Some news...

Yesterday we waited all day for some news.  Refresh, refresh, refresh.  Still nothing. 

We've been holding out on you.  We began another cycle - the last of our frozen embryos - the other week.  And this time we cultured to blastocyst. 

We were quietly optimistic until the day of our test - we've even been working on a shortlist of names!  But as the day rolled by the tension was becoming unbearable.

Finally at 9.30pm, refresh one final time before calling it a day.  You have 1 new mail.

Our beta score is 187.

After our last experience we're not letting ourselves get carried away.....  But the news is as good as it can be at this stage.  We are sending all our good wishes to our wonderful surrogate and hoping for the smoothest of journeys.....

No Joy

No luck this time around.  But we still have enough frozen vials of hope for another round soon.

Fingers crossed....

The Big Thaw...

Today we're thawing four embryos and so hoping for a good survival rate.  And so I consulted the Google oracle to find out more.  Apparently about 70% of embryos survive the process of thawing.  And interestingly not every cell of an embryo has to survive the thaw to be viable.  I also learned that whereas freezing takes 3-4 hours, thawing takes 45 minutes!  Somehow all this detail seems important to us.

Apparently the next stage is to 'culture' the viable embryos for a day or so before transfer.

More important, perhaps, is that we now know that a pregnancy test takes place 12 days after thawing rather than 12 days after transfer. So now after a couple of months of calm, this means we also know the exact date of our next pregnancy test.  So we're back to the now familiar territory of waiting and hoping for good news....

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!!

Here we go again

We're about to start another cycle.  Embryo transfer in a few days time.

Fingers crossed.....

Starting Again

At the moment we're having to spend more time thinking about paperwork than thinking about babies!  We realise that as well as being medically suitable, it's just as important for Brits to have a surrogate with good documents. And that's not easy in India.  After umming and ahhing for a week over a surrogate with conflicting dates of birth on her documents, we decided it just didn't feel right and said no.  And we're glad that we did because now have an alternative with great documents.  So we have to wait until after Ramadan to get started, but it seems we'll be on the way again in early September.

Fingers crossed.....

... and then the bad news.

24 hours after our good news came the bad news.   Our surrogate had some bleeding in the night and after a scan and then an overnight wait for another blood test result, a declining Beta score tells us we had a 'chemical pregnancy' - the clinical term for a very early miscarriage.

Despite my being cautious with our news the other day, I can't tell you how gutted we are.  And with that we both now know just how badly we want this.....

Our thoughts today are with our wonderful surrogate.

First signs are looking good....

Today we heard the results of our surrogate's first pregnancy test.  I  must have hit 'refresh' my inbox a hundred times this morning. 

When should we be shouting at the top of our voices "We're pregnant!" ?

Not just yet, we think.

But just between us, our 12-day Beta hCG score just came in....

...and the result is...

216.70

Dr Shivani says this means we're pregnant.  I'm not sure it has sunk in just yet. 

Sooooo excited!

(Bec, Michael & Josh, I reckon we're exactly 10 days behind you!)

I'm meeting Adam for lunch and for a big hug....