The Want Without The Financial Capability

Okay, so I am definitely the first one to say [and believe] that those who are on welfare should not be trying to add more children to their families until they are financially stable. Period. I think it's wrong.

I have been suddenly seeing what seems like hundreds of people pregnant every day, seeing commercials for pregnancy tests, even my child's cartoon's have mommies who are super pregnant lately. It's driving me nuts lol

Then, suddenly hubby expresses that he actually wants the same amount of children I do - 4. We're at 2 right now, still living apart, still working on things, and our children are only 15 and 35 months old. We have lots of time to have another baby. LOADS. I'm 20.5 years old, there is no rush.

I'm thinking surrogacy may actually just be a way to put off this biological need to reproduce. It's crazy to want to have another baby in my situation! CRRAZY! So yes... I know this post will get a lot of "you can wait, my gosh, you had 4 kids in 2.75 years!" kind of posts.

It isn't just today though, it's been the last little while, baby fever always hits me faster and faster. I would be that woman in a villagewho gets pregnant like once a year and half the village's children are hers. Yeah - I've thought about this way too much.  Either way, I can't wait to be pregnant again, and I know that I can't do a surrogacy until March since my relationship is far too fragile to handle the stress of another surrogacy, and possibly other complications that come with surrogacy.  So, for another 6+ months... I will take my birth control pills religiously and wait.  It's driving me nutso! I have to be crazy!


All of that being said haha I was in a TTC group, and it got narrowed down from 114 to 18 people because people couldn't all get along and hold hands? I was really frustrated becuase everyone will have a different opinion on things, and it could have been dealt with a lot better in my opinon. I have started a few groups on facebook and have not ONCE had to delete a single person!

There are so many things going on lately lol

Josh has been working out of town and only here for a couple days at a time and then back out. The bonus... it's the same town as the "other woman" is from and lives in. That's right. I want to KILLL his boss... just saying.

I'm on day 11 of my birth control pills... I haven't been on birth control pills since december 2007! ..They didn't work well for me... my daughter was born in September 2008 lol Couldn't start my January pack and waited 3.5 weeks to come to terms that I needed to take a pregnancy test... being 3.5 weeks late... I was still in denial. I'm not using it for birth control right now obviously as I always always always use a second form of birth control, but my cycles being 28 days every month will be kind of nice haha. I can't believe that after almost 4 years, I can still remember to take them every single day within 20 minutes of the time I alotted for them! YAY ME! Yeah I know... 11 days isn't a HUGE thing - but it's pretty big for me lol I don't even remember WEEKLY things like taking the garbage out!

I went on a "vacation" for a couple days alone with Josh. His hotel is paid by work, so I went down and spent a couple days there [couple being...2 :)].  I did find that it held some healing power. We adventured all around, we went and got lost together, and found ourselves again. We did a little shopping [okay.. I did TOO MUCH shopping... let's be honest, that's what women do lol]. And I decided on a tattoo [I don't have any yet... and I know it's a sin... but I also don't want to die with regrets!! I want to experience as much as I can!].  The first day I was there was stressful... my sitter was young, and I should have known my children would have been too much, but had to find a sitter for the second day and night. Bullet dodged and I really enjoyed the last day there!

What an eventful week... sorry for the huge update on things. I'm trying to not post my life all over facebook and keep it for here!! Plus... sometimes I realize that if I want attention, I should get it in positive ways [like having more surrobabies!! haha].

I hope everyone has an AMAZING week, and try to pray for those who purposely hurt others, and those who lie and cheat and steal from honest people... they are obviously misguided and need all of the prayers we can offer!

-Cathleen xox

The Long... Slippery... Cold Slope We Call Repairing Starts

Having chosen to not live with any regrets, i've decided that love is worth fighting for. I know so many people who have told me they look back and to them it seems like they simply gave up... moved on... not realizing that all of the "what if"s would haunt them forever. None of us want to live with pain or regret, and I've discovered that sometimes pain is necessary to prevent living with endless regret.

I have been talking to many people in private about my situation, and have gotten SO much support, encouragement, different [very different] views on life, relationships, motherhood, and being a wife. While speaking to them, I said things that I later looked back at and realized that I not only meant every word, but that it made perfect sense to use in every day life... things I would later say to my daughter and son.

"the "tree" of our relationship has been RIPPED out of the ground... and he has to find a way to replant it... and that is not an easy task when some roots are broken already... the tree seldom lives after such trauma"

 I said this during a conversation with one of my high school best friends [I won't use names] while talking about things with her, and when I read it back to myself, I realized that I could really be proud of it.  It was exactly how I felt, and how I feel and how my daughter may feel in twenty years. 

I believe that each relationship starts as a seed, grows roots, and then emerges into the world as something either beautiful or devastating.  Eventually that tree grows, it can be either healthy or infested with illness, and can grow or die.  We have many trees in our lives, some deeper than others, some still growing, some have stopped growing years before and of course, some have already died. Whether they simply weren't nourished, or were burnt down willingly is a circumstance of consequence. 

My marriage has very deep roots for me, and it was built on adventure, love, trust, wonder and unquestionable friendship.  Parts of those roots are wounded, some of those damaged to an extent that I'm not sure if they can ever be repaired.  In order for the tree to survive, it must be carefully replanted, in earth that has been brought up, and it may never be the same tree again, but it will be a tree that will continue to grow.  If not, then the tree will release it's own seeds, and a new relationship will begin, not as deep as the previous and original tree, but one built on an attempt of friendship - as we will always be in each other's lives, since we have children together. It won't just end when the children move out, we will share weddings, grandchildren and great grandchildren. In order for that to even be possible, there will be effort regardless.

The second quote is this one.

"a slippery and cold slope at times, but hopefully it will be filled with hot chocolate stops and warm camp fires."

I was speaking in reference to the repairing of the relationship.  I think that it describes any marriage though, because when two people come together there will ALWAYS be challenges involved and there will always be fights and arguments and tears... and such is life.  The things you should be able to remember at the end of the day or the moments that bring tears of JOY to your eyes... your first kiss, first date, first time coming together as one person, your first child, and every child after, the times you were proud of each other beyond any words and the future. The future should always look bright. 

I'm going away to be alone with him for about 57 hours, and in those days he will have to work, but it will be the first time we are away with the kids... neither of us have ever had a vacation. We've never gone out over night together.

In order for this to happen I had a LOT of support around me and I think that I will always remember those people as the ones who enabled my marriage to come together, because I don't honestly think that it was ever actually together. I think we wanted it to, and I think that instead of lettin git happen, we ran from all of our real issues... these people are enabling us to actually fix these issues. 

I even have a friend who is willing to take my children on top of her THREE MONTH OLD so that I can go do this. How amazing is that?! She is the main reason I can go.

I had two friends come together and send me money, without them, I couldn't afford for someone to take the kids [I was originally going to take them WITH me since he's gone for a total of 6 days and it seemed likea long time to be apart when we're trying to work on something like this]. 

My  mom said she can take my daughter for a night as well, which will give my sitter a little break as well. My daughter is the trouble/mess maker of the two to be honest, my son is pretty well behaved [15 months old now].

Wish me luck... I can use all the luck I can get. 

Passion...Love...And The Blood

Okay, not all three are directly related to each other...so no... I didn't turn into  Macbeth or anything.

A lot of my readers know that relationship wise, I've been a MESS the last few months. It's in my blog and everything. It's been hard as all heck and I have no idea how two people who think they love each other so much can go through so much.

I am impatient, short tempered, hormonal and selfish at times. I know that, those are my downfalls. 

I still know that I'm worth more than to be cheated on, lied to and put aside. 

I waited to write this because I find that when things are fresh for me, I'm very dramatic and even though I tend to write BETTER when I'm passionate about the subject still, it's not always FAIR. And don't even go there, we all do it. We like pity parties thrown for us.

Some marriages go through a rough spot, and one of the two partners in that marriage strays... whether it is for emotional comfort, physical pleasure, the lure of the unknown, the rush of the excitement... it does happen.

What SUCKS... is when you're the one cheated on. It's easy to do it, and then you know you have to be good after you get caught, never do it again.... It's hard to want to trust again... and then being able to trust again, always wondering if  you're missing something, if you should be expecting something around the corner. I mean... every time you think about your partner.. you're going to think about them with that other person. How do you live with that, especially when you have children together?

It seems to me that most people will say "just move on, you can do better than them". That's very easy to say to someone else, and very hard to do, or to even WANT to do. 

Obviously, this is what I'm dealing with right now. The classic "I love you both" dramatic story where the long term partner finds out there is a short term partner on the side. Sometimes the cheating partner chooses not to leave the short term partner because the "sizzle" and "pizazz" is gone from the long term relationship. Sometimes they realize that it's not really what makes them happy. If this happens, then the partner who was cheated on has to make a decision. Does this partner want the cheating partner back?

Of course... I'm not sure what THIS partner will decide.  I'm hoping to find the answers when I look into myself and decide COMPLETELY on what I want in LIFE... because whomever I decide to one day MARRY... has to still be there in 60 years when I meet my great grand children.

So now I decide which of many roads to take to fulfill my ultimate dream - happiness.

On a side note, I start my period yesterday, so today is the first day of birth control pills :)

My Secret Ingredient

I'm not writing this for comments or for anything else, but have decided that this is part of MY journey, not just my surrogacy journey, but my LIFE journey.  People will judge me either way, that's what people do, it's human nature, and let's face it... for most people, it's an ego boost. I know it is for me.
I think I've handled the last few days pretty well all things considered.  The things considered would be that i'm already an emotional wreck of course lol.

I've been told that I put my life out to the public... but don't we all? Isn't that what we all do when we share anything? We all share out feelings, journeys, experiences, advice and even our love with others. I certainly shouldn't be judged for doing that... to have a different view on things, to want to share with others. If it weren't for people who shared, no one else would have people to judge.  Am I mislead?

I am a second timer teen mom and a traditional surrogate who not only lost her IP's in the third trimester, but also lost her relationship, and I have no job. How much more controversial could I be? How many people can say that they were judged by over 120k people when I was mentioned in an online blog about surrogacy. 

I've had to learn to deal with the scrutiny involved with my life over the last few months. I've had to learn that life doesn't just hit you with one thing at a time so that you can "deal" with things one by one, but instead, it sometimes keeps hitting you to see what you're made of.  What you can handle. To what extreme you can deal with. 

This is a blog to show others what I'm made of.  What I can handle. What extreme situations I can deal with. 

I don't think I'm 1 in 6 billion. I know others have done what I have done. I know that I'm nothing news worthy if you will.  I know that many others have accomplished much greater things.

For now on, this isn't about opinions of others, it is about me sharing my life, with whomever is willing to share it with me, with whomever can HANDLE my opinions, my views and the way I choose to lead my life.  No holding back, but not being rude. No extreme dramatics, but some mild exaggeration.

This is my NEW blog, branching off of an old one.  This isn't just about surrogacy anymore, but instead about my journey of LIFE, surrogacy will just have a part in it, as surrogacy ISN'T my entire life. It is a part of it that includes others. 

As many parts of my life there is, I want to share each part... every part of me that I can share... every secret ingredient.

May Be The Last Update On The Twins

I got a disturbing phone call today from the hospital today.

They were looking to see if I had received the birth certificate with the registration numbers. I said no I hadn't. 

She then let me know that they are being released TODAY... and that the AP's have been there awhile.

I thought that we had agreed to keep everyone UPDATED.  Guess I was wrong. 

I signed over my rights a few days ago, and have over 3 weeks left until my rights are actually terminated.  I thought they'd at least keep me in the loop until then.  Maybe I would have gotten a phone call once they got HOME. Maybe not even then.

I called backed, since I was so incredibly shocked and hurt that I couldn't even remember to ask over the phone when I spoke to the social worker.

They now weight A = 5 lbs 11 ounces and B = 5 lbs 9 oz. They have both gained exactly 2 lbs, tomorrow they will be exactly 6 weeks old. 

I'm not sure if I'll actually have any other updates about them, this happens a lot in surrogacy, where the parents "grab and run" and then the surrogate ends up left out in the cold if you will.  Not entirely surprised though, I tried to set myself for this happening, but I guess you're never really prepared for something like this to happen.

Would have liked for it to NOT be a stranger who let me know though. 

I have my 6 week post partum appointment on the 10th, and will update afterward though.

I'm Done... And Ready To Start Over

I didn't end up finishing my last surrogacy through blogs because of circumstances surrounding my last surrogacy.
Twins were born at 32+3, healthy and are doing great.  They are being released to an adoptive family this week!!
I am nearly 6 weeks post partum now and can't wait to be pregnant again! That is... for someone else lol