Blip on the Radar

I almost feel like we owe our readership some drama to keep everyone engaged. Drama like what you'd find in one of Shannon's favorite television shows, Brothers and Sisters, where not a single day in the tv family's lives goes by without either some life ending catastrophe or the intrusion of a sexy love interest with an accent. Unfortunately, we have neither of those. (Well, not sure this counts, but I have a slight New York accent and my mom says I'm a looker.) All we can offer is good news. Today's new beta level is 774, almost a 300% jump. In fact, grab a seat - the first ultrasound shows a happy, little sac developing in R's belly. Too early to see cardiac movement or even any hint of a fetus but the screen doesn't lie - there's something inching its way to life in there.

After all of this heavy engagement on our part, watching the phone every day and sweating every passing minute, now, all of a sudden, we're transitioning into a no-news-is-good-news phase. Think about it. Up 'til now Shannon and I were very, very worried about things going right. Now we're worried about things going wrong! All we want are predetermined test dates with very positive news and an absolutely vanilla, no surprises pregnancy. Our eyes are now firmly set on the first trimester prize, ending approximately the third of May.

One confession I'm compelled to share is that Shannon and I have both felt a slight bit of disappointment at the implication of the ultrasound - that this would be a singleton birth, not twins. How dare we spend an ounce of emotional energy to bemoan the absence of two when we've been blessed with one? Absolutely agreed. I can only explain it by saying that the emotional and physical toll of the first effort hasn't exactly cast a come-hither glance enticing us to go through it all again. However, that said, we do have two frozen embryos and thus the option to avoid the first hectic round of IVF drugs and hospital stays. And believe me, the disappointment is fleeting at best, quickly beat down by the thrill of knowing that this whole damn process is actually working and that we've a baby slowly making its way to us from across the ocean.

We've held off talking about some other takeaways and advice we'd gleaned from our time in India because we thought it would be pretty cavalier to talk about overseas travel when our minds were a little preoccupied. Shannon and I will of course keep everyone up to date on the progress of our little one but from here on out we'll also sprinkle in some other surrogacy-relevant info we think other couples would be interested to learn. Hopefully, this will be of help to you and will keep us suitably distracted.

Finally, I just wanted to remark on the marvelous avalanche of best wishes we received for our last blog entry. That was stupendous and uplifting and a wondrous reminder that this world is filled with beautiful people. May all the good will return to you and multiply a thousand times. We send our love to our extended family!