A little bit of history and some very good news.

Well what a year 2011 has been so far.  After trying so hard to have a family since we were married in 2003 we are in the process of giving surrogacy a try.

We were hoping to use our own eggs and swimmers but after tests showed that my eggs were now too old and too few we realised our only option was using an egg donor.  I have to admit that when we first started talking about surrogacy (and before I knew about the condition of my poor old eggs) I was quite negative about the whole egg donor idea and didn't think I would be able to go through with it without my own genetics playing a part. 

As with most things when you actually start thinking about something and sorting it through your mind it all seems to start making more sense and you become far more accepting.  I thought about my age (now 40 gulp) and how this would affect our chances of having a healty child.  Would it not be better to use a young egg donor?  Would it not increase our chance of the whole process working after so many failed attempts with my eggs over the last 8 years?  The thoughts  I were having were now causing me to think that an egg donor was a much better option - Ben did not agree.  He was adamant that we should use my eggs and didn't forsee a problem.

Receiving the results saying that my eggs were not viable was a very emotional and upsetting day.  I spent a good day crying and feeling very sorry for myself and to say Ben was shocked is quite an understatement.  We now had a lot more thinking to do about moving forward on the surrogacy idea.  I was certain I wanted to go with the egg donor but told Ben I would not even consider it if he was not 100% happy with this decision.

What a difference a good night sleep makes - we both woke up feeling much more positive and excited that this could still happen, even though it was not the way we envisioned it. After talking it through we were both agreed that Egg Donor + Bens' Sperm = baby(ies)  Lets get on with it!!

After many emails and phone calls with the girls from SCI we were ready for Ben to fly to India.  We both decided that Ben would go alone for the 6 days and I would stay home with Kenny our Cocker Spaniel.  Ben jetted off on Friday the 24 June and had his first meeting with Dr Shivani on Sat afternoon when she instructed him to be back at the clinic the next morning as our Donor was ready for egg collection.  Wow that was fast!! Ben said Dr Shivani had an amazing aura the made him feel very confident in our choice of clinic.

I waited all day Sunday with no news which was very frustrating and Ben did not know anything either.  Oh the thoughts running through my head - why have they not contacted us?  Did we not get any eggs?  Very Frustrating! 

I took my phone to bed with me and checked the emails at about 2am Monday morning and sure enough there was an email from Dr Shivani to let us know that 21 eggs were collected.  I was over the moon but also wondering when Dr Shivani slept as the email must have been typed at about midnight Indian time!!

We had a geat cycle and of the 21 eggs:

19 Fertilised
15 Turned into embryos
12 Grade One

We ended up transferring 3 eggs into each of our 2 surrogates (froze 6) and crossed our fingers for a happy result.

We found out Monday 11 July that both surrogates are pregnant.  The emotion I had while reading that amazing email is hard to describe.  I could not stop crying and could not believe after so many awful phone calls from the past years to say the test was negative that this had actually worked the very first time. 

We realise it's early days yet but are both committed to taking one day at a time and keeping positive!!