The Waiting is the Hardest Part

You know that song is stuck in your head now. You're welcome!

So after a few revisions, Austin and I signed the final contract and FedEx'ed all 37 pages of it to the legal department at Circle Surrogacy!

I texted J&S this picture and said "Know what that is?! That's a signed final contract, on its way to Circle!!!" It made me smile to get a text back from them almost immediately, with their own picture of their contract and a message saying, "Do you know what this is! A signed contract on the way! :)"

But now we wait. Sigh.

Apparently, the egg donor is still in her medical screening process, and the guys have a separate contract they will sign with her.

Hurry up, Miss Egg Donor!

Just kidding! (Not really.)

Once all of that is complete, then the IVF clinic can start to sync my cycle with hers, using a calendar they create for medications and an estimated embryo transfer date. I have no idea how long it will take before we get our calendar. Originally, the IVF clinic thought we might do a transfer as early as the first week of July, but I don't think that will be the case. So now I'm worried about the date. I'm crossing my fingers that our transfer trip doesn't fall anywhere in between August 9th and September 14th. My niece has her birthday party that she's counting on me to help with, my daughters have their first day of school in August (the little one is starting VPK preschool), and then my husband and I will be swamped with coordinating our special needs daughter's fundraising fishing tournament on September 14th. I know that being a surrogate means I will have to make sacrifices and will likely miss some important events, but I really hope it all works out!

Hurry Up and Wait

I can't believe it's been almost a month since we started contract revisions. We were pretty much on the same page as J&S about everything, so I really thought this part would be done already. It looks like we're in the home stretch now, just one little wrinkle to iron out. Once contracts are finally signed, we can start to move forward again in this journey and get on to the baby making!

While the contract revisions have been going on in the background, the guys and I have continued to email daily, Skype weekly, and even text now! I found this great smart phone messenger app, called Kik, which allows us to text each other without any of the international charges. Now when I want to send one quick little message to J&S, it doesn't have to be through an email! It's such a little thing to get excited about, but when you are communicating with someone that lives nearly 5,000 miles away, it's pretty cool for it to be instantaneous. If you are a surrogate or an international IP, you should definitely think about trying Kik!

Surrogacy Contract, Yuck

This is the part I'm hoping is over with quickly.

The contract negotiations, the "business" part of surrogacy, is uncomfortable. Fortunately, because we are using an agency that has experienced attorneys, the guys and I don't have to figure out this part on our own. The attorneys draft the contract, and then work with us individually to make the changes we think are necessary.

But I hate it.

We have spent the last month getting to know these two amazing men and their family and building a relationship with them. I care about them deeply already, and they seem to really care about my family too. This friendship makes the business part feel awkward, but hopefully since the guys and I seem to be on the same page about everything, it will go smoothly and we can move on to the baby making! I can't start any injection meds until after the contracts are complete, but for now, it appears that we may do the embryo transfer in early July!