Transfer Revisited

Ok, now that I have had a few days to get over my hormonal psychosis (complicated by the fact that AF or something like it decided to come on Sunday, which explains some of the weepiness on Saturday), I wanted to write more about the transfer itself. I've been quite self-centered over the past few weeks as I dealt with my cycling woes, and I want to make sure to give transfer its due and not shortchange our surrogate and the wonderful thing she is doing for us.

I think it was good that we had to wait 2 hours for transfer because it gave the four of us time to bond even more. F's husband is pretty quiet, but he and Husband really hit it off and chatted a lot. F felt like an old friend as we sat there talking about every subject under the sun.

It is the oddest experience to watch your embryos being transferred into someone else. I am so amazed that there are women who are generous enough to do this for someone else, often someone they don't know well. Transfer went very smoothly, something F was worried about because some of her previous transfers have left her very crampy. Maybe the RE's technique has improved ;-) Our RE was in rare form and quite jocular as he prepared for transfer. The man had the gall to tell us that if he were a woman, he'd never have a baby himself and that surrogacy was the way to go. As well, the clinic has helped several women lately who have pursued surrogacy due to job conflicts. There are many, many valid reasons for surrogacy, but the reasons he listed (job conflict and desire to avoid childbirth or the "inconvenience" of pregnancy) are certainly not OUR reasons for pursuing surrogacy. It was insulting to me, Husband and F.

After transfer, Husband and I stayed in there with her for the required 15 minutes. It felt pretty intimate. Here we were, the three of us who will (hopefully) play a role in adding a baby to our family. It helped that I had IVF and FET cycles under my belt so that I could empathize with F's full bladder and the awfulness of hearing the toilet flush seemingly next door while you are trying to block out the bladder twinges (though I wish I had had valium for MY previous transfers...or heck, valium that day!).

After transfer, F and I hugged. She left with our embryos for a few days of bed rest while Husband and I went to our favorite Mexican restaurant to celebrate my birthday, celebrate making it this far and celebrate the possibility of what might come.