Looking good...maybe

Two weeks after Jenna's visit, we heard back from Main Line Fertility that all of her labs looked good and we were ok'd to proceed with her.  We had been told of the scheduled closure of the lab that Main Line uses for about 3 weeks in December so Jenna was scheduled to start her medications in the beginning of January.  We were seeing more glimmers of hope.

Christmas day, we received a text from Melanie, out of the blue, saying "Merry Christmas!  I think of you guys often and have been wondering how things have been going for both of you?  Hoping and praying that you have good news!"  Once again it was so reassuring to know that she was thinking of us and praying for us. We told her about Jenna and she was so excited.

Jenna continued to go in for weekly blood work and lab studies out in Wisconsin to see if she was responding to the medications and each time things looked exactly as Main Line had hoped.  The fertility clinic in Wisconsin was given instructions by Main Line Fertility here.  Towards the end of January we heard from Main Line that they were scheduling the embryo transfer day for January 30!!  Jenna would be flying out with a friend of hers on Sunday, January 29th.  This also happened to be the same day Jon would be flying back from a conference in Grand Rapids, Michigan, so we were slightly concerned due to our previously discussed flight issues.

Sunday the 29th arrived and Jon made it back from Grand Rapids with no issues.  So with that out of the way we headed home to wait for Jenna's arrival.  We had planned to eat dessert with Jon's parents after Jenna and her friend arrived so they could meet.  Jenna had a layover in Detroit and was scheduled to land in Philly at 7:45pm.  All went well with the first flight so we waited for her to board the 2nd flight.  Jenna texted us that they were boarded and she would see us soon.  We kept an eye on the flight updates and kept noticing that the expected time of arrival continued to be pushed back later.  Then we received another text from Jenna that Delta's computers had crashed nationwide and all flights were being grounded.  Are you kidding me?!$% This had happened about a month before and it took several days for flights to take off again.  This was very upsetting news.

Because of our absolute lack of trust in the airline industry, we went ahead and booked Jenna and her friend on a different airline for first thing the next morning. We reached out to Main Line to see if we could move the clinic day to Tuesday since we weren't sure Jenna was going to make it in time for the transfer the next morning.  They responded that unfortunately, if she didn't make it in time, she would have to restart a new month's worth of medications.  While we waited to see if she would make it out or not, we went ahead to Jon's parents house to be with them.  We ate the dessert with them and played a game while we waited.

While we waited, Rachel received a text from Melanie, who had no idea that the clinic day had been scheduled, she was just checking in.  This is the conversation:

Melanie: Hey! I've been fervently praying that you will have a successful transfer!  Haven't heard if and when it is, but I"m hoping you already had it or it's coming soon!"

Rachel: Hello! Your timing is always amazing.  God must give you extra prodding when we really need your prayers.

We proceeded to tell her about the situation and she offered her continued prayers and hopes that everything would work out.

Rachel: Thank you so much and you have no idea how wonderful your texts have been.  You are still so much in our hearts.

And this was her response, which still brings tears to our eyes:

"As you are in ours!  I am still disappointed it didn't work out with us but I think I came in the picture to be a prayer warrior for you and Jon through you surrogacy journey."

And we completely agree.

Renewed Hope

After re-signing with the surrogacy agency, we expected a several month wait at least but in a little over a month, on the day of our 10th wedding anniversary, we received an email from Tina about a new potential carrier:

"Good morning to you both,
I am very excited to present this carrier to you! 

Jenna is an experienced carrier with us.  I really wanted to try finding you someone that has done a surrogacy before so we know she responds to medications and has a proven track record.  She delivered twins for her last parents and the babies were born after 37 weeks.  And for an extra bonus………… she lives in Wisconsin. So, I drive right through her town when I go visit my sister.  I already sent her records over to Main Line and they stated she looks like a good candidate to proceed with. She and her family are very humble, kind and giving.  I think they could be the one.   Let me know your thoughts. Tina"

Needless to say, we felt a glimmer of hope.   This was the first time we were matched with someone who had carried before.  Two weeks later we spoke with Jenna and her husband on the phone and by the end of that week, we all agreed to continue as a match.  We began making plans for the clinic day at Main Line Fertility.  We have to say at this point too, how amazing Main Line Fertility has been.  They were so sad for us at each failed match and would aways offer us encouragement.  They had been super accessible during the process to answer questions via phone or email. 

Jenna and Rachel started emailing back and forth to get to know one another and felt a connection similar to that with Melanie.  She was easy to talk to and it was great to speak with someone that had carried before because she knew more or less what to expect going forward.  We planned our time together for their visit and wanted to spend as much time together as possible and show them some Philly sites.  Jon was also very excited to expose them to a taste of a Philly  cheesesteak.  

Jenna and Joe flew in the morning of November 3rd, 2016 and we picked them up at the Philadelphia airport.  We headed directly to Main Line Fertility for Jenna's appointments.  After the appointments we dropped them off at their hotel for a bit and picked them up later for dinner & bowling.  The next morning we met with the psychologist (which is required by Main Line Fertility and with whom we had met for our previous carriers).  Afterwards we headed into Philly to see the city a bit and to give them a taste of a Philly cheesesteak.  During our time together, Jon was also pleased to discover that Wisconsinites actually do love cheese!  So we shared a mutual love of cheese. 

We really enjoyed our time with them. We definitely felt an easy connection with them and were feeling very positive about things for the first time in a long time...

Our anniversary dessert

We celebrated our anniversary 80s style

After Melanie

After realizing we were back at the beginning, so to speak, we really felt deflated. We had begun sharing a little bit more widely with circles of friends which of course meant that, as friends do, when they'd ask how everything was going, we'd have to relive the frustration and disappointment. That's one of the things we've wrestled with throughout, ever since Rachel's diagnosis and treatment. We certainly didn't want to go through it alone, but we also didn't want to broadcast to the world every minute detail. It's kind of a balance that I guess everyone going through a difficult time has to discern.

We contacted Tina, our case manager at the surrogacy agency to let her know what Main Line had advised and began waiting, again, for another carrier.  The wait was not long and by September of 2015, Tina had a new potential gestational carrier for us.  In October, we agreed to move forward together as a match.  While Main Line Fertility reviewed her medical history, our potential carrier was started on birth control.  We emailed a few times over the next month but by Thanksgiving things went silent.  No communication to us, to the fertility clinic, to our case manager.  We went a month with no communication and finally canceled the clinic day until we heard back.  We eventually received a letter from her doctor stating that she had a bad reaction to the birth control and no longer wished to continue in the process.  We never heard from her again and went back to the Surrogacy Experience to begin waiting for a third time.

In February of 2016 we were matched with our third gestational carrier.  We started emailing and texting back and forth and scheduled the clinic day for May.  It actually worked out for us to be at this clinic date so we picked her and a friend up at the airport and drove them to the clinic day appointment the next day.  At the appointments on the clinic day at Main Line, the doctors shared that they wanted to treat her with some antibiotics before proceeding with the fertility meds.  In July, after no response to two rounds of antibiotics, Main Line advised that we not proceed.  We were all very disappointed, to say the least.  Jon and I started thinking through what we wanted to do.  This had been such a heartbreaking & emotional journey so far that we weren't sure if we wanted to put ourselves through it again.

Shortly after things ended with this carrier, we had a phone conference with Tina who had spoken with her supervisor about our unusual situation and they agreed to not have us go to the end of the wait list, which technically could have been the case according to the contract. Instead, we would only need to wait behind those who were already in the process of being matched.  So we agreed to continue with them and began waiting a 4th time. We are so grateful for Tina and the Surrogacy Agency, who have been very flexible. Like we said earlier, this is a very contractual and legal process, but also extremely relational. The folks at The Surrogacy Experience have maintained that balance admirably.

Also, it should be noted that while reading all of this may make you empathize with us, we also realize that there was also a loss for these potential carriers who were not able to continue. These are amazing women who are willing to give such a precious gift. The fact that it didn't work out for us three times is no one's fault.

One high note during this time  was that we moved from our condo and bought a house with a yard and room for our future children in July 2015.  This was a welcome distraction and kept our minds occupied.  We also had been living with Jon's parents for a few weeks between the settlements of our old place and new place (hence the very packed storage unit shown below).  It was also a blessing to be in a loving, healing environment during that time.

We promise we will catch up to the present soon so stay tuned for future posts!

Our new home

Mordecai playing in our still empty cupboards

Our VERY packed storage unit prior to moving

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.

   

Looking into our Options

So last time we left off with processing 5 more years of Tamoxifen.  We weren't sure what to do but knew we wanted to expand our family.  We had been looking into adoption.  Initially, we looked into international adoption from a Spanish speaking country, but with Rachel's diagnosis most countries were closed to us.  Knowing several different people who have adopted domestically, we then started looking into that.

While looking at information on one of the adoption websites, we came across the concept of surrogacy, for which we were very unfamiliar.  We started to read up on it and were really excited!  The type of surrogacy in our particular circumstance is gestational carrier surrogacy.  The idea behind this is that a couple will use their own egg & sperm to create embryos via IVF and then a woman, with no genetic link to the pregnancy, carries the embryo (see the info graph below). We were really excited about this possibility. The more we read and talked about it, the clearer it became that this was the direction toward which both of us felt drawn.
 

 Rachel spoke with her oncologist about what her opinion was on stopping the Tamoxifen for 1 month to do IVF and she thought the option of using a gestational carrier to carry our child was an excellent decision.  She referred us to Main Line Fertility in Bryn Mawr to start the discussion.

In August of 2013, Rachel had met with a genetic counselor to see the likelihood that her breast cancer could be carried on genetically to our children.  She had some tests done and went through a lot of questionnaires all leading to the decision that her cancer was not genetic.  Great news!

In September 2013, we met for the first time with Main Line Fertility.  They have a whole onco-fertility program at their clinic where they work with cancer patients to either preserve eggs/sperm prior to cancer treatment or for other fertility options for cancer patients.  They also have a whole department for using a gestational carrier. To spare you many, many details, let's just say that we had a successful IVF at Main Line Fertility in February of 2014.

During this time, we had also been in communication with The Surrogacy Experience, whom Main Line recommended.  We had decided to work with a surrogacy agency because they do all of the background checks, the psych evaluations, the home visit, etc.  Essentially, their job is to match intended parents with potential carriers.

Things were really starting to move in a positive direction - the successful IVF was definitely a milestone in terms of a huge step towards starting a family. But the hard part now was all we could do was wait to be matched. When we signed on with The Surrogacy Experience in April 2014 , we were #14 on the waiting list. We would have to wait until December of 2014 for our first match...

     
 

Let's go back to the beginning...

As of today "we" are 12 weeks pregnant with twins!  By "we," we mean the two of us plus our gestational carrier.  There's a lot to catch up on so to tell the whole story, let's go back to the beginning...

On October 29, 2008, Brad Lidge threw the filthiest slider of his life in an 0-2 count to strike out Eric Hinske and win a World Series for the Phillies for the first time since the year of both of our births. Take a second to relive the glory...

Under normal circumstances, we would be in some loud setting watching this momentous occasion with legions of other fans. However, we were at home - just the two of us - as Rachel was recovering from surgery from the day before. 

You see, approaching our 2 year wedding anniversary in August of 2008, Rachel felt a lump in her breast. After calling her Gyn & going for some studies & a biopsy, she received a phone call that the biopsy showed two tumors - one benign and the other malignant.  The diagnosis was Interductal Carcinoma but thankfully the cancer was found very early.  It would have been stage 1 but because she was so young, 28 years old, they moved her to stage 2.  

We shed many tears and had many difficult conversations.  We had to make hard decisions.  Chemotherapy?  Breast mastectomy?  In the end, with the guiding of Rachel's surgeon, oncologist, & radiation oncologist, we agreed upon a lumpectomy, which was done on Tuesday, October 28th, 2008. This was that very bizarre day between both portions of Game 5 of the World Series. The 2008 playoff run and World Series win could not have come at a better year for us as we were scared and heartbroken.

 Mordecai comforting Rachel after her surgery.

 Jon celebrating the Phillies winning the World Series!

After the surgery, Rachel's treatment then entailed 6 weeks of radiation followed by 5 years of medication.  The 6 weeks of radiation ended the day before Rachel's 29th birthday. Then, on her birthday - February 13, 2009, she began the next phase of treatment - 2 years of monthly Lupron injections & 5 years of Tamoxifen. While on this medication, pregnancy was not permitted because it would be harmful to the baby.

So, we took advantage of having an unexpected, extended period of time without kids.  We took many trips & really enjoyed that time.  We went to the Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, Zion National Park, Canyonlands, & Arches National Park.  We saw new cities - San Francisco, Sonoma, Chicago. Jon pursued a seminary degree and Rachel enrolled in a nutrition program.

 Us at the Grand Canyon

Us on our Arches National Park trip

Approaching the end of the 5 years, our plan was to finally expand our family.  It had been the 2 of us and our 2 dogs, Mordecai & Boaz, but we were now ready to add kids to our family.  The 5 years of Tamoxifen would be ending February 2014.

In the summer of 2013, Rachel had her biannual appointment with her oncologist.  The doctor asked if Rachel had heard about the recent study on Tamoxifen, which she had not. Recent studies were recommending that patients with her type of cancer & age take Tamoxifen for a total of 10 years, not the previously recommended 5 years.  

We were definitely not expecting that news.  She said the decision was ultimately up to us but if Rachel were to continue on the Tamoxifen for another 5 years, the chances of reoccurrence would drop to below 5%.  We asked if there were any studies on women stopping the Tamoxifen to have a baby & then restarting.  She said since the recommendation was so recent, there weren't any studies on that and therefore she didn't recommend that.  She was ok with Rachel being off of the Tamoxifen for a month in order to preserve her eggs.

We came to terms with the first 5 years on Tamoxifen and used it as an opportunity to travel but all that was with the assumption that we would start our family after those 5 years.  To hear the news of continuing for another 5 years was heartbreaking and frustrating...