Just another day..

Still going through stimulation. As the number of follicles were “satisfactory”, the dosage of my medication was kept unchanged. I have to go to the clinic tomorrow for a scan and they may change the medications depending on the development.
Today we met Fernando and his 2 week old daughter Sophie. They returned from Delhi this morning after applying for Sophie’s passport. Fernando came here from Brazil in desire of having a family and now he has a beautiful daughter. It was so good to meet them. They are off to Brazil in a few days. It feels so exciting to really see this process working.
Today has also been a day of reflection.. Both parents and siblings have been extremely supportive of our decision to pursue surrogacy. This is a new concept to most people and something that has not been done previously in either of our families. It is a true leap of faith for both of us and we are ready to do this.
Looking forward to the scan tomorrow..

A culture shock.. Almost :)

Though A and I were born and raised in India, we feel like we have lost touch with the current India. We came here thinking that this is our country and how difficult could it be to get anything here (as we claimed to know how everything works here!). We ourselves feel disconnected sometimes from what is around us. The life here feels oceans apart compared to what we have back in the US. After having experienced the medical care in the US, it is actually very difficult to get any procedure done here. It's just different.. 
I'm fine with going through anything.. my eyes are on the big precious prize we may have in 9 months!

A day around Hyderabad

Day 2 in Hyderabad.. A Saturday morning and we woke up to Namaz being played through a loud speaker at the Mosque close by as early as 6am and a few minutes later to Hanuman Chalisa also being played through a loud speaker at a hindu temple in the neighborhood. What a vibrant city this is.. Oh, not to forget the cock-a-doodle-do in the background! This can happen only in India :)
Day 6 of stimulation.. I took my two injections and got ready to go around town. We had an amazing breakfast. The taxi arrived at the apartment by 11.30 and we packed some lunch (as we wanted to avoid eating out) and then headed out. Salarjung Museum was our first stop. We had to deposit our cameras before we entered the museum. We got to see a lot of art and antiques but got bored very soon ;) After the whole tour inside the museum, we got out and then had our lunch that mom had prepared. We then headed off to Chow Mahalla Palace. It was a very pretty, well decorated palace. Very close to this was Charminar. It is such a vibrant part of the city. Beautiful views from the top of Charminar and we also did some window shopping on the side streets. I was totally overwhelmed with the number of people and the amount of stuff that gets sold there.. Though we are originally from India, it still strikes us as something out of the norm as we have gotten used to our life in the US.
From there it was time to visit one of our very own Ahobal matt. Lord Narasimha’s idol was very well decorated. After visiting the temple we hopped into a saree shop across the street and bought a few sarees.. This state produces some very nice sarees. On our way back to the apartment, we visited Birla Mandir. This temple that is entirely built in white marble, had some amazing views of the city. The do not allow cameras inside and thus do not have any pictures of the place.. We came back to the apartment after a long day of sightseeing. It was time for some quick dinner and then sleep.. 

The reality sinks in

We were back in Hyderabad on Day 5 of stimulation. My mom accompanied us this time and it has been nice having her with us. We grabbed a breakfast (take-out) at Mc Donald’s in the airport.. A’s and my first experience of Mc Donald’s in India and we really liked it :)  We only wished the Mc Donald’s in the US had these options.
We were again picked up by a taxi driver from the airport and taken to the clinic. The road out of the airport is really nice. After a few minutes we enter into the busy part of town, a typical Indian road!I had my first scan by Dr. K. She observed and told us that everything was on track. So, I responded well to the medication!! I was given more medications for the next 2 days and have been asked to return to the clinic on Monday (Day 8 of stimulation) for my next scan. We then headed off to a serviced apartment where we will be staying during this whole visit. It is a very nice spacious apartment in a very good part of the town. After we got settled in, we headed out for lunch to a near-by restaurant. The food was OK but we may never come back to this place again.. 
That whole evening, we talked about the surrogacy process. The biggest question we still have is how many embryos to transfer. A has done some cool analysis using probability. It all still depends on how many eggs we retrieve and how many fertilize.. This is it.. we are here.. and it’s now real!! 

The irony!

The irony is that though the Surrogacy is a popular process in India with so many well established clinics, it's not a popular concept with Indian families themselves. It is a favorable destination for foreigners but not many Indians are openly choosing this process.
It was in a way strange for us to go back to India to go through this whole process.

Our adventure begins...

We had a very comfortable flight and we arrived at Hyderabad at about 7.30am. There was a taxi driver holding a placard with our names written on it. It was about a 30 to 40 minute drive from the airport to the clinic. We arrived at the clinic and were taken to the office on the 2^nd floor of the clinic. It was a very clean room with sofas to relax. The assistant who brought us up there switched on the AC and the TV which had some old bollywood songs being played.. We were trying hard to beat the jetlag after a 22 hour flight.

We were brought some breakfast (Idli, sambar, chutney and Vada). Had breakfast and waited for the doctor to arrive. I kept falling asleep on the couch waiting for the doctor. We then met our case manager. We had some more paperwork to be completed and then some blood tests. We then met Dr. S who explained us the process for the coming week and some of the medication protocol. 

We were handed a temperature-controlled-bag with medications in it along with some injections and tablets. I was explained how the injections were to be administered. Since I had already gone through this for our previous IVF process in the US, I was comfortable to take the injections on my tummy without a problem.

We were given a tour of the whole clinic and also the surrogate living area. They have multiple rooms on the upper floor of the clinic where all the surrogates live as soon as they have had a transfer. They have maids to clean the area and do the laundry and a cook to take care of all the nutritious food they are supposed to receive during the pregnancy. There are security people to guard the area. The surrogate’s family can visit them during the fixed visiting hours. If the surrogate wants to visit her family in their home, the surrogate will be accompanied by a member from KIC to assure their safety. 

After the visit, we took our medications and then left to Bangalore to spend the next few days with our family.