Carrier and second embryo transfer

[Kimberly]

Hi! I am an intended mom and have a gestational carrier who is a friend. My friend is 28 years old and have never had any children but VERY healthy. We also had an annonymous egg donor who is 22 years old. The clinic says that the donor has a child and has been a donor before with successful results. My husbands sperm is being used and he's 27. We had ICSI.

Our first embryo transfer failed and came back with an HGC level of 0.

Our most recent try is hopeful but confusing. We transferred three frozen embryos. We got the good news that we were pregnant after a 13 day lab that came back with an HGC level of 67. Two days later her HGC level dropped to 50. My friend/carrier was to increase her estrogen patch to five and continue with the progesterone. The nurse from the clinic says that the dropped results could be normal since we transferred so many and maybe one isnt surviving. This is making me anxious. Have you seen this before?

[lilhanna]

Hi Kim,
I just wanted to say I know how you are feeling right now.
We went through 5 failed IVF cycles before turning to surrogacy/egg donation not only is it emotionally draining it is costly...

We made so many mistakes durring our journey to parenthood, and of course seemed to run into every problem there was that we thought about giving up, but being childless just was not an option.

I am surprised that your clinic would work with your GS since she has never carried before. Our clinic would not work with a GS who had never carried atleast one child full term.

We wish you the best of luck!

[Kimberly]

Well, the embryo transfer worked but we lost the pregnancy a week after we had a positive test. We go tomorrow to talk with the clinic. I'm discouraged with our clinic because I wished they would have told us the risks of a carrier who has never been pregnant. They were nothing but positive these were going to work because we had really great embryos! We were just sure this was going to work because my friend has a healthy uterus which we were lacking. After the first unsuccessful transfer we had her blood work taken for any other issues she may have that could interfere with her carrying. All of her tests were perfect! We have spent over $32,000 with the expenses of IVF, egg donation, labs, and medications. We are just lost right now.

Our carrier is also one of my friends. She offered to carry the baby for at no charge so I don't think we will be trying any longer since we had two unsuccessful transfers with her. We have three embryos left. I'm not sure what we are going to do since we don't have any other carriers.

Being childless is not an option for us either. We may look into adoption. We have lots of hope!

We loved being a parent for a week. I really hope to have that feeling again soon.

I wish you all the best of luck! Stay positive!

[lilhanna]

Kim,
I feel for you! The good news is that you have excellent embryos, don't give up! I would wait and try to find a surrogate who has delivered before-has a history of getting pregnant ASAP. While you are saving try to find an agency to assist you-trust me, it is worth it. We tried for many years and waisted so much money on advertising for surrogates on our own and "trying" to pre-screen them and deal with everything on top of that. There are a few agencies that do not charge an arm and a leg and will help you find a low comp surrogate. The agency we used was in Pa. and they were reasonable, and something about the insurance is cheaper in the State of Pa. Don't get discouraged!