Hurry Up and Wait...

DISCLAIMER: This post describes girly medical stuff.  If you get creeped out easily, you may not wish to proceed.  :)-

Hello readers ~ Happy hump day!

I know right now it probably seems as though I don't post very often, and, that is a fair assessment.  Why the holdup?  Well, here's the 411...

Last Monday (July 23rd) I had my regular Monday morning blood test.  Until now, the schedule for my blood draws has been every other Monday to make sure my IVF team knows exactly where I am in my cycle.  This tells them when Ashley should start her Lupron (icky menopause shots) as she will begin her injections a week before I will.  Having Ashley begin her Lupron a week before me helps to make sure her uterus is ready to hold our little embryos when they are ready to be transferred to her womb ("transfer" is the word used when our embryos are placed into Ashley's uterus).

So, last Monday, our amazing IVF nurse called to tell me it looked like I would be ovulating early.  The control freak that I am, I immediately went into panic mode.  EARLY???!!!  I was certain I would be a late bloomer - I wasn't ready for EARLY!!!  So, instead of having my next blood test two weeks later, I had it one week later (this past Monday, July 30th).

All excited, Ashley, George, and I began acting like lunatics with our heads cut off.  Why you ask?  Because I received a boat load of instructions during that July 23rd phone call, and, I was hellbent on making sure everything was taken care of - STAT!

First up?  Our IVF nurse told us George had to go for a physical...per the government's regulations.  Huh?!  "Unbelievable," I thought...gestational surrogacy is illegal in some states, some other states could give a rat's ass, and our state allows it as long as the government knows we're healthy.  Remember when I said my amazing doctor wouldn't give a "sick" person the opportunity to have a baby via gestational surrogacy under his care?  Well, I wasn't kidding...because he's not even legally permitted to!  I don't know what to think about that, so, I've just opted not to judge this mandate.  I could sit around and mope that couples with a uterus don't have to do these things, but, that would be a negative waste of my time, and, no negativity is allowed here...this is scary enough as it is!  Anyway, since George was told he needed his physical right away, he called his doctor, explained the circumstances, ran out of his office and floored it straight to his doctor for his emergency checkup.  Praise the Lord, George is in perfect health.

Next, about 30 minutes after my IVF nurse called me, a billing coordinator followed up to tell me my treatment payments had to keep up with my body, and as such, I owed a boat load of money to pay for the remainder of my treatments.  Cue the self-induced suffocation reaction.  I just can't post what this is costing us on this blog - if you want to know I'll gladly share that privately, but, it's so insanely expensive I'm embarrassed to post it here.  Anyway, once I recovered from my barely breathing act, I emailed my financial planner to tell him I needed to withdraw money from my baby making account to pay the doctor.  Now, you know it's bad when the financial planner says, "I just gave you a rather large sum of money in January; I'm assuming that's all been used by now."  Check mate my friend...check mate.

Now, in the beginning of our journey we asked our former Intended Parent Coordinator (she is no longer working with our agency) how much money we should be prepared to spend, including medical treatments and drugs that would not be covered by our health insurance policy.  She gave us a ridiculously low-balled estimate  (which she told me was the highest amount of money she could fathom us spending).  Long story short: We've already doubled that estimate in expenses...and we're not even pregnant yet.  But, following my no negativity rule, George and I have remained focused (which is shocking because he's the cheapest man I know - he'll even admit this is true).  Eye on the prize kids...eye on the prize.

So, with the emergency physical taken care of along with the emergency funds withdraw, the only thing I had left to do was get in shape.  I've been working out for a while now, but, I'll admit to getting a bit lazy once summer rolled around.  So, I've been making sure sure I stick to my regimen consisting of three days of cardio and two days of weight and core training as I'm hellbent on being in top form once I take my drugs - I don't want another medical complication during this process (Internal bleeding, anyone?).  Taking care of myself?  Check.

Next up was this past Monday's blood draw (the one that was taken one week earlier than anticipated as it looked like I was going to ovulate early).  Ashley, George, and I were all on pins and needles that entire day waiting for our IVF nurse to call with the results.  We were told to call her if we didn't hear from her by 3:00; since my blood test was at 9:15 a.m., that gave us all plenty of time to endure multiple panic attacks.  Finally, 2:47 p.m. rolled around, our IVF nurse called, and, drumroll please...nothing.  As in, I didn't ovulate.  Cue the crickets.  I could feel the collective sigh of, "Ugh," all the way from Ashley's home state of Texas to our City of Brotherly Love.  Really, after all of that, I didn't even ovulate???!!! C'mon - throw us a bone here!!!

No what?  Well, I have another blood test Friday, August 3rd, and, Ashley's been put on high alert that she'll be starting her Lupron very soon in order to keep her cycle one week ahead of mine.  God willing, I'll have ovulated by Friday, and, we'll be on our merry way.

In the meantime, you may wonder what we've been up to as our little journey remains stagnant.  Well, besides exercising, I've been working hard adding new products to my store, hitting the beach when I can with the kids, chatting and texting with Ashley, and, breathing my way through panic attacks.  Remember when I posted that gestational surrogacy is not for the emotionally weak?  Well, I just took my first big-kid roller coaster ride, and, I'd give my nerves a big fat "F" for the way they handled the possible early ovulation crisis.

So, this is where we stand...in limbo.  Hopefully I'll have more information to post on Friday.  In the meantime, I am happy to report that Ashley has stopped getting ill from the birth control pills our IVF nurse just put her on, so, she probably hates me a little less now (Yes, I'm kidding - she's like that kid sister I just learned I have, and, we complain, cry, and celebrate everything we're going through together).

Until next time, cheers!