Brain Waves

According to a website on fetal development (http://www.ivf.ca/duedate.php), today is the day that the brainwaves begin.

Now we have Three......

We got an email yesterday that said, "Panna and babies are fine. See attached scan."
Only three fetuses were listed, all at normal growth, and in the comment box, it said, "quadruplet noted - one missed abortion - 3 trichorionic triplet. Follow up after 20 days."

So I guess we wait for the next 20 days and see what happens. It is hearwrenching, actually. A part of me says, "If all three are strong, how can we reduce one?" It feels, in some ways, like "Sophie's Choice," and if Dr. Patel gives us a choice, and we have to make it, I don't know if I will ever get over it. Still, having triplets just does not seem feasible.

Some of my friends have written me to voice their opinions. Most are in favor of reduction, but a few have encouraged me to fight for my babies. Here is the reply I wrote to one person. I decided to cut and paste it rather than rewrite it, because it does express what I am feeling/thinking right now.

Most everyone, including my husband feels that we should reduce. A few feel like you do. In the heart, what mother would not want to fight for her children, especially when she sees the one(s) she has now? The thought of having "reduced" that child is more than she could bare.

It is heart wrenching, and I truly hope that I am not faced with the decision to reduce or not. I have agonized about it and cannot even imagine which one of those three little lives would have to go.

However, I am very afraid for the pregnacy with a triplet pregnancy. It is not my body to monitor and feel. It is not even my country to be able to access what is going on and be privy to significant decisions. In truth, I am not really sure how well Dr. Patel could/would handle a high risk pregnancy like a triplet pregnancy. Her email to me today said, "Panna and the babies are fine. See attached report." That was it. Attached report showed a missed abortion of the 4th baby, so the "babies" were not fine. To say that communication from India is not extensive would be an understatement. It seems that she has a protocol. Would she deviate from it for a triplet pregnancy, or would she just go along as normal, and if one or all of them went, her response would be: "See attached report?"

With a triplet pregnancy, the surrogate is at risk, and in truth, that is unfair to her. She also has young children, but also, I could not be certain that she was informed of the risk in agreeing to do it for extra money. She might so very much need the money, set the risk aside, or not even really know what she was getting into. I just don't know.

She is at risk, and so are the other babies. From what I have researched, you have a higher risk of miscarriage with a triplet pregnancy (higher than the chance of miscarriage wtih a reduction procedure) and you also have a fairly high chance of disablities. The babies are born about a month early, and they are usually in the "preemie" category - all of them. Whereas with twins, you can still carry to a good weight to keep them out of the preemie category, with triplets, it gets more dangerous toward the end so they take them out early. So this means that what would have been twins or a singleton, normally healthy and a good enough weight to be just fine, now will have to be born a month early, and how this would affect them in the long run, no one truly knows. If it is nature's decision, that is one thing, but it would be my decision by wanting to keep triplets. How would this decision affect all of the children in the long run?

Even if I were willing to risk the above, because it is so heart wrenching to think of reduction, there is the issue of what do I do after they are born. We are not well off. I could not afford a nanny full time. Both my husband and I are self employed, and so there is much less job security than someone who is not self employed. My husband does not bring in enough to support the family alone so I need to work. Both of our businesses fluctuate with the economy.

Right now, I work 30 hours a week all crammed into three long and breakless days so that I can have the other days to spend with my daughter. They are three tough days, and coming home to one is enough, three will be alot, but three new borns, would be really hard. Right now, I am saving all of my money to pay for the surrogacy and 3 months maternity leave thereafter. I have not even been able to save up what I need for a singleton pregnancy yet. I still have time, but the more finacial pressure I have, the more it affects me in terms of setting limits on how much I am working now. Sometimes I am working 12 hour days as of late. I was quite sick when I was in India, and when I got back from India, I got even sicker because I was afraid to take off because I am saving for this surrogacy. I eventually had to because my health was falling by the day, but I worried about the money alot and suffered the days I pushed myself so hard.

Energywise, I am turning 50 next week. I feel that Uma has made me younger, but realistically, I am not sure that I have the energy for more than two newborns. I will be on my own plus I have a four year old already. As you know as a mother with twins, even easy babies need attention, focus and energy. One is alot. Two is even more, but three?!!

Three times the cost for school, clothing, diapers, health insurance, medical care, and since we are both self employed, we have to buy our own health insurance. If one or all of the children were born with a health issue or disablity because of the triplet risk, we would not be able to get an independent policies. In fact, we might not be able to get independent policies anyway based on the fact that they were born preemies. This could be considered a "pre-exsisting condition." I remember when we applied for Uma's insurance, they asked about this. I guess I could lie, but I would risk their contacting Dr. Patel for birth records since they would know that triplets are usually born premature. I suppose we would grease some palms in India to say that they were each a normal weight at birth, but again, that is a risk. By law, our health insurance would have to take the children on, but that alone would cost us an additional $225 per child each month. Multiplied by three, plus what we pay for ourselves and Uma (who thankfully has an inexpensive individual policy), what we paid for health insurance alone would be more than we currently pay for rent!

Finances, and energy into consideration, there is also the issue of how having three rather than two will change my ability to care for the children in the way I would want. I believe in attachment parenting in the beginning years. This means wearing the babies on my body in carriers, and cosleeping. This is very possible with twins as I have two sides of my body, and two sides of my bed. With three, I will always have to rotate one out, and this will, I think, affect all of the children - they will all have less of me.

There are other issues as well, but then there is the heart wrenching fact that this little life that is struggling to be would have to be terminated by will. I don't know if I could ever get over that either.

The scan report said that they will rescan in 20 days. I am truly hoping that nature makes the decision for me. If not, then I will see what Dr. Patel says. If she says that it is up to me, I think my heart will break in half, or maybe three pieces! There are very solid, and practical reasons for not continuing with a triplet pregancy. There are risks to the other babies if we reduce or if we don't. Despite all of the practicalities, my heart is not yet fully convinced. I will probably need to consult with medical experts before Dr. Patel advises me, just in case she leaves it up to us to decide.

It is an agonizing place to be in right now.

Najla

We have been waiting to see a heartbeat...and.....

We have four!!!!!!!!!!

Fetus one: 140 bpm
Fetus two: 128 bpm
Fetus three: 128 bpm
Fetus four: 118 bpm

OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's all I can say about that right now....

2nd Beta

Our second betas came in on Tuesday at 4138.8...more than doubled. Wow!
It is amazing how my heart is beating these days, as if to help our baby(babies) along!

So now what happens...?

Now we pray and we wait....
1824 is a pretty high number for a two day transfer after 14 days. So we either have twins or one very strong fetus. Either way, we are thrilled from the core of our hearts!
We will know for sure, in terms of twins or not, in a few weeks after the first ultrasound. We will know how viable the pregnancy is after the 8 week scan for a heartbeat. My heart is beating now just to feel that!

So then what happened....?

We arrived in Anand, Gujarat on December 31st. The next day we arrived at Dr. Patel's clinic to meet her, the surrogate and family and everyone else involved. As we waited to meet Dr. Patel, another couple walked into the office. Amazingly, it turned out that they live 5 blocks from us in Santa Monica. What are the chances of that occuring?! We could have run into each other at Whole Foods, or the Chevron gas station on the corner. But if that had happened, they would have simply been among the other thousands of strangers we pass by on a daily basis. But here we were on a similar journey, and so we met and connected.
We retrieved 8 eggs on January 2 and they were fertilized that day. Two days later, four of the eight had fertilized and we waited almost the whole day at the clinic just to be able to see them before they were transferred into the surrogate.
After that, we left Anand, spent one more magical day in Amnedabad and flew back to Delhi. We rested a relaxed a few days and then set out for home on what turned out to be one of the most grueling travel back (due to flight delays and cancellations). To make a long story short, we were supposed to be home on January 7, but did not end up arriving home until January 10.
Even as I write this, we have not fully recovered from the exhaustion. Though in my fog and fatigue, however, last night, I could not sleep. I had been reminded by my friend, Pamela, that we should be getting the news any day now. I had a deep feeling that it was coming now.
I tossed and turned all night vowing that I would not check the emails until morning. However, finally, at about 6 AM, I broke down and checked. This was what I opened up:
Dear Najla,
Hello,
CONGRATULATION !!!
Panna has a Positive result. Beta HCG is 1824. Here with attached report.--

Dr. Nayana PatelAkanksha IVF CenterKaival Hospital, Anand, Gujarat 388001Ph: +91.269.225.3789Email: nayana@ivfsurrogate.com

Our Journey Begins!!!

Here I am! The world's worst blogger finally sitting down to write! Well, I promise you that it is not laziness or lack of interest that I have not entered a blog here since July (or on Uma's since her birthday in April!!! Yikes!!) It is truly for lack of time as for this Mom, as it is for many Moms, any time to myself means that I need to plop Uma in front of the TV, or ignore her requests to come play with her, or stay up late at night (which does not work for my energy levels these days) or forfeit gettting the things around the house that I can get done during the hour and a half naptime, which, by the way, seems to be diminishing as Uma gets closer to age 4. Today, an amazing day for many reasons, I actually discovered that Uma's favorite place to be, Giggles and Hugs (a children's restaurant with an indoor playground and yummy food) had Wiifi and a plug. This could be a solution assuming I am willing to lug my computer here each time we come!
However for this blog, there is another reason why I have not entered anything....I just could not. I was very stuck for many months....The pain of the disappointment was paralyzing. I just could not!
I started this blog after we got a negative with Dr Patel in June. When I reread what I wrote, for the first time today, I saw that I did not even mention that! That is how painful it was! After that negative, I spent the next few months doing ALOT of research on IVF and surrogacy. I consulted with a fertility expert in August, read about four books, made friends with other people going through the process. I wrote to many clinics. I was not certain if we would go back to Dr Patel, or try somewhere else. One thing, the only thing, I was certain about was that this time, whereever we went, I needed to go too, so I could speak to and meet the people involved and so that I could see the land where my baby would come from and my first baby and my husband had come from. We needed to go to India in order to make this happen.
I bought plane tickets to New Delhi for the three of us in October, still not totally sure what exactly we were doing, though I had a rough plan in mind . We would travel on Christmas day and come back January 7th. That was really the only time we could travel because of Uma's school. Another whirlwind of events occured and I flowed with it. They led to feel that Dr. Patel was where we needed to go. Just after Thanksgiving, I contacted Dr. Patel and asked her if we could do another fresh cycle when we were in India. To my astonishment, despite her long waiting lists, she agreed to do it Jan.2 with the transfer on Jan. 4. No doubt she extended me this kindness because of my dear friend, Crystal, who is close to her (in India, it definitely helps to know someone!!).
I was terrified of the travel. It seemed soooo intense, and India is an intense place anyway. But I swallowed my fear and all three of us packed up and left on Christmas day. From the stress and angst, my system broke down the day before we traveled and I came down with a terrible cold, which ended up lasting me the entire trip (but that is another story!).
Despite my cold, the trip ended up being totally magical. I absolutely fell in love with India! My fears soon melted into magic and joy as we experienced our first time together on a "vacation" as a family of three. In fact, Adhipen and I had never had a vacation together since we got married! So even as a coule, we had not taken a trip together that would allow us ample time to sightsee and enjoy ourselves. However, it was not just for the joy of the trip, but also for the purpose of our surrogacy journey, that I think that the decision to take that trip was one of the best ones I have ever made. We saw the places, met the people, felt the land, prayed in the temples, tied a red string wishing for our baby at Fatipor Sikri (the place where the Emperor Akbar made a pilgrimage to pray for a baby) and made a statement to the Gods, the Goddesses and the Universe to move the earth and help us bring in our heartfelt dream of a sibling for Uma - a little baby to join our family, to fill our hearts and souls and bring this intense desire, and prior journey of about 5 years, of mine to completion.