I am 6 weeks 6 days pregnant today..

Today was a big day, I got to go in and see exactly what was happening inside there and how many I was carrying. I always get nervous at this appointment because you never know what to expect and just want to see the heartbeat and hear from the Doctor everything looks great.
There was one little peanut in there with a beautiful heartbeat.
I was to Facetime J however service was horrible in the room of course so we recorded it and emailed it to him. I immediately spoke to him and he said he was very emotional and so very thankful I did that for him. My response to him was and like with all my surrogacies, I want them to be a part of everything as much as possible and even though he is on the other side of the world it was like he was there with us.
Last week I broke down and requested EMLA cream from the nurse because the injections sights were getting pretty tender. What a relief it has been and I cannot imagine doing it again without the numbing cream. Also my blood work for my Estrogen levels came back good so I get to stop those injections and even though they were done every three days its still a relief. I have about 5 more weeks of the other one to go.
I am feeling good and have a due date of 10/09/2013. The baby growing out of the size of a pea and will be the size of a blueberry.  Here is what is happening this week. (you may click on the highlighted underlined link and it will take you to page courtesy of The Bump)
Here is a short clip of our ultrasound today so you can see and hear the heartbeat, please feel free to view and comment.

Great weekend

I am just over 5 weeks pregnant now and the injections are getting pretty uncomfortable, time to start sitting on the heating pad.
I am feeling pretty good with no morning sickness, not that I have ever had it but since every pregnancy is different luckily I have not had it yet as well. Knock on wood!!
This blogging is very interesting, it shows how many people have views and from where on a map of the countries. I am very curious to know who and where you are from so please do not be afraid and leave me a message of where you are from and how you found my blog, I would love to hear from you and even if you have any questions about surrogacy I would love to answer any questions.

Tomorrow I go in for another blood test for the HCG beta which will make me 17dp5dt (remember the lingo 17 days post 5 day transfer) and the following week I will FINALLY have the U/S (ultrasound) to see if there is one or two little ones in there growing for J.

I will post a update of the number tomorrow :)

Michelle

You know the saying that no pregnancy is alike? Its very true!!!
I have never had any "symptoms" during my first trimester with any previous pregnancies, however with this one I have had a few already such as heartburn daily and yes even tender breast which to be honest with you I always laughed at when I heard other women say they had this and couldn't understand what they meant. Now I know!!!
My daily injections are literally becoming a pain in the bum. Its getting harder to do but I am very thankful that my husband does them for me. When I used to do them myself it would get harder to do the longer time goes by because it's so tender in the area of both sides. I better start teaching my daughter to do them in case he is ever away, it will be good training for her since she is in school to be a medical assistant.

Here we go again,

I know I am about 8 months late but figured I had to start somewhere!
I have been a gestational surrogate 5 times previously. Here is a little break down of my past surrogacy's.
2002 I delivered a healthy little girl for a couple here in Southern CA, 2003 I delivered a girl and two boys..triplets for a couple here in Southern CA that were born early but are very healthy to this day, 2005 I delivered a little boy for a couple in TX, 2007 I delivered a little girl for a couple from WA, 2010 I delivered a little boy for a single dad from FL.
I keep in touch with 3 out of the 5 which I am very happy with and am honored to continue to be a part of their families.
Last year in April 2012 I received an email from my previous IVF doctor asking if I would be interested in being a surrogate again for one of his single clients that lives in London. I agreed I would speak to him first and make my decision. After speaking with J I knew I was going to be the one to help him have his dream of becoming a father. It took a long time to get to the contract phase but we finally got there in November and he had his egg donor so we could start in December 2012.
I began my Lupron injections in December and finally started the Estradiol injections the beginning of January.
Let me explain what the Lupron does, basically it makes my bodies ovulation system shut down so I will not ovulate on my own. The Estradiol is estrogen that thickens the uterine wall to help prepare for the embryo transfer. The Lupron is a very small needle and I prefer to give it to myself in the stomach, this was a daily injection. The Estradiol is a intramuscular injection which I prefer to be given in the rear hip area. I previously gave myself these injections all by myself and would not let my husband do it even though he always asked until my 5th surrogacy I said why not and well let me just say he has been giving them to me ever since. This injection is given every 3 days with a 22 gauge needle which is 1 1/2 inches long. As we wait for the egg donors egg retrieval I had my lining checked about a week before transfer and this current time it was at a 10mm with a triple strip which is perfect for egg transfer. The day of the egg donors egg retrieval I start the hormone Progesterone which is also a intramuscular injection that is given daily in the rear hip. This hormone is given to make my body think I am pregnant and if I were pregnant naturally I would start producing this at this time of conception.
J's egg donor couldn't have produced any better, she had 28 eggs retrieved and 26 which were fertilized with his "sample" that was left when he visited CA back in September and frozen at that time. One of the most common questions I get is how is the procedure done and if I am just artificially inseminated. Let me explain here, I am a gestational surrogate meaning I have no genetic link to the baby/babies I carry. They use their sperm and their/egg donor eggs to produce a embryo in the lab. This surrogacy we did a 5 day transfer which makes the embryo at the blastocyst phase, when you see a photo you can actually see the embryo is coming out of the shell stage is what it looks like.
We transferred 2 beautiful blast on January 21, 2013. The procedure is very simple and pain free. It last for about 10 minutes and the embryos are inserted with a catheter guided by a ultrasound image of my uterus. You can actually see the moment the are released, looks like a super small bubble. Then I lay there for about a hour and am released back to the hotel to be on bedrest for a day or so.
They call this period the horrid 2ww (two week wait) in surrogate terms. There are a few surrogate lingo words all of which I will explain. The two week wait is when all you have to do is wait for your Beta HCG blood work to see if the transfer produced a pregnancy or not.
Me being the impatient person I am hates it and I like to POAS (pee on a stick-pregnancy test) a few days after transfer and daily until the Beta HCG test. Since this was a 5 day transfer I had more of a chance to see a positive sooner.
I started testing at day 3 which in reality is very early and of course it was negative. Day 4 I thought I saw a shadow of a line but was not sure so I did what any impatient person would do, went out and bought a ton of new HPT (home pregnancy test) so I could keep POAS! See you are getting the lingo :)
I decided to buy one of those digital EPT test and at day 4 1/2 it said pregnant. I was concerned because they were not as dark as I would have like to have seen so on day 7 I went to my own family doctor and requested a Quantative Beta HCG test to give me a number. It came back at 23 so it confirmed I am pregnant for J. The HCG levels are so different for every woman you cannot compare however you just need to be sure the amount is doubling every 48-72 hours.  The IVF center made me take a test on day 10 and the results were 110 which confirmed the number was increasing as it should be. Today I am 14dp5dt (14 days post 5 day transfer) and my HCG beta level was 759, I go back in a week to repeat and if all is good I will have an ultrasound soon after.
J is ecstatic and cautious at the same time, the first trimester is always one of the hardest to get through. Its bad enough for those without fertility problems and finding out they are pregnant when they missed a period or two but for us we have the entire first trimester to wait on pins and needles.
I am just hoping that next week the number is still strong and doubling as it should in the time frame and soon after we will get to see if its one or two in there growing. I have a feeling it is just a singleton.
So now that you have caught up to where I am today I will try and post often and also share photos which I will do through out and hope you enjoy this final journey of mine :)

Michelle