Appointments, Speedbumps, & Finally Face to Face!

I think Laura would back me up when I say that it seemed like FOREVER trying to get our screening appointments scheduled at Brigham & Womens. The Brigham Center for Infertility, by the way, is the clinic that we will be working with throughout this process. Thom and I had met with Dr. Fox a few times (she will be the doctor in charge of our cycles, transfer, etc) but it certainly didn't end there. While I was here getting weekly blood tests drawn (making sure my ovaries are still functioning properly-looks good!), Laura was home in GA getting her prescreening tests done and gathering all of her medical records to send to the Brigham. In the meantime, we found out that we had to purchase an individual health insurance policy for Laura because her insurance would no longer cover surrogate pregnancy. After a whole lot of research, we discovered that there is only one individual health plan in GA that doesn't exclude surrogate pregnancy in its summary of benefits. And the big catch is that there is a 12mo wait period on this policy for maternity benefits. On the bright side, Laura can actually become pregnant before the 12mo wait is met. She just can't give birth before this period if we want any insurance coverage. Though we quickly realized that our hopes of a December transfer were unrealistic, we were able to get her started on the insurance policy, effective December 2, 2011. So, what does this mean? It means that we are aiming to have a baby sometime after December 2, 2012. Moving forward, all of our cycling, retrieval, transfer, etc will be scheduled around this date. For those of you who dont know what these terms mean: "Cycling" will be the period of time that Laura and I will be taking daily injections to prepare my ovaries/her uterus for retrieval & transfer. "Retrieval" is when my eggs will be extracted. "Transfer" is when the embryos created with my eggs/Thoms boys will be transferred into Laura's uterus. With that being said, though December 2, 2012 seems like forever away at times, its exciting to think it is now less than a year away! So, now onto the exciting part-the big meeting!! With these new dates in mind, we could finally move forward with our screening appointments at Brigham & Womens, which were scheduled for December 19, 2011. This meant that Laura and her husband, Calvin, would be coming out to Boston. I was excited to finally meet them but was FULL of anticipation for what was to come. Not only were they coming out for the appointments but they were staying with us for the weekend. When they decided to bring the kids, we realized that we didn't have enough room for everyone so we planned to spend the weekend with them at my parents house. And, to top things off, it happened to be the weekend of the big annual Dillon family Christmas party. Being the amazing people that they are, Laura and Calvin insisted on sticking around and meeting the whole family (God bless them!). Don't get me wrong..my family is great! I just knew that I was nervous enough meeting their little family of four, so I couldnt imagine being in their shoes. Thom and I got to the airport on Saturday a bit early so we spent a lot of time pacing the baggage claim area (atleast I did!) waiting for Laura, Calvin, and their kids to come down the escalator. Thom seemed pretty calm but my heart and mind were racing! I kept wondering silly things like "should I have straightened my hair??", "do I hug them or just shake their hand?", "what if I'm akward and have nothing to say??". But when they finally arrived, their little girl, Kaydence, broke the ice by asking "where's Brynlee?" and then reaching for me to pick her up. Thank you, Kaydence!! When we got to the car, Laura and I were crammed with their youngest, Logan, in the backseat so we were forced to get to know eachother, whether we liked it or not! Thom & Calvin also got a chance to chat up front, which made me happy since most of the communication up to this point had been between Laura and me. Anyways, I wont go into this much detail for the rest of the weekend or we'll be here forever! The most important part is that all of us really hit it off. As I mentioned, Laura & Calvin met my WHOLE family (including Thom's parents) and we also got a chance to bring them to our church, which was nice. Sunday night, my parents were kind enough to watch the kids so that just the four of us could get out together for a few drinks at CBS Scene. Calvin was excited to see Gilette Stadium and it was great to have the chance to finally chat with them in person, one on one. This is where Laura and I joke that the "Bromance" began between Thom & Calvin. :) On Monday morning, we all headed into Boston for our appointments at the Brigham. This included indiviudal and joint social worker visits, blood work, medication classes, psych testing, and some other stuff for Laura. It was a long day for all of us but Laura definitely takes the cake-she had non-stop appointments all day while the rest of us got to sit around a lot. Most importantly, three important things got accomplished. 1) we all got the medical/psychological "ok" to move foward, 2) Laura & I got to learn about the medication regimens that we will both be on for 6wks before the transfer, and 3) we got a rough idea of timing for cycling/transfer. Because of the insurance coverage issue, Holly (the surrogacy coordinator) suggested that we time our cycling/transfer based on a 34wk pregnancy. Though this seems conservative, we want to factor in the possibility of twins and premature delivery. Therefore, backdating 34wks from December 2, 2012 (our maternity policy effective date) brings us to a transfer (if all goes well)sometime mid-end of April 2012. This means Laura and I will most likely start injections early-mid March. Things dont seem so far away anymore!! So, that was about it for the weekend. We brought Laura, Calvin, Kaydence & Logan back to the aiport early Tuesday morning and said goodbye to what seemed like one big whirlwhind of a weekend. But, it was well worth it. I think I speak for us all when I say that this weekend made us feel even more confident about working together and extremely excited for what's to come!