Where Did A Year Go?
So the prince and I are getting ready to move one step closer to civilization, and in the midst of house-hunting and packing, I've also had to find new daycare and figure out which school to send him to. I decided on a school (and it was a long process coming to this decision), and today I called to find out what I need to do to enroll him. And that's when it hit me that after tomorrow he'll no longer be a kindergartener, he'll officially be a first-grader. How in the world did he get big enough to be a first-grader? I can't even really think about the fact that he'll turn 7 in September because that really freaks me out -- it seems way too close to 10 for my liking. But thankfully he seems to be adjusting to the idea of moving quite well (he's excited about having a backyard and stairs to walk up and down), though I'm not sure he really realizes that he'll be going to a new daycare in just over a week. All in all I think it will be a good move for us, and it'll cut my commute time down to practically nothing, giving us more time to spend together. Here's hoping we survive it. :)
How Cool Is This??
Somehow or other, thanks to my Baby Daddy and the agency, I was recommended to be a guest speaker at a group meeting for gay men seeking to become parents through surrogacy. In NYC. They're gonna fly me out there to speak at the meeting the last week of June. Some guy called me yesterday to find out if I'd be interested -- um, pass up a free trip to the city?? I don't think so! Plus that means I get to see the babies when they're 3 months old!! And eat at Benny's Burritos.....you can see where my priorities lie. :)
The Last Thing I Expected
Well there were a lot of things I didn't expect about my foray into surrogacy, but the last thing I expected after the twin pregnancy was that I would want to jump in and do it again! But for the past few days, I've been having serious thoughts of another journey next year. I think what's pushing me in that direction are all the pictures I get of Dimitri and Ioanna, and the happiness in their father's face in every picture of him with his babies. Other than my own child, I can't think of any other person on this earth who I've ever been able to make so happy. Obviously I'm a bit hesitant, just because I'm aware of all the things that can go wrong in a regular pregnancy, never mind the possibility of another twin pregnancy. But part of me thinks I want to give it one more shot and go through it all one more time. Thankfully I've signed up to run the marathon in early October, so pregnancy & surrogacy will be put on hold until after that. But once I cross the finish line, all bets are off and I'll revisit the issue. I must be crazy.
Things I Didn't Expect
I'm now five weeks postpartum, and I've had a lot of time to reflect on the past year and a half. I know that in July, 2006 when the idea of surrogacy first popped into my head, I was looking for something big to replace something else that I'd just lost. What I didn't know at the time was how big this journey would be. I went into it with full force, but without having done much research. A lot of women would say that I was foolish to take on such a huge adventure without fully knowing what it entailed. And if I were now talking to someone who was like me at the time, I'd tell them to slow down and take their time, research everything about it, so that they'd know exactly what they were getting themselves into. But I didn't slow down, and I don't have any regrets for it. If I'd slowed down, I may never have met my Baby Daddy, and the Dimitri and Ioanna that are now giving him more joy than he'd ever imagined having would not exist. So I have absolutely no regrets with how I proceeded, but there were so many things I could never have expected.
I never expected that I would experience a miscarriage. I think no matter how many other stories you hear from other people and their experiences with surrogacy and/or pregnancy, nothing can prepare you for the physical and emotional trauma of a miscarriage. But it also opened my eyes. I received support from so many different people, and I discovered that many of my friends had already experienced what was new to me. Tomorrow it will be one year since I miscarried, and despite all the joy that we've experienced in the past year, the loss of that first baby still saddens me.
I really didn't expect to get pregnant with twins. Truth be told, since I had my own child, I've always wanted to carry twins. I have a twin brother, so maybe that's why I sort of secretly hoped for it. But also, on some level maybe I expected this to be my last pregnancy and that's why I wanted to carry two babies. In fact, when I got pregnant after the first transfer, I was secretly a little disappointed that I was only carrying one -- somehow I thought I was meant to carry two, and when it didn't happen the first time, I really didn't expect it to happen the second time. But I was happy when both embryos stuck around, in part because I still felt so much guilt over losing the first pregnancy.
That being said, I never could have expected that a twin pregnancy would be so difficult. Don't get me wrong, I was very lucky to have no complications. Sure I had some spotting during the first trimester and then pre-eclampsia at the end (never mind the migraines, carpal tunnel and other discomforts along the way), but really I was incredibly lucky to carry twins quite easily and all the way to 37 weeks. But no matter how much I read about how much more difficult a twin pregnancy is, I was not prepared for the reality of it. Maybe it was the stress caused by the miscarriage -- I was a nervous wreck until 36 weeks, counting each day that I woke up and was thankfully still pregnant. But physically it was incredibly exhausting the entire time, and if I were to get pregnant again, I would not want to carry twins again. I think I now realize how much more difficult it is than singleton pregnancy, and that the risks of things like extended bedrest are much more real to me now. I have a young child who pretty much depends on me alone for his care, and I feel incredibly lucky that I was able to care for him almost the entire pregnancy.
But what I really didn't expect to get out of surrogacy was the incredibly relationship with the father of the two babies I was carrying. Oh I knew from the first time we talked that we were perfectly matched, and that was evident as things progressed. But maybe because of other people's experiences that I've read about, I didn't want to have high expectations of how things would be after I gave birth. Since around December I started preparing myself for the seemingly inevitable change in our relationship after the babies were born. And I actually forced myself to think about the possibility that once the babies were gone, I might never hear from their father again (despite the fact that even thinking about saying goodbye to him brought me to tears every single time I thought about it). I had no idea that I would grow to love him to the extent that I have. But I knew that even if he left and never spoke to me again, he'd never be able to look at his children and not think of me, and that thought gave me great comfort.
Thankfully I was crazy to think that he would instantly vanish from my life. What I didn't expect when I went into surrogacy was to come out of it having become part of a new family, not just involving two babies and their father, but also his sister and his mother. My family has grown from this experience because I now consider them to be a part of it. And even though I don't have any maternal feelings for those beautiful babies, they're still in some way a part of me, and I think, even though there's no genetic relation, they share a little bit of me as well. I've gained more from this experience than any other in my life because I've been able to give someone else the same joy that I feel for my own child. And in the beginning of it all, I had no idea the magnitude of what I was about to do, or the enormity of what I would get back from it.
Back to work
I returned to work on Wednesday, a little earlier than I'd planned on, in an effort to get my life back to some semblance of normal. My big problem right now is that I have no idea what normal is -- I've been so wrapped up in surrogacy and pregnancy and pending childbirth that now that its over, I'm sort of left wondering where I go from here. I figured work would at least give me some ground to stand on, so back I went.
Now, I really can't complain as I've had 8 1/2 weeks off, and its exactly the break I needed. I love my job, but at some point you just want a serious break from this kind of work, and there's never enough vacation time to take 2 months off. Its sad when you have to find a way to get pregnant just to secure a maternity leave to take a sufficient amount of time off in order to get your head back in order, and back into the job. My caseload is pretty small right now. I did whatever I could to get as many cases resolved before I left, and a few cases were wrapped up while I was gone. What I'm left with, however, are the cases that I generally didn't know what the fuck to do with before I left, so I delayed them until after my leave, and now they're all set for hearings this next week. Fuck.
The other problem is that I'm starting to think that because they knew I was going to be out for a couple months, some of my clients just decided to stop thinking about the fact that they have a case pending in criminal court. Seriously, I have eight clients with hearings scheduled for Wednesday afternoon, and I haven't heard from any of them. Even the one who was pissed that I delayed his case for two months (even though he's out of custody), never once contacted the attorney who was babysitting his case while I was out, and I specifically gave him her name! Anyway, these past three days were a nice way to ease back into the scene, now the shit's gonna fly this coming week. Welcome back.
On a side note, Dimitri gets out of the hospital on Monday!! And the doctor expects him to make a full recovery. I'm so happy for my Baby Daddy. I'm going to go by the hospital this weekend and see them, and hopefully I can sneak by the hotel and see Ioanna as well. They're all leaving town Tuesday. I'm so happy that they'll finally be able to go home, as that's what's supposed to happen, but I'm going to miss them all so much. Oh I know they'll stay in touch and I'll get plenty of pictures, but I have no idea when I'll see them again.
And now its just life back to normal, and life hasn't been normal for a year and a half (if ever, given my life), so I'm really not sure what that even means.
Its Not a Diet
That phrase can be seen everywhere, on tv, in magazines, probably even billboards, if I ever bothered to look at them. Its Weight Watchers' latest slogan, meant to make you think that restricting your food intake is fun. Its not. And I hate Weight Watchers, even more since I joined five days ago. What's fun about doing math before you can put something in your mouth?? Oh sure, its not like counting calories, because the numbers don't go that high. The points system is neatly set up to make sure your number doesn't go very high at all, which is what makes you starve, and thus lose weight.
Now, I'm no newbie to limiting what I eat -- good god, I've made a science out of it over the past 20 years. And lucky for me, its not as if I have to suddenly give up foods I really like -- I'm a freak and generally like to eat healthy food. Problem is, I don't tend to crave healthy food when I'm pregnant, nor do I have to limit what I'm eating (especially since I was so recently growing two giant babies). Since I'm no longer pregnant, I've naturally reverted to my former eating habits, which are digustingly healthy, but now I have to limit how much of them I do eat, so that I can fit it all neatly within this points system. And that means I have to do math at the beginning of my day, to make sure I don't blow through my measly amount of points by 10am.
Alas, if only I could be one of those women (a.k.a. my former sister-in-law) who gained minimal weight when they're pregnant, gained it all in the belly, and then walked out of the hospital in a pair of non-maternity size 4 jeans. If only. But I wasn't like that before I got pregnant, and it sure didn't hit me after. Yes, I've been lucky to drop 40lbs without even trying, but now I'm going to have to work at the next 30lbs (okay, really I'm only 13lbs above my pre-pregnancy weight, but then there's the weight from the prior pregnancy & cycling for transfers, plus an extra 7lbs I was carrying into that. And I've always been an overachiever -- why only lose 13 when I can lose 29???). What sucks most is that I know, from experience (i.e. after my last pregnancy), that Weight Watchers will do it. At least it'll help me lose until I can go full force on the treadmill again. But it IS a diet, and anyone who says it isn't had better share some of their really good crack with me.
Good news
Dimitri got out of the ICU on Tuesday! He's going to be in the hospital for another 10 days finishing up the IV antibiotics, and then he'll be discharged with oral antibiotics as well, but he's doing great, and the doctor is optimistic that he'll fully recover from it. I want to breathe easy, but I'm not going to quite yet. I have a few things to give his father, so I'm going to run by the hospital on Monday and hopefully see the little guy -- he's apparently been eating well, as he's up to 8lbs 11oz as of this morning! His sis is still doing well, but it makes me sad that the two of them have been apart this long. I can't wait for everyone to be back together again.
