The Unexpected...Again

One of the things this whole experience from the beginning has taught us is to celebrate anything, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant. Mainly, this is because in the big picture the thing you want the most can sometimes feel so elusive that it seems completely out of reach. Maybe initially, we thought that once we were matched, everything would just happen perfectly. After all, we'd already been through the hard part of a cancer diagnosis and waiting over half a year to be matched.

Shortly after Christmas of 2014, we were matched with a gestational carrier named Melanie who lived in South Dakota. From our introductory phone call with her and her husband, we felt an immediate connection. We were brought to tears on the phone when she talked about how she would welcome us and whoever among our family would be present into the room for the birth of our children. It was finally beginning to become real that our dream of having children would come true.

She was scheduled to fly out to Main Line Fertility at the beginning of March 2015 for introductory appointments.  This also coincided with us returning the day before from a fun trip to New Orleans for a wedding.  For those of you who know us, we have HORRIBLE flying luck.  No really, HORRIBLE.  From a flotation raft not being packed correctly or an overhead compartment not shutting to "mechanical" problems... we have heard every reason possible for our flight to be either delayed or canceled.  For this reason we do not ever check our bags.  So us thinking it was even a possibility of us getting back in time was a little shortsighted.

 Rachel and her dad at the Mardi Gras museum

 Us at the wedding

The day we were to fly back to Philly there just happened to be a huge ice storm in the northeast and all flights were canceled for Sunday & for Monday.  Nothing into Philly.  We looked at surrounding cities and there was nothing that would get us there in time to meet Melanie and her husband.  Rachel's dad was with us and has now sworn to never fly with us again.  We ended up getting a flight to Houston - then to Dulles, taking a shuttle service to the train station in D.C.  We took the train from D.C. to 30th St station in Philly and then a subway to the Philadelphia airport.. and then a shuttle to the lot where we had our car parked.  This had topped all previous trips.  So we sadly missed getting to meet Melanie and her husband.

The ice/snow storm we returned to

We were planning on an embryo transfer in late May/early June so prior to that Melanie began the regimen of medications to prepare for that day. In the meantime we texted and video chatted. One of the odd things about surrogacy is that even though it is a thoroughly legal and contractual process, it is also a deeply relational one. Melanie has a strong Christian faith and would text us encouraging messages or let us know she was praying for us during this process. Rachel, especially, became close with her throughout these initial months.

After several weeks of being on the medications, it seemed that they were not effective.  Main Line switched around her meds and after a month break, she started on another grouping of medications.  Those were not effective either so we tried one more time.  In August we received a call from Main Line Fertility that they recommended we be matched with a new carrier.  We were all heart broken.  We had connected so well with Melanie and her husband and had been so hopeful this would work out.  Melanie had even sent us a figurine that symbolizes "hope" after the first round of meds were ineffective. Everything had felt so "right" with her and now we were right back where we were 8 months prior, now heading into the fall of 2015.