Busy Bees

Well it's been a busy couple of weeks for us. Not only has our day-to-day taken its toll but the surrogacy process itself has gone full tilt. There's lots to talk about but let's start with a run down of the latest and greatest in chronological order:

• All application paperwork had been completed, including all of the health screening tests required for enrollment. It took us a couple weeks to schedule, perform and then receive the results of those tests, but we got them done and earned a clean bill of health.
  
• Completion of the application also meant our first wire transfer of funds - the application fee - into the great beyond. No, friendly banker, this will not be going to an Ethiopian king in exile.
• Our US-based fertility doctor let us know, based on other blood work Shannon had to put herself through (it's been a pin cushion month for her), her specific ovulation and cycle start dates. This means we know exactly when she should start taking "the pill" to lock in her cycle. Neither she nor I have taken "the pill" before so this was pretty momentous.
• We Skyped with Drs. Sudhir and Yash, the first live conversation with our SI lifelines. During this conversation we learned that Shannon should start taking pre-natal vitamins and should seriously think about NOT getting travel vaccinations. (We'll definitely cover this later.)
• Our application to SI was formally accepted (!) and we were granted access to secured documentation for use throughout the rest of this process. Of particular note was a list of available carriers.
• We are now reviewing a list of sixteen wonderful women, trying to decide who is going to carry our baby. Can you imagine?!?

Impressive couple of weeks, no? We'll have more to say about some of the above in later posts but wanted to catch everyone up. Next steps for us are choosing a surrogate (!!) and visiting a Travel Medicine clinic to further discuss vaccination. With H1N1 making the rounds, this should be an interesting conversation.