Canadian Thanksgiving was last weekend, so we relished the opportunity to go home to family. We’ve agreed with Mom and Dad that none of us would travel after that, which made it something of a temporary Farewell Tour. As an added bonus, I finally found myself with a bit of an appetite! In a cruel twist of irony, now that I’ve found it, we’re running out of tummy room. Bullshit. I even had to tap out before I tackled my whole piece of pie. Devastating bullshit. Either way, seeing my extended family was fantastic. They’re so wonderfully supportive and loving in general, but they’ve bumped it up recently. If I ever need someone to tell me that I’m doing ok, that I’m awesome, that my kids really AREN’T being shitty, these are the people I go to and this time was no different. Schmoop and I had so many extra sets of loving hands to help that we even got to go on a date – unheard of! I also got to spend a fair amount of time sitting and resting while people brought me things and managed the little boogers. I’ll admit, it was LOVELY. The timing couldn’t have been better because on Saturday, it finally happened:
I. HIT. THE. WALL. All of a sudden, after almost no symptoms whatsoever, my body caught on. I seriously woke up and my body was yelling, “dude. I don’t know if you’ve noticed but…we’re pregnant. How did this HAPPEN to us?!” Now, it’s slow down and gestate time, which is an easier proposition now, since everyone who needs to finally knows, including the kids. They took it amazingly well. The Duck doesn’t really care. Being 2 years old, she is more concerned with her own frenetic activities. The Bean was well-prepared with books about the concept of surrogacy. He was excited beyond belief, but mature well beyond his 4 years. His eyes shone, and he told me that he was happy that we could help Mom and Dad and to have a new friend. The kid even knew that it wasn’t a situation to discuss with the kids from school (we told him it may confuse them because they don’t have the books, but really, I worry about forcing parents to have conversations they aren’t ready for or about their personal beliefs). His gentle spirit, understanding and willingness to accept the journey made my heart soar and almost burst with pride. So now, we’re left to just wait and wait, and wait, and see.
In my experience, it’s fairly common to have at least a couple good “am I in labour” moments in each pregnancy. This one, while no different, takes on a whole different layer of complexity.
When your pregnancy is your own, it’s totally realistic to sit alone and obsessively wonder, but no one needs to know that you’re doing it. In a surrogacy situation, it would be SUPREMELY unfair to get to the point of calling the midwife/going to L&D/having a pre-term birth without giving the intended parents as much notice as possible. I just picture saying, “hey guys, we think there may be a problem, we’re heading in… Oh yeah it’s been going on for HOURS.” As a result, someone else gets an inside look on the inherent lunacy of the pregnant woman.
This week (33 if anyone’s counting!), I had a really long, consistent run of contractions. I was fairly sure it was a Braxton-Hicks situation… Which is super common… but they were wrapping around into my back and pretty evenly timed. Luckily they weren’t getting longer/stronger/closer, so I was nowhere near alarmed, but of course I had to fill Mom and Dad in. They were understandably concerned, so I paged our midwife for her opinion (knowing full well what she’d say, but wanting to keep them comfortable). She agreed with me that we should just wait, rest, hydrate and see if anything intensified. After about 14 hours (!) of contractions every 12-15 mins, things settled. Little miss gave me a couple moments of legitimate concern when some of the contractions took my breath away – so I am grateful that we got over it, and that she’s going to stay cooking in there for a while longer. (But not too long, little one, my patience has its limits. xox)
extremebabysittingsurro 