Going Back In Time

Well, I know that I haven't updated on the twins in SUCH a long time!  I have a few pictures of them recently that I'm more than happy to share with you all!

Haley is already 29 inches tall and Gavin is 31!

Their parents have kept me in the loop, for which I am forever grateful for. The love you have for a child that you have carried, birthed, and cared for is undescribable and I'm not sure how well I would have coped if their adoptive parents had gone against their word and not kept in contact. I will be forever grateful, even if I only hear from them once a year for the rest of my life, and it is obviously the risk any birth mother takes.

Here they are!  They are perfect little angels!

 

They are both very healthy and happy, and they're showing a lot of personality!

 

Seeing all of these pictures and getting updates on them makes me realize that there are just soo many people out there who would love to have the chance to be parents, and won't be able to without the aid of either adoption or surrogacy. It certainly makes me feel as though I'm part of something bigger, possibly something more important. Even though I will never be a traditional surrogate again, and with 5 biological children in this world, I will never pass my genes on again, I can't wait to get started on my next surrogacy journey!

 

That being said, we haven't even started on testing or contracts. We don't know for sure if we're doing a fresh or frozen cycle. We don't know if we're using a donor if my intended mother can use her own eggs. No contract has been started.

 

The good news is that we have about 16 months to get everything in order! It seems soo far away, but to think that I can start counting down the months gives me something to look forward to, and of course, I have our little guy to worry about and be completely and utterly grateful for!

 

Life throws us a LOT of unexpected curves, I have personally experienced more than my fair share in the last two years, but so far, they've all ended up much better than I had hoped for, and I hope that everyone can look and see the positive aspects in our lives, it seems like every stage of our lives is a hard part, or a speed bump, or simply hard. Yes, it's true. However, we have come from rougher places, experienced worse scenerios, and we've outsmarted and defeated many obstacles. Every single one of us. There is just soo much to be thankful for.

 

...This is how I will cope with the fact that summer is coming to a close haha.

 

Thank you all for reading my blogs, and thank you all for following my story and my life.

 

I promise that I'll be updating more often, I miss blogging SO much!!

 

Just so that we all remember, this was a picture taken just over a year ago of the twinkies and I!

 

 

And here they were almost exactly a year ago in their new home with their new parents, who love them SO much!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Birth Of Our Third Child

Well, I know I didn't really update throughout our pregnancy, but it wasn't because I didn't care to, but because it wasn't really surrogacy related.

The pregnancy went really smoothly, and we certainly couldn't have asked for a healthier baby!

Our son was born August 11th, 2012 at 0241hrs.

I'll share some of the pregnancy pictures that I have  of the last few weeks :)

They were taken at 32 weeks, 34 weeks, 36 weeks, 37 weeks, 38 weeks and 39 weeks in labor!

We were going out for 3-5km walks nearly every day of my pregnancy, so we expected to go a bit earlier than we did, but on the day I was 38 weeks a nd 6 days, on my way upstairs to check on the kids who were playing in my daughter's room, my water started to break. It started to gush once I hit the top of the stairs. Looking at the time really quickly, it was 10:05am. 

I yelled down to Josh, who was in disbelief (literally, he didn't believe that it was my water, he asked me three times if I was sure it was my water and not me peeing myself. After giving it 4 more gushes, I confirmed with him that it was time to look for someone to watch the kids, we were having a baby!

We had to clean up a bit before going in, so we left about an hour after the first gush.

Upon arriving, I was hooked up and all that good stuff and the monitor was showing some contractions, but I wasn't feeling them at all. They checked me and I was about a 4cm to 4.5cm without them stretching me, still about a 5.5cm with stretching, so I wasn't getting any stretchier, but I was dilating slowly.

So, after a blood test, and me telling them that I wanted to do this delivery completely natural, including no IV (I had to sign wavers saying that I was going against Dr's recommendations for that one), we decided to start walking around. It still wasn't bringing on any pain at all, so we were a bit frustrated.



We were still walking around at 3 with no pain. I was starting to get a bit nervous, and finally asked Josh to go get the breast pump to see if that would bring anything on for us. After 20 minutes, we walked a bit and we were having some good contractions finally. They weren't strong enough though, but I had gotten to about a 5cm with no stretching. Very small defeat.

At 4pm we started to finally feel the contractions coming and going like we should and contractions were painful. After 20m of walking we went back for another 30m of pumping to get things hyped up. We were slowly progressing, but something is always better than nothing!

By about 6pm we were at 7+cm to 8cm dilated and 70% effaced. We were starting to get excited!

We walked through horrible contractions, 180 seconds long, 60-70 second peaks. It had been two hours so far. Longer than anyone thought I'd be. We walked through these contractions for a full hour. Then we got checked. Absolutely zero change. I felt a little defeated but I was determined.

We got up and started to walk again. Got checked at about 745, no change.

I started to think maybe I just need a bit of rest. We laid in the bed and sat during contractions, breathing, concentrating, and keeping my whole body relaxed during contractions. I felt amazing after each one and I felt empowered that I was doing it. Josh held my hand through each and every contraction, just holding it, not moving, not talking, not even breathing too heavy so I could concentrate. He was amazing. I never want to birth without him again. He was so encouraging and kept pushing me to keep going. I was starting to get exhausted.

845 we were checked again. No change. I started to cry. Why was this happening? I was doing everything right. The contractions hurt soo much and they were getting so bad. Why was my body failing me.

930 came, still nothing.

The Dr came in, it had been almost 12 hours since my water broke, infection rates were going up. I knew what that meant...it wasn't safe to keep going like this. I agreed to putting an IV in through many tears to start pitocin. I knew what pitocin meant, the last time I had had it, I had to do it for 4 hours with no meds since meds were stopping contractions. I started to uncontrollably cry while telling them to call someone in to do an epidural.

Four busted veins later, the Dr got an IV in, started fluids, and then she did the epidural. I didn't stop crying the whole time.

My mom and my aunt stopped in sometime here. I dont' really remember when, I was sucking back gas when they were doing my IV's as I would scream every time they would try to put one in. She left shortly afterward, but I was uncontrollably crying still.

Pitocin started after the epidural was started. I laid down and just cried for another hour. I wouldn't let them check me, I knew there was no change yet. It had all started at about 1030pm.

The time and checks from this point on were blurry because I was in such a distraught state of mind. I stopped texting one of my best friends during this time as well, a wonderful woman who I typically text over a thousand times per day, shared everything with for over two months.

She offered me all kinds of support once I started to text again at about 1130.

At which time, we were at 8cm and 70% effaced. Not much progress, but something. I had rolled onto myside and hte baby's head could come down a bit more. Now sitting up in bed, and the epidural wasn't working as well though.

It was completely worth it.

1230am we were at 8.5cm. Finally some real progress. I cried when I heard it, as talk of Csection had already started.

1am we were at 9cm and 97% effaced [I laughed at this, but she said we were REALLY close to being completely effaced, but just not quite].

130am we were at 9.5cm and fully effaced, it was getting very very difficult to not push now, the pressure was unbearable. Still, I had complete support from Josh who was at my side the whole time, through every contraction, telling me I was doing great and that we were going to have our baby in our arms at any minute. Thank God for him.

145 we finally hit complete. I never thought I'd hear those words. It had been almost 10 hours since contractions had put me into the "active labor" category. 10 hours of hell. 10 hours that seemed like an eternity. 10 hours where Josh held my  hand, counted to 10 over and over and over again through the contractions to help me get through them. 10 hours where a woman 6000+ miles away was worried, supporting, comforting and pushing me emotionally. Even though she wasn't there with us, she really was my second birth partner.

We started to push, but I was honestly emotionally drained. Physically drained. I was tired and fed up and...defeated. Contractions were sometimes over 5 minutes apart. Josh held my hand as I half-ass pushed our baby down.

As we were pushing, the Dr noticed something. Something that could have stalled everything for all these long hours. Actually, two things. 1. The baby had a SECOND sac to break. Yep. That's right. TWO sacs. 2. The baby wasn't only sunny side up, he was tiled about 25 degrees, making it that much harder to push him down. We couldn't move his head any, but they did break the second sac.

We pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed. Finally, she said she could see the baby's head when we pushed. She said I could feel if I wanted to, but I just didn't want to. I didn't realize I had been pushing for so long either. This was almost 55 minutes into pushing.

At this point, we were getting in three pushes per contraction.

I felt like I would never have this baby.

I started to reflect on how I felt about this pregnancy and baby this whole time. I was devastated when we found out but learned to live with the pregnancy, but never came to terms with a baby, the actual acceptance that we were having a baby. We were going to bring a baby home. I'm sure it was due to the lack of oxygen/energy at that point, but it all came to me at once. For the first time in nine months, I felt an overwhelming feeling of love and joy for this little tiny creature. I have no idea what came over me.

The next contraction came as all other did. I pushed 10 seconds, breath, pushed 10 seconds, breath and the Dr said okay, one more. Pushed for 10 second nice and hard, breath, the Dr leaned back to wait for the next contraction, everyone let go of my legs. I pushed again really hard, breath, the Dr started to encourage me, Josh looked at me as if he was worried. Again I pushed hard, as hard as I could. The baby's head emerged, the Dr looked at me shocked and said "okay, stop pushing!". I did. She said "okay next contraction we'll work on the body." ...no...we were doing this now. I pushed one more time, out came our sweet little boy and we heard a cry.

The baby was placed on me right away. Love rushed over me, I started to cry and forgot about the last almost 11 hours. A full hour of pushing. I could have totally had him out in 2 contractions. I didn't care. I looked at him while bawling my eyes out. He was absolutely perfect. No cone head. Josh kissed me, and our baby. Happiness was taking its turn taking over my body. The placenta was soon behind him.

We nursed right away, he was full of vernix (well, honestly just on his back) but I didn't care one bit, he was completely naked against my body and was so quiet. He was taking everything in. He was happy as long as he was on me.

I barely wanted to let him go long enough for him to go get weighed and put a diaper on after that, but of course I did.

After about a half hour of him and I bonding, we decided to weigh in.

Everyone took their guesses, the overall estimate on guesses was 7.5lbs. My guess was 6lbs 12oz, the nurses all thought I under estimated.

Evan Edgar Robert MacKenzie weighed in at 6lbs 11.7oz and was a full 20 inches long and born at 2:41am. He was born sunny side up and was absolutely beautiful and wide eyed.

We finally got to a room by 530am and I was wide awake but could barely move still.





Push! Push! Push! Push!

These were the words I heard clearly as I lay in a hospital bed two days ago.

Grunting.

Panting.

Bearing down.

Trying to concentrate on breathing.

After every push was a yell of exhaustion mixed with the intense frustration that comes from pushing a human out of your belly, through your pelvis, and out of a hole that normally would not stretch much more than 2-3 inches in diameter.

Yes, these were the sounds I heard while in labor and delivery two days ago for a pulled rib muscle.

A coworker and I had gone right from work up to the hospital when I had started to randomly puke at work, with a sharp pain in my left ribcage. Luckily, it's just a muscle spasm of course, and possibly a mildly pulled muscle from my continously vigorous walk to work.

We live in a town of about 12000 people. That's a very small number ofpeople, so you can imagine how many births happen each day here at our hospital - not many. When we arrived, two women were in delivery rooms, both were in active labor. They both delivered within about 45 minutes of each other. Hearing the intense emotion while each of them pushed and delivered was amazing, and honestly, it brought tears to my eyes when we heard the cries of these new tiny creatures.

After they had been moved from Labor & Delivery, we were completely alone on that side of the maternity wing. Two births within 45 minutes is a rare occasion here, unless of course, twins are born.

It also reminded me of where I would be in 10-12weeks from now, a mom of not only 2 children, but 3.

It also brought back a lot of amazing memories of my childrens' birth, that is, all 4 of them.

The excitement is starting to boil over now that I've reached 30 weeks, and I thought of my blog, and decided to give an updated belly picture. It's not as impressive as the one I had with the twins obviously, but I do intend to go 8 extra weeks, so who knows how bigI willget.

29 Weeks

I will be back soon though, I get to see the twins tomorrow, they will soon be 1, sothe time has obviously flown by. Only 3 weeks until their birthday!

Time Continues To Fly

Every week seems to just whiz by me! I keep telling myself that I have to update.

As far as the surrogacy goes, my IP's have decided they do in fact want to use their own eggs. We'll know more in October when my IM goes in to see her cardiologist. She is also currently looking into breastfeeding after the baby/babies are born. We haven't settled on clinics yet, but we are now looking into using a clinic that is only a few minutes from them, and only about 3 hours from me. It would make life a LOT easier that's for sure!

We've also decided to wait a bit longer. We're looking at a transfer for December 2013/January 2014. There are many reasons for this. Most importantly though, she is a teacher, and she won't be able to ensure that she can help me in the last few months very much if she is working. This ensures that she will be off work, and able to focus on the surrogacy. She also has a wedding to attend in June 2014, so having me about to pop wouldn't be ideal. Then here is always birthdays for MY children, late April, August, and September. With an October due date, I don't have to miss any of them for anything.

It'll just work out better. I do have to rearrange what I'll be doing after my one year of maternity leave now though, as having June/July due date meant that I wouldn't have to go back to work. So, now we have to figure out what we'll do financially for that extra few months.

Speaking of maternity leave, I haven't started it yet :)

We are 27 weeks already tomorrow, I'll share a few pictures of my belly over the last few weeks, as I haven't taken one for this week yet to share!

Here are 22 weeks, 24 weeks and 26 weeks :) Starting to feel a bit achy at the end of my days now, but it is welll worth it. I don't plan to go on maternity leave until I go into labor, so the girls at work and I have started to joke about what our plan of action is when I do go into labor *if I go into labor at work*.

In another week and a half I have an OBS appointment, and I will be asking for more day shifts rather than night shifts, as I am walking to and fromwork, and at 9 or 10 o'clock, after getting up with the kids at 7am, I am really sore and walking, even if it's only 1km, is getting hard on my hips and pelvis.

I'm still sleeping okay at night, every now and then I get sore when I roll over, but that's about it.

Blood pressure is still nice and low.

At our last appointment at 24 weeks, I had gained a total of 8 lbs, and we were measuring 28cm for fundal height. I'm hoping that we're not still measuring 4 weeks ahead when I go back in on the 29th, if I continue at this rate, I'll be measuring 6 weeks ahead by fullterm. No thanks!

As always, thanks for reading <3 I'll keep up more now that we're nearing our third trimester in only a week. I'm nearing the point where I was toldI was 3cm dilated with the twins, so it's a bit nerve wracking, that would have been today. We're still closed and long, so we know that it's not the same circumstances, but knowing that in only 5w4d from today I would have had the twins, it makes me a bit off key :)

We also got our crib today so I look forward to sharing those pictures with you too!!

Cathleen

Surprising Fundal Sizes!

Yes, I love making these!

The one on the left is from my son, I have to admit, it isn't the greatest shot inthe world. It was pointed downwards a bit. From these sizes, I seem to keep getting bigger and bigger with themore pregnancies I have. Using these shots, I can prove that at least for me, you don't get bigger with each pregnancy because your stomach muscles are stretched, but because your actual uterus gets bigger each time.

Laying down to take these pictures elimates the usage of stomach mucles and ligaments, that are used to support your uterus.

I do think that it's a funny observation, but I do think it's interesting as well!

4 Months and New IP's!

Yes, can you believe that we're already at 4 months pregnant?! It's flying by!

Belly is starting to grow, baby is kicking.

I'll post my 12 and 16 week pictures:)

12 weeks.


16 weeks.


Still feeling great though. This is the pregnancy I've been themost sick though, not morning sickness, but actually sick. I had influenza last week,and I've been continuously getting a cough. It's driving me nuts! As soon as I get better, I catch something else, it's really unbelievable...and of course annoying.

The baby's heart rate is always at about 150, just like my first four. We're measuring a bit ahead, which is fine, I figured I would as my last menstrual period does NOT add upwith the due date they gave me at all. That 10 days in either direction is definitely the case here!

Most of my pregnancy symptoms are mild at least,I can't really complain. Just starting to feel some ligament pain,but we're heading into a growth spurt, so I expected that until growth slows down again. No stretch marks yet, but like every pregnancy, I can't deny the risk of getting them!


Now, the part you're really here for :) I meet my new IP's, who live only about 2.5 hours away, this week. I've been keeping it under wraps for awhile, but I've spoken to them for about 3 months now. My old IP's were going to wait for me, however, they found someone MUCH closer and of course, I couldn't help but tell themto go for it. It definitely stung, but making themwait isn't fair either. The couple I am meeting is actually looking at wait until after June 2013, and I was ready for September 2013, so it all works out, they're in no rush.

We're looking at a GS journey right now. We'll see how it all plays out of course. I want to nurse this baby for a full year, so this way I can also wean in time to start meds etc. No idea on contracts yet, we're all just taking our time, but I'm sure that will be a serious matter in about a year from now. Everything fits so much better with thiscouple, I love how near they are, and how available they will be for appointments, I won't have to go through this surrogacy virtually alone, which of course, I figured would be a given since I could never find anyone near me.

They also want an after birth relationship. I keep in contact with the twins' mommy of course, but I've only seen them once since they left, which is sad. The six hour commute is of course impossible to make frequently, and of course I got attached tothe twins, and even now when I speak to people about my children, I can't help but to include them. Maybe over time that will be different, butI doubt it. They were very much a part of my family for quite some time, and knowing that in a few months I'll be getting less updates really does break my heart. The one year mark has been a scary one for me to accept is coming.

All things aside, this seems to be a much smoother, relaxed journey and i'mvery excited. If we go the GS route, I really feel like I could give them twins, it's just a feeling of course. Of course, I would love to do TS again, but hubby just isn't there with this all, he's really not comfortable with it. GS is fine as well, and still accomplishes the goal of creating a family of course, and I like the higher chances of multiples tomake this family complete the first go around. Either way, I'm very excited to meet them, and see where this goes!

Will keep everyone posted of course!

10 Weeks... 32 To Go

Welll....like the name of this post would suggest, it's been 10 weeks down.

Our first OBS isn'tuntil week 11 though. I find you wait forever and a day haha

Still have nothing figured out for this baby. Kind of up in the air. I wanted a real baby shower [while still pregnant], but this is a third baby, and I should have only had one formy first...after she was born. I am definitely conflicted, but we have NOTHING.

We are currently in the middle of "should we get a bigger house... or wait" kind of thing rightnow too. Having a third baby is really throwing me for a huuge loop.

I'mworkingmy butt off at work too. I was there for 48 hours this week, and wassupposed to be there today as well,but ended up having to call in sick.

We're finallygetting a new bed. So much going on.

We're moving the wedding up so that I'm not showing too much.

It's been hectic lol

Not much to update on though. Nausea ispretty well gone now. My pelvis is sore already, got pregnant too fast after having the twins. It's only bugged me one day so far, but I have a feelingthat near the end, hat will be a lot more frequent. It's another reason to put my next pregnancy off.