped at the local donut store, dropped off the kids and dog (oh that dog!!) with my Mom (LOVE YA, MA!), and then we were off!! Our agency, Family Creations, is located in Woodland Hills, so we had a good hour ahead of us. I used that time to go over all the questions I had compiled a while back (see questions HERE) that I would be asking my Intended Parents. I went over each one with Eric to get his input and thoughts. It was a nice drive and allowed me the time to get my head into the game, so to speak. As we merged on the the 101 Frwy, we got a call from Stephanie saying that the Parents had arrived early and that if we too arrived early to just come on up. Okie doke!


So we arrived at the office building, which we knew ahead of time would be closed since technically it was not a business day. The doors were locked, and I knew they would be. Stephanie mentioned that there would be a security guard and that he would allow us inside the building, we just had to mention Stephanie's name. Ok. Hmm. We didn't see a security guard? Knock, knock, knock. Nothing. So we walked around the building thinking he may be at the back entrance. Nothing. Hmm. I called Stephanie on her cell phone. No Answer. Hmm. Ok, now i'm worried--are we at the right building? I walked out front, all the way out to the street to reverify the address. Yup, we were at the right building. I called her again. No answer. Now i'm really worried! As I'm pacing back and forth and wondering what the heck is going on, Eric did some investigating around the building (God love that man!!). He ended up finding this LITTLE itty bitty box like thing with buttons on one of the pillars outside the doors. He pushed the button....waited...and we heard a voice. Yay!! Such nerd-balls we are!! Who knew we had to ring the "door bell"? Haha! The guard came down and let us in. Phew!


Now i'm nervous as hell. We had to take the elevator up 7 floors. I can feel my heart starting to beat more rapidly. My body getting hot. My legs feeling tingly and numb. My hands starting to sweat. As we reached the 7th floor, Eric said he needed to make a quick pit-stop at the restrooms. Ok. So, I waited in the hallway. By myself. Waiting. Thinking. Anticipation rising. His quick pee stop seemed like it took 20 minutes, when really it was more like a minute and a half. He's done and we continue down the hall to suite 760. I grab his arm tightly in an effort to release some of my nervousness, and we entered into the office. We were greeted by Stephanie herself. So pretty and such a sweetheart--this was the first time we had met face-to-face. She quickly hugged me and was so excited to have us there. "Well, are you guys ready?", Stephanie said with a huge smile on her face. "Yes, of course!", I quickly replied. Stephanie ushered us into the front conference room where we finally got to meet the people that I was going to help make a family.


For privacy reasons and until I can get their permission to use their names on my blog, I will call them E (the daddy) & A (the mommy).  It's a funny  coincidence that their initials are the same as my husbands and I.


Our meeting with E & A went perfectly--it really did. We were all very nervous and didn't know what to expect. Stephanie helped to keep us on track and facilitated the whole meeting. There were a lot of "what ifs" that had to be brought to the table, and thankfully, we agreed on each one. It was a little uncomfortable talking about the scary things like how we felt about the idea of carrying twins or triplets, selective reduction, or what if the fetus was known to have a birth defect--would they want to abort the pregnancy? As uncomfortable as it was answering those questions, we had to. If we didn't see eye-to-eye then this match would not work. And thankfully, both parties had the same views and thoughts and there weren't any problems. It was really comforting to hear that E & A were also concerned about ME and MY wellbeing. We each shared our story of how we met (as hubby and wife), what led us to Surrogacy, our hobbies, ect.


I don't want to reveal too much about E & A until I talk with them about my blog and get their approval to discuss. But what I can say is that they are great! They chose us and we said yes! They are local and only about 20 minutes from us. They are so excited to get started. They welcome a blooming friendship with Eric and I. "A" even promised to make me chocolate chip cookies when the cravings start (and I'm holding her to it!). They LOVE LOVE LOVE that we have such a strong support system. They are working with one of the BEST fertility doctors IN THE WORLD. So, once again, I have piece of mind knowing that (literally) I am in good hands. If you want to research this doctor, Google Dr. Paulson, USC Fertility.


What's next? I will have an appointment setup with a psychologist and another appointment will be setup with Dr. Paulson to check out my baby-making organs. Once I am cleared to go by the two docs then our lawyers collaborate, draw up contracts, we review and make changes if necessary. Once the contracts are signed by both parties, then we hit the ground running and we're clear to start INJECTIONS (more on that later)! We are hoping to start injections the first of the year.


I'm off to Vegas this weekend with my girlfriends. I'm looking at it as a celebration and last hoorah before getting knocked up. :oP


Until next time....

I got THE CALL!!!!!!!

I've been chosen by the local couple that I mentioned in my previous post!!!!!

I JUST got THE CALL!!! Thank you ALL for your positive thoughts and prayers--they have been answered!!

My body is literally numb, my hands and feet are sweating, and I can hardly gather my thoughts from all of these emotions running around my body like crazy!!!

I will post an update soon. Hold on to your seats!!!!!

This pic best describes how I feel right about now!!! 

Matching Update

Oh I'm so excited, I can hardly contain myself! I don't want to jinx anything, but I can't help but to give a quick update!! For some reason I feel that if I get too overly excited this will fall through, but I'm trying to think positive thoughts! 


So I got a call from my agency, Family Creations, this afternoon--they call about once a week to once every other week to provide me with an update on the match making process. Let me just say that Stephanie (my case manager) is so amazing!! She's the sweetest lady and you can truly feel how dedicated she is to you just by talking with her. She's the best--so caring and passionate about her work and wants to make sure that you are matched with the perfect IP's! Anyhow, back on track--Ok, so there is a new couple that is very much interested in me being their surrogate and (according to Stephanie) they felt "drawn" to my profile. And---get this!!! They only live about 15-20 minutes from me!!! THIS IS SO COOL!!! It's like this one is meant to be. Going in to this whole surrogacy adventure, I really felt like it would be best to match with someone locally (and my husband Eric agreed), but I wanted to be open to the possibilities of working with a couple outside of California as well. So, I hope this is it--I really hope this works out!! It's (once again) down to me and one other surrogate (who is a 2nd timer). But, Stephanie said this couple sounds promising (oh I hope I'm not jinxing myself!!). So, once again, we wait and see what happens.


As for the Hungarian couple, they are still interested, but waiting to hear from their doctor about the possibility of choosing a second surrogate (I would be the second surro since they have already chosen their first surrogate through another agency). So, still waiting to hear what their doctor says.


Well, that's it for now. I'm anxiously waiting by my phone for another update from Stephanie saying, "You've been picked!". Seriously, every time my phone rings my heart drops and I think OH THIS COULD BE THE CALL!!! Please send your positive thoughts and prayers about this local couple being THE ONE!!