Well, I finally feel like I can sit down and write something meaningful today.
I know it has been a while since my last post, and I apologize for that. The last two months have brought on some really intense sickness, and a lot of emotion. I don't usually like to focus on how sick I am feeling, but now that I am through it I feel like it is important for me to share what that experience was like.
I don't know how to describe morning sickness, but I will give it a go. Morning sickness is a terrible name for it to begin. It should be called all day, all night, all the time sickness. It is awful, and I don't wish it on anyone. Any woman that makes it through pregnancy without morning sickness should count her blessings, because it is one of the worst parts of being pregnant. That said, I seem to experience it to an extreme degree, and want to take a moment to say that I feel like I handled it quite well considering I was running two stores, taking two classes online, raising two kids, and trying to be some sort of a wife in there. (Let me pause to say that there is no way that I could do any of this without Collin!)
Now that we have gotten that fact that I really don't like morning sickness out of the way, let's talk about what the last two months have actually been like.
The nausea and vomiting that is a normal part of pregnancy usually lasts until about the end of the first trimester, which I am now out of! Yay! There were about 3 weeks of nausea and vomiting in which I was really luckily if I kept one meal down out of every 3 or 4 days. For all the mom's who know what this is like, I am so glad to have you to talk to about it. I loved all the encouragement that I got during this time from people. It was really nice to hear that what I am doing is a really great thing, and it honestly helped me in an incredible way stay positive when I all I really wanted to do was curl up in a ball in my bed and not leave for days on end. The amount of energy that is drained out of you when you are getting sick constantly is unfathomable. I lacked energy, and felt like I was constantly thinking about what I was eating and how that would be coming back up. That really takes a lot out of a person. I want to be completely honest and say that part of the reason I didn't write anything on here during that time was because I just didn't have the energy. Every parcel of energy that I could muster up was spent on my kids. They are my whole world, and feeling like I didn't have anything to give them was incredibly difficult.
Working while feeling like this was difficult too. Although, I will say that it distracted me from feeling so sick and that was really great some days. I remember one day at work in particular in which I was making drinks on the bar, and it was really busy and I HAD to get sick. I calmly said over the headset to one of my partners, "Hey, (insert partner name here) would you come bar for me for a second please?". "Yeah, I will be right there", he responded. Then I waited, and waited, and waited, and.... waited. Four minutes is really quite a long time when you need to throw up. He finally got there and I ran off the floor, no joke knocking a coworker over in the process and barely making it to the bathroom to get sick. That day was rough. Overall though, as long as I kept busy I felt pretty alright.
That said, I have been VERY busy for the last couple of months. I was managing a store while a peer went on leave for 5 weeks after his wife had their second baby! That was really great! I also was managing my normal store while my manager took two weeks off for vacation. During that time we had some really intense staffing issues due to family death, illness, etc. and it was pretty rough, but I felt like I handled it really well. It was really nice to get feedback from my peers that I handled myself really well in such a time of ambiguity, and received recognition at a meeting for my efforts. In Starbucks land, that is pretty awesome. In both of my stores I was also running double digit comps over the previous year, and let me tell you we kicked ass at it! Woot! On top of this, I was taking two classes online through ASU. Race, Gender, and Class in Media, and Film History, both of which I really enjoyed. One of the great things about my classes with ASU is that they are on a consolidated schedule which means they last 6-7 weeks, and I get the content of a full 12 week course. I normally really like this, but when you are feeling sick in an extreme way, it makes life really difficult. After finishing this round of classes, with some guidance from my Mom, I decided to take a break from classes until after I deliver these little ones. Best decision I have made, hands down. As soon as I made that decision, I felt a weight lift. I have been so much less stressed, and honestly I think that is a big part of why my morning sickness has ebbed.
I am glad to say that my energy levels are back up, and I am feeling a thousand times better these last two weeks. I finally have an appetite again, and am enjoying eating without thinking of the sickness that previously would have ensued following a meal.
Just for a second I want to go back and talk about something that happened in the middle of all that sickness. When I went to my first appointment at my new OB/GYN's office, they weighed me, and immediately handed me a sheet of paper that said I was obese according to the Body Mass Index. Let me say for the record that I know that I have a little weight that I could lose. Let me also say that I eat healthily, cooking most of my meals at home, and I stay active. When I was pregnant with Cameron I rode my bike to work 5 days a week until I was 7 months pregnant, and when I was pregnant with Eli I ran a half marathon at 3 months pregnant. I don't usually take it too personally when I hear information about my weight, I take it in stride. However, at the time that they handed me the paper with the information I hadn't kept food down in 5 days, and was feeling emotionally drained. On top of that, they had asked me to come to a class that they require of all new patients, and hadn't informed me that Collin wouldn't be allowed to join me. He is my support right now, and I didn't handle that day well at all. I was ready to switch clinics because of the way that the situation was handled, however I decided to stay with them for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I posted on Facebook asking for feedback from fellow mom's that have used this clinic and received an overwhelming number of positive experiences to go from. Secondly, I thought about my experience working with Starbucks. I can't tell you the number of times that a customer has a bad experience with one person and blames it on the entire store. That said, I went back to the doctor and shared about the experience and the way she handled it was positive enough to outweigh my previously bad experience. I also shared with her about the paper that said that I was obese and that considering I hadn't kept food down in days I felt it was insensitive of them to have given me that information without first knowing my situation. She said she absolutely agreed, and we went over my diet and exercise and she agreed that I am incredibly healthy and to not worry about the BMI information. The last thing that she shared was that being pregnant with twins absolutely cancels out all the BMI information that they share with women pregnant with a singleton. My body is making two human beings, and there really is not anything "typical" about that.
Can we just stay here for a second. My body is making two human beings. Holy Moly!!!!! How cool is that?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? Every time I think about it, it still blows my mind. I am helping make two babies for a wonderful family, and I couldn't be any happier about it. Through all the sickness, and the tired, and the emotions, I still think it is the coolest thing ever that I get to share this amazing experience with two really wonderful people and they get to have kids that they otherwise might not have been able to. I love this.
I really feel like this is a good place to stop. Thank you so much for reading! I will try to write again next week!
Friday, November 27, 2015
Monday, September 7, 2015
Things I have been feeling this week
I have had so many emotions this week, I don't really know where to begin.
Let's start by simply saying that morning sickness is THE WORST! Ha ha, it really is awful. I spent Thursday through Sunday feeling absolutely terrible, and thinking that this had to more than morning sickness perhaps I was actually sick. NO!!!!
It turns out I wasn't really sick, I was just stressed. On Sunday morning, I was at work, and one of my partners rubbed my shoulders for a second, and then said, "you are really tense". In that moment, I realized that I really was tense, and didn't know why. As I began to think about it, I realized that I was feeling tense because I feel an enormous amount of pressure to be pregnant with twins. That sounds really silly to say out loud, but I was literally stressing myself out over whether I was going to carry one or two babies because I really didn't want to disappoint my intended family. They so much want two babies, and I so much want to carry two babies for them. As soon as I had the moment of clarity and calmed myself down, I had to remember that how many babies I am pregnant with is out of my control. All I can do is take care of myself and my body to make sure that these babies, one or two, have a healthy environment to grow in. Stressing myself out, is not good for anyone.
As soon as I had that moment of perspective, I felt SO much better. I still have a little bit of the morning sickness going on, but that is easily remedied with eating more consistently. Eating is hard, ha ha. Okay, not really, but what is hard is making time for it. I keep myself pretty occupied with all the great things in my life, and have discovered that I don't always eat right when I am hungry. Sometimes I am like, "I will eat in a little bit", and 4 hours go by and I suddenly realize that I am famished. That is something that I am working on these next few months. I almost have to retrain myself how to think about food. My body needs it, and I need to feed myself, no if's, and's, or but's.
Another things that is happening this week is that I find out if I am having twins! Considering I was freaking out yesterday, and now I am calm about it, I am looking forward to Wednesday when I find out! So crazy!
If it does turn out to be twins, then there will be one boy, and one girl!
Well, until Wednesday! Have a great day!
Heather
Let's start by simply saying that morning sickness is THE WORST! Ha ha, it really is awful. I spent Thursday through Sunday feeling absolutely terrible, and thinking that this had to more than morning sickness perhaps I was actually sick. NO!!!!
It turns out I wasn't really sick, I was just stressed. On Sunday morning, I was at work, and one of my partners rubbed my shoulders for a second, and then said, "you are really tense". In that moment, I realized that I really was tense, and didn't know why. As I began to think about it, I realized that I was feeling tense because I feel an enormous amount of pressure to be pregnant with twins. That sounds really silly to say out loud, but I was literally stressing myself out over whether I was going to carry one or two babies because I really didn't want to disappoint my intended family. They so much want two babies, and I so much want to carry two babies for them. As soon as I had the moment of clarity and calmed myself down, I had to remember that how many babies I am pregnant with is out of my control. All I can do is take care of myself and my body to make sure that these babies, one or two, have a healthy environment to grow in. Stressing myself out, is not good for anyone.
As soon as I had that moment of perspective, I felt SO much better. I still have a little bit of the morning sickness going on, but that is easily remedied with eating more consistently. Eating is hard, ha ha. Okay, not really, but what is hard is making time for it. I keep myself pretty occupied with all the great things in my life, and have discovered that I don't always eat right when I am hungry. Sometimes I am like, "I will eat in a little bit", and 4 hours go by and I suddenly realize that I am famished. That is something that I am working on these next few months. I almost have to retrain myself how to think about food. My body needs it, and I need to feed myself, no if's, and's, or but's.
Another things that is happening this week is that I find out if I am having twins! Considering I was freaking out yesterday, and now I am calm about it, I am looking forward to Wednesday when I find out! So crazy!
If it does turn out to be twins, then there will be one boy, and one girl!
Well, until Wednesday! Have a great day!
Heather
Friday, August 28, 2015
What a week this has been.
Can I start by saying that I am tired? I am tired.
That sounds super whiny to me, and that is definitely not how I want to be. Lets be honest though, that is par for the course when you are making babies.
On August 13th the doctor transferred two embryos into my uterus. I then got to spend two days laying in bed and hoping that they would "stick". Eight days later on the 21st of August, I had my first blood draw to test my HCG count. They told me before they did the embryo transfer that the number that they would be looking for from the blood test was 30+. When they did my blood test, my count was 116!!! Yay! They said that in order to make sure that I would have a blood test on August 24th, and then again on August 26th, and that my HCG count should double each time that they do the test. On the 24th, my number was up over 300, and on the 26th that number was 1,432! Really good numbers, and enough for them to comfortably say that I AM PREGNANT!!!!
I have an appointment scheduled for the 9th of September to do my first ultrasound and check for heartbeats!!! Hopefully there will be two.
Now that they have confirmed that I am pregnant, I have had such an outpouring of support from all the people around me that I am feeling completely overwhelmed with emotion. Lets be honest, that could be the hormone injections. Ha ha.
It's amazing the way that people start to treat you when they find out that you are pregnant. People have started offering to carry things for me, and help me with just about anything. Can I also be totally honest and say knock it off. That sounds really harsh, but its actually really good for women to keep doing things that they have been doing regularly while pregnant. It is a fact, that if you remain active during your pregnancy, your labor will be easier. Please let me stay active. I promise I know what my body can handle, and I will not push myself beyond that limit.
Now that I have finished ranting, lets talk about some super awesome things that have happened!
I got to spend some time talking with my intended family, and sharing the awesome news with them. They shared that the day of the transfer was incredibly emotional for them. They have been going through this process for 2 years, and to have this finally coming to fruition is a huge deal. They are going to have a baby, hopefully babies, in 9 months!!!! I can't imagine what they are feeling right now. I know the excitement I felt when thinking about my own kids while I was pregnant with them, and I can only hope that they are having those same emotions! Happiness, fear, excitement, nervousness... all of the emotions that anyone can have in their body at any given time.
I am so happy to be able to share this experience with them. I don't think that there are enough words in the world to describe how I feel about this experience. I am feeling totally overwhelmed. If I really stop to think about what is happening, I am overcome by tears. That said, I keep myself really busy so that I don't walk around like some weeping woman all the time.
Something else that has happened that hasn't been great is that I have gotten REALLY over these hormone injections. Obviously I will keep doing them, but I am really tired of getting stuck in the bum every day. There have been a couple of times that it stung a little bit, and ever since then I have felt a little nervous when Collin goes to give them to me. No fault of his obviously. We are working on finding just the right spot each time, and the last few haven't hurt at all.
I don't really know what else to share at this point, but I know that people have a lot of questions about this whole process. If you want to ask any, I am an open book. I will answer just about any question, with certain limitations. I won't discuss exact payment for this process, I do get paid, and I don't really care to share beyond that. Anything about the process of becoming a surrogate, or anything else though, I am all ears.
Thank you again for reading!! The last post had almost 400 people read it, and that really moved me.
Love, Heather
Can I start by saying that I am tired? I am tired.
That sounds super whiny to me, and that is definitely not how I want to be. Lets be honest though, that is par for the course when you are making babies.
On August 13th the doctor transferred two embryos into my uterus. I then got to spend two days laying in bed and hoping that they would "stick". Eight days later on the 21st of August, I had my first blood draw to test my HCG count. They told me before they did the embryo transfer that the number that they would be looking for from the blood test was 30+. When they did my blood test, my count was 116!!! Yay! They said that in order to make sure that I would have a blood test on August 24th, and then again on August 26th, and that my HCG count should double each time that they do the test. On the 24th, my number was up over 300, and on the 26th that number was 1,432! Really good numbers, and enough for them to comfortably say that I AM PREGNANT!!!!
I have an appointment scheduled for the 9th of September to do my first ultrasound and check for heartbeats!!! Hopefully there will be two.
Now that they have confirmed that I am pregnant, I have had such an outpouring of support from all the people around me that I am feeling completely overwhelmed with emotion. Lets be honest, that could be the hormone injections. Ha ha.
It's amazing the way that people start to treat you when they find out that you are pregnant. People have started offering to carry things for me, and help me with just about anything. Can I also be totally honest and say knock it off. That sounds really harsh, but its actually really good for women to keep doing things that they have been doing regularly while pregnant. It is a fact, that if you remain active during your pregnancy, your labor will be easier. Please let me stay active. I promise I know what my body can handle, and I will not push myself beyond that limit.
Now that I have finished ranting, lets talk about some super awesome things that have happened!
I got to spend some time talking with my intended family, and sharing the awesome news with them. They shared that the day of the transfer was incredibly emotional for them. They have been going through this process for 2 years, and to have this finally coming to fruition is a huge deal. They are going to have a baby, hopefully babies, in 9 months!!!! I can't imagine what they are feeling right now. I know the excitement I felt when thinking about my own kids while I was pregnant with them, and I can only hope that they are having those same emotions! Happiness, fear, excitement, nervousness... all of the emotions that anyone can have in their body at any given time.
I am so happy to be able to share this experience with them. I don't think that there are enough words in the world to describe how I feel about this experience. I am feeling totally overwhelmed. If I really stop to think about what is happening, I am overcome by tears. That said, I keep myself really busy so that I don't walk around like some weeping woman all the time.
Something else that has happened that hasn't been great is that I have gotten REALLY over these hormone injections. Obviously I will keep doing them, but I am really tired of getting stuck in the bum every day. There have been a couple of times that it stung a little bit, and ever since then I have felt a little nervous when Collin goes to give them to me. No fault of his obviously. We are working on finding just the right spot each time, and the last few haven't hurt at all.
I don't really know what else to share at this point, but I know that people have a lot of questions about this whole process. If you want to ask any, I am an open book. I will answer just about any question, with certain limitations. I won't discuss exact payment for this process, I do get paid, and I don't really care to share beyond that. Anything about the process of becoming a surrogate, or anything else though, I am all ears.
Thank you again for reading!! The last post had almost 400 people read it, and that really moved me.
Love, Heather
Wednesday, August 19, 2015
Hi All!
In the last several months, I have had many people tell me that I should write a blog about my experiences as a surrogate. My typical answer when people tell me this is, "Oh yeah, I will do that in my 'spare time'". Something that I realized today as these words fell from my mouth is that there is really time for everything if it is important for you.
Up to this point, I haven't written anything about my experiences because I haven't really felt like it was an experience thus far. That thought process being incorrect becomes abundantly clear when I tell people about the hormone injections that I am doing. More accurately, that my husband is doing for me... right in my ass. I guess I should start a little before we got to this point, so that it doesn't feel like such an abrupt shot in the ass as it were.
When you tell people that you are a surrogate, they have A LOT of questions. "Aren't you scared?" is usually the first I hear, and the look on their face tells me that they think I am crazy. To be honest, if you had asked me 5 years ago if I had ever thought I would be a surrogate, my answer would be a quick and rude "NO!" There are a lot of factors that lead to someone deciding to be a surrogate, and I will first and foremost say that mine is my kids. Cameron will be 4 in a few days, and Elijah is almost two. These two little lights are the best things that could have ever happened to Collin and myself. Collin is my husband, you know the one that is so awesome to stab me in the toosh every day, and twice on Mondays and Fridays!
Having kids of your own is one of the most incredible experiences a person can ever go through, and that is why people ask the "aren't you scared?" question. They are legitimately concerned that after carrying these babies for 9 months that I won't want to give them up. Let me tell you that that thought has never crossed my mind. Let me tell you what it feels like to find out you are having kids of your own.
With Cameron, we weren't planning it, and honestly I didn't really want to have kids. I remember the day that I went to work and told one of my partners that I thought that I might be pregnant. The overjoyed looked on her face was the farthest thought from my mind as I pondered the possibility of stretch marks and poopy diapers for THE REST OF MY LIFE. Okay, that is definitely an exaggeration, but there is some truth in that. Having kids takes up a big part of your life, and fills it with more joy than you could ever imagine. I went home that day after work and didn't say anything to Collin. That's the part that is really cool about having kids of your own. The suspense of not knowing if you are pregnant, and waiting for that positive test that will change your whole life. Then there is the part about telling your partner, and watching their face for a hint of what they are feeling.
Let me tell you, in all the years that Collin and I have been together, that moment when I told him has been the ONLY time that he has ever had any extreme emotion around me. He is the calm to my storm, and on the day that I had taken that test, it was one of the most honest moments of our lives.
He had just picked me up from work, and we were driving home when I decided to tell him. I looked at him and said, "I figured out why I have been feeling so sick lately".
"Oh yeah?" he responded.
"It's morning sickness..."
Short pause... "You have only been sick in the morning?"
I was completely dumbfounded at this response and said, "No.... " pause... "I am pregnant".
Collin literally screamed in the car! The amount of excitement and fear that both he and I felt at that moment was overwhelming. The rush of emotion was really incredible, and indescribable. Finding out that we were going to be parents was insane and amazing and crazy and awesome all wrapped in one.
All of that excitement is a completely different feeling than when you are planning to carry babies for someone else. It is quite a lot of that, planning.
Going through this process has been such an amazing experience, and yet so very different from finding out you are having kids of your own. I get asked a lot how it works, and so I am going to give you a break down of what it looks like to become a surrogate, and the medical side of what is happening to my body.
Most often people ask if I am doing this for a friend, and my response in no. That may not be the case for all surrogates, but for me, I looked for an agency to work through. Thank you google for your wonderful results! One of the big things for me when searching for an agency to work with was that they be reputable, and have a high success rate. I can't recall of the top of my head what their statistics are for successful pregnancies, but I sure can share that they have an incredibly high rating. I found Northwest Surrogacy Center, based in Portland, and could find nothing bad about them.
Each surrogate had such great things to say about the experience that I decided to contact them. Within a few days I had received a phone call from an incredibly nice woman named Megan. She asked a bunch of questions about why I wanted to do this, and how I found them, and what I was looking for in a family to work with. She then sent me a questionnaire to fill out that asked all sorts of questions about my views on abortion, my health, my expected contact with the family before, during, and after the process, etc. There were a lot of questions. We then scheduled a time for Collin and I to come to the office and meet with them to basically make sure that we weren't crazy people.
We aren't crazy people. Thank heavens.
To make sure of it, Collin and I then had to schedule a meeting with a psychologist to talk through the whole process. They wanted to make sure that we were good candidates, and in good mental health to handle this process. We went to the meeting, and talked through all sorts of emotions. She really wanted to see how we handle stress as a couple, and what this would look like for our family, and answer any questions that we had about the process.
Like most women, she assured me, I wanted to know if this would be emotionally scarring for me, or if I would feel a great sense of loss after having carried babies for nine months and then handing them over to someone. The thing that she said that made the biggest impact on my decision to do this was that it will definitely be a loss. My body will emotionally feel like I should be taking home a baby (or two). My mind will know that these are not my babies.
These are not my babies. Lets talk about how that works.
I am a gestational carrier, so what that means is that the couple I am working with is using their sperm, and a donors eggs to create them embryos that were transferred last week. These are literally not my babies, and that makes it much easier to detach myself from them. Of course I have some emotion in this, but my emotions are derived straight from the intended family. I have received an incredible amount of support from them, and love them very much.
To get back to the process of me becoming pregnant with babies that aren't mine, it takes a lot of work. The phrase that was shared was, "we are going to take you to a pre-menopausal state hormone wise, and then put the babies into your uterus". What that entails is a lot of hormone shots.
These aren't meant to scare anyone off from becoming a surrogate. Let me tell you, they are much easier that I had ever thought they would be. The first round I gave myself daily in my belly with an insulin needle. If you haven't seen these, the needle is tiny, and you feel almost nothing at all. After nearly 2 weeks of giving myself the injections I went in for a blood test, and an ultrasound to make sure that everything was a go for me to start the next set of hormones.
The second set of injections was in intramuscular shot that I was suppose to be giving myself. Let me be super honest and say that Collin has done this one every day. The first day I was suppose to be doing it, the boys were both staying over at their Nana's house because I worked early the next day, and Collin had headed off to work. I stood in the bathroom, needle in hand, pants down for no joke, at least 30 minutes. I finally called Collin and said, "I can't do this". Graciously, his response was, "do you want me to come home?" "yes", I responded reluctantly.
If you have met me, you likely know that it is difficult for me to admit that I can't do something. Sticking myself in the butt with a needle is apparently one of those things that I just can't do. Again, thank goodness for Collin.
After just shy of 3 weeks of doing the daily injections in my belly, and the Monday and Friday of the intramuscular, then I doing the belly injections, and added another intramuscular injection. After 6 days of doing the second intramuscular injection daily, they transferred two embryos.
The day that they transferred the embryos was a very emotional one for my intended family, and that made me feel a lot of emotions, but again, these are not my babies. The day of the transfer was incredibly mellow. They told us to arrive at the hospital at 1 pm, and that an hour before our arrival I was to empty my bladder and then drink 24-32 ounces of water to make sure that I had a full bladder. Let me tell you, I don't think my bladder has ever been fuller. It was so full that they said my uterus was smashed like a pancake, and that I would have to empty it some. After several trips to the bathroom with a limit to how much I could pee, I went back to my room and received a dose of Valium to help keep me relaxed. When I have shared that, people are immediately like, " Oh my god! Did it hurt?" No, it did not hurt. It just makes the process easier if you are relaxed. After about 30 minutes, I was wheeled into a room where there was a screen with images of the embryos that they would be transferring on it. The whole process took less than 10 minutes, and then I was wheeled back to my room to take a nap. Then I got to be on bed rest for the remainder of that day, and all of the next day.
On Friday I go in for a pregnancy test, and will know if the embryos "stuck"! Send sticky thoughts please!
In the last several months, I have had many people tell me that I should write a blog about my experiences as a surrogate. My typical answer when people tell me this is, "Oh yeah, I will do that in my 'spare time'". Something that I realized today as these words fell from my mouth is that there is really time for everything if it is important for you.
Up to this point, I haven't written anything about my experiences because I haven't really felt like it was an experience thus far. That thought process being incorrect becomes abundantly clear when I tell people about the hormone injections that I am doing. More accurately, that my husband is doing for me... right in my ass. I guess I should start a little before we got to this point, so that it doesn't feel like such an abrupt shot in the ass as it were.
When you tell people that you are a surrogate, they have A LOT of questions. "Aren't you scared?" is usually the first I hear, and the look on their face tells me that they think I am crazy. To be honest, if you had asked me 5 years ago if I had ever thought I would be a surrogate, my answer would be a quick and rude "NO!" There are a lot of factors that lead to someone deciding to be a surrogate, and I will first and foremost say that mine is my kids. Cameron will be 4 in a few days, and Elijah is almost two. These two little lights are the best things that could have ever happened to Collin and myself. Collin is my husband, you know the one that is so awesome to stab me in the toosh every day, and twice on Mondays and Fridays!
Having kids of your own is one of the most incredible experiences a person can ever go through, and that is why people ask the "aren't you scared?" question. They are legitimately concerned that after carrying these babies for 9 months that I won't want to give them up. Let me tell you that that thought has never crossed my mind. Let me tell you what it feels like to find out you are having kids of your own.
With Cameron, we weren't planning it, and honestly I didn't really want to have kids. I remember the day that I went to work and told one of my partners that I thought that I might be pregnant. The overjoyed looked on her face was the farthest thought from my mind as I pondered the possibility of stretch marks and poopy diapers for THE REST OF MY LIFE. Okay, that is definitely an exaggeration, but there is some truth in that. Having kids takes up a big part of your life, and fills it with more joy than you could ever imagine. I went home that day after work and didn't say anything to Collin. That's the part that is really cool about having kids of your own. The suspense of not knowing if you are pregnant, and waiting for that positive test that will change your whole life. Then there is the part about telling your partner, and watching their face for a hint of what they are feeling.
Let me tell you, in all the years that Collin and I have been together, that moment when I told him has been the ONLY time that he has ever had any extreme emotion around me. He is the calm to my storm, and on the day that I had taken that test, it was one of the most honest moments of our lives.
He had just picked me up from work, and we were driving home when I decided to tell him. I looked at him and said, "I figured out why I have been feeling so sick lately".
"Oh yeah?" he responded.
"It's morning sickness..."
Short pause... "You have only been sick in the morning?"
I was completely dumbfounded at this response and said, "No.... " pause... "I am pregnant".
Collin literally screamed in the car! The amount of excitement and fear that both he and I felt at that moment was overwhelming. The rush of emotion was really incredible, and indescribable. Finding out that we were going to be parents was insane and amazing and crazy and awesome all wrapped in one.
All of that excitement is a completely different feeling than when you are planning to carry babies for someone else. It is quite a lot of that, planning.
Going through this process has been such an amazing experience, and yet so very different from finding out you are having kids of your own. I get asked a lot how it works, and so I am going to give you a break down of what it looks like to become a surrogate, and the medical side of what is happening to my body.
Most often people ask if I am doing this for a friend, and my response in no. That may not be the case for all surrogates, but for me, I looked for an agency to work through. Thank you google for your wonderful results! One of the big things for me when searching for an agency to work with was that they be reputable, and have a high success rate. I can't recall of the top of my head what their statistics are for successful pregnancies, but I sure can share that they have an incredibly high rating. I found Northwest Surrogacy Center, based in Portland, and could find nothing bad about them.
Each surrogate had such great things to say about the experience that I decided to contact them. Within a few days I had received a phone call from an incredibly nice woman named Megan. She asked a bunch of questions about why I wanted to do this, and how I found them, and what I was looking for in a family to work with. She then sent me a questionnaire to fill out that asked all sorts of questions about my views on abortion, my health, my expected contact with the family before, during, and after the process, etc. There were a lot of questions. We then scheduled a time for Collin and I to come to the office and meet with them to basically make sure that we weren't crazy people.
We aren't crazy people. Thank heavens.
To make sure of it, Collin and I then had to schedule a meeting with a psychologist to talk through the whole process. They wanted to make sure that we were good candidates, and in good mental health to handle this process. We went to the meeting, and talked through all sorts of emotions. She really wanted to see how we handle stress as a couple, and what this would look like for our family, and answer any questions that we had about the process.
Like most women, she assured me, I wanted to know if this would be emotionally scarring for me, or if I would feel a great sense of loss after having carried babies for nine months and then handing them over to someone. The thing that she said that made the biggest impact on my decision to do this was that it will definitely be a loss. My body will emotionally feel like I should be taking home a baby (or two). My mind will know that these are not my babies.
These are not my babies. Lets talk about how that works.
I am a gestational carrier, so what that means is that the couple I am working with is using their sperm, and a donors eggs to create them embryos that were transferred last week. These are literally not my babies, and that makes it much easier to detach myself from them. Of course I have some emotion in this, but my emotions are derived straight from the intended family. I have received an incredible amount of support from them, and love them very much.
To get back to the process of me becoming pregnant with babies that aren't mine, it takes a lot of work. The phrase that was shared was, "we are going to take you to a pre-menopausal state hormone wise, and then put the babies into your uterus". What that entails is a lot of hormone shots.
These aren't meant to scare anyone off from becoming a surrogate. Let me tell you, they are much easier that I had ever thought they would be. The first round I gave myself daily in my belly with an insulin needle. If you haven't seen these, the needle is tiny, and you feel almost nothing at all. After nearly 2 weeks of giving myself the injections I went in for a blood test, and an ultrasound to make sure that everything was a go for me to start the next set of hormones.
The second set of injections was in intramuscular shot that I was suppose to be giving myself. Let me be super honest and say that Collin has done this one every day. The first day I was suppose to be doing it, the boys were both staying over at their Nana's house because I worked early the next day, and Collin had headed off to work. I stood in the bathroom, needle in hand, pants down for no joke, at least 30 minutes. I finally called Collin and said, "I can't do this". Graciously, his response was, "do you want me to come home?" "yes", I responded reluctantly.
If you have met me, you likely know that it is difficult for me to admit that I can't do something. Sticking myself in the butt with a needle is apparently one of those things that I just can't do. Again, thank goodness for Collin.
After just shy of 3 weeks of doing the daily injections in my belly, and the Monday and Friday of the intramuscular, then I doing the belly injections, and added another intramuscular injection. After 6 days of doing the second intramuscular injection daily, they transferred two embryos.
The day that they transferred the embryos was a very emotional one for my intended family, and that made me feel a lot of emotions, but again, these are not my babies. The day of the transfer was incredibly mellow. They told us to arrive at the hospital at 1 pm, and that an hour before our arrival I was to empty my bladder and then drink 24-32 ounces of water to make sure that I had a full bladder. Let me tell you, I don't think my bladder has ever been fuller. It was so full that they said my uterus was smashed like a pancake, and that I would have to empty it some. After several trips to the bathroom with a limit to how much I could pee, I went back to my room and received a dose of Valium to help keep me relaxed. When I have shared that, people are immediately like, " Oh my god! Did it hurt?" No, it did not hurt. It just makes the process easier if you are relaxed. After about 30 minutes, I was wheeled into a room where there was a screen with images of the embryos that they would be transferring on it. The whole process took less than 10 minutes, and then I was wheeled back to my room to take a nap. Then I got to be on bed rest for the remainder of that day, and all of the next day.
On Friday I go in for a pregnancy test, and will know if the embryos "stuck"! Send sticky thoughts please!
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