Starting from scratch... take 3

So as I left off from my last post, I am no longer continuing on as a surrogate for my brother and sister in law because they are currently pregnant (yay!!!) and moving. Well that left me back at square one again. Being a surrogate is something that I really want to do and it has been a full year since making the decision to move forward and start the process. So this is something that I have been waiting to do for a long time. I don't want to sound selfish, its not like I am the one waiting to have a baby so it is not a poor me situation but I am a very goal oriented person and once I decide something I don't like waiting around. So when I told me SIL that I couldn't wait another year, even though I hope our timelines match up next year, I want to go ahead and find a new couple now. At first I kind of went into panic mode and started looking up every agency and filling out applications for all of them that I thought looked good to work with. I never thought about going independent but i went on surromomsonline.com and started looking through classified ads and also joining facebook surrogacy groups. I answered a couple of ads and never heard back from anyone. I found one agency I really liked, The Surrogacy Experience, but they have an exclusivity agreement you must sign from the very beginning. They do the medical testing before you get matched with IPs and incur the cost themselves so they require you to sign a contract for 6 months with them as soon as you sign on. As bad as I wanted to get started I also didn't want to rush into a contract on the second day looking. So I decided to take the weekend to think it over. I went back to surromomsonline.com and instead of answering an ad I posted an ad about myself. Well, the emails started pouring in. The first two couples to email me sounded great and I emailed them back and started correspondence. I very quickly remembered how emotional this process is for the IPs. I don't ever want to lead anyone on, hurt anyone, or let anyone down. Of the two couples, one of them just seemed "right". They seemed like exactly what I was looking for in the couple I would want to pick. I let the other couple and anyone else who emailed me know basically what I just said, this was too emotional a process and I needed to see things through with the other couple. The IPs I picked are so nice. They live close so they can be really involved in their baby's progress. It just seems right. So we set up a skype call and seemed to really connect. When we were done talking I was about to say something like, why don't you guys think about things and email me later but before I could, they looked at each other and said that if I was happy they wanted to move forward. That was so great to hear that they liked me as much as I liked them. So now I am going independent with my semi-local couple. She seems to be as organized and goal oriented as I am so I think we will be just fine doing all the leg work ourselves. Since then, we have skyped again with my husband on the call to so we could all 4 meet each other. I have sent my insurance information to their lawyer to get it checked and it all looks good. I had my medical records faxed to the clinic and my psychological evaluation from last year faxed over too. Now we are just about to where I was before with the first IPs, as far as I have gotten in a year. I am in the hurry up and wait phase. I am waiting for their lawyers to send me a contract to review with my lawyer. I am waiting for their clinic to review my previous psychological evaluation to determine what needs to be done again and when we can set up an appointment for whatever is left to be done. I am waiting for contracts and psyc eval before I can schedule a medical evaluation. I have done everything in my power that I can do and now it is out of my hands. That is a feeling that I really don't like. So now we wait. I am really excited about this new opportunity and I am praying that things go smoothly for us. They are a great couple and I think they will be great parents. I am so excited about the possibility of being able to help them.

It has been a while

So it has been 6 months since my last post and while a lot has happened, unfortunately nothing has happened in the way of surrogacy since last month and that was bittersweet. To start where I left off... I was very sad to say goodbye to the other couple and they were understandably hurt by my decision. But I was really excited about the possibility of helping my brother and sister in law to have their baby. Soon after making our decision my husband got a job offer. This was really exciting for us because we would be moving to Virginia, which only puts us 3 hours from my family and 6 hours to his parents which is so much closer than Florida! (looking back on this now, it was kind of a blessing in disguise that I didn't move forward with the other parents because there is usually a clause in the contracts that says you can't move out of state and this would have been detrimental to my family) So he took the job and we began the process of moving. Since moving is a really stressful experience and because there would be a lapse in insurance till he was at the new job for a full month, my SIL decided to postpone starting till we were established in VA. I was fine with this, it made sense so we waited. In the meantime something wonderful happened. After trying for so long they got pregnant!!! We were overjoyed for them! I talked to my SIL and they still have frozen embryos so they still wanted to go ahead with the surrogacy. That was great with me but I sent her a letter kind of letting her "off the hook". I explained that I knew being pregnant was stressful so if they wanted to concentrate on just one baby that was completely understandable. I didn't want her to feel like she had to move forward or feel guilty if she decided to wait. But she wanted to move forward anyway just wait till closer to when the baby is due in September. So I was ok with that too so still waiting. Well, life seems to always laugh when you make plans and shortly after talking to her about starting in August her husband got a job offer, in Seattle. I think this was just one too many things to deal with, which is also understandable, and she decided to postpone the surrogacy again. I completely understand her position, that is a lot of stress, being now 25 weeks pregnant and moving across the country, buying a house. Thats is a lot for anyone to deal with to try to throw in surrogacy on top of that it too much. So it is still my sincere hope that our timelines match up next time so that I can help with a sibling project with them because I know they will be great parents and it would be a really great experience to help to bring my niece or nephew into the world but I just can't wait any longer to start my own journey. That brings us up to the beginning of last month. I have more to tell and it is all very exciting but I will save that for my next post.