The Date is Set

The clinic at Stanford called last night and said they had a surgery date for me with Dr. Persian, the famous endometriosis surgeon who uses the Da Vinci minimally invasive robotic surgery technique. My preop is on June 29th and the surgery is the next day. I have a post-op two days later than I think I'm free to fly home. I'm not sure exactly when I'll fly in but I asked for the entire week off at work and was given the time off without any explanation required. I did mention that I was going to Stanford for surgery - perhaps they considered that my flying 3000 miles or surgery must mean that it's serious business? I have no idea really.

Other things abrew:

• My cousin's wife has helped me locate two potential gestational surrogates in Connecticut. One has been a surrogate before - two years ago for a same sex couple where she delivered twins...and the other a mother of three who has been considering it. Both have said that they will talk to me. Yay! I'm thrilled that they are people that my family personally knows and can vouch for. That says a lot to me. One thing that scares me though is that this is an opportunity for a woman to make money...and if they have a very low chance of success with me, that means that their chance for monetary gain is lower with me. I'm not sure what to do here but I want it to be fair to them, too.
  
• I still haven't called Dr. K about my EFT test but it appears that I'll do the biopsy this month. I need to coordinate progesterone meds rather quickly so that I start them on time.
  
• I'm not sure if I will cycle with Dr. Indian for my last 2 or 3 cycles due to the fact that the clinic where he works has a policy of not freezing embryos for women over 40. I'm going to appeal to the director of the IVF department to see if they'll make an exception for me since I only have a few months in which to cycle. If they refuse, I'm considering moving over to Cooper (New Jersey) or Conceptions (Denver). I'm not sure where my FSH is at these days or what these clinics use at a cutoff but I know I'll be making a few calls tomorrow.
  
• Things I'm asking for in the next cycle:
  
  1. Metformin
     
  2. Estrogen priming (apparently it's good for calming down endo)
     
  3. A top progesterone Rx of 400mg/day rather than 100-200mg/day.
     

So I'm "parallel pathing" the search for a surrogate with trying to fix my own endometrium and ovaries (in case I can't find one). I think I'll be ready to cycle late July/early August. I'm not sure if I will need time to heal from the surgery if I am using a surrogate as my uterine lining won't be in play here. So, I might be able to cycle rather quickly. I'll have to ask on this.