The Clue Is In The Title!

As the more astute amongst you may of realised, we are having treatment abroad - in the Czech Republic. This is due to many factors such as cost, no waiting times and of course success rates.

I admit I was a bit wary about having to travel abroad and not least because I hate flying but it's only a 2 hour flight time and so hopefully nothing some calming music and some positive thinking won't soothe! The plus side is the chance to see a beautiful city that I've never visited before and of course, make a baby in the process too, all being well.

It's amazing how quickly things move from when you start looking into them and we were concerned that we would find a delay in response to e-mails because you are dealing with another country and a busy clinic but we've found that to be to the contrary so far.

There's a lot to learn with regards to gestational surrogacy, it's a whole new world to me and my IPs and it's been a steep learning curve already but we're all learning together which is fun!

We will be using donor eggs but originally my IPs were looking at fresh because that has traditionally been associated with the best success rates but it means a 3-4 month waiting list with this clinic, whereas it seems that using frozen the success rates are essentially the same but with no waiting list. The other advantage to using frozen is that there is no timing issue as you are not having to sync your cycle with that of the donor and so it simplifies the proces.

I was very apprehensive about what the medicated treatment stage would entail and unfortunately everywhere you read, ladies seem to have different experiences of what they were prescribed and so I found it difficult to get any concrete answer of what to expect. In the end, I made myself step away from Google as it was making me more nervous than reassured.

Today we received the news that they had suitable donor eggs for my IP's requirements, which is a huge step and we also received the protocol for treatment and thankfully it isn't as scary as I was fearing but more importantly, it doesn't involve any contraceptive injection.  I'm happy about that because I wasn't looking forward to it at all - it basically puts your body into a menopausal state, by shutting down your ovaries and associated hormone levels and you therefore get all the effects of that too - dryness, insomnia, hot flashes, nausea etc. Not only is none of that attractive, it also can delay your period by 8-10 weeks after the jab, which means if a cycle were to be unsuccessful then you can't even think about starting another new cycle until AF has returned and you are therefore wasting time. I think because my cycles are regular and because we aren't bothered about timing as we are using frozen eggs, that avoiding that type of med if I can was the smart way to go and thankfully the clinic doctor agreed!

My protocol is as follows:

1. Wait for the start of cycle.
 
2. From day 1 of bleeding,  begin taking 6 mg of estrogens daily.

3. Carry on taking estrogens daily and on day 13^th or 14^th , have vaginal ultrasound scan done to measure uterine lining.

4. If lining more than 7mm, add progesterone 800 mg daily from the next day (and continue taking estrogens) and inform clinic dr via e-mail.

5. On the day of adding the progesterone, they collect the sperm sample at the clinic.

6. ET (embryo transfer) is done on day 6 of fertilisation.

Sounds straight forward enough, I thought. Nervous naturally but excited that things are moving forwards so rapidly but that's strange because I am the world's most impatient person so speedy should be good for me. It seems so is one of my IPs and we're bouncing off of each other today I think!

AF (my period) was due today and appeared right on time. We had assumed that because we are yet to have the necessary medication already here that we would have to wait a cycle before starting but the clinic doctor has said that no, we are fine to just start a little later with the estrogen and continue as planned - wow, we're really going to make this baby this cycle!

I just can't believe that I'm about to start ttc all over again, it almost feels comforting to be here and in a routine. I have definitely missed the buzz that cycling brings, let's see if I feel the same in the 2ww though!