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!