Day 15, 16 & 17~Transfer Day then Get the Heck Out!!

So this is being written as a one lump deal. We actually just arrived home. So thankful for my home, but also thankful to be able to have gone on an adventure/quest like this. I'll just try to go over what took place on our last few days.

Friday morning, we awoke, packed our bags and then hurried up and waited for time to pass until the transfer took place. It was supposed to be done at 1:00, but ended up not getting done until 3:30. Needless to say, we were anxious and a little worried that our surrogate backed out. That wasn't the case at all. She happened to already be at the clinic, but there was a lack of communication and some of the staff didn't know she was there, so they had been calling her and her phone was shut off. Yeah, it was shut off because she was already in the transfer room all gowned up. After the long wait, we got to see our embryos on a computer screen. I asked Dr. Patel to rate them for me on a scale of 1 to 5, 5 being the best. She said they were very good and she would rate them at 100%, so I took that as a 5. After we viewed the embryos, they did the transfer. She transferred 2, so now we wait and see what happens. Joshpina now stays on bed rest until they do the test and we find out what the results are. We gave our thanks and a small gift to Joshpina, said goodbye and thanks to Dr. Patel, also to all the nurses and finally said our goodbyes to Jen and Homero who I am going to really miss! At least now I've got a good reason to visit Napa Valley like I've always wanted to because they live close by.

Our driver picked us up and drove us to Udaipur that Friday evening. Mike wasn't feeling well (again) and by the time we got to the hotel (The Tiger~kinda sounds pornish if you ask me, but it was a really cute boutique style hotel) it was already 9, so we stayed in that night.

Saturday, we awoke to a sunny day and Mike was feeling up to doing touristy stuff, so we visited a temple and a palace and walked the streets of Udaipur. Now this is what I imagined more of India to be like. It's still dirty there, but not as much and there are tons of shops with hand crafted items. Beautiful paintings, hand bags and lots of stuff. The afternoon was spent on out hotel's rooftop. We watched the monkeys that were playing on rooftop next door. I had my first beer in a month and Mike took some sunset photos. Udaipur was a great way to wrap up India.

I've been up for way too many hours at this point so I'm signing off. Hopefully we'll have good news to report in the future. If not, at least we can say we gave it a try!!

Day 14~Drumroll Please.............

And...........We have some Embryos

After a restless night, I'm feeling better. Today's the big day that we find out if any eggs fertilized.

We had 3 very good eggs. The doctor was expecting more and that worried us, but the ones that she got are of high quality, which is better than having let's say, 7 (or more) low grade eggs, so she said, not to worry. After the retrieval, they added Mike's magic and today we found out whether or not we had embryos. And we did!! We have 2 high quality embryos and they are waiting on the third because it looks like it could be better tomorrow, we are calling that one "little Nemo". Tomorrow is transfer day. If all 3 look good, she'll transfer all 3. Studies show that transferring 1 or 2 actually has better results, but she likes to do 3 if possible, so that will be discussed tomorrow. Just gotta pray that it takes.

Anyhow, our day was filled with outdoor walks and only a few beggars. A boy (about 10 years old) who was missing an arm was after me for money (as in following me down the block at close range), but I couldn't even bare to look at him. He got way to close and was pointing his stubbed arm at me. I may be going to hell for not giving in to that one. Next boy was probably 12, but he was missing a leg and had his prosthetic leg off and was sitting on a curb, so at least he didn't chase us down. Now I really am going to hell. Oh well, tomorrow is our last day here and we will hand out some food to these kids on our way out of town.

Our afternoon was spent going out for lunch at Mirch Masala with Jen and Homero. It was more of an upscale place considering the area we are in. Very good food and enough to feed at least 6 or 7 of us. After lunch, we all shopped and got some good deals on copper items. I have tried to pick up a few things for my peeps while I'm over here, but honestly, most of the stuff that I see is really not worth buying. They have awesome deals on luggage, but that's not exactly a souvenir and it would cost us an extra $60 to get it on the plane.

An overall great day that wore me out a little. All the walking is supposed to be good after minor operations, but I am really sore. Kinda feels like my innards are all in a jumble. I guess it is quite normal. (Jen is experiencing the same thing). Hoping to feel even better tomorrow as we journey on to Udaipur (hoping to have internet there and post lots of pics). I am so excited for the weekend and then coming home!

It's kind of weird when I reflect on my Anand experience. When we arrived, I definitely had culture shock. Now I am so used to it. I don't mind walking in the streets with traffic. I don't mind the honking. I don't mind the tuktuks, in fact they are pretty fun. I don't mind any of it (except maybe the weddings at times) and there are things that I am going to miss. Like going to the gym with Hitesch, and meeting new people every day, spotting cool animals, and the cheap food.

Tomorrow we will meet our surrogate for the transfer and present her with a small gift (we got her a small decorative silver box and will put some money in it). Even if it doesn't take (and I hate to even write that because I am trying to have pure positive thoughts), she is giving it a try. She will be put on bed rest for 15 days and will be staying at the clinic during that time. Taking 15 days out of her life and her children's lives to try and do this for us is worth at least a trinket, right!!

GoodNight All.
And GoodNight Anand...............See you in the fall :-)

Day 13~Retrieval Day

Today was the big day. I don't want to get into too much detailed info on here because, one you might not want to read it and two, I can tell you up close and personal in a week from now. Can you see me smiling as I write that??

Here's what I will say.....We have to remember that we are in a whole different world over here. I know other countries have different standards, witnessed that first hand in Mexico with my Grandma, but it is truly a surreal experience when you have a medical procedure done in a 3rd world country. As I was entering the operating room, I'm not gonna lie, I got a little scared. Just kinda weird, kicking off my flip flops in a hall and having a nurse slip on a cloth gown over my t-shirt. I then walked into the OR on my own and hopped on one of the two gurneys in the room. I was just thinking, what are they going to do, two of us at once?? Let's not get stuff mixed up here. I hope they have a good labeling system. But they didn't have 2 of us in there. I guess I was rolled out when Jen was walking in. It was about a 15 minute procedure and then they got me into the "recovery room", where everyone just kind of walks through, mills about, stands around, whatever. Mike was waiting for me and then he had to leave to do his business. I awoke a bit, but was really in and out of consciousness. Next thing you know, Homero and Jen are with me and we are recovering together. When all was said and done, I went into the clinic at 8 in the morning and was heading out by 10, not feeling my best, but not dead either, so there's that.

The retrieval took its toll and I was down and out for the afternoon and evening. Didn't feel good at all and thought I might've had something go wrong, but by 7 or 8, I was feeling better. Good enough to order some Dominos Chicken Kickers and thoroughly enjoy them.

Tomorrow we check and see if the eggs fertilized and if so, Friday is the transfer day and then we are outta here!!!

Even though this is a horrible pic, I wanted to include it. Notice how the sheets could have came from your home closet.

Day 12~An "Off" Day Flies By

Other than some paper work stuff, we really didn't have much to do today. We got a late start today, imagine that~the Lanin's late for stuff, never. Anyway once we got rollin', we headed to Hitesch's office. Took a tuktuk to the law office, which is in an upstairs office building that looks like you may be entering a crack whore apartment building, to do the paper work and then back to Hitesch's office to get some prescriptions. Let me tell ya, this is a pharmacy haven. You can get anything you want, except narcotics, without a problem. What a racketeer that we've going on in the US. Mike, Jen and I loaded up on some  medications that will induce us into a lovely comatose state for the airplane ride home.

After hanging out at the office, we went for lunch at Subway. Yay!! Meat!! Not the beef products that most Subways offer, but I had real turkey.  I've never been more happy to eat lunch at a Subway as I was today. Then we headed over to The Chocolate Room for some dessert. The Coffee Nirvana was an excellent choice. It's basically a frappe. Jen ordered a Brownie Sizzler, which sounds and looks better than it was. Don't get me wrong, it's edible, especially since we have been missing so much of the food we have at home and you can't screw up chocolate that much, but the sizzling part scorched the chocolate and it had a weird burnt taste to some of it. 

By the time all that was over, it was already 3:30, wow, a day that actually went by at a semi high speed rate. It's almost time to hit the gym....

5:30 rolls around and we hit up Hitesch for our ride to the gym. Not only did I see a family of monkeys running around on the rooftops (wow, they do come right into the city), I also saw a camel hauling a cart of stuff. So cool. Hitesch helped us plan our excursion to Udaipur on the car ride to the gym, so we are all set to start our journey back home. 

Tomorrow is egg retrieval. We will stay in Anand until Friday after the transfer and then will venture to Udaipur for a couple of nights. Sunday evening we will be leaving Vadodara (aka Baroda) and head to Delhi, then to Paris and back Minnesota!!

Day 11~End of the Road

Let's get the IVF stuff out of the way. It was the last day of injections today. Everything is looking good. I had a regular injection at 10:30am and then the last of the shots is an antagonist shot called Orvitrelle and that was at 11:30pm. My usual nurse, Sachay (sp?) came to my room at the hotel to do the late night injection. She brought her husband and son, which was kind of weird, but I can also see why she has her husband go with her on these late night house calls. I wouldn't want to show up at some stranger's hotel room alone late at night either.

As for our day, well it was the usual. Breakfast, clinic, hotel room for Words with Friends, walk around the block and then we went out for dinner.

Oh and Mike also squeezed in a haircut between all that business. 30 rupees (about 65 cents) for a barber shop haircut. The guy was so happy to get a 35 cent tip, we saw him run next door from his shop and buy some snacks afterwards. Stuff is crazy cheap around here. They do jack do some stuff for foreigners, like tuktuk rides. We pay 40 to 50 rupees for a ride across town, which is still cheap, but for locals, it is like 5 rupees.

We went to dinner with Jen and Homerro at the Moon 2 Night rooftop restaurant at the Hotel Laksh. A very cool atmosphere, but the food was not anything to write home about. I am sure it is probably good to the Indian people, but we weren't quite down with how they seasoned things. Mike and I both had personal pizzas, but they put cinnamon in the sauce. I just can't do something that I associate with sweetness, in my pizza sauce. Gross!! All of us are dying for some regular meat at this point and this was a "all veg" place. There are only about 4 or 5 places in town that do have meat, so we are going to hit those up this last week. I cannot wait to have a regular burger back in the states.

We also had our laundry done today. Not that I think ya'll are interested in that, but it is a pretty sweet deal. We had 45 items washed, dried and pressed for about $12 dollars. I would seriously consider paying someone $12 dollars a week to do that at home. They even iron your underwear. I told Mike he better enjoy his nicely pressed white t-shirts here because it's not gonna happen at home.

Another uneventful, but nice day. Tomorrow we will do all the paper work, go to the lawyers office and sign the contract. Oh and if Mike and I happen to die and this surrogate has our baby, we needed to put people down who would come and get it, because they don't want it over here, that's for sure. So who are the lucky caretakers.........................................................................
Grandma Kim Taylor and Grandma Cindy Lanin

Later dudes and dudettes!!

Day 10~Another Relax Day Drags On

No Sunday Funday here, it's all about taking it easy, which I'd be all about if I were at home, but it makes for a REAL long day here.

Not gonna say a whole lot about today because we didn't do much. Our one outing consisted of walking to Calison to pick up my dress, which I am going to bring back later this week and have them take it in a little cause it is a little big in places. Other than that, we mostly hung out in the room, playing Words with Friends and reading. Can you tell that I can hardly contain my excitement for Sundays in Anand??

We do have a big week coming up. Daily check ups and retrieval. Let's hope the anaesthesiologist is on the up and up (I'm just kidding mom, I know he is a decent one, Homerro said he is good).

Hope to bring a little more enthusiasm and adventure in my next blog.

Day 9~On a Monkey Hunt

We hear so much about the cool animals that you can spot roaming in India, but our biggest sightings have been cows and dogs, which by the way are very protective of their blocks, but I'll get into that later. Anyway, my goal today was to spot a freaking monkey. Somewhere, anywhere, just let me see a monkey that is not actually in a zoo!!

Started the morning out by having breakfast with Jen and Homero (pronounced O-Meadow, cuz I can't roll my r's), who is a gastrointestinal surgeon, who mostly does gastric bypasses and lap bands (Janet~this could be the best person I could've possibly come across, who knows what the future holds, j/k). Made plans with them to go to the resort after our injections.

Went to the clinic, met a very nice girl (Nueton) who is from India originally, but is now a US citizen and lives in Delaware. She came back here for IVF and surrogacy because of the cost factor and also the high success rates. Spent a longer time than usual at the clinic as it was very busy today. Had a check up and am now up to 8 good sized eggs, plus a whole bunch more smaller ones. That's double from 2 days ago. So things are looking good medically and she's estimating retrieval date to be Wed.

After the clinic, we headed back to the hotel to grab some stuff for our day at Madhubhan. Spent the afternoon soaking up some sun with Jen and Homero and the pool temp was even warm enough for the guys to take a dip. Also enjoyed watching parrots fly over us while we were at the pool. Having some time to kill before dinner, we took a walk around the Madhubhan grounds and there they were. The monkeys were hanging in the trees behind a garden area at Madhubhan. Finally, a monkey just out in the open, no big deal. I guess they hang around at Patel's clinic on slow days, but they are kinda mean and they hiss at people, so I'm not sure if I exactly want to run into them there. We have yet to spot an elephant or camel, but this trip's not over, so who knows? Maybe we'll get lucky and see some this week.

Oh and about the dogs, it's rough out here people. These are dogs have street cred fo sho. Dogs hang out in gangs, so to speak. They each take care of their own blocks and if they see other dogs trying to get on their block, it ain't happening'. Watch out for the one eyed dog with a marred up face, he may look a little weathered, but he's still got lots of fight in him.

As Porky Pig once said....That's all folks!!