Entry posted by Andrew Q Gordon
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The emails, calls, text message, and anxiety attacks are coming with increasing frequency the last two days. Today was the third and last ultra sound for the surrogate. According to the doctor, the surrogate, let me call her Eve at this point - surrogate is so impersonal - Eve, has 18 follicles - which in layman's terms mean she has 18 eggs developing. In theory each of these can be fertilized and we would have potentially 18 embryos.
So being the dim sort, I asked if 18 was good, bad or normal. I didn't need to hear the words to know the answer, the nurse was effuse in her response saying this was pretty darn high, with high = good. I think I mentioned last time we paid extra for the 'insurance' plan which entitled us to a lot of additional attempts for 1/3 the cost of a single attempt. Well I realized on Monday - yesterday - that we didn't actually pay for the insurance plan because we had to 'accepted' first. Accepted means we were medically cleared. When I mentioned this to our agency's case manager, he expressed amazement that we needed to be accepted. It was at that moment I realized that the clinic is screening to see who is least likely to NEED the insurance. i.e. if the patient has a low possibility of getting pregnant, they aren't going to offer the insurance, because medically they aren't likely to get pregnant on the first go round and are more likely to use the extra attempts. 
Now let me say, I love this doctor and his staff. Money grubbing are NOT words I would use to describe them. Knowing what I do for a living and recognizing that we had to save up for years to get to this position, they have actually waived fees totaling in the thousands of dollars for us. That tells me that while they enjoy making money, they are not squeezing every last nickel from people. Or at least not from people like me who are struggling to pay for this.
So the idea that they were screening and offering this only to folks who most likely wouldn't need it, was a bit of a shock. When I mentioned this the partner, he questioned whether or not we should buy it. I mean we have all the optimal factors in our favor, Eve's age, her response to the fertility drugs, the fact she is not only the egg donor but the carrier. All of these suggest we have a 90% chance of her getting pregnant the first time. - I bought the insurance anyway. If we end up in that 10%, we wouldn't be able to afford a new attempt. But on the other hand there is a 90% chance we just flushed $4800 down the drain because she is going to get pregnant. I should be upset about this, but for some reason I see it as money well spent.
Okay back to One Week. Things are moving much faster than anticipated - another good sign right?? We were told as late as last night that egg retrieval would likely be this weekend, with Saturday being the most likely day. But today, after the ultra sound, it was determined that Eve is having very good response to the fertility drugs - remember the giddy nurse? - and that they are going to do the retrieval in two days - Thursday. That means they will do the implantation on either Sunday or next Tuesday - one week from today. Holy Shit!
Unlike the first three attempts. these are live embryos, they are not a hope that sperm and egg will meet and create embryos. Nope, some guy named Mark is going play mother nature and connect to the boy and girl parts himself - do you think he something feels like God???. When they implant the embryos it is not insemination and hope. This is the big time. Holy Shit!!
So if you don't see me for a bit next week, it means I fainted, hit my head and I am in the hospital recovering. This time it's going to work, I can feel it. We are going to be dads. What the hell have we gotten ourselves into? Holy Shit!!!
[PS - I apprecitate those of you clicked the little "+" for this blog and the previous entry but for reasons beyond the control of anyone - they do not get added to my total - so don't waste those "+" that you have. They just go somewhere into the great unknown. It appears that only points given the responses get credited to the person. [at least that is how it is on my blog] Thanks Andy]
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