Almost 22 Weeks!

Baby Davis-Massey continues to grow big and strong and is very active.  Sarah will be 22 weeks pregnant on Tuesday… our daughter will be the size of a spaghetti squash! Yes, we are having a DAUGHTER!

Since our last post we have been to California twice to visit Sarah and baby, and attend the 12 and 20-week doctor appointments.  Sarah’s doctor is great.  He has been very open and has taken as much time as need to answer all of our questions.  Each visit we have been able to spend quality time with Sarah and her family – talking, playing games, laughing and eating.  It feels like hanging out with our families and we are grateful for the relationship we continue to build.  Each visit has been very special!

Sarah has not been feeling well the last few days because she is having some ligament stretching, which is painful.  We hope she feels better soon.

It is hard to believe that we are only 18 weeks away from holding our little baby girl!  We have a lot to start getting ready for! 🙂

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7 Weeks… We Have a Blueberry

On Tuesday we were 7 weeks pregnant!

Sarah went for the first ultrasound on Tuesday.  Although we talked about twins, the most important thing to us was a healthy baby and everything looked perfect.  There was one very strong heartbeat!

Since this first appointment was just scheduled last week, we were not able to go.  We were bummed, but Sarah recorded some audio of the heartbeat and it’s amazing!  According to babycenter.com our baby was the size of a blueberry on Tuesday, check out the ultrasound pic below.

Our next appointment is just after 12 weeks on January 10th and we will be there for that one.  We are so very excited!

Happy Holidays,

James & Christopher

From the Far East to California

It’s been months since we last updated our blog and so much has changed!

Quick Recap…

In July we transferred our remaining embryos in India.  This transfer was not successful (obviously!), so we closed this chapter and went back to the drawing board.  We had a good experience with our clinic and everyone we worked with in India, but apparently it wasn’t our time and timing is everything.

California…

Prior to our last transfer in India, we were introduced to a woman named Sarah who carried a daughter for some of our good friends.  Our friends’ connected us to Sarah over a year ago and she graciously answered a lot of surrogacy-related questions for us.  Fast forward to May 2013, we unexpectedly met Sarah in person and we totally clicked.  We thought to ourselves… “If India doesn’t work, we would love to work with her.”  Afterwards, we learned that Sarah felt the same way about potentially working with us.

When we found out in July that India didn’t work, we were really disappointed, but on the other hand we were really excited to start working with Sarah in August… “emotional roller coaster”… true story!  Sarah lives in California, which is great for convenience and our ability to be more involved during the pregnancy, and she is a perfect match!  We are so grateful for her and her family.

The good GREAT news…

We are five weeks pregnant and we are due on July 22, 2014!  It is still very early and we have some important milestones coming up (12 weeks is a big one) but we are really excited and we continue to hope for smooth sailing!  Please keep Sarah and us in your thoughts and prayers and send good baby vibes our way.

THANK YOU to all of our family and friends for your love and support.

2 Denver Dads to-be!

James & Christopher

Round 3

It’s been awhile since we wrote. Yesterday the rest of our embryos were transferred. We will know the results in two weeks.

Please send positive baby vibes! We are very hopeful!

J & C

The Journey Continues…

We received results in the early morning on April 19th that our second transfer was not successful, again we are disappointed but we will keep trying and hoping.  Thanks for the continued support and baby vibes!

Persistence and Patience… Round 2!

Our second transfer happened on April 9th and we have been trying our best to be realistically optimistic, have faith, believe in the process…We’ll I should say “I” have been trying my best to be realistically optimistic. Christopher has been very good at staying positive. We were 100% convinced that the first transfer was successful, so I guess I have been trying to be more “realistic” and some might see that at being negative.

Because we have been so open about our journey to surrogacy and our first unsuccessful transfer we have had many friends confide in us and share their struggles of getting pregnant. What we are experiencing is common and what we have learned is that we are no different or more special than anyone else. Both of us are very driven and successful people and have been blessed with the ability to set our focus and goal on what we want and usually achieve what we set out to achieve. This has been a lesson in persistence, humility and patience.

We will remain optimistic and patient and will continue to focus on our dream of having a child… when the time is right we will have a child!

Our second transfer was last Tuesday, April 9th and we will know more next Friday, April 19th.

We feel much gratitude for all of the support from our family and friends!

James and Christopher

 

Moving Forward

Today was a BIG day in Colorado… Governor Hickenlooper signed the Civil Union Act into law. This is definitely a step in the right direction for our state and for equality. This law will essentially offer same-sex couples and their families the same rights as heterosexual couples. When we finally do have kids, this will be one less worry.

Kids… well, we are still trying! Our second transfer is set for the first week of April and we are already putting much hope and faith that this IS the one. Needless to say, we were extremely upset when our first transfer was not successful, but we have slowly embraced the fact that it really is part of the game. We have received so much love from our friends and family (thank you!) and we also drank lots of wine, but we finally went back to the gym this week and feel like we are back in the saddle!

More to come in a couple weeks…

Christopher and James

Bad News

Today we unfortunately learned that the HCG levels decreased which means the pregnancy did not take. This is very sad news for us, but we know this can be part of the process. We will do another transfer next month and hope for success.

Our friends and family have been so supportive and we are very grateful.

Two steps forward, one step back…

Good News

It has been a long two weeks and it seems that we were in India months ago not two and a half weeks ago. We have both been very busy with work and a few much needed wine tastings after work!  We woke up at 5:15 a.m. this morning to check our e-mail for the good news…

We received hopeful news at 3:26 a.m. that Kunti, our surrogate, has a HCG level of 24.1 which means we have a “weak” positive pregnancy.  For a woman to be pregnant her HCG level needs to be between 5 and 100… so we are pregnant!  Kunti will be retested in the next 48 hours, and if the HCG number increases we are moving in the right direction.  The emotional roller coaster to parenthood continues…

Often times many pregnant couples do not share this good news until 12 weeks because so much can happen in the first trimester.  For those of you interested in learning more about HCG levels you can check out the chart below or visit American Pregnancy Association’s website. (The internet is dangerous)

http://americanpregnancy.org/duringpregnancy/hcglevels.html

Guidelines to HCG levels during pregnancy:

• 3 weeks LMP: 5 – 50 mIU/ml
• 4 weeks LMP: 5 – 426 mIU/ml
• 5 weeks LMP: 18 – 7,340 mIU/ml
• 6 weeks LMP: 1,080 – 56,500 mIU/ml
• 7 – 8 weeks LMP: 7, 650 – 229,000 mIU/ml
• 9 – 12 weeks LMP: 25,700 – 288,000 mIU/ml
• 13 – 16 weeks LMP: 13,300 – 254,000 mIU/ml
• 17 – 24 weeks LMP: 4,060 – 165,400 mIU/ml
• 25 – 40 weeks LMP: 3,640 – 117,000 mIU/ml

February 23rd Is A Day Of Love And Celebration…

Today is a great day for two reasons…

1) We made a quick stop in Iowa on our way back to Colorado from India to celebrate the marriage and love of James’ step sister Mary and her fiance, Mike who have been together for more than 16 years.

2) We just received an email, at 4:41 a.m., this morning from SCI informing us that embryos have been transfered to our surrogate! (Yes, I was up checking emails at 4 a.m. because my body still thinks I’m in India)

Today is a day filled with LOVE, JOY, and GRATITUDE!

Sending lots of love and light to Mike and Mary…and Kunti (our surrogate), and our future babies:)