Transfer Day ?
My oh my, where do I even begin with the magic that unfolded on Transfer day? First of all, it's truly amazing to be this far in my surrogacy journey. I have dreamt of this for many years and the fact that I have been successfully matched with THE MOST perfect couple and working with THE BEST agency is literally what makes this experience so amazing. Once we were clear on the legal end, all the fun stuff could start happening. My Intended Parents asked that I undergo an ERA first. This ERA (Endometrial Receptivity Assay) would allow the fertility
Pregnancy: Month 3
In surrogacy, there’s a whole lot going on in the beginning: matching, contracts, appointments, ultrasounds, blood draws, medications. But as you reach months 2 and 3, things start to slow down. I have really felt this lately! I’m now under the care of my OB. At around 10 weeks, I had a blood draw to check for chromosomal abnormalities. All came back normal, but as the embryos were tested beforehand, this was what we expected. This test also reveals the sex of the fetus, but I already knew since the clinic told me earlier. The intended fathers don’t want to
Pregnancy: Month 2
Once the fertility clinic got my HCG results and were happy with them, they had me schedule my first ultrasound. Since I never have any first trimester symptoms when I’m pregnant, I find ultrasounds to be very assuring. Otherwise, I have no idea what’s going on in my body. I attended the ultrasound alone and I had been told I would not be able to FaceTime or take video during the appointment. But at the last minute, the ultrasound tech did let me take video. So, it was a great surprise for the intended fathers when I sent them a
Pregnancy: Month 1
As I mentioned in my blog post about the transfer, the clinic waits 14 days to have patients get a blood draw to test HCG levels. That’s a long wait! Knowing that if the transfer were successful, I could get a positive on a home test as soon as five days post transfer, the intended fathers and I agreed that we would get on FaceTime early the morning of day 5 and I’d reveal the test “live.” I was so nervous, mostly because I wasn’t sure how we’d handle the disappointment if the test came out negative. But at 6:25am,
Medical & Psychological Screening
We are all matched up and ready for medical & psychological screening. Here it begins... Honestly, it terrified me a tad bit. I wasn't worried about anything coming up that I couldn't handle, but I was nervous about actually completing a psych evaluation for the first time. I mean, we all think we are a little crazy sometimes right? No. Just me? Ok. Moving on. It took a little bit of time to get scheduled with my OB for medical clearance. It didn't help that I was still fairly new to the state and the pandemic delayed my scheduled yearly check
Matching
Once I was ready to start matching my profile was created. My final profile consisted of a picture of me, age, medical history, the type of IPs that were ideal for me, and a few requirements that I would/wouldn't do during a surrogacy journey. All of this information is important to find the perfect match. I was open and honest about who I wanted to be matched with. The first IP profile Joe showed me was the last one I needed to see! I wanted my profile to be shown to them asap! Not a day later we all decided
My Application and Pre-screening Process
My name is Krystal. I am 31 years old and I'm a bit of a #birthjunkie. Pregnancy and birth have fascinated me since before I could read, and I’ve wanted to be a surrogate for as long as I can remember. After a wonderful pregnancy, delivery of our daughter, and deciding our family was complete, I got myself into countless surrogacy info/chat groups on social media. The lurking began. I immersed myself in the lingo, the agency reviews, the anecdotes, the miracles, the tragedies--all of it. I wasn't in a huge rush because my kiddo was still nursing at night
Transfer
It’s kind of amazing how different transfer protocols can be from clinic to clinic. On my last journey, that clinic’s protocol lasted only a month, and on this journey, it was more like 7-8 weeks! So, getting to transfer this time around was a much more arduous process. Not to mention, the reproductive endocrinologist had me undergo an ERA first. An ERA (Endometrial Receptivity Assay) is a biopsy of your endometrial lining on would-be transfer day to see how receptive it would be to an embryo. So, I went through the 7-week protocol for the ERA, and then another 7-week
Pre-screening and Application
My name is Nikki. I am a mother of two (under 5) and married to my bestfriend. Since my last born in 2019 I have been researching GS. I loved being pregnant and we as a family are whole, so for me Surrogacy was a no-brainer! I love to help others and what better way to help then to help another family become whole. To become a surrogate it is suggested to do a lot of research before taking the plunge. Which I did. (Since having my son in 2019!) There are also a ton of Facebook groups to join
Matching with Intended Parents
I've never actually experienced online dating before, but I love to describe my matching process with NY Surrogacy Center as the closest I've been to it. I'm not proud to admit this, but I imagined this part of my journey with any agency feeling more like a business transaction. I assumed there was a long questionnaire that would put me into a pool of couples that were eager to have me. It's not the experience I wanted, so I was obviously happy to be wrong. Once In-Take and Pre-Screening were complete, I was excited to move to the next step. Matching. I
