So it's been a long time since my last update (apologies about that), and we've had many twists and turns in our surrogacy journey. Not to mention the thousands upon thousands of steps chasing the active and lovable toddler that baby girl has become. It's so much fun being her momma, and I don't think I've ever had to do so little to make sure I exercise. She's like my own personal fitness class instructor as I run around the house everyday. Her kindness and laughter are infectious as well and we love living in a house that's filled with baby giggles.
We had our evaluations in November right after my birthday, and in January I found out that the surrogate we had been working with wasn't approved to move forward by our RE. It was very sad and disheartening, and frankly came out of nowhere, as it had been our understanding that the hubby and I wouldn't have had our part of the evaluation if she hadn't passed hers. Apparently the final decision rested with our own doctor and she had concerns (which with HIPPA we couldn't know specifics) and with her experience and wisdom, told us we needed to find another carrier. I was pretty upset because we thought we were going to possibly have a transfer in March/April and this meant going back to square one...
When we started this journey, I threw myself into researching every single aspect of the entire process and joined a bunch of groups to meet other people in this process, including many surrogates, so that I could learn as much as possible. Through that, I have become very close friends with two women who were surrogates with an agency. Their friendship has become very dear to me and it has been so nice to be able to pick their brains on the view from their side of the street. It's also just been nice to have some other friends who understand what some of this stuff is like, and then to move beyond being friends solely "in the surrogacy community" to just friends sharing life stuff and the journey at large.
One of these women delivered her first surrobaby in January, and after hearing about the failed clearance from our RE, graciously offered to carry for us. Hubby and I are immensely humbled. To top it all off, she is a fellow Texan and is moving to Tennessee this summer. I feel like I won the lottery - someone who gets all my crazy Texas inside jokes (and is obsessed with queso and tortillas as much as I am) but will also be within a couple hours so we can actively participate in the hopeful pregnancy and stay close afterward!
Our RE requires a year between pregnancies so since she so recently delivered, we have to wait until this fall to go through medical clearance and contracts, but barring unexpected circumstances, I feel confident this is it. I'm so grateful - we wanted someone who could be "Aunt X" and friends for life, and we're going to be able to have that. As someone said to me one time, "the more people that love your kids, the better" and it feels like through this surrogacy journey, we're expanding our family in more ways than one.
