The Pregnancy Test

As you might imagine, it felt like the longest 10 days ever. All we could really do was keep ourselves busy. Fortunately, it was already scheduled to be a busy week. We were out almost every night of that waiting period, which was a helpful distraction. We also had Rachel's mom coming to visit for the weekend to celebrate Rachel's birthday, which was Monday.  We knew that it would either be a tough weekend with disappointing news...or a joyous weekend with amazing news. Either way, it would be good to have Rachel's mom with us!

During this waiting time, we received an email from our case manager, Tina, at The Surrogacy Experience which just helped the anticipation build.  Her subject was: "IS IT FRIDAY YET?!"  So comforting to know we had so many others who were waiting with anticipation as well.  Her email said "just sharing my excitement for the next appointment!"

Then, Friday February 10th arrived. We knew that Jenna's appointment was early in the morning (she graciously got the earliest possible appointment). We figured we should get a call sometime mid-morning. Since each of our experiences were different, we'll tell the story of that day from each of our perspectives.

Jon
I am typically off Fridays, which normally is great because I have long, leisurely quiet mornings. On this particular Friday, I had two errands to run - pick up some dog meds from the vet and then take the dogs to get their haircuts. I pretty much had my phone taped to my face so that I would not miss the call. I knew that Main Line Fertility would call Rachel, who would then call me and add me to the call. 9am, 10am, and 11am all rolled by with no call. Why hadn't they called yet? Of course, I was interpreting the delay as a bad sign. Finally, while I was driving the dogs to the groomer (and our one dog Mordecai was hyperventilating as he does in the car) my phone rang with Rachel on the caller ID.

With giant butterflies in my stomach, she connected me to the nurse from Main Line Fertility who greeted us. At first impression, I judged her tone to be a little too laid back or tentative to be delivering good news. But then she said, "I am pleased to tell you..." Did she just say "pleased"? That's pretty much all I heard. She relayed information like hormone levels and stuff like that, but seriously all I heard was it was a successful transfer.

We've had so many disappointments that it was such a strange feeling to feel pure and absolute joy. And man, was it refreshing. After trying to hold it together at Petco where I handed the dogs off to the staff, I returned to my car and just cried for a bit giving thanks to God.

Rachel
I was at work, trying to keep my mind occupied.  I kept my phone on me anywhere I went in the office.  Jenna and I were texting back and forth.  She had worn her trusty stork leggings and sent me a picture of her in them saying "just sitting around waiting and praying for the results."  As we continued to wait, she texted that she "was disappointed that my 6:30am effort hasn't seemed to pay off for earlier results!!!"  Finally around 11:45am I received the call, when I picked up she started saying "I am pleased.." and I said "WAIT!"  She asked if I knew the results and I said "no" but that I need to connect my husband onto the phone so I called Jon.  With Jon on the line, the nurse continued "I am please to tell you that Jenna had a positive pregnancy test." I feel like crying just typing that.  As Jon said, we had been so used to receiving negative news it was unbelievable to receive such incredible news.  I just put my head down on my desk and cried tears of joy.

After allowing time for the news to settle in a little bit, we began to message our families.  One of my favorite responses was from my cousin, Sara, who texted "AHHHHH!!!!!  CONGRATULATIONS! I'm seriously jumping up and down right now!!!  And now I'm crying.  I'm SO excited for you!!  I will pray regularly for your little ones."  We have been surrounded by so much love and prayer during this time.  My cousin, Laura, texts me regularly that she is praying and celebrating each new marker that we pass.

Our case manager emailed us with her excitement of the news:

Tina: I can’t even express how excited I am for you both. These were great first results!
Now I know we need to take each appointment as it comes but I can’t contain my joy at this point!
What a great way to start the weekend. 

Rachel: Thank you!  I don't think I breathed the whole morning.  It seemed to take FOREVER to get the results but we are ecstatic.  Trying to keep ourselves in check waiting for the blood work on Monday and then the ultrasound but MLF said the HCG levels were very strong which is very encouraging.  What a long process this has been.  My birthday is Monday so this is a fabulous birthday present!  Thank you for walking with us through this process!

On Monday the 13th, Jenna went for blood work to tell us what the hormone levels were. These levels tell us the probability of there still being two embryos and they looked high which normally would indicate twins.  Then we needed to wait until Thursday the 16th for Jenna's ultrasound appointment.  Jenna texted that she planned to wear her stork leggings again.  In Jenna's last surrogacy experience, she was allowed to take pictures and video of the ultrasounds but the technician did not want her to this time.  Jenna was able to convince the ultrasound tech to allow her to take one picture of the ultrasound but was very upset that she would not tell her if there was more than one baby.  This is the picture she sent:

This time we received a call from Dr. Glasner directly stating that there were two embryos!  He expressed how happy he was for us and he knows what a long difficult process this has been.

That evening Rachel received a package in the mail from Wisconsin...a pair of her own stork leggings!  Jenna had bought her a pair and mailed them to her.  What a special gift.