Houston

First off-- the bleeding stopped right after I posted about it, as did the headaches.  I am back in the land of the side-effect-less.  Hoorah!

Yesterday, I left home at about 10:00 to head to Houston.  Here I am early on, waiting for my iced tea at Sonic, still bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

It was a gray, wanting-to-rain kind of day, but the drive was very pretty, thanks to the Texas wildflowers-- at least one field of bluebonnets actually made me gasp out loud because it was so expansive and shockingly blue.  I also saw longhorns and lots of little baby calves.  It was pretty much like driving through a Texas postcard.

Anyway, when I did get to Houston, it was starting to rain.  I met N and M at N's gorgeous office.  We were all pretty nervous at first, but our conversation over lunch was really easy.  I feel like we have a lot in common just in terms of basic life philosophy, so that's always good.  We're all eager to have our kids meet too-- I think they'll get along great.  Their daughter is about a year younger that my older daughter, so 2.5 years older than my younger daughter.  Sometime soon we'll make that happen.

M gave me directions to Houston IVF.  By then, it was raining pretty hard, but the traffic wasn't bad or anything, so it was a quick drive.  The building was just as he described, but I walked around aimlessly for a while trying to find the right elevators.  Even so, I got to the appointment right on time, at 3:00.

But then I waited.  And waited and waited.  I finally went back to the exam room at about 3:45.  The hysteroscopy itself is very quick (and this is the third I've had, so I knew what to expect).  When Dr. Hickman came into the room, he got right to business.  He didn't narrate the way the other doctors did, but since I'm such an expert (ha!), what I understand is that he inserted a catheter through the cervix and filled my uterus with saline to better visualize it on the ultrasound.  He said my uterus is beautiful and I've already grown a nice, triple-stripe lining, so I have no issues responding to the medication.  And that's it.  The end.

Standing up afterwards is messy (ick!) and I had a teeny bit of cramping on the way home-- really insignificant.  Overall, no big deal at all.  It's a little frustrating to drive 6 hours and wait 45 minutes for a 5 minute procedure, but what can you do?  Lunch with N and M was great, so that makes it worth it.  And if you have to spend all day in a car in Texas, March is the time to do it.

Vivelle

I emailed Barb today just to check in.  I'm still bleeding heavily on CD6, which is unusual for me, and I feel like it's heavier in the past two days (since I put on 2 patches).  She replied that it was likely just my body adjusting to the changed estrogen level and that it would taper off, but to be in touch if it increased.  I'm glad she's not concerned-- I was a little worried about building a beautiful endometrial lining if my body is still in flush-it-out mode.  Hopefully it does taper off in the next day or so.

I'm also having headaches, but according to the literature, that's a side effect in 50% of women, so no worries there.  Just caught the wrong end of the coin flip.

Speaking of unlucky events-- and this has nothing to do with surrogacy-- on Saturday, I used my teeth to squeeze some lime juice into my iced tea.  It spritzed a little on my face, but I got called off to do something right then and didn't think anything of it.  Spent the afternoon in the beautiful sunshine at a school carnival.  Yesterday, I broke out in a blistery rash all around my mouth.  Lime juice + sun = phytophotodermatitis (also called margarita dermatitis!).  Ick!  It's a similar skin reaction to poison ivy or sunburn.  I should have known better because it happened to Rick's hands a couple of years ago when we were at the beach.  But alas, I didn't and now I have a lovely momento of my lime iced tea.

In happier news, I ran a 10K with my older daughter yesterday.  Despite being thoroughly untrained, we had a good time.  She's telling me she'll run the 10-mile race I'm signed up for in a couple of weeks with me.  We'll see about that!

Since Yesterday

I went to the pharmacy after work.  No Vivelle!  They didn't have a record of the prescription at all.  It was after 5, so I emailed Barb and *amazingly* she emailed right back, and then called the pharmacy and got everything straightened out.  Rick had to go pick up the Vivelle later on (which was apparently its own headache-- we only have 2 out of 3 boxes for now), but at least we got it!  I put on the first patch this morning.

After the pharmacy excitement, I came home and got a call from Texas Fertility rescheduling my appointment because their ultrsound tech would be out.  So the appointment got bumped to 8:30 with Dr. Hansard.  No problem.

That's a beautiful way to start the day, isn't it?  Ha!  On the other side of this picture is me, waiting for Dr. Hansard to come in and do the ultrasound.  It ended up being very fast.  I'd met Dr. Silverberg before, but this was my first time meeting Dr. Hansard-- she was very friendly and efficient.  My uterus looked just as she expected it to at this stage of my cycle (day 3).  My endometrial lining is "virtually nonexistant" at 2.9mm.  My right ovary was "beautiful" and had 10 follicles.  The left looked good too and had 8 follicles.  And that was it.  Wham, bam, thank you ma'am.

When I was checking out, I asked about the estradiol test.  There was some confusion, but ultimately, they told me just to take the order from Houston IVF to the lab (it didn't matter which one, they said).  I wish I had known I could do it on my own-- I would have gone early this morning, before the appointment.  But no big deal.  I drove back to the CPL lab by my house - I've had so much bloodwork related to surrogacy at this point that I definitely have a preferred lab.  By now it was about 9:15, so the lab was crowded and I had to wait.  But eventually, they called me back.  My phlebotomist was actually an ACC student and I had to agree to let her draw my blood, but she was great.  Just one vial.  Easy peasy.  After the FDA testing I did this fall (15 vials, I think?), this was nothing!

Huh.  It just occured to me that I'd already had on this estrogen patch for about 2 hours when the test was run.  I wonder if it works fast enough for that to matter?  In any case, the level will be way higher when they test again in a couple of weeks.

N had already texted me to see how the appointment went by the time I was in the waiting room at the lab.  We're both so excited that things are moving forward!

More Specifics

Today is my anniversary!  Rick and I had lunch at one of my favorite places and he brought me flowers to work.  And while he was at the office, we got the contract signed, notarized, and mailed.  Romantic, right? 

When I got back from lunch, Jennifer at Texas Fertility called to set up my appointment tomorrow at 8:00 am.  My orders say: "Labwork: Estradiol [STAT]" and "Ultrasound: Uterus: Baseline/Endometrial Thickness/Endometrial Pattern (Triple or Homogenous)."  So that's on tap first thing tomorrow morning.

Then, Leslee Murphy called.  Unfortunately, she won't be in the office next Thursday to do our psych eval.  Boo.  So I'll still go to Houston (by myself) on Thursday for the hysteroscopy and Rick will stay home.  Rick and I will both go to Houston for our appointment with Leslee on Wednesday, 4/4.  We will meet with her together, then I will take the MMPI, and then all four of us (adding N and M) will meet together.  As it turns out, I'm supposed to have a lining check that day too, so I'll schedule that with Dr. Hickman instead of at Texas Fertility (who would have done it otherwise).

The appointment madness has officially begun!

Tomorrow I start using Vivelle estrogen patches.  Each patch stays on for two days.  I'll use 1 tomorrow, 2 the next application, then 3, then 4 for three more applications.  Then they'll do a lining check on 4/4 to be sure I respond as expected.

And I guess that should be about all there is to my mock cycle.  4/4 will be CD15, so mid-cycle.  I don't know if they'll just leave my cycle to end normally or if they'll give me a course of prometrium.  And I don't have any idea what the plan is on N's side of things.  But CD1 of my next cycle could be somewhere around 4/18 and I'm imagining we could possibly transfer anywhere from 2-8 weeks after that.  So May, maybe?  Last time, I transferred exactly 30 days after CD1.  I know every protocol is different, but using that timing as a rule of thumb, egg retrieval would be right near my birthday/Mother's Day (which has to be a good sign!), and the due date would be in early February next year-- a little Groundhog's Day baby.  Hey, I'm nothing if not a planner!

Exciting!

Apparently, it doesn't take much to get me excited.  I took my last birth control pill on Sunday and CD1 is today = time to start making appointments!  I called Barb at Houston IVF first thing this morning and then carried the phone around all day waiting for the return call.  A little obsessive.  Anyway, she called just a bit ago and here's what I know:

• She's preparing orders for me to go to Texas Fertility on Friday for an initial monitoring visit.  I had an appointment with them this fall, so I should be on the books and good to go.
• She will prepare a meds calendar for me and is calling estrogen patches into my pharmacy, so those must be starting soon.  I've taken oral estrogen before, so this is new for me-- she says they're like bandaids.
• Next Thursday (3/29), Rick and I will go to Houston.  I have an afternoon appointment with Houston IVF and I'm trying to get our psychological evaluation with Leslee Murphy scheduled for earlier that day (I left a message with her after I talked to Barb).  I know Rick and I have to have a joint session and I think they also require a joint counseling session between both families, so if N or M is available, we may be able to cross that off as well.

We also officially finalized the contract this week, which is great to have out of the way.  All the pieces are falling into place.

Interestingly enough, my surrogacy law practice is really busy right now too-- lots of new surrogate clients.  It must be spring!

Baby Steps

N's appointment with the maternal fetal medicine specialist ended up getting pushed from the 9th to the 14th (it wouldn't be surrogacy without a few more delays thrown in).  But the fantastic news is, he cleared her to go forward!  So we can get started!  She says she's feeling good about this-- she's healthier and on fewer meds than she was previously.  Sounds good to me!

I emailed Barb at Houston IVF to see if I could set up an appointment.  Rick needs to go with me to this initial appointment, so I'm trying to balance the timing with his work schedule-- I'm hoping it works out for us to go to Houston on 3/29.  In the meantime, I'm supposed to call Barb on day 1 of my next cycle (next week some time), because I'll need to get some labwork done on day 2 or 3.

That's all the news for now.