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.
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