Our footsteps that pave the way to our journey...

On October 10 we had our phych evaluation in Glenview.  Passed with flying colors!  Did you expect anything less?  LOL  Met with our attorney in Chicago on October 11.  Travis had the day off of school, so we made a day of it in the big city.  We took the train down and met with our attorney downtown on LaSalle Street at 10 a.m.   We spent the rest of the day walking around the big city.  Started out with lunch at the Rain Forest Cafe and then walking to Michigan Avenue to the magnificiant mile.  Shopping...Shopping...Shopping.  We did a lot of window shopping.  We visited the Hershey store.  Never knew Chicago had a Hershey store.  We walked down to the Hancock building and Travis and Brian decided they wanted to go up to the observatory.  I was pooped from all the walking and told them to go and I will visit the the Cheesecake Factory.  I think I got the better end of the deal.  Yummy!  After we had enough shopping, we decided we were too tired to walk back to the train station so we decided to brave it out and take a taxi back to the train station.  Must say I think that was one of the better taxi rides I have ever had in the city.  Travis' eyes lite up when he would go fast.  He heard many of my taxi stories when I have been down town for conference.  We ended the day with fresh popcorn from Garrett Popcorn and Aunt Annie's pretzels for our train trip back home.  It ended a nice day in the big city!

Had our telephone conference with our third party nurse to get our testing done on October 14.   She coordinates the testing and makes sure the surrogate, egg donor and intended parents complete their "checklist" of tests and screenings.  Brian has his physical with the doctor on the 23rd and then we both have to get our blood work done.  Next is the surrogate and egg donor phych evaluations and screenings.

Thursday, October 21, we confirmed our egg donor.  How ironic...when Brian and I were choosing a date for our wedding, Brian choose August 21 because two become one.  I guess in this scenerio the same goes here too...two become one.  Two special people to help make one dream come true...

Our pursuit of an egg donor...

We spent many days and nights looking at profile after profile agency after agency for the perfect match for an egg donor.  They say finding a surrogate is harder.  As we wrote in a prior post, we beg to differ.  It's harder to find that perfect match for an egg donor.  Especially when you know you aren't going to genetically be part of the puzzle.  At the top of our list for a characteristic was to find a donor who was at least half Greek.  Part of my ethnic background.  Let me tell you there isn't many Greek donors out there.  The ones that we did find either had a extensive family medical history or did have characteristics that matched ours. 

After looking at one profile after another we narrowed it down to three candidates.  The first donor was Greek and German.  We thought that would be perfect since Brian is part German and I am part Greek. She was a prior donor with positive result, which was a plus. The second donor donated once a year for the last 4 years.  She too, had four positive results.  Very fertile! She was Greek, German, Lithuanian, French Canadian and Native American.  The third donor was Greek, Canadian, French and Indian.   

Trying to eliminate and select our donor was a hard one to do.  Who do you go with?  You ask yourself so many questions.  Are you choosing the right one?  Will the child have any of our characteristics? All three had beautiful characteristics.  The first donor has reddish brown, but looked more German than Greek.  Neither Brian nor I nor Travis have a reddish tint to our hair.  We were concerned about that.  Now it was a choice between donor two and three.  Brian really leaned towards donor two and I really leaned towards donor three.  There was something about donor three that I kept going back to her profile.  When you search for your donor, you really take a look at the characteristics of a person and their qualities and beliefs.  It was something about her features that reminded me of my late mother.  She had that look about her that drew me towards her profile. 

We started asking more questions about each donor to help make our decision.  When we started asking questions of donor two and had been communicating with the agency, donor two decided she was going to go with the highest bidder and matched with another couple without blinking an eye.  When searching for your perfect match, you will find that money does play a role with some and then there are those special people who want to help intended parents with their journey of having or extending their family.  So it was fate after all.  It came back to donor three.  God answered our prayers. I think my mom had a hand in it too looking over us to make sure we choose our perfect match...

The pursuit of a surrogate...

We started our pursuit of a surrogate first, as we were told finding a surrogate was the hardest.  We beg to differ.  When we left Family Source Consultant's we were given a couple of surrogate profiles to review.  Shortley after a few more came.  It wasn't until the fifth profile that we really thought we found our surrogate.  I will use "J" and "M" to protect their privacy.  We really liked all aspects of J's profile.  We had the same beliefs and hobbies. We both liked the country living and outdoors.  M also bowls on a league too!  That was a plus! :)  M and Brian also had a lot in common.  Yep, you guessed it SPORTS!  Although they are Cubs fans! LOL  It was also a plus that they were from Illinois so we will be able to be there every step of the way (ultra sounds, watching the baby grow, etc.). 

We had our match meeting on September 19.  The minute we walked in the door and I saw J, a feeling came over me that I can't explain.  I know this probably sounds funny, but we actually had the similar shirts on and same colors.  We clicked right away.  There was nothing but laughter.  Before you knew it three hours went by.  Our jaws hurt from laughing soo.... much!  We had a lot in common and same moral beliefs.  Brian and I knew it right away before leaving the office that J would be the one we wanted to carry our child.  We knew M would take care and support J every step of the way. 

A few days later we received a call that J and M felt the same way.  Our match was made...

Starting our journey...

In July we decided to start our journey.  We thought if we were going to extend our family and give Travis a sibling we should stop talking about it and get started before we get to the point of not wanting to change diapers anymore.  We met with Dr. Jacobs from Fertility Centers of Illinois in July.  We left the office with a folder full of information to review and several calls to make.  Who knew having another child would be so complicated.  It's a little more complicated than when we pursued IVF ourselves.  A lot of baby steps before you see the big picture.

A friend referred us to an agency out of Hinsdale, IL to pursue our journey of gestational surrogacy and egg donor.  We met with Zara from Family Source Consultants on August 9th.  She cleared up a lot of our questions of cost and the steps of surrogacy.  We left with more confidence in pursuing our journey.