And in the end...

Hi Everyone,
First, I owe you an apology for such a LONG wait. I know some of you have been asking for updates. I'm going to try to keep this from being record length, haha, but also explain why I stopped blogging and get you up to speed.

To be honest, the pregnancy became harder for me than I expected, but for reasons I never expected. I didn't want to worry anyone close to me or to the pregnancy. But I didn't want to blog without being fully transparent. So I stopped. One thing that happened, I believe, is that I suffered on and off during the pregnancy from prenatal depression. Not major. I was okay. But my moods definitely fluctuated a lot, which I'm sure also went hand in hand with the hormone changes of pregnancy. I also had a different psychological reaction than I could have anticipated. Before I started this journey, I thought to myself, I love being pregnant, so it would be a joy to carry a baby for someone. I was never worried about becoming attached to the baby because there was no biological connection. But as my belly grew, I did such a great job of remaining unattached emotionally, that my belly and changing body felt foreign to me. Generally speaking, I think pregnant women are beautiful. But I developed a negative body image because I didn't have an attachment to the child within myself. It was even hard for me to look in the mirror sometimes. (This was also bizarre considering that I've never been blatantly hit on as much as I was during the third trimester.) It's hard to explain, and I'll admit, I'm a bit worried about the reaction to that revelation. I certainly didn't choose to feel that way. It's just what happened for me. Accordingly, because of these feelings and mood fluctuations as well as other sacrifices I had to make, I became frustrated on top of it all, and then I felt guilty for feeling all those things. I also was always slightly concerned about the possibility of things going wrong. But I'm not sure if that was because of the surrogacy or just being older and wiser as far as pregnancy is concerned. So the experience was not exactly what I expected it to be. But I must say, even though it was harder in those respects, I still enjoyed feeling her grow inside me and seeing that result at the end.

I don't regret it, even for a minute. I wouldn't change any of the decisions I made. I would have gone through with it. It was such a beautiful ending. I had imagined watching the parents with their baby, and it brought me as much joy in real life as it did thinking about it beforehand. I care about them, and I care about the baby as much as I do for my close friends and their children. I hope that we can maintain a relationship. I would consider doing it again in the future too, though not any time soon, so I couldn't say for sure. I would definitely want to be done having my own children first. I absolutely consider the journey worth it, even with the ups and downs.

Since I did stop blogging, I want to go over some of the highlights for you during the pregnancy and delivery without going into lengthy details about the whole pregnancy. One big moment for me was early in the pregnancy when I had an ultrasound at 13 weeks. The parents wanted to do genetic testing, plus since it was IVF, there were a lot of ultrasounds in general in the beginning. I lost track of how many vaginal ultrasounds I had before the 9 week mark. In fact, when I would have to bring my daughter with me, the doctor would tell her "we're looking at your old home." This created quite a laugh when my daughter would start talking about our old house where we'd lived until a few months before this pregnancy. But it did keep her attention during the ultrasounds. Anyway, so all those ultrasounds up until the 9 week mark all just looked like little blurbs with a beating heart in the middle. Nothing much to see. So when I went to the perinatologist for a normal ultrasound at 13 weeks, to check for any abnormalities that could have occurred generally or due to the IVF or due to my hypothyroidism, I did not expect to see the miracle that I did. At such a young gestational age, I saw a full little baby in there, arms and legs, fingers and toes moving about, causing a ruckus already. She was very active even then, so I knew we were in for a fun time! I will admit, it really hit me that day. I prayed right there and then that she was perfect and there would be no reason for me or the parents to be worried or concerned about her. Something that is a part of probably all surrogacy contracts is the condition about abortion or selective reduction. If something is found to be wrong with the baby, the parents may opt to terminate, or in cases of more than one baby, selectively reduce. Looking at that little miracle, I knew I would have a difficult time if that issue came up. So I prayed that she was perfect. 

Around 18-20 weeks, I had the ultrasound showing the gender. I was so sure it was a boy. But I was wrong! It was a girl. The parents were divided. One wanted a boy, and one wanted a girl. But ultimately, they just wanted a beautiful, healthy baby. So they were excited either way. 

Around 24 weeks, I had another ultrasound, specifically focused on the heart, due to the advanced reproductive technology. Basically they just like to be overcautious in these cases. This little stinker proved she was going to be difficult. Now I see that this day was a precursor for me of the future. I knew at the 13 week ultrasound that she was going to be very active. I slowly started feeling that. She was like a little boxer. They say that when you first feel the baby move, it's like a butterfly feeling. That was true with my daughter. But this one, the first time I felt her move, it was like my insides were a punching bag! I always felt like she was anxious to get out. Towards the end, there were many times I felt like she was trying to force her way out early! Well at this ultrasound, she refused to sit still. The technician needed to take certain pictures and recordings of her heart, but she just wouldn't sit still for it. I think it took about 45 minutes for her to get everything because she had to keep starting over. At one point, she walked out of the room, and when she came back 5-10 minutes later, the baby had completely flipped over! I warned the parents, you're in for a handful with this one!

One issue that came up not long after this was an amniocentesis. The parents had said from when we first met that they would want one done. I wasn't looking forward to it, but it was their wish, so I was going to do it. I had indicated that to the doctor's office from the beginning. So I had assumed that they would bring it up when the time came to do it. But they didn't. I started thinking about it, and ended up looking it up myself. I found that I had just passed the timeframe when it should have happened. I spoke to the doctor, and she said that if I was going to do it, it needed to be done ASAP, as it got riskier and riskier the longer we waited. But I had also read something else when I looked it up, that the risk from an amnio is 1 out of 200 will miscarry or go into premature labor. I did not like those statistics. So I discussed it with the parents. The fact was that all of the genetic tests and ultrasounds and blood tests came back great. There were no problems. Plus, they had used an egg donor who was 23 or so, and I was only 31, so the need for an amnio was minimal. Fortunately, the parents agreed with me and told me to follow my gut. My gut was telling me to forgo the amnio, which we decided to do.

Something else that became annoying for me was answering the same questions over and over and over. Where I work, I see a lot of people, but I'm not close with all these people. So they saw me pregnant, but didn't know the details or that I was a surrogate. I probably was asked almost daily about the baby, all the standard questions pregnant mothers are used to. What is it? When are you due? Have you picked out a name? How are you feeling? You haven't had that baby yet! And so on. But with me being a surrogate, if I explain that, then the questions double or triple. Honestly, it got old really fast going through the whole story over and over again. Let's also revisit how I started this blog entry. Remember how I was feeling? Mood fluctuations, negative body image, frustrations? That made the constant questions even more irritating. I had absolutely no problem discussing it with the people I'm close to. But having stranger upon stranger ask me, and deciding who to explain the whole story to or not, did get old. I understood that it was all coming from a good place and the best of intentions, and they couldn't have known any better, or that someone just asked me all the same things 5 minutes before them. So I always was polite and cordial. I still am now as well, when I see people who are still currently asking me how the baby is, and don't know that I haven't seen the baby in 3 1/2 months. But as far as I know, she's great! A perfect angel the last I heard. I do wonder though when the questions will stop. I was also surprised at how many people didn't get it and didn't understand. Some people didn't let it sink in that the baby wasn't biologically mine at all, and they thought I was giving away (or in some cases selling) my own child. Some people had never even heard of surrogacy. One guy, who was trying to sell me something, asked me when my baby shower was. I explained about the situation and he looked at me like I had 2 heads! He just couldn't wrap his head around it. So it was interesting seeing the different reactions sometimes.

The last month was interesting. I started having Braxton Hicks contractions in probably March or April, which is completely normal. But I really picked up with prodromal labor in May. I was having irregular contractions almost daily. I was always wondering if I was going to go into labor and thought, at the time, that I would have the baby early. I welcomed it, aside from one day, that was my daughter's preschool graduation. But every time I thought it was starting, and I would get hit by some strong contractions or seemingly regular contractions, they would end up stopping. My due date came and went. In fact, my best friend had arranged to be here around my due date to be in the delivery room with me. And her trip came and went, but no baby! We did have a good time laughing and camping out in front of a Grey's Anatomy marathon though. We tried the tricks...walking, spicy food, etc., but no luck. Once your due date passes, the doctors start making you take tests to make sure the baby is okay to keep waiting it out. Personally, I am a big proponent of letting nature take it's course. Women have been having babies since the dawn of time, otherwise we wouldn't be here. I feel that unless there is an obvious need for medical intervention, you should let birth take it's natural course. So I was determined to wait until my labor progressed naturally, and I was going to try to get through it naturally as well, without pain killers. Well, you know what they say about making plans, right?

It was a Tuesday, June 3rd. I went to my doctor's office for a checkup including an ultrasound and stress test for the baby. The ultrasound showed that there wasn't a lot of amniotic fluid left, so it was possible the cord could become compromised. So they already started talking about inducing me. Then, during the stress test, the midwife heard the heart rate decelerate. (My OB office has midwives and doctors working together, and I personally prefer my midwife.) So then, it wasn't just a matter of needing to induce me, it was needing to induce me immediately. The good thing was that the heart rate came back up (and as the night would go on, the heart rate always came back up). But there was a huge concern about the baby with there being any D cells at all. I met my mom at my house so she could get my daughter, I got my bag, and I went to the hospital. I knew I wouldn't be able to go with my plan. Besides the fact that inducing meant no natural labor, I wasn't in the frame of mind to even attempt to do it naturally, without pain killers, especially considering that inductions are supposed to be more intense and more painful than natural labor. So I knew I would be getting the epidural. I was also scared though. More scared than I was willing to admit to myself at the time. I told myself that I was just angry with them for scaring me into all this when I was so firm against inductions. But especially as I was hooked up to the monitors and continually heard the D cells, I grew more and more scared both for the baby and that I would have to have an emergency C section. I didn't want to have surgery anyway, plus I was concerned about the impact that would have on my reproductive future. I was thinking about what if I had to be alone going through all this. Even though I knew I had the strength in me to do it, I didn't want to think about being wheeled into an emergency C section with no one there to reassure me. Fortunately, my close friend was able to make it to the hospital, spent the night and next morning there with me, and saw me through the whole thing.

So what happened? Well let's see...they started me on pitocin around 8pm. I got to the hospital hours earlier, but by the time I was brought to my room, answered a million questions to get me registered into the system, got hooked up to the monitors, and had a nurse shift changeover, my labor was finally induced around 8pm. It didn't take long for it to kick in either. An hour into it and I was definitely having strong, regular contractions every 5 minutes or so. One thing I learned from my daughter's birth was that you take the anesthesiologist as soon as you can get them! With my daughter, I labored for 30 hours naturally before I made the choice to get admitted into the hospital, get the epidural, and let them move my labor along. (FYI, it was 37 hours in the end.) I was fine managing the pain until I made the conscious choice to get the epidural instead. Then I wanted those meds right away! And what did they tell me? Oh, the anesthesiologist is going to be about an hour. Excuse me?! An hour?! Okay, then what are you going to give me right now?! That turned out to be some sort of narcotic. I can't remember which one. But I do remember the loopy feeling and funny things I said after that while I waited for the epidural. With this birth, they came to me around 9-9:30pm and said the anesthesiologist is on the floor doing a different epidural. Do you want to go ahead and get yours done now too so you don't have to wait later? I'll give you one guess what the answer was! But there was a big difference this time around too. Since it was my second pregnancy, I didn't research all these things again. I didn't take classes again. So I didn't remember the details on how they did the epidural from what I had learned the first time around, 5 years prior. And as they were about to stick me in my spine with a needle, I realized, I don't even remember what this is like because I was too drugged up on narcotics the first time around! Needless to stay I paused them to ask these questions before continuing. I could feel it more this time, but if it was painful, I don't really remember. I remember the pressure of it going in, not as much pain. Any pain I felt from that paled in comparison to what I would be feeling later in the night. Another big difference between the birth of my daughter and childbirth this time around was the after effects of the epidural. With my daughter, I could still feel the catheter, so they had to increase my dose. I ended up completely numb from the waist down. Couldn't feel a thing the whole night. I slept great until it was time to push! Then I had her out in 45 minutes. This time, I wasn't able to feel the catheter, and the epidural worked well for the first half of the night. But not so much the second half of the night. They finally got the bright idea to add one of those things where I can dose myself every so often, but that wasn't until the last hour, so it didn't make a huge difference. I think that it probably took the edge off, but for childbirth, that's not much. I say it took the edge off because in the middle of the night I heard this screeching sound. My first thought was "Who brought a parrot?!" And then I realized that it was not a parrot. It was a woman screaming. Probably going through transition, aka the last hour or so before it's time to push, when it gets really intense. Considering the fact that I never felt the need to scream like that woman was screaming, I think the epidural at least took the edge off. BUT, I still spent every 2-3 minutes for the last 6 hours (labor was 12 hours in total), tensing my entire body and squeezing/gripping onto the side of the bed anxiously waiting for the contraction to end. Plus I was both so hungry and tired. Before I went to sleep, or tried to sleep I should say, I had been watching Chopped because there was nothing else on TV to watch. So every time I would fall asleep, I was dreaming about this food I had seen on Chopped, waking up salivating with each contraction! And I was so tired that I would literally fall back asleep for the 2-3 minutes I had in between contractions, all night long. It was an endless cycle, and time never passes so slowly in your whole life as when you're enduring that kind of combination of pain, fatigue and hunger, willing your cervix to dilate as quickly as possible! 

The further into the night we got, the lower the baby's heart rate went. Most of the night, Traci and I were alone. The nurses let me try to sleep. But we could hear the heart rate. Even though we both were trying to sleep, you aren't in a deep sleep in those conditions. We didn't talk about it until after the baby arrived. But we both were having the same thoughts throughout the night, that the baby's heart rate was getting scary low sometimes. It always came back up after the contraction was over. But particularly when I was going through transition myself, it was really getting bad. I would guess getting down to as low as around 50 beats per minute when it's supposed to be at least double that. Which reminds me that they also had me on oxygen the whole night to help get plenty of oxygen to the baby since the baby wasn't handling the labor well. During the last hour of transition, hearing the heart rate get so low, I really started to think I would be having a C section. I was praying all night long that it wouldn't come to that. It even got to the point where they called the doctor to come to the hospital and decide if they needed to take the baby. But before he could make it to the hospital, my midwife informed me that I was 9.5cm, and it was close enough for me to push. (Side note: I just looked at a ruler and how big 10cm actually is, and I'm amazed all over again that women do this!) I was a little anxious about it. I had read about how your body feels when you need to push and to listen to the signals, and this also helps avoid more damage and tearing. But it was hard for me to tell when I was supposed to push and when I wasn't. Fortunately, I'm a good pusher! haha Even with that uncertainty, I was able to make good productive efforts each time, and I had that baby girl out in 10-15 minutes. I have to say too, even though it seems obvious to state that you can feel the baby come out, it really felt amazing to me, in a good way. I didn't have the burning sensation from crowning like I did with my daughter. Maybe because the baby was a pound and a half smaller. I also didn't do very much damage. I only needed 1 stitch afterward, and never had any pain from it. Well as it turned out, the baby had the cord wrapped all around her neck and her body, and this is why she wasn't handling the labor well. That was a thought I'd had in the back of my mind throughout the pregnancy. That she was so active, she might get herself entangled in the cord. Sure enough! But it wasn't tight, she cried immediately, and her Apgar score was high. She was perfect even if she did give us a scare during the night.

Traci was a rock star. Her eyes became my focal point. They were completely filled with reassurance and caring, and when I focused on them, I was able to push hard every time and get that baby out. At the beginning of the night, I felt a little awkward at times, if the nurses had to check me, being exposed, even though we're close. Funny enough, before things got interesting, we had talked about watching childbirth. They always tend to say to you, "Do you want a mirror so you can watch your baby come out?" Both of us were like "No! Who wants to see that?!" But because of how I ended up positioned, there was practically no way for Traci to avoid watching this baby come out! And she said it was the most amazing thing she's ever seen. I still don't know if I want to watch though, lol. Later on, she would also have the pleasure of helping the nurses hold me up, buck naked, as I nearly passed out in the bathroom due to all the blood loss and my plummeting blood pressure, at the time. Needless to say, I told her, if we weren't close before, we certainly are now! Since then, I have continually thanked her for being there with me, and informed her that her presence is required at the birth of all my future children!

That reminds me as well about the end of the delivery. When I had my daughter, the placenta came out almost right away. But this time, it was hanging out. Didn't want to leave! I was sitting there, legs spread, just waiting. Other nurses I had never seen before were coming in and out of my room tending to the baby, and I'm sitting there all "Hi, how are you? This is my vagina." Finally 30 minutes later or so the placenta decided to join us, along with a surge of blood. "More blood than we like," my wonderful midwife said. She had her hand in me, making sure all of the placenta came out (which is important!). But it was a little uncomfortable, so at one point I did say, "What are you doing in there?" She was just being extra cautious since it had been holding on for dear life. But I do remember when she pulled her hand out, seeing her glove completely covered in blood worried me for a second. It was like a murder scene! And sure enough, about another 30-45 minutes later, when they made me get up to go to the bathroom for the first time, and get cleaned up, it took about 30 seconds of standing after all that blood loss for my eyes to start rolling back in my head, lol. I kid. A little. They didn't necessarily roll back in my head. But I did basically faint without falling. I had the wherewithal to grip onto whatever I could around me, but I do believe I briefly lost consciousness. The dad later told me that when they were returning to my room, there was a light going off outside of it and nurses were all running in frantically. So I gave everyone a bit of a scare. Once I came to, they got me dressed again and into the wheelchair, they took my blood pressure. At that point when I was already semi-recovered, my blood pressure was 80 something over whatever. That's all you really need to know to know that it was really low. That was the worst of it though. But later on when they moved me up to my room, I almost passed out again! The next morning, they woke me up at 5am to tell me that my iron levels were borderline for needing a blood transfusion, but fortunately I was able to avoid that. Other than those things, though, I was fine. I felt normal from the next day on, and recovered very quickly. My belly even went down really fast too. Though I did still get a few questions in the first week, people wondering when my baby was due, followed by complete mortification when I said I'd had her a week prior. Just so everyone knows, if you're not already aware, it takes a few weeks for your uterus to return to it's normal size! It took 9 months to get that big in the first place. It doesn't go down overnight. I didn't take offense to the questions of course. 

Oh, and then there was the breast milk issue. My milk took 4 days to come in. Just long enough that I was hoping it wasn't going to come in at all since I never started breastfeeding. Oh, but once it came in I was well aware of it! For a good few days I was walking around, trying not to rub up against or hit anything, just going "Oh my boobs! Oh my boobs!" I even started feeling what I thought was ducts clogging and was starting to worry about mastitis. And then I learned what was really hard for me to find, because you can find a million things on the internet about what to do for breastfeeding, but barely anything to do about what to do if you're not breastfeeding, and I'm passing this on to the other women who will be in the same boat one day, walking around going "Oh my boobs!" (Seriously, carrying my sleeping child up the stairs to bed was so incredibly painful. I thought I was going to die. Except that a few days prior I had been through worse pain. But you know what I mean!) So here it is: Express a little bit of milk. Massage your breasts in the shower, particularly where you feel the clogs. Just enough to relieve the pressure is okay, and it won't be enough to prompt your body to continue producing milk. Your milk production will still slow down and eventually end...like 2 months later. And yes, my hilarious, blunt child even said to me recently "Mommy, are your boobs still spitting milk?" And apparently, I have learned from friends that they actually can spit milk, like across the room! I was never that lucky, lol. But I was very happy to tell my child that no, they are not anymore. So don't make yourself endure the pain! Relieve the pressure! You could also pump and donate your milk. In an ideal world, I would have loved to have been able to do that. But considering the psychological difficulties I had already had throughout the pregnancy, I couldn't imagine devoting the time and energy to that. I just needed to get life back to normal.

Back to the baby though...

When the baby came out, I can't describe the relief that washed over me. I got emotional from the relief. It was everything. It was the baby being ok, me being okay and not having to have a C section, me not having to endure any more contractions, and the pregnancy being over. The parents almost made it the night before when I was first induced, but their flight was cancelled. So they literally landed at the airport about the same time the baby was born. They made it to the hospital after the placenta finally came out but before I nearly ate the hospital floor. It was really heartwarming for Traci and I to watch. When the baby came out, my emotions didn't change. I felt the same for her as I had already. I cared about her, but there was no parental bond. I had worried that she would be okay, because babies know their mothers from the sound of their voice and their smell. But she looked at me, and I didn't get that feeling from her. In fact, the first time I held her, she went from being perfectly fine to crying! Once her parents arrived, it was really beautiful to watch them with her. I almost felt like I was intruding. It was funny too because they thanked me, and my automatic response, out of my mouth without even thinking about it, was "Of course!" Then I looked at Traci and laughed. Yes, of course! Because anyone would carry a baby for someone else! Anytime! You name it! lol Well I guess that just goes to show how selfless I am. They gave me a gorgeous gift as well, as a thank you, which I wear daily in remembrance.

(By the way, we've all realized now, at this point, that this last blog post is not going to be short, right?! Good! Because I'm not done yet. lol)

I had told my daughter, who was 4 at the time, about the baby halfway through the pregnancy, once I was concerned about her accidentally hurting me. Before that she just thought I was getting fat, as she even pointed out on one occasion when playing drums on my belly. I had gotten a couple books for her that we had been reading that explained surrogacy to a young child. One of them even turned out to be quite detailed, talking about sperm, eggs and the uterus. I was thinking, well I didn't expect to be having the birds and the bees talk so young! But the books really paid off. I just said to her, do you remember the story in the book? Well mommy is doing that. My daughter's response? "Who can we grow a baby for next?!" Yep, that's my kid! She wanted to grow a baby for our Australian cousins, then my mom, then for all the children in her class who's parents didn't have more kids. I continue to maintain to her that we won't be growing any more babies for anyone but us, and even that is not going to be that soon. She continues to try to get me married off as she's decided she's ready for a sibling and is impatient, even asking me to share a husband if it'll happen quicker. But that's another story! LOL This time around, I wanted her to meet the baby, so that she would have closure from watching me through the end of the pregnancy. I expected her to want to hold the baby. But at the hospital, she was shy and reserved (very unlike her), and only looked at the baby for a couple minutes before she was ready to go. My mom told me that later in the car she said "The baby was just so lovely she couldn't speak." :-) Yep, that's my kid. She'll be a great big sister one day. But on my timetable instead of hers I think!

Well, maybe I am closer to the end of this post than I thought. I think that about wraps everything up. Like I said, it was harder than I thought it would be at times. But it was also incredibly rewarding and beautiful. Now I have this relationship with this family and these memories that mean a lot to me. I'm proud of myself, and I think it was a great example to set for my daughters too. Now I'm in the process of getting life back to normal and getting back in shape, which I'm just about there. I actually could stop now, but I want to push myself a little bit further with the weight loss. I gained 40 pounds (and had also been at my lowest pre-pregnancy weight practically since I was in college), and now I'm about 6 pounds from being back to that again. It looks like I'm going to be able to visit with the family in about a month, which will be nice. And I look forward to watching her grow up from afar, and staying in touch with them. 

I also am even looking forward to going through childbirth again. After I had my daughter I thought to myself, "I could do that again." This time, I'm even more sure I could do it again. In fact, I'm even looking forward to it, and to proving to myself that I've totally got this, lol. I do pregnancy, childbirth and recovery well! I was made for this, lol. I want to beat my record. 15 minutes it is! haha I must say as well, this time around really made me see what a miracle childbirth is. You grow something so big that comes out of something so small, and your body just knows how to do it. The whole process of labor, preparing your body and the baby for the expulsion process, going through the expulsion process relatively unscathed for both parties, and then even bouncing back to normal so fast. Even then on top of that breastfeeding, the way your body knows what your baby needs just from markers and receptors in the baby's saliva so your breast milk is formulated to provide the nutritional needs of the baby, and how that changes daily, and how your body knows how much milk to produce for the baby. The whole thing is incredible, and if you want proof of a modern day miracle, that is it right there. Men, appreciate your women! Because they have this miracle, amazing ability, AND they take care of you and raise your family.

But anyway, :-), thank you for reading my blog, even with the breaks. I was looking at the site the other day, noticing that I still was getting hundreds of hits a month, even with a 6 month hiatus. That is what prompted me to sit down and write this final post, to give the rest of you closure as well. I appreciate it. :-) Lots of love to all.
Jessica