logistics.

Some of you may be wondering why we are still in the early phases if the decision on surrogacy was made last year. All I can say is logistics. It seriously takes SO much to make this thing happen. Pregnancy is supposed to be easy, but I guess when you are using someone else, it becomes a whole lot more difficult. The process is pretty grueling.

First of all, you have all the legal business. Do we use an agency or just do this on our own? The cost of surrogacy through an agency is insanely expensive, and for any of you familiar with a military paycheck, you know that isn't an option. Plus, I didn't decide to do this for the money, I'm doing it so Ali can have a baby! The plus side to using an agency would have been that contracts and everything would have been taken care of by them, and we just would have had to approve them! No agency means we are completely on our own. Ali and I have gotten together many times, looked over other contracts, and figured out the basics of what we both want. When I had my kids, I never really thought about all the things that could happen to ME. Contracts include clauses for life insurance and all sorts of things to cover all the things that can happen to a woman if she is pregnant. Man, why didn't I think of this stuff when I had my own kids?? The legal parts are just the tiny tips of the ice burg. And, it is currently the thing we are waiting to get worked out. We (well Ali & Brian) have to find a lawyer familiar with California surrogacy laws to ensure that paternity paperwork and other things are filed at the proper times to ensure that Ali and Brian are on the birth certificate, not me!

Second, as military families, we have to consider timing. Brian is already scheduled for another deployment. So, they had to decide if it was better to try to get pregnant right away, knowing Brian would deploy shortly after the birth, or wait to get pregnant until right before Brian leaves and hopefully he'll be back in time for the birth. Ali and Brian decided on the latter option, and I definitely don't blame them. We also had to look into how long Carlos and Brian will remain stationed at Camp Pendleton. We want to make sure we are all here for the duration of the pregnancy so Ali and Brian don't have to miss a thing! That being said, we will be waiting until late this year to do the transfer.

Third, finding a clinic. Military insurance, as with most insurances, does not cover any type of fertility treatments. While they do offer some fertility treatments at a few of the Naval hospitals, the wait-lists for such treatments are tremendously long. Ali even called a few of the other military treatment facilities across the country, all with the same long list. Lucky for me, this part doesn't really involve me. Ali was the one that got to spend all sorts of time researching clinics to find the one that best suits our needs!

Exciting news, showing progress...next week I get my IUD taken out and start on birth control! It may seem silly to some, but it is a big step in the process! After the IUD is out, I can get my screening to ensure I am an appropriate candidate for surrogacy. Yay!! Although, I'm not really looking forward to being on the pill again. It has been so long since I've been on the pill, I don't even know which one I should try out!

There are just about a million other things that make the process take so long, but I won't bore you all with all the details. Bottom line is, it just takes time!!