Yesterday, was day one of medications on the IVF journey.
Let me back up already, we are not going through IVF because we have fertility issues, we are going through IVF because this is the process required to have my eggs harvested and later, put in another woman, so that I don't have to physically carry them.
As much as I've talked about this process, it still sounds weird to type it up..."Put my eggs? in another... woman?".. There really is nothing natural or familiar, about what we are doing. But, it's the only way for us to have our own children, so here we go...
Backing up a bit further, I want to say that I am intimately aware of how sensitive and difficult the process of choosing to have children (or not) and the process of how you choose to do it (or not), is extremely personal. To anyone reading this who is on a different journey and/or making different choices than me, I have nothing but empathy and respect for you. Everything I'm here to say is only my story. My choices are not judgements against you, or anyone else. I also want to say that I am fully aware of the great privilege I have to be taking the surrogacy journey. And above all, I am positively overwhelmed with gratitude that at the end of this long, bumpy road, Eric and I will be meeting our (bloodline, DNA, and all) baby.
That being said, surrogacy comes with its own slew of difficulties, and I want to be honest about that. There's so much I did not know, going into this, and the internet (as well as Amazon Books) is fully lacking honest, first-hand stories of what this is like. That, paired with my overwhelm of feelings and utter need to journal, has led me here. I want to share my story because I know others will walk it. I want to share my story because it's not just this day, the day that the hormones began, that is the start of this journey. My story of wondering how I will have children, started 20 years ago when a major operation left me asking, for the very first time, "will I be able to carry?"
There's so much to my story, and I know the same is true for every single person who walks through the doors of a fertility clinic. This is not to say that intended parents who have kids naturally (or in any other way), do not have a story, they do, simply that those are different stories than the one I'm about to tell.
My struggle may be better than yours.
My struggle may be worse than yours.
This is just one story.
It's my Story... it's...our Story... because I am not walking this alone, Eric is right here with me.
Fertility is a business. Let's start there. It's not a charity, and it's far from the compassionate playground you might expect. It's only through my repeated calls and messages to the clinic, that the medical assistant finally got on the phone with us to explain what medications need to be taken, when, and how. Which, for the injections, all they sent us was the link to a YouTube Video(!), from which we are expected to teach ourselves how.
Additionally, we have only met with our doctor twice. Once, when we were first considering their clinic, so that call was more of a sales pitch, and then a second call, to explain the risks of the egg removal procedure. A call during which, we tried asking additional questions and he said "no, no, that's not what this call is for. You'll need to connect with my medical assistant for those questions."
Ok, now I'm irritated. I think that's enough for today. Since I'm not able to have even a sip of wine during this process, I need to exit here and maybe bury myself in a bucket of ice cream or something right now..
Xx, Lauren
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