Moving Along

I feel like I finally have some progress to report. We have been talking with a possible surrogate. She is local and currently pg with a surro baby. She's due in December and would like to cycle again next spring. We still have a long way to go, but things seem like they are moving in the right direction for now.

I've made an appointment with another clinic in my area. I was already thinking of using them since I know they have worked with surrogates before, but it helped the decision discovering that the potential surrogate cycled there last winter. The clinic added a new doctor, and I'm seeing him on Nov. 9. Hopefully my old clinic will cooperate in sending me my records in a timely manner. It's sort of amusing b/c this new clinic will be the third clinic I've used since May 2006. I'm running through the local clinic quickly LOL. There is only one more university-affiliated clinic that I have not used LOL.

My parents visited over the weekend. It was a pretty good visit. I think everyone was on their best behavior. Well, my mother did get a little, well, rather inebriated, but that's pretty normal for her. We went to the state fair, and it was horrifically crowded. I was instantly reminded of why we attend only every decade or so! Our families have started to surprise us by volunteering to contribute to the surrogacy fund. I know that Husband and I are adults and should not pursue any avenue that we cannot afford to pay ourselves, and normally, I would rather die than ask our families for money. We've always been the self-sufficient ones. Lately, however, it's been a bit of a source of contention with us b/c our families hadn't offered to contribute. I know that's an awful attitude, but our parents didn't pay for our educations. We paid for most of our wedding, bought our houses ourselves, etc. I guess it frustrated us b/c we kept getting the impression from them that we were somehow living "high on the hog" as my MIL said. Yeah...we have no insurance coverage for ART, so we have to pay for IVF ourselves and are still paying off April's cycle. We haven't bought anything for the house or worked on any house projects in 2 years b/c we couldn't afford it. Our vacations have been a couple of days at the beach at most. I could go on and on as I'm sure all of us on this rollercoaster could. But at the same time, we've been getting a lot of pressure from them wanting to know what our next steps would be. So, yeah, we really appreciate that they have offered to contribute. In some ways it feels like they are saying that they finally understand the gravity of our situation and the decisions we have to make and the path we are on. It feels like validation and that they are saying we can depend on them. It's nice!

We ran into my aunt, uncle, cousin, cousin-in-law and my cousin's baby at the fair. My aunt hugged me hard, and I felt like we had a moment. I had forgotten that she had several miscarriages after my cousin was born because of RH factor...no one thought to test my uncle. Anyway, I just felt that she understood and could empathize with what we are going through. It was nice to feel like someone in the family had an inkling of what we are going through.