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This is part four of my surrogacy story, see here for past postings



Less than 48 hours of climbing out of the seat of the airplane sitting on the tarmac of Toronto's airport, I was lying on the metal table, in the dark with my knees up to my stomach getting my uterus lining checked. Eleni was in the room with me, though we had officially just met, she was a comfort to me. The tech said something along the lines of 'hmm, now why again didn't you have a lining check?'. I closed my eyes and replied, 'because no one told me to'. No one told me to get an ultrasound several days before leaving, that my lining needed to be at least 8mm, someone just 'forgot' to tell me this. I don't think that they told me what my lining even was, it was that bad.



Eleni and I were taken into Dr. Virro's office. He explained that with Eleni's poor quality of eggs and my poor lining, the chances of a successful pregnancy were very, well poor. Nonetheless, we would try because the eggs were ready, we were both there, what was there to lose'. I asked him, 'What would you do differently next time if this weren't successful?' Remember this, this is an important detail to the future of the journey. He said that he would change my medication protocol. He would probably have Eleni's eggs mature for 5 days instead of 3 days.



The doctor brought us both to a tiny closet of a room. I was to have my bladder full, (drinking 32 oz. of water 2 hours before the transfer (IVF). The over-achiever that I am probably drank 48 oz. and was severely in pain, I waddle up to the table without most of my clothing and yet again found myself with my legs up in the air.



The whole procedure took less than five minutes. The doctor knocked on a small door and a petrie dish was passed through. Two embryos were simply moved from the dish, put into a catheter and slid into my uterus guided by an ultrasound. This is my perspective of it, it's not technical, it may not have exactly happened like that, but one thing was sure, there was now two little embryo inside of me that either would decided to grow or not.

Side note. I know many surrogates will put in more than two embryos to increase the chances of pregnancy. I was only willing to transfer two. Blessed beyond belief, there was only two embryos to transfer each time. Also meaning, there was no struggle for Eleni on having any remaining non-transferred embryos.

It was mandated that I wait at least 30 minutes before getting up. At this point I had to pee so badly that I had to take short breaths and keep me eyes focused on the ceiling and not think about going to the bathroom. After all, I would do anything to make this pregnancy happen.



But, it didn't. It didn't happen. I wasn't pregnant. The picture was painted so bleak, that my hopes were not up; I was disappointed, but not surprised, I was sad, but not devastated. Eleni had things happen in her life, she was herself very surprised, very sad and almost devastated, but this was because of more than just a failed IVF but those are her stories, not mine.



Eleni called, 'is there any way that I could do another transfer in September?' My heart ached, I most certainly wanted to do another transfer, but from the beginning I wanted the last month to try to be August. See, unlike most surrogates, I did want more children of our own and I did not want my son to be too far in age from a sibling. I agreed, but it had to be in the beginning of the month. This would be it. My last try to be a surrogate, but for Eleni, her last try for another child.



It was all arranged again. When the time came, I was emailed the medication protocol. It was exactly the same as the first, failed transfer. I emailed back that I was surprised and this was quickly sent back with a corrected protocol. To this day, I think about what would have happened if I didn't ask the simple question to the doctor: what would you do differently? I would have had no idea to look for a protocol change, would have accepted what was sent, taken the same meds, had the same poor lining, and all that would have meant not having the beautiful outcome that we obviously did.



September came and the story is pretty much the same. This time around though, my lining was beautiful, Eleni had one exceptional 5 day embryo (and one average) and I was taken back to the room to be explained what would happen if I did become pregnant (this didn't happen the first time). Everyone was more confident, cautious but still confident.



I emailed Eleni was an attachment called something like; 'great picture'. I waited as she opened up her attachment from across the world and for the first time saw two wonderful pink lines.

Part five

Funny enough, I learned that Eleni wasn't sure what two pink line meant and had to check with the pregnancy test maker's site. Now that must have been nerve wracking!