Surrogacy transfer…party of four.

Chris- “Don’t wake up.”

It’s kind of what I kept telling myself (and hopefully don’t wake Candace up either) when we were on our way to The Jones Institute for our blastocyst transfer to our Wondrous Wombmate. This must be a dream of some sort. How we got to this point still befuddle me and I am convinced that God’s hand was on all of this. Whether you can share that opinion or have a different theory on how fates and stars aligned, one thing is clear, we finally arrived at the very real opportunity of growing our family. Battle-scarred, financially hemorrhaging, and indirectly buying very nice vehicles for an array of mental health providers, Candace and I (along with our surrogate and her family) crossed the threshold into the inner sanctum of our fertility clinic’s OR.

Candace and I simultaneously exhaled because we got to this point and held our breath because we knew that the road that lie ahead was equally daunting. Now, I don’t want anyone worrying, in our typical style, we stood there in what I assume was dappled majesty rockin’ a series of event-themed t-shirts. Here was the line-up:

 

#Let’sGetReadytoWohl

#WonderousWombmate

#Womb4aWohl

#I’mWohl-yExcited

 

 

Yep, the nurses didn’t know what hit ‘em. We were rollin’ four deep and ready for reproductive adventure. Although Candace and I had been through this far too many times, there was a sense of newness this go-round since our surrogate and her husband never had. It was interesting to hear what questions they had and see how they were processing everything in this often foreign-feeling world, that had become all-to-familiar to us. Once we were escorted to our posh curtained cubicle, Candace and I unleashed diabetes-inducing sweetness on the staff. As we had done previously, we came equipped with what every nurse will tell you is there weakness, anything brought to them by a patient or visitor. In our case, we brought a few boxes of amazing gourmet donuts from an incredible donut shop.

A quick aside here: Candace says, “Hey Chris, I need you to call and put in the order for the sperm and egg donuts.” Chris replies, “Hmmm, you know, that already sounds like a fairly wild phone conversation and there is a very good chance that they will think I am some kind of jerky, pre-pubescent teen and hang up on me. It may be better for you to take the lead on this and I will stick with other stuff like getting all the paperwork together.” Candace, “Fine, I will call.” Chris smiles sneakily to himself as his quick thinking and beguiling smile has enabled him to side-step responsibility once again.

AND more donuts…because they have sperm shaped icing, storks, and pineapples…

So, much to the delight of all of the developing cavities in the nursing staff’s mouths, we delivered our sugary payload and returned to find our gowned surrogate not so zealously downing the requisite Olympic swimming pool quantity of water prior to the transfer. Ok, that may be an exaggeration but the real detractor is not the actual volume, rather it is the warning about how long you would need to wait to return that water to nature. She downed that monsoon’s worth of water though, got prodded for a minute, and then we were off to the transfer room. Honestly, this part did feel a bit like a whirlwind. As I said, Candace and I were caught between an exhale and hold-your-breath kind of moment. I think that kind of turned my ability to process, mentally package, and prepare for the next event into some kind of 400 m dash through peanut butter. In the transfer room though, it was all hands on deck. First, I plastered my eyes to what can only be described as the least interesting square foot of hospital-grade linoleum flooring while our surrogate was getting transferred to the table, positioned in the stirrups, and “re-robed” to the extent possible. Once given the greenlight, I forcibly pulled my eyes away from the floor and started to prepare for this auspicious event.

Transfer was imminent. Our embryologist (that we think the world of) checked that all parties were ready, our RE did a mock transfer/saline flush and told the embryologist to bring in the real deal.   Candace and I prepared our devices to capture every photo of the little brave blastocyst that we could. It is truly remarkable to think back and realize that we have a picture of Jellybean (who is a 4.5 year old petite tower of cuteness) when she was only a few hundred cells in size. We wanted to make sure we could capture that again. Then we saw it. We were awe-struck yet again. It was so small, had so many odds against it, and yet, there it was. We did not see a “Homeless” sign on it that must have hung from it for over a year.   I did not feel all of the sorrow and anger that I felt from our last surrogate bailing at the last minute. All I felt was wonder. That something so little, frail, and relatively nondescript, would turn into something as intricate, complex, and robust as a human. Perplexing and miraculous.

As fast as it appeared, the blastocyst (who we are calling “Waffle” because well, it looks like a waffle.) was gone. Gone from the screen, then gone from the RE’s control, then gone into a vast range of possible outcomes. For all of the work, the discussions, the planning that everyone did, the physical act of transferring Waffle was extremely anticlimactic. After the non-existent transfer dust settled, we were again just four people that, through the amazing and selfless act by our surrogate and her family, walked into another chapter in our lives. Candace and I bought the pages to record this chapter and put it into the bound volume of our lives some time ago. Our Wondrous Wombmate and her family sacrificed and donated the ink to enable this chapter to be recorded. Our RE, with the help of so many people at The Jones Institute, literally handled our embryo “pen” that we hope will continue to fill pages in the book of our lives from this point forward. Now, we hunker down and get ready for the awful 2 week wait.

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