Sunday, February 26, 2012

365 Days

First, a disclaimer: In this post I mention several different people who offered to be our surrogate but for one very valid reason or another it just didn’t work out. I hold no hard feelings towards any of these people and I never had. This post is not meant to call those people out or anything like that, I just want to try and document every single step of this journey, and this is a very important part of it.

One year ago today I got the email from our first surro telling us she just couldn’t do it.

*Well, technically she was our second, my sister was our first, but she was the first one we had actually started moving forward with. With my sister it was all just talk, but we never made it beyond that. With J, Dave and I had our first consult with Dr. C, J met with her doc and had a phone consult with Dr. C, Dave went and gave his sample, we were actually moving forward.

I remember that day so vividly as if it had happened yesterday. We were at my grandmother’s house cleaning it out when J texted me and told me I needed to check my email. I knew she had started having some concerns and had been doing some serious thinking, praying, and discussing with her family and doctor. So when she told me to check my email I knew what it was, and I already knew it was going to be bad news. I had been trying to prepare myself for it, but I don’t think I did a very good job. I was back in grandmother’s bedroom and I sat on her bed to read the email when my mom walked in followed shortly by my sister. We all just sat there in silence for a few minutes before I broke down. At that exact moment I felt like that was it, we were at the end of the road, I was never going to get my baby. My mom and sister tried to be so optimistic for me, Jennifer even offering her services again. Dave wasn’t there that day, so then I had to call him and tell him, which caused me to break down again.

I wasn’t angry or upset with J at all. I totally understood. Her reasons made so much sense. Even her doctor couldn’t support her decision to do this. And I don’t know if Dave and I would have been comfortable going with J had decided to do it. But it still hurt to lose her. It wasn’t so much the fact that we were losing a surrogate, it was losing HER, losing J, which sucked. She was who we wanted, I had grown so attached to the idea of her being our surro I had to mourn the loss of her as if we had just lost a baby. I am sure I was a pretty unpleasant person to be around for a few weeks.

After losing J we had a few other people that came forward and offered. One of which we got very close to starting to move forward again with when we lost her. I was ready to give up. The roller coaster ride was almost too much to handle sometimes. We even started the process of becoming foster parent (of course, we were denied because we both work outside the home.) I started doing some research into adoption agencies, but I could never make myself do more than request info online, I couldn’t ever make a phone call to any of the agencies. I knew that starting the adoption process would mean the end of my surrogacy dream, and I just wasn’t quite ready to let the dream go. I wasn’t sure how we were going to make that dream come true, but I still wasn’t ready for it to end. Dave kept saying we needed to call Dr. C and see if he knew anyone, but I kept poo-pooing that idea. Thankfully he didn’t listen to me and called Dr. C and that’s how we found the wonderful Gayla who then put us in contact with our amazing L.

Looking back on everything that has happened and now I get it, I see why these things happened. J has had all kinds of changes happen in her life in the past year that would have made things even more complex and difficult if she were pregnant with our twins right now. And I see His reasons for not letting it work out with several of the other women as well. L was the person meant for this job. She has been the perfect person for it. She is the best baby cooker. I can’t imagine anyone doing a better job than she is. I can’t imagine any other person carrying our boys for us. She.is.perfect.

I look at how low I was one year ago. Look at how close I was to giving up (thank you Dave for not letting me!) Now look at where we are. Look how far we have come. Look at those 2 sweet boys growing away in the perfect womb. From the struggle to find our perfect surrogate to the roller coaster of getting some eggs from me and getting her knocked up. And let’s not forget the emotion filled day where L calls and says she is bleeding so we rush in thinking we were losing the pregnancy only to find triplets. It has been quite a journey and in just 10 or so more weeks this journey will come to a very happy end. I can’t believe how close we are!


To J- I want you to know how very much I love you. I am honored that you would have even considered being our surrogate. I know you wanted it as much as I did. I know it was a heartbreaking decision that you had to make. I never, ever, ever felt any negative feelings toward you at all. I will always think of you with very fond memories and I can’t wait for my boys to meet you!

Saturday, February 25, 2012

Trust No One!

About a month ago my asst. principal calls me during the middle of class and says “find a sub for February 24th, I am sending you to a training. I’ll explain more later.” So I said ok, hung up, and got back to teaching. I then started searching high and low for a sub, but all my usuals were already committed, so I thought it must be a pretty popular training. I finally found someone AWESOME (shout-out SS) got her put into the system, and forgot about it. Until last weekend when I realized the training was coming up and I had no idea what it was about, what time it stated, what building it was in. I knew nothing other than it was on the 24th. So on Monday morning I sent an email to my AP asking for more specifics, and I never heard back from her. Not even so much as a, I’ll get back to you later. Just radio silence.
That annoyed me to no end. I came home about mid-week complaining to Dave that I was still clueless about my training on Friday. I told him that I knew she had seen my email because any message sent within GISD shows a timestamp of when it was opened. I also looked on Oracle and couldn’t find any trainings listed for the 24th and so I was starting to worry that I had misheard and really it was the 23rd because there were lots of classes listed for that day. Dave just kept defending her and defending her and finally said that maybe I would just end up with a free day off.
Thursday morning on my drive into work my mom tells me she knows what my training is because she was sending several of her teachers to it as well. I took that time to whine a little more about my APs sealed lips and how frustrated it was making me. I got to work that morning and sent yet another email asking for some details. Finally, near the end of the day I heard back from her and all it said was 8:30 at the PDC; still no idea what I was learning about. Oh well, I just decided to go with the flow. I got my sub plans all ready to go, threw the spiral I take with my to all staff developments into my car so I could take some good notes like I was told to do, and was just excited about the prospect of getting to sleep a few extra minutes later than normal.
That night at dinner Dave and I were talking about the twins and about how life was about to change and this is pretty much the transcript of the conversation we had:
D: I think we need to get away one last time before the boys get here.
J: Ok. We can go camping! (side note- we are going camping over spring break.)
D: What about a weekend in Fredericksburg?
J: (paying more attention to the Nacho and her cuteness than our conversation) Ok.
D: We could stay in a B&B.
J: Sure. I’ve always wanted to go there.
D: Ok good. We are going this weekend.
J: huh?
D: Your mom is taking the Nacho for the weekend.
J: huh?
D: You don’t actually have a training tomorrow.
J: huh?
D: We are leaving in the morning after my conference call. Driving down, staying at the Magnolia House, and having an awesome weekend.
J: huh?

Slowly, the pieces started to all fit together. I think I was so confused and then stunned that I don’t think I ever properly responded with excitement to him, but trust me, I was excited! It took me a while to finally figure out that everyone was in on it and I was the only clueless one. I think I had to ask a few times “are you sure there is not training tomorrow???”
Yep, my mom and my AP were in on it the whole time. I am surrounded my sneaks! And I am so glad I am. It was a wonderful surprise and it has been a wonderfully awesome and relaxing weekend. I’m sure it is the last of its kind for a long, long time. Granted the weekends we are going to have from this point forward are going to be awesome for a whole slew of different reasons (well, for 3 pretty awesome reasons!) Its been nice to have one last grown up getaway.

Sunday, February 19, 2012

Name Explaination

So some people are quite upset that we are keeping the names a secret. I mean there are people that have gotten mad and yelled at me in emails about it, it's pretty ridiculous. My favorite was from a woman that was a complete stranger (we were only friends in order to be FV neighbors) who called me stupid and selfish. Yeah, she's not on my friend list anymore. So I just want to take a second and explain why we are not sharing the names until the babies are born in hopes that people might be a little more tolerant if they understand where I am coming from.

But before I begin, I need to say that I am 1000% grateful for all the love and support and prayers we have gotten from everyone throughout this process. We would not be where we are (and still be sane) if it wasn't for everyones support. I have been hesitant to explain myself earlier because I didn't want people to think I was being ungrateful, because that couldn't be further from the truth.

When we found out we were pregnant with the Nacho, it was almost exactly 2 months until our wedding. We didn't tell anyone, I mean anyone, not even my mom. It was our little secret until the day we got home from the honeymoon. It was kind of fun to have that little thing between us, something that was just ours, for a little while. And then after we told, I still had those times with the Nacho that it was just she and I. Lying in bed at night feeling her move, or in the shower looking at my growing belly - I loved those moments when it was just she and I. I knew that soon enough I would be sharing her with the rest of the world. Plus, with the Nacho we didn't find out the gender, so we got to have a little surprise in the delivery room. (oh who am I kidding, we got more than a little surprise in the delivery room. We got "It's a girl!" followed by "It's a hysterectomy!" Good times, good times.)

This time around I don't have any of that. I haven't had a single private moment. Everyone has known what was going on from the second we started looking for a surrogate. And again, I have been so thankful for that, I needed that support, and I still do. But I also wanted something that was just ours for at least a little while. I don't get to have any quiet alone moments with the boys. I didn't get to have any moments with my husband where we just gave each other that look that said we were both in on something. We won't get a surprise in the delivery room of finding out if they are boys or girls. So if wanting to keep the names to ourselves makes me selfish, if that makes me sound ungrateful, then so be it.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Thursday, February 2, 2012

Mommy's Tummy

Photobucket
We have been talking to the Nacho about her baby brothers and how they are in Ms L's tummy. So she will often tell us that she has baby brothers and that they are in Ms. L's tummy, but I don't think she really understand much beyond that. Well tonight at dinner when a Jimmy Buffett song came on she said "I like this music!" I told her she went to her very first JB concert when she was in my tummy. And she said that her baby brothers were now in mommy's tummy. I reminded her that no, mommy's tummy was broken, so her brothers were in Ms. L's tummy. There was a little more conversation about mommy's broken tummy, and she kept lifting my shirt to look at it before she asked me if I wanted a hug. Of course I said YES! So she climbed in my lap and gave me a big bear hug and several kisses, which of course put a giant smile on my face. I told her that she made mommy so very happy. The Nacho then looked me in the eye and asked, "Is your tummy all better now?"


No baby, its not, but my heart sure is!!!!!


And, because she is so flipping cute, here is a little video of the Nacho explaining about humpty dumpty.