Paperwork

Yesterday I had also received a few emails. 

1. The nurse from the doctor's office asked if Im on BCP (Birth Control Pills) and when am I due to start my next period. I replied back with: Im on birth control and I start my inactive pills (aka get my period) this coming Sunday, May 27. To which her reply was to email her when I do get it and on day three (Tuesday) start a new pack of active birth control pills.  Sounds easy enough!! 

2. My agency coordinator sent me an email asking me to print, sign, scan and email back a paper for the psychology group therapy that my agency does. Nice and simple!! 

3. I received another email from the nurse also asking me to print, sign, scan and email back a few papers. These were Informed Consent for Surrogacy paperwork. Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezey!

Well thanks to my printer for hanging in there!! It said I was low on Black, Blue and Yellow all the way back when I printed out my contract.....the first time! hahahaha Every single time Im near Staples or go to Walmart, I seem to totally forget to pick up ink. It never fails lol 

So with the help of my Handy Dandy printer ;-) I was able to accomplish these tasks this morning. It would have been yesterday but the nurse's papers needed my husband's John Hancock. 

Next step: waiting to start my Inactive birth control pills on Sunday....and restart active ones on Tuesday! :-) 

The Legal Waiting Game, Part 2

So, lets pick up right where we left off. April 11, 2018, the perfect contract, awaiting approval from my IF. Well that didn’t happen. Things were excruciatingly quiet until April 24th. I received an email from my attorney with my IFs rebuttal. She had also requested that I call her that afternoon to discuss things. There were a couple things that were clarified and again it went back to the IF to wait for approval. 

That day came, the late afternoon of May 3rd. I received an email from attorney stating: here's the final draft of the contract. There were instructions on printing and signing with a notary. I was a bit confused but I just assumed that all my requests were approved. This was a Thursday. Under normal circumstances, we would have went right away to the notary, however my husband works 2nd shift and was already at work.

I was also flying out that night to Tennessee to be with my little sister on her wedding day. When I returned from my trip on May 8th, I printed the contract to review it one final time.

Good thing I did, because I had noticed a couple discrepancies! Now this is not a normal thing, even my lawyer later told me that hes never seen this happen in all the years that hes been an attorney. However, it happened with me. After emailing my attorney, on the 8th, a phone consultation was set the following day with another attorney of the group, due to my personal one being away at a conference in Tennessee!! Hahaha I thought that was a bit ironic and funny. Anyways, I explained to him what I had found and he promised to get to the bottom of things right away.  

May 10th I received an apology with the forreal final draft attached. Apparently my IF's attorney accidentally sent the wrong copy to my attorney as the final draft. After of course printing this copy out, I compared it to my redlined draft of changes that I had originally approved back on April 11th. Things looked A-OK so my husband and I went to the notary to sign it. I scanned the signature page and emailed it to my lawyer. The response told me they will send me a SASE for me to mail the full contract back to them and they will also 

forward the signature pages, that I had emailed them,  to the IFs lawyer so that he can set an appointment to get his side signed and notarized.  

The Hurry up and Wait thing gets old....quick! But theres nothing else to do. So we wait....and wait...and wait.... 

May 21st I received an email from my lawyer stating that they received my physical contract that I had sent, in the mail. I was happy and thankful that it hadnt gotten lost in the mail but, at the same time,  I was starting to get antsy. I had decided to send a message to my agency coordinator. She is CCd on all of the emails that go back and forth between everyone. She said my attorney just sent an email over to his attorney to find out the status of things.  

This afternoon, May 23rd, my super awesome and crazy amazing coordinator messaged me to say........that I have been officially legally cleared!!

 Wooohoooo!!! This has been a very long awaited day!!  Im beyond excited!   This gif is EXACTLY how I feel!!

The Legal Waiting Game, Part 1

Time to enter the beginning of the Legal Waiting Game!

I had to sign a legal retainer for my attorney on March 8th, but other than that, the whole month of March passed with nothing much new.  My coordinator had assured me on the 27th that the IF was going back and forth with the first draft of the contract with his attorney, so for me it was The Waiting Game again. 

Finally on April 4th, I received a call from my attorney saying that the first draft will be coming my way and a phone consultation will need to be scheduled to review it together. We set the appointment for April 11th at 1130am. During those 7 days, I read through the contract, little at a time, comparing it to my Surrogate Benefit Package (SBP) and my previous Contract from my 3rd journey. The SBP was set up and created with the agency when I first signed back up with them in July 2017. It has all of the financial information. It is one of the things used by the agency to create a perfect match between Potential Parents and Surrogates. 

               

I flagged any irregularities or things that I didn’t quite understand. Anyone going through this phase, I
suggest you do the same. Read through it page by page and mark anything you dont understand or disagree with, with a postit. Write notes as well. I always have a notebook dedicated to my surrogacy journey. 

My phone call lasted 2 ½ hours. We hung up at 2 and before 3, I had received an email from my attorney with the changes highlighted in Red. I was asked to review them to ensure it covered everything that needed to be adjusted or added. I returned her email letting her know that the contract looked perfect, to which she responded that she will let my IFs attorney know and contact me when she hears back from him.  

The best thing in all of this is that it was the same attorney, so she totally remembered me…or maybe I have a file with her office hahahaha 

So now, again with The Waiting Game :-)  

Beginning of Surro Journey #4

Lets pick up where we last left off. 3 different journeys complete with 3 different agencies.
I adored my 3rd agency so much that I decided to stick with them for my 4th journey. I had received so much support from them, how could I not?! I was matched right away with a sweet, single Intended Father (IF).  

I should just add in here that this was THE longest process from being matched until contracts, that Ive experienced! End of July thru beginning of March!! Lots of hiccups lol 

Hiccup #1: Originally we had a meeting set for July 26th 2017. This needed to be rescheduled because SURPRISE the IF is flying to another state to be with his surrogate, who is due to deliver soon. Wait, What?! Later it was disclosed that the IF actually would like a large family and has a pregnant surrogate (not with my agency) and would also like another surrogate after me.  So the meeting was rescheduled to August 11th, which included myself, my agency coordinator, the IF and his young adult son, along with his consultant. After this meeting we had agreed that we were a perfect match!! 

Hiccup #2: The Egg Donor did not pass her medical screening. My agency wanted me and my husband to talk it over and decide if we wanted to wait or move on to look about matching with someone else. Time would be needed for him to connect with another donor, and of course for her to go through her process (2 months minimum). My husband and I agreed that we were willing to wait it out and stay matched. In the meantime, we moved forward with other aspects of the journey such as my psych eval and mini-test and medical clearance. The psych evaluation and mini test went smooth, however…. 

Hiccup #3: The clearance couldn’t be scheduled until I was on my period which unfortunately had just finished. I had to wait until September 29th for my appointment which included paperwork, fluid ultrasound and Pap Smear, urine sample and of course bloodwork. Hubby had to give blood too, however, his amount of vials were less than mine....not fair!!  

4th Hiccup: My Pap came back abnormal! The Horror!! Never in my life had I been so nervous! This was October 16th I immediately called my OB and let him know. Since the pap was performed by the IVF physician, I had to get a paper from them. They were also requesting a colposcopy, which I later found out that many OBGYNs will actually make a person wait 6 months to repeat the pap and then move onto performing a colposcopy. Luckily my OB understood the time sensitivity of the situation and was able to schedule me for an appt November 2nd. I had to wait another week for the results, which Thank You God!! Came back perfectly normal!  

So now its November 14th and I am officially Medically Cleared and ready to move on to contracts!!!  

5th Hiccup: My IF goes on a sabbatical until the middle of December, according to his consultant. We were shocked and a bit confused but went with it. Except that turned into the middle of January. After the new year came, and we had not yet received a definite date of return, we decided to terminate the match.  

The agency had presented me with profiles of potential couples, but things fell thru for one reason or another. My mind kept coming back to my original IF. After a little over a month, mid February, my agency coordinator and I spoke about him. He was back in communication and ready to move forward with a journey and was still not matched with another surrogate! I took this as a sign and asked for my coordinator to set up a meeting with him. He was more than open to meeting using video chat! That was set up for Feb 21st.  

We had also set up a meeting with his son, since he was in the states, which was the first week of March, 2018.
 It then became official! We were re-matched and ready to move forward to contracts!