Surrogacy Support

Today's post isn't about how I am feeling physically, cravings, or upcoming doctor's appointments. Nope. It's about my wonderful hubby, Shawn.

Today is our 9th anniversary. As a bride I remember being excited about our future together and wondering what God had planned for our days together. I NEVER dreamed that we would have two beautiful and smart girls of our own and I would be helping another couple have a family of their own by carrying a baby for them.

Shawn has been absolutely wonderful throughout the surrogacy process. He was with me for both of the transfers, even joking that "if my wife is going somewhere to get pregnant I'd like to be there for it!"

He has encouraged me through the all of the meds and helped me when I'm just too tired to stay awake to administer them. (He hasn't been on the giving end of the shots yet, just waking me up so I can do them.)

He held me and let me cry after hearing the bad news of a chemical pregnancy and then once again when my IP's bitterly told me they weren't continuing.

He has laughed (a lot) with me as we have heard the insanely high beta numbers called to me from the nurse.

He has held my hand as I've nervously anticipated meeting my IP's.

He has brought home dinner for me when I'm just too tired (or nauseous) to cook anything.

He will eventually be the one to stay with me after the baby/ies are delivered and safely in their own room with B & R. 

Even though I'm the one taking the meds and carrying the baby/ies, there is no way I could have or would have wanted to do this without Shawn's support.

Thanks, Shawn, for your love, encouragement, and support throughout this journey. I'm glad you are by my side as we wait for B & R's miracles!

Our blessed family.

Surrogate Get-Together

Yesterday was the Agency's annual Surrogate Social. My girls and I were able to attend and what a great time we had!

A quick funny story from yesterday. The director was chatting with me and asked me how things are going with my journey. I said things are going well as I impatiently wait for the ultrasound next Monday. He asked why I am anxious about that. I told him that my last beta was rather high and I want to know how many are in there.

A bit later he introduced me to others and said "this is Shawnee, the one with the scary beta!" 

Proudly wearing my fertility helper bracelets

I love that all of us surrogates have such unique stories. Some have had really difficult journeys, others have had fairly "easy" ones (if there is such a thing as an easy surrogacy experience!)

What really hit home for me was the differences in IP's and interactions each surrogate has with them. Some of the ladies talk with their IP's a couple of times a month. Others Skype every day. Some have language barriers and time changes to contend with. There are a few that live close enough to go visit every week.

I'm somewhere in the middle. My IP's and I text a couple of times a week and have been calling about once a week. I met them in person the weekend of the transfer and will hopefully get to see them again soon at an ultrasound. We don't have time differences or language barriers (unless you call my Midwestern accent a language barrier!). They aren't within day trip driving distance, but they are within the continental 48. All in all, I'm pretty lucky.

Back to the Social...

The surrogates I know are some amazing ladies who really know how to support each other during the good and bad. We each had our own reasons for going into surrogacy. One thing is certain with each of us: surrogacy is a life-changing experience for not only us but our families and the couples we are working with.

Little Miracles, my friends and I are excited to meet you!

My Favorite (Pregnant) Things

No more cranky-pants for me! I'm making a list of some of my favorite pregnant things. I'm guessing this list will expand and or change the farther along I get. Isn't that a great thought!

So, here goes!

-Apples! The only time I can eat raw apples is when I'm pregnant. (I'm allergic to them all other times) Crazy, right? Well, I'm totally taking advantage of this nice little change by having an apple or three every day! So yummy, so juicy, so wonderful! (All you people without allergies have no idea how good you have it!)

-Ice cream. I enjoy ice cream all year, but when I'm pregnant I REALLY enjoy ice cream. To be more specific, I enjoy Culver's frozen custard with Twix, Snickers, caramel cashew, Turtle, etc. pretty much anything with caramel and nuts with a little bit of chocolate is so good! Along with their custard I like...

-Crinkle cut fries. There is just something about those bumpy ridges on the golden fried potato goodness. Yumm.

-Mexican foods. This pregnancy seems to be craving Chipotle's steak burrito or bowl. Load it with brown rice, black beans, lots of tomato salsa, a touch of sour cream and top it with cheese. Oh, so good!

-Pasta. I have no idea where this one came from. Various noodles with sauce, tomatoes and basil, butter and salt 'n pepper, sautéed veggies... I could go on and on.

I think that's most of the current list. I still wouldn't call any of these "cravings," just things I really like right now. I intend to enjoy all of these things and many more during these next 8ish months!

Miracles are wonderful things!

Rest and Relaxing

After Thursday's upsetting events, I woke up Friday morning and felt better. The bleeding had calmed down to light spotting and the cramping backed off from painful to just mild cramps. 

I decided to go into work and explain that I needed to take it easy. My boss was wonderfully accommodating to my request. I managed to only lift a couple of kiddos and sit a lot while watching my kiddos. 

I'm happy to report that the spotting has stopped altogether. I'm still mildly crampy, but its no longer uncomfortable. I'm totally okay with cramps. That tells me something is going on inside me and that is exactly what we want!

Shawn works all weekend and I amazingly have no plans for today. I told my girls that we can have a day of movies and books and hanging out. Hopefully, with a very light weekend I will be back to normal pregnant instead of cautious pregnant.

Grow, little miracles!

A Bump in the Road

Today was an insanely emotional day for me. I tend to be an early riser, so I decided to kick off my day with some prenatal yoga. This was a great way to start my day.

I went to work and went through the day with my munchkins. They presented their usual challenges, but it wasn't anything I couldn't handle.

Then, my day changed drastically. On my break I decided to go see my 2 year old. 

On the way to her classroom I noticed something unusual happening. I was feeling rather crampy and then I noticed a feeling of leaking. Hmm. I doubled back to the ladies room only to discover that I had started bleeding. Not spotting, bleeding. Not enough that I would call it like a period, but enough to completely freak me out. 

Since I was at work and didn't have the Clinic's phone number on me, I shot an email to the nurse. A minute later I received a phone call from the nurse. After explaining to her what was going on with me, she said that this may be a normal symptom for this pregnancy.

That being said, Dr D wants me to be on pelvic rest until things calm down. Basically, they want me to limit my lifting to only what I have to (I have a two year old who occasionally needs picking up for random things), limit activity, limit stress as much as possible, and try to put my feet up as much as possible. I'm hoping to avoid bed rest if possible, so I'm try to obey doctors orders.

After a couple of hours of light work, I finally was able to go home and lay down.

I sent B & R a text asking one of them to call me so I can tell them what's going on. Can I say how wonderful they are? Seriously, I've been so upset and crying all afternoon and they both just reassured me that whatever happens everything will be okay. Big sigh, no more tears.

Thankfully, after hanging out on the couch all afternoon and evening the bleeding has pretty much stopped and the cramping has toned down a lot. I did send B & R another text letting them know things have calmed down. 

I'm still trying to decide what to do with work tomorrow. I think I could manage to sit more and I should be able to limit my lifting. 

Tomorrow is a day that I know will be difficult for me anyway. September 20th is my dad's birthday. I miss him daily and his birthday is all around difficult. Nerves and hormones mixed with my dad's birthday could make for an interesting day.

For now, I'm going to be happy that the bleeding and cramps have chilled out, I'll take my nightly medicines, and then go to bed with my heating pad on my leg. I'm going to get up in the morning and listen to how my body is feeling and make decisions at that point. And tonight I'll go to bed praying for a miracle.

"Are You Sitting Down?"

Those are the exact words that I heard from the nurse this morning. Yikes!

Yesterday I had another blood draw to check for my hcg level to be doubling appropriately. "Normal" doubling time is usually every 48-72 hours (basically, an hcg level of 200 should double to 400 every 48-72 hours, etc). Let's look at my history, shall we?

September 1st: two 5 day embryos transferred
September 10th: 1st hcg level is 350
September 13th: 2nd hcg level is 1390

Which brings us to yesterday's draw and my phone call this morning.

The nurse from the Clinic called this morning. She greeted me with "Are you sitting down? You probably should be for this." Holy cow! What's going on in there?

All good news. My beta hcg is at 7,343, which is a doubling rate of 40 hours.

Holy cow! Did I say holy cow? If not, then HOLY COW! That is a wicked high number!

She went on to explain that everything looks good and that she is sending over orders for the ultrasounds to be done in a couple weeks. She did mention that she would bet I'm carrying "at least two" but that she doesn't like to speculate on things like this.

It took me about a half an hour to calm down after that little bit of news. My co-workers were really amused by my reaction and very supportive. I absolutely couldn't do this without their support. (Thanks, SonShine!)

My hubby was amusing when I called him. I told him what the level was and his reaction was a "Well, all right then!" He then repeated the number back to make sure he heard correctly. :-) He's pretty excited, too, and I'm glad he's such a support for me as well.

I chatted with B & R a bit this morning. They are so excited about the news. I teased them that they needed some recovery time after the news from the nurse. :-)  We are going to try for a morning ultrasound so they can be here for it and then fly out that night.

I was asked today how I'm feeling and if I'm feeling like there's "more than one in there." Honestly, I am feeling pretty good. I am still thirsty for really cold water, but its not out of control. The morning sickness I am experiencing is pretty mellow, too. Some days are better than others, but I haven't lost my cookies. Whatever food cravings I was having have gone away, however, food aversions are still in full swing (totally can't do yogurt...). Honestly, food just disinterest me right now. This is pretty typical for me. My last two pregnancies were kind of like that, where I could have cared less about food and just ate because that is what you are supposed to do (and because baby needs it). I'm not cramping, still just "twinges" every once in a while.

Thankfully, I am not super emotional yet. I am waiting for this one to kick in. There is no way I can be on this many meds with a growing pregnancy and not start crying over a dog food commercial (hey, the puppies are so cute and really bring joy to their owners as they play fetch! Don't judge.)

I am feeling fatigued in the evenings, but I think that is pretty normal for most people. I get up at 5am, at work by 7am where I am pretty actively involved with kids until early afternoon when I go home to run errands, clean, make dinner and care for my family. Most people would be tired at 7:30pm, right? So, I can't really blame exhaustion entirely on pregnancy. Maybe a little, but not all.

Anyway, I am good. We have a healthy pregnancy on it's way. In 12 days we will get to see this miracle... or two.  I can't be much happier than I am right now.

Waiting for the Phone

Today was another beta test. Once again, the lab's STAT is taking forever. It's now 6:40 pm, I was drawn about 1:30 pm. News flash: 5 hours is not STAT. 

Sigh. I can wait for tomorrow for the phone call. 

On a positive side, I've had a pretty good day, nausea wise. Just a little bit of queasiness this morning, but nothing bad at all. Totally doable. I didn't even nosh on ritz!

I am noticing that after I get home from work I've got about a two hour burst of energy where I usually start a project (or four!). Today, I did some laundry, cleaned the kitchen and washed dishes, picked veggies from the garden, canned 4 quarts of tomatoes, and made homemade mac n' cheese for dinner. I also finished mixing and canning the yogurt I started yesterday. Like I said, it's a crazy burst of energy.

After this energy burst comes the pop! Then I'm exhausted and fighting to stay awake (Shawn's at work so I'm home alone with the kids. Otherwise I would so be asleep!). Tonight, the pop happened about 6:15. Yawn! 

Anyway, aside from wanting to hear the beta results, I'm doing really well. Nothing to complain about here!

Waiting to hear about a miracle.