When an egg donor is young and in excellent reproductive health and a surrogate is also young and meets or exceeds a rigorous set of medical requirements, the rate of success for surrogacy is 55% – 75%. And once the surrogate is pregnant, the odds of a successful pregnancy and labor are 95%.

Why the wide range of transfer success? Because the reporting of success is unregulated and up to an agency or clinic to report with whatever degree of integrity to which they subscribe, so it varies.

Are we pregnant? Unfortunately no, we are not. For us, this represents a break from meds and probably a March trip to SanFran, at the earliest. Obviously, we are sad — another round of meds will be inconvenient and another trip to SanFran and logistics and childcare arrangements blah blah — but who am I kidding?

Our IP’s (intended parents) just lost someone dear. Any annoyance we might have pales in comparison to their very real loss. And we feel some sense of that. It doesn’t matter that we did everything in our power to ensure a safe and healthy transfer or that we adhered to a strict medication timeline. Anything we can point to and say “See? We did all of it right.” feels a little empty. It isn’t our loss, per se, but we feel it nonetheless. Because we started this journey to alleviate this pain, yet it remains; because we set out to bring white-hot light to pierce this crushing darkness, and our first transfer has been so unspectacularly snuffed out. In deafening silence.

But we have hope.

For reasons I, again, cannot relay, this time around will be different; perhaps more certain. And while we will have increased hope for the next attempt, that same hope is bound to real pain regarding our first trial. China will awake to a broken heart.

I sit here writing about hurts I’ve never known and wholly fail to comprehend in a way that makes sense. Infertility is a monster I’ve not faced until now and even in my somewhat distant role in facing down the bitter brokenness it embodies, I still feel but a spectator of a faraway skirmish. It’s possible that a grief like this one is just another link in the chain of infertility; common and usual. I hope so, but am likely wrong.

China, I’m so sorry. That there aren’t words. That you’ve lost someone dear. That what seemed like a surer thing than you’ve known might well feel hollow and treacherous, and not without reason.

But if you’ll have us, we will fight again with our everything on your behalf; we will beat the odds

All of them.