A Little Background

As the end of my surrogacy journey nears its end, more and more people have been asking about the beginning.  How does someone decide she wants to be a surrogate? As I have said before I feel lucky, fortunate, incredibly blessed to have my children and to have had them so easily.  I understood how lucky I was to want a baby and then nine months later deliver one.  I have seen infertility in small ways from the sidelines, but never knew the knitty-gritty of it all.

I felt called to be a surrogate but being a very logical, organized person, I could not make a step like this without doing enough research to write a novel!  I read blogs and joined online forums. I wanted to see how other families had handled with the ups and downs, the emotions, the medications involved--growing someone else's child and handing it over at the end.  I also decided that in order to understand where the intended parents (IPs) were coming from, I needed to peek into the world of infertility.  IVF was the means by which I would be getting pregnant and I needed to see how all of that worked.  I came across three or four blogs that touched me and I read from start to finish, but one woman's story pushed me over the edge.  I knew after reading her story, that I could be a surrogate and no matter what, I would never regret it.  Here is a link to her blog: http://www.jennepper.com/

She is so open about all she went through to get pregnant, stay pregnant, and make it through to the end.  She gave raw emotion that I needed to see to be able to offer my body to grow someones else child.  She wanted to be a mother enough to put her body through hell and face things I am sure she never hoped to endure.  She did it with humor and grace and I am in complete awe that I could feel emotionally invested in someone else's life after reading her story.  If there is anything I have learned, anything that will stay with me until the day I die, is that women are strong and with love and faith you can do amazing things.  It is not surprising that many couples can't handle the stress and divorce.  I have been so inspired by the love that can survive when life is just so hard. Infertility is ugly and messy and horrible.  It isn't fair that some people have babies just by thinking about it and others struggle with all aspects of bringing a child into this world. 

The last nine months have been tough.  There have been emotional struggles that surprised me and a pregnancy very different from my own children.  The end result is near though...a very fat and healthy baby girl is at most eight days away from meeting her mom and dad.  The craziness of it all is almost over and my normal life is almost back...and the life of two people that have struggled with infertility for so many years, is about to change to forever.

*At yesterday's appointment, Baby A was measuring 8lbs9oz and I am 2cm dilated!