Happy Birthday Ethan!

Yesterday was the birthday of my youngest surro - Ethan.   On October 17, 2003 he was born and was just as beautiful of a baby as you have ever seen.  His features were soft, his head was perfect, his lips were beautiful.... I wish I could take some of the credit, but his egg donor (#508) and his Daddy sure do make lovely babies!!  He was also my smallest baby to date at 8lbs 5ozs.

I was living in Oregon during my pregnancy with Ethan but flew to California when I was 38 weeks pregnant so I could deliver with the same OB as the first surrogate and so the family could all be there to welcome their new addition.   A couple days later my 'house spouse' and my 4 1/2 year old son flew down to Cali too.

Mark (house spouse) had endured an entire pregnancy during our 9 1/2 months of dating.   *I had warned him he did NOT want to start dating me since I had plans to get pregnant 3 weeks after we met - he chose not to listen.*   Gotta say that was a very fun way to start a relationship - "Hi, this is my girlfriend and her son and yes she is pregnant but not isn't mine and no it isn't hers either."  *smile*   He had a great attitude about the whole thing and his famous saying was 'how many guys get a trial run at their girlfriends being pregnant?'  So true.

So Mark flew in the night before I ended up delivering - we weren't sure if he would be there for labor/deliver or not, but it was worth a shot.   As it was - he had perfect timing!  I had an appointment for a check in the morning and was told I was leaking a bit of amniotic fluid so I was sent to L&D.  Woot-Woot!! Without going into the entire story (maybe some day....) Ethan was born within 4 hours (tied with one of my longest labor/deliveries) and he was welcomed by his Daddies & Grandmas & Mark quickly followed by others including his big brother.

Here is a picture of Mark holding Ethan not long after he was born - it is one of my favorite pictures and is actually in a frame on my wall.   Mark might not have been related to this baby in anyway, but he felt very proud to be a support to me and to be there when Ethan was born.

Yesterday I got a call from my surro family and Ethan said "Thank you for having me".   He was on his way to his laser tag birthday party with his buddies.  If only he understood how much he has done for me and how much he and the rest of his family have been a blessing in *my* life.   Thank YOU Ethan for letting me carry you!  It was such an honor.

It was dark......

I have been reflecting a bit lately about when I found out I was pregnant.   I know I didn't share a whole lot here - I was still in shock and didn't really believe what was going on.  Now that I am feeling much better about this pregnancy (I feel 'normal' again!) I can look back at what I was going through and process things much easier.

I found out on a Friday evening about 8 o'clock.  My family was all gone (fishing I think...) and I decided a bath all ALONE sounded wonderful!  I knew my period was due and before the witch decided to make her apperance I wanted to do that NEGATIVE pregnancy test that I had been talking about.  I wanted a negative test to compare to ones that I was hoping would be positive come transfer time.   When you are early pregnant the tests aren't always obvious that they are positive, so I was planning on peeing on sticks (POAS) 3 or 4 times a day.   (crazy, yes, but remember; I did pass that psych test!)   Surrogates get a little crazy when it is testing time and I was just trying to make sure that when I *thought* I saw a line I would have something to compare it too.  Makes sense, right?  

Ok, so anyway, I peed on my stick and set it on the edge of the bathtub and went to get my towel ready, my cup of water and a hershey's chocolate bar.   Now, if you know me then you know I do NOT like chocolate.   I am thinking to myself "geez, totally PMS'ing here - I am eating chocolate!" and as I broke myself off a bite I caught site of the pregnancy test sitting on the edge of the tub and dropped my chocolate into the water.   There were TWO lines on the test.    WHAT?!?!?!?   I didn't believe it.  I couldn't believe it.  I threw it in the drawer in the bathroom.   No way.   It has to be wrong.... has to be.   My relaxing bath turned out to be anything BUT relaxing.  I kept getting up, looking in the drawer and then shutting it.  Over and over. 

I stayed in the tub about an hour and drank my water - the chocolate bar is still to this day open and sitting in my night stand - half eaten.  When I got out I got a different type of test -- why should I trust those stupid internet tests anyway, right?!?!  So I got out one of my digital test (you have to understand that I was VERY prepared with tests - I think I had about 80......) - I peed and within the time frame it told me it read very clearly "pregnant".   Holy Sh*t.   Yeah....... I took a picture and sent it to my best friend that has know about everyone one of my tests first - and she was heading across country  moving and never got the message until a few days later.   Then I sent the picture of the two tests to my best mom friend and said something to the effect of "Holy Sh*t, I am in trouble!"  Not normally the words I would choose, but how else can you express that much shock?!?!

My friend had a hard time figuring out what was in the little picture on her phone but with what I said quickly figured it out.... we 'talked' back and forth for awhile and when my family returned home I said goodnight to everyone and went to bed early.   Not that I could sleep.

I had to tell my husband.   I had to tell S&P.  I had to tell my agency.  How?!?!  What do I say?  I am still trying to figure out how I got pregnant!!   After pretending to be asleep and tossing and turning for half the night I got up around 2am and went to my computer.  I calculated what I could for dates coming up disbelieving each time.  Then I wrote my husband an email.   Yeah - I figured he couldn't kill me if he read that I was pregnant in an email - I would be long gone by the time he read it.   *smile*  Just kidding...... kind of.   I sent the email with the title of 'please read sitting down'.

In the morning I tried to play normal happy wife, we all turned on cartoons and sat around while my stomach was turning and twisting.  Finally my hubby said he was going to go check his email.... I waited just a bit and then followed him in, kissed him on the head and said I was heading up to take a shower.

Up until this point I had been in shock.   I really didn't believe what was going on (of course I took another internet cheapy test and the stupid thing still had 2 lines on it!).   Once I got in the shower I let the reality of what was happening hit me and I cried.   I cried and cried - I had a hard time catching my breath but just let the water wash away my tears.   My daughter came up and joined me at some point and I took a few deep breaths and tried to calm myself...... then I heard my husband coming and I lost it.

 He opened the shower curtain and looking back I was standing but in the most fetal position I could be in and he looked at me and shook his head and closed the curtain.     

.....oh the tears that followed.  The pain.......

Then he did something that I will never forget - he opened the curtain back up and said "Why are you crying?  We have three beautiful children and we are going to have another one!!!  God obviously had different plans than we did and that's okay - we will make this work, but you need to stop crying!"   Of course after hearing that I couldn't stop crying, but my tears at that point were tears of relief.   My husband was going to stand by my side and we were going to get through this.

My journey to being 'okay with this' was definitely a difficult one.  Emotionally I was ready to be pregnant, but not ready to love the baby like I would love my own child.  I was ready to love like I was loving/caring for my friends baby - which is what you want when you are are a surrogate!!   Emotionally wrapping my head and my heart around the change was HUGE.   I was also much sicker with this pregnancy than I was with any other and I am sure that it was my emotions affecting me phsyically.  Once I got to about 16 weeks I started feeling better physically and feeling the baby move was a HUGE boost in my emotional well being.   Now that I am more than 1/2 way through I am so excited and can't wait to meet this baby.

   Our family is ready.   I am ready.