Not Quite January 1

 I always like the idea of a new year as the time to make changes...but sometimes there is so much pressure for that day 1, on January 1, that I can't quite get my act together. So there's today, or yesterday or tomorrow. Each day can be a new start. A small start. I know I want to be kinder and more understanding in 2021. I want to judge less and love more, but its been really hard. The world seems so strange. I've been so busy with the usual hustle and bustle, that now that the bustles are hustling no longer, its just very quiet. Luckily, we have dogs to make up for the noise. 

Parenthood is so different than what I expected. I wasn't prepared for the day my children knew more about the history of the country that I have lived in for 41 years. I was blown away by the observations of kids that can't even drive (one should be able to, but that is whole other story). I will not let the political world infiltrate my inner mind. My goal is to focus on what can me a better person, which leads to being a better wife and mom. The needs of my family have changed so much over the years and now there are days where my only influence is a (hopefully) healthy meal and a chat my oldest while walking the dog. 

So I will start now. Finding something to give a little purpose. Of course, the husband and kids and home and animals provide some of that, but I need to have a little something just for me too. My goal for the year is to start fresh. To find new ways to do my "day to day" just a little better. Use environmentally friendly "poop bags" for the dogs. Trade out some of my usual produce for something organic. Make use of what I have and repair things rather than replace. I have wanted to trade out skin care for a long time as I watch my family deal with multiple skin issues over the years. As we all know, our skin is our largest organ!

Its been a while...

Wow. Its been 8 years. So much change, but so much has really stayed the same. There is a Pandemic. Crazy stuff that I'd never expect in my lifetime. My kids are TEENAGERS!! I don't know when that happened...I guess 4 and 2 years ago, if I'm being honest. 

Grandparents are gone. Friends are losing parents. I have a new niece. In the midst of the chaos, life and death go on. This is a new phase of motherhood for me. My years with pregnancy, babies, toddlers  are gone...even after being a gestational surrogate three times. The youngest of the "extra" babes is almost five. Its time for me to figure out what is next. Is anyone still here? 

The meaning of Surrogacy

For anyone thinking of becoming a surrogate or wanting to know in one simple sentence what surroagcy is about, here you go:

"Surrogacy is a year out of your own life, to give someone else a lifetime of happiness."

Yep, I think that pretty much sums it up. :-)

And a new year begins

Each year, New Years Day is filled with all the excitement and wonder of what is to come in the next 12 months.  The last few years have been dominated with pregnancy, not only by my surrogate pregnancies, but those of my dearest friends as well.  While this theme will continue for a few, this year may be the first in three for me, that doesn't involve pregnancy.  I always make big plans for a new year...new budget, new goals, new weight. :-)  So trying to decide what to do with this year is really taking some thought.

I talked with a few different people last year about surrogacy.  Two friends are now actively surrogates in various stages and another was on the opposite end--desperately ready for her family. I have continued to be in contact with my first surrogate family and it is amazing to see how that little girl has grown.  They will forever be special people in my life and I feel like I have been blessed just by knowing them.  While I am not as close with the second set of parents (distance and of course, having two babies!!) I did get a super cute Christmas card and some photos.  It really touched my heart to hear from them and see how they are thriving.

So the question is still out there...what to do with 2013?  My family has waited patiently for me to be back to my old self and now I need to figure out exactly what to do.

**So this post never made it to be published in January, when it was originally written, so rather than delete and start again, I figure I may as well add what I have been up to in 2013.**

Today is 5 months since the twins were born. I have five pounds left to lose to get to my IVF weight and another five that would put me where I want to be. Haven't heard from the twins parents since Christmas and I am okay with that now. They are super busy with their jobs and babies. The first surrogate baby is 2 months away from being 2. She is adorable and I recently got to see her new thing, the fist-bump. Her parents are so thrilled and still so very thankful.

My bestie, Meagan, got me to sign up for Pilates and it has been amazing.  The instructor spent the first four weeks working with just the two of us and I can tell how much stronger my core has gotten in the six weeks I have been going.  I can't believe I haven't done it before as it is just what this pregnancy weary body has needed.  The girls at work got into Zumba and I jumped on that bandwagon as well.  Doing something active and fun for myself has not only had great physical results, but  mental ones as well.  I have lost five pounds and fit back into clothes that seemed like they were from a life-time ago. My head also feels clear for the first time in a very long time.  No extra hormones, no medicines, no pregnancy. I feel like I am finding myself again and that is a very good feeling.

Surrogacy is amazing and I know that taught the people around me a lot about my character and how much I value family, but it takes a lot out of you.  You give for so long and then you aren't quite sure what's left when you are done.  I am finding myself in 2013 and being a more attentive, loving mother and wife.  I am reclaiming me and making sure that I am more than a surrogate, but the best person I can be for all the people that have stood by me for so long.

So I guess I can say that 2013 is off to a very good start...

Moving forward yet again

Its been eight weeks.  Yesterday was exactly two months.  There are days when it seems like an eternity ago that I was pregnant, like a dream, but then others where I almost expect to feel the thumps in my belly. There is a sense of finality now, of never being pregnant again, never again doing what my body was made to do. But there is also a sense of relief.  No more hormones, no more shots, no more stress of watching everything I eat and being so focused on the little person or people inside me.  Now is the time for my family...for growing and nurturing the people that have supported me for almost three years as I focused on surrogacy.

It has been a tough two months for me with the harder than anticipated mental and physical recovery. Somehow time has passed and now I feel like myself again.  The scar is still pink and a little numb, much like the feeling in my heart from not being as close with the second IPs as I would have hoped.  Even though it was a different experience, I still miss checking in with the mom and giving her updates.  I remember feeling like this a little after the first surrogacy.  As the new families are busy getting to know each other and meet the needs of newborns, the surrogate's role is gone.  Heck as any new mom knows, everyone but your new baby is pretty much of non-importance as you learn to make it through the days after sleepless nights.  So I am readjusting to my life and trying not to get overwhelmed as I think of all I put on hold. 

I have been tired for about two and a half years...between being pregnant and trying to prepare for pregnancy, my body has been through a lot.  I am still tired but with Thanksgiving and Christmas upon us, I just have to get my act together and jump back into my life with both feet.  I think this will be a blessing in disguise as I have to use my time wisely. I am excited to do some crafting and some baking...two things that were easy to put to the wayside while pregnant. It was a lot easier and faster to just buy things and I may not have enough time to do all I would want to, but I can do a little. 

Life is again moving forward and I am ready for whatever comes next.  I want to get healthy and strong for me, not just to prepare for gaining weight with pregnancy. I want to feel confident in my own life, and give all that to my family.  They deserve it.

Postpartum...4 weeks later

Tomorrow it will be four weeks since the c-section.  I have spent the last four weeks battling a range of emotions and varying levels of pain.  The last four weeks have not been fun to say the least.  My theory is that some women do so well with recovery because they have the surge of hormones that comes from holding your newborn.  When your child is in front of you, it is amazing what you can accomplish.  I use to laugh that I could feel a migraine coming on, but it would wait to hit me with full force until I closed the last child's door at bedtime. I have a hunch as mothers, lots of things work in just that way.  We can push off whatever pain and discomfort when we must care for our children.  While I still have to care for my own children, it is very different than having a completely dependent newborn.

My postpartum worries don't involve caring for a baby or planning for the future, but concern that my body will somehow fail me even this late in the game and my recovery will be thwarted.  Muscles are sore and they ache.  I wake up feeling good, but by the time the children are off to school and I return home, my abdomen is aching.  By late afternoon, my back is throbbing from working hard to compensate for the weakness in my core.  I think about the surgery all the time.  The scar is clean and straight, but you can feel lumps under the skin where the muscles are sewn together.  Pain shifts from around the incision across to my hips and may settle in one spot for a few minutes or all day. There is a constant soreness no matter what I do.  I worry about infection or ripping stitches that I cannot see.  The unknown still bothers me now as much as it did before the surgery. 

Emotionally I am still battling with the fact that everyone missed the birth.  The means to the end wasn't as planned, but we all still got the happy ending.  I wish I had spent more time with the new family, or even a few moments with the boys.  I respected the parents wishes that they be the first ones to spend time with the babies, so I didn't take any time with the newborns before their parents could arrive.  I didn't get a chance to talk  to them or hold them--these two little people that I had grown and known in such a different way for nine months. I wanted to see what they looked like and see the movements that I had been feeling on the inside.  To say hello and goodbye is very important to me, but sometimes it just doesn't work out. I have learned that there isn't much you can plan for with pregnancy, but surrogacy adds a whole new level of being out of your control. I did have a few minutes with everyone as they were leaving--babies all packed up in their seats, mom and dad anxious to get on the road.  Me trying to put on a good face while the pain meds still weren't doing much. It all seemed to happen so quickly. There was so much I wanted to say that was left unsaid.

A month later I have gotten a great little update from the parents along with an adorable picture.  The boys are sleeping well and are both already distinct little people with their own personalities.  I am so thrilled I can be two for two on babies that sleep well after I grew them...my household must be so loud and crazy with my big kids that when babies are finally the only children around, they sleep like crazy. :-) I like to think that I contribute a little to the people they are, even if is only related to how well they sleep. Three little people are here that couldn't have been without me.  Three little people that may never really grasp how much their parents wanted them and the lengths it took to even have them. 

I love my children more now than I ever thought I could.  I appreciate my friends and family beyond measure.  It took me a long time to grasp what a big deal surrogacy really can be, but only a moment to know the enormity of being a mom.  Just those feelings alone, should have prepared me for all that comes with surrogacy. Making someone else a mom is so different and yet so much the same as being a mom yourself.  You don't create your own child, but pass along those feelings to someone that couldn't do it on her own. Having a hand in a miracle is something that changes you forever.

Wow that was fast!!! (aka "The Birth")

So this was my forth pregnancy that was all scheduled to end on September 19th.  After weekly visits for ages and very little change at my last appointment, I was pretty confident that the twins would be born on September 19th.  Well, I guess the only thing to say is, I was wrong.

Over the weekend I had been worn out and tired, which pretty much describes the last few weekends.  Nothing really seemed out of the ordinary and honestly I thought my contractions had gotten farther apart and less intense since I stopped working a few weeks ago.  Monday morning (the 17th) I woke up around 3am feeling like I was going to be sick.  A few bathroom trips later I realized that I was losing at least some of my mucus plug.  I took about 20 minutes of battling myself back and forth before I decided to head to the hospital to be checked. I have never had a false alarm and figured since this might be my last pregnancy, I would get away with heading in.  If they laughed at me, well I didn't have to tell anyone and it could be my little secret. 

In my past labors, when I had lost a lot of mucus, it sometimes meant something and sometimes didn't.  I never lost it as part of active labor but as something that occurred anywhere from a week to two days before labor.  I didn't think anything was happening but for peace of mind, had to go in. I wanted to make sure that if I had dilated another centimeter or two, that I contacted the parents.  My perfect scenario needed them to be there, just as before, to see their boys immediately at birth.  I wasn't sure if the hospital would keep me if I wasn't in active labor but with breech twins,  I didn't want to take any chances. So I drove myself to the hospital just to be safe.

I head back with the nurse to get my weight and blood pressure taken (still something like 112/78--which is the highest it had been in ages).  We go to the little exam room and I get connected to the twin monitors.  Heart rates are great--right within a few beats of each other.  The nurse does say I am having a contraction but only half was recorded so she was going to have to start calculating from the first full contraction on the monitor.  I told her I wasn't really having contractions but that I felt nauseated and not quite right.  At that moment, my doctor appeared at the door!! She had been on call all weekend and was actually finishing up her shift when she saw my name on the board. I was so excited to see her but then laughed and said that I didn't really think I was in labor yet I wasn't feeling quite right, so I wanted to come in. 

What happened next will forever be etched in my brain.  She checks me and is making this very strange face.  I thought for sure she was going to send me home so when she starts yelling to get an OR and the anesthesiologist I was starting to panic just a bit. A nurse put in my IV and remember looking over at her to see she had hit something and my hand was covered in blood.  The next moment involved me signing some sheet saying I could have surgery.  The only words I could squeak out were "should I call the parents?" to which a nurse grabbed my phone and said "YES!".  It just didn't seem real.  As the room started spinning I picked up the fact that I was 9cm dilated and had a bulging back of waters. Dr. G orders the ultrasound just to make sure that what she felt were actually feet and of course, they were, so we still needed to get surgery in before my water broke or anyone started coming out the wrong way. I called the parents and panicked as the first number was a cell and not answered.  I got them on their home line and don't even remember exactly what I said other than "the babies are coming now". I can't imagine getting that phone call in the wee hours knowing how far away they were.  My whole world was falling apart as I realized we were not going to get the birth we had all hoped for...I didn't have time to think for long though.  I called Dave and told him he needed to come too--he could hear the panic in my voice and totally thrown for a loop. I had talked to him minutes before at the house and neither of us thought I was in labor. This whole experience was very surreal.

While we were heading down the hallway to the OR, I asked my doctor if we could just wait a little bit...I remember asking if they could just tilt me with my head down for a bit to buy us some time.  I think she actually laughed at me. I don't even know what time it was, other than thinking I have only been in the hospital for 15-20 minutes at this point.  I didn't have time to panic or anything--all I was thinking was that I couldn't be 9cm dilated because that would mean I was in labor and I was sure this wasn't labor.

So into the OR I go with things happening all around me.  Dr. G won't let me sit for the spinal so I have to lay down and curl into a ball--that might have been the hardest part of the whole operation.  The spinal finally takes (after they do indeed tilt me upside down a few times to get the medication to move up to my abdomen) and the sheet goes up.  Dave is still not there but they have to get started.  When the water broke for Baby A, I just remember this huge sense of relief--lots of pressure had been built up and all the sudden I could breathe again.  It was the best feeling and before I knew it, the baby was out and over with the nurses.  Then baby B...he has been the wiggly one that was always hard to measure during ultrasounds and hard to keep monitored during the non-stress tests...so he was wiggling around making them chase him down before he could come out.  Dr. G remarked that he seemed to be hanging on to something in there, as they started pushing on my belly to assist with getting him to move down. Then he is quickly whisked away to the nurses as well.  I remember both babies crying as they came out, but baby B was seriously pissed off. You could hear it in his cries. I think he wanted to wait just a little longer too.

My doctor and her team were amazing. They talked to me the entire time since I was by myself and I really think that is the only way I made it through without having a serious panic attack.  As they were sewing everything back together, Dave arrived at the hospital amazed that he has missed it all.  Dr. G took her time sewing everything back together and took care to pull the muscles tight.  We joked back and forth that she was giving me a six-pack. The nurses said that my belly was really flat and if they hadn't just seen it, they wouldn't have believed that two babies were in there.  God love my doc for being there for me and taking such good care in those crazy moments.

The surgery wasn't as bad as I thought and I am really proud of myself for handing it so well in such an harried situation.  The recovery started off great but over the next few days, the pain was getting harder to handle.  Three days after the birth, we finally got on a medication schedule where I was a few minutes ahead of the pain and felt like I could function.  Overall I think it was probably comparable to my birth of Alex--my firstborn that really did a number over on me.  That was a regular birth but I think I was on pain meds for weeks after he was born--I can see the same type of thing happening now.  The muscles are so tight and the feeling is so different from anything I have experienced, but it is a little better all the time. 

And it was all completely worth it.  Things might not have gone how any of us had planned and the emotions may have been flying, but in the end, two amazing little miracles are here with their parents and my heart feels good. I did everything I could to ensure a happy ending for this family that had suffered for so many years.  I would do it all again to get to have this end result.

I did what I set out to do and I did it very well.  The babies were both 5lbs13oz and completely healthy. I am so blessed by my family and friends that helped me through this pregnancy.  I could not have gotten through it without any of them.  The phone calls, texts, emails, food, gifts and flowers...I have never felt more loved and appreciated.  Now to rest and recover and get back to my life that has so patiently waited for me to come back.

**I just got a few of my times together...at 4:47am I called the parents to tell them we were having the babies...at 5:15am the babies were born. I think those 27 minutes are some of the most productive of my life.**