After what is known as the the 2ww or two week wait (which can seem like a life-time) the results are emailled.
We were so excited to get the news everyone on this journey wants to hear. "Positive Pregnancy". Knowing it was still a long road ahead, we remained cautiously optimistic. With IVF treatments you know you are pregnant a long while before, so things are still very fragile till a few weeks in.
The beta blood test is taken later on, showing an indication of how well & strong the pregnancy is progessing and also, if more than one embryo is implanted, can indicate a posibility of multiple pregnancy. We were able to implant more than one embryo and our beta level was moderately high.
We soon discovered we were having twins!
The early part of our pregnancy went quite smoothly. We were in regular contact with our doctor and following the well-being of our surrogate and our babies. The regular ultrasounds showed things were well. A low lying placenta was noted, but this can happen. Its just where the placenta attaches and it will usually rise up the side of the uterus as the baby/ies grow without problems.
At 16weeks our surrogate began to bleed. She was immediately admitted to the hospital for investigation. She was given medications and was on bed rest to hopefully settle things down. The ultrasound showed a moderately large bleed, but over the coming days it did settle down. Our babies were doing fine and they were closely monitored. We were notified on all the treatments our surrogate was receiving. Researching everything on the net, it seemed to say things could go either way. Many, many people have significant bleeds during pregnancy, with singles or twins, with no further complications. But some did not. We just had to wait and see.
We had already told family and close friends at this time about our extrordinary adventure. It was hard to say things were now on shaky ground.
The following few weeks were full of ups and downs. Checking my email every hour or so was becoming an obsession. A good nights sleep was a thing of the past. No one from work knew (they still dont!) and I was in a state of inner panic for weeks on end. My husband had the same feelings of course, but with his work collegues in the know. Every email had the power to buoy us up for a few hours or have us (me) scrabbling on google trying to look for some positive outcomes from people with these same complications. While our surrogate was in the best possible care and the babies heartbeats were doing fine, we just hoped, with everything we had, that things would be ok in the end.