Grant and Luke

With SB beginning her 3rd trimester- Grant and I discussed throwing a baby shower. Neither of us likes standard baby showers only because it’s the same thing over and over so we discussed doing something different. A baby shower that the attendees would like to go to. We talked about venue, entertainment, food, and prizes. After bickering for about a month, countless arguments that erupted, and dealing with California having a "thousand-year storm”— February 3rd, 2024 rolled around and it was time to celebrate!

It’s been a while since I have updated this area of the blog and that is because I had been holding out sharing more until we finally had some good news. Thankfully—it was months and not years!

With a new surrogate (SB) ready to go on this journey with us, we were ready to have a baby. We had a plan, an embryo, and a womb ready to grow our little monster. The transfer date was scheduled for 3-21-23. Grant and I are big into numbers and loved the idea of a date with consecutive numbers (3, 21), while concurrently reading 1, 23 after that. Writing it down seems a bit strange, but it sounds good in our heads.

Do we have a new surrogate? Where is the surrogate? Can we schedule a meeting to figure out what we can do to get a surrogate? Hey…how’s that surrogate hunting going? Pss….you got any surrogates…we can keep it on the down-low? And the responses we got were always — NO. We are working on it. When we have something we will give it to you.

This is not a positive update so I am just going to speed through it as it’s not great. After Zila’s 3rd unsuccessful attempt, we were unsure of what to do. So we spoke to Dr. Kumar who recommended continuing with Zila for a 4th attempt. Having done a bit of research, this was a little unusual as most surrogates have three attempts before it is viewed as being incompatible. To hedge our bet, the doctor agreed to fertilize additional eggs and be on the lookout for a new surrogate if anything happened.

Have you ever heard the phrase, “third time is the charm?” Since this was the third attempt at insemination we heard it quite frequently. As I sat to write this— I wondered where this notion came from. Why three and not four? After doing a Google search I came to find that the origin is relatively unknown.

If at first you do not succeed…try, try, try again. You learn that phrase as a kid and it resonates. Your gaining life experiences so these minor obstacles so in most situations the problem can be easily overcome. With each successful hurdle jumped your kid self's confidence rises. The more life experiences you have the easier it is to avoid these obstacles. Until one day you run into a problem as an adult that you have no life experience in. You hit a proverbial wall that seems so high that you have no idea how to traverse it. Jumping doesn’t work. Free soloing this wall has failed. Going through it isn’t an option. You are stumped.

Grant and I want a child. Grant and I can’t have a child naturally. We have tried…repeatedly. However, we have recognized our physical limitations.

We attempted adoption and that was a complete mess. Finding an agency, doing the training, smiling, babysitting scared kids (respite care), telling the agency what we are looking for, and being provided the complete opposite was beyond frustrating. Telling the agency we want to adopt the child and being told that you are nothing more than a glorified babysitter was even worse. We were told the goal of fostering is reunification. Never mind the trauma the parents have caused, the visitation that opens old wounds, and the inability to discipline the children because they have rights. Did you know you can’t pick a child up who is trying to light a fire in public? Found that out the hard way.