Imagine...Dream...Believe
*IMAGINE wanting a family and being unable to conceive and carry a child.
*DREAM of seeing smiles and hearing laughter in your lives.
*BELIEVE and it will come true!
Come back often and follow our journey. It will be an interesting "pleasure cruise". A surrogacy journey through the eyes of Intended Parents.
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January 2000
Hi! Thanks for stopping by...We are David and Dena and we live in Texas.
David and I met in August of 1990 and were married in 1998 (Valentine's Day)...a very long engagement and we are blessed. I am unable to have children due to a hysterectomy in 1989, so I am unable to have children with David. I was blessed with a son (AJ) almost 22 years ago. AJ and David are close, but David deserves to have children and I really want more children.
We have friends who adopted two children from Russia and we have also considered adoption, but surrogacy is our first choice. We both really want "our" child(ren). My son is also very excited at the prospect of being a big brother. We are so blessed!
David and I desperately wanted more children and discussed adoption. After much discussion, David and I were talking one night and he mentioned Surrogacy. I was stunned, but inquisitive, and it was something I started investigating.
I found SMO (Surrogate Mothers Online www.surromomsonline.com) in August and joined. What a relief to have a safe place to share your dreams at. Shortly after joining, I met Tina (Gestational Surrogate) from out of state that was flying in for her transfer. So I said, what the heck, she already has Intended Parents (IPs) and it won't hurt to have lunch with her, so we met and had lunch and talked. After lunch, I took her to the IVF clinic for her transfer. Her Intended Mother (IM) wasn't there yet, so I waited and was able to go in with her until her IM got there. It was so cool! I got to view the embyros thru the microscope and about 5 minutes prior to her ransfer, in walks IM. My life had changed that day and my dear friend, Tina, delivered the twins on Jan. 19, 2000!
We are taking it one day at a time. We pray that God will send our surrogate "Angel" soon and that we can have a family one day SOON!
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April 12, 2001 -
I would love to call each and every one of you, but to be real honest, I am exhausted and as soon as I hit the send button I am hitting the recliner for a little nap :-)
First of all, 14 eggs were retrieved, but one was non-viable, so we have 13 beautiful, healthy eggs. My lucky number :-)
I won't get a fertilization report until tomorrow morning but I feel VERY good about it :-)
Second....Our specimen was so totally awesome!!! The embryologist wanted to know what David..aka Studley... has been doing to increase his numbers :-) The numbers came out to be 273.9 million per milliliter times 4 milliliters and that comes out to be 1.10 BILLION little spermies...WOOHOO!!!!! Motility rate was 87%!!!!!! As you can well imagine, David is feeling like King of the Mountain today :-) He made a joke as we were headed back to the airport that they better double strap those petri dishes closed cause they may go flying off the shelf as they peg those eggs...I laughed so hard I almost peed my pants...still LMAO!!!
Dr. Doody and the embryologist both agreed that with these numbers, there was absolutely no reason to do ICSI. In fact, the rates of pregnancy are less with ICSI than with natural fertilization. David being the scientific mind that he is, had to know all the stats on IVF vs. ICSI and after a thorough explanation we all decided that since there was definitely no male factor, we would not do ICSI. Higher chance on pregnancy with natural fertilization vs. a higher fertilization with ICSI and less of a chance of pregnancy. David really liked that they would not be "manipulating" the eggs with ICSI. Quite frankly I didn't care either way...Our goal here is for Val to be pregnant and us to have a little Christmas Miracle on our hands :-)
Our transfer is set for Tuesday morning and I will get an update tomorrow morning and Monday morning, but I can call the other days if I want and they will update me...Yes, you know me...I will be calling :-)
Thank you for all your prayers :-) and I hope you continue to keep us in your prayers...we are so appreciative.
God bless and I will keep you updated :-)
13 little eggies..grow Easter Eggies grow :-)
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Debbie's Journey
Surrogate Mothers Online
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