a simple sound

wow, how did it get to be the end of march and ILCW already? if you want to read how this story came to be go here.

this month has really just flown by, and while i have gotten a lot done there is still so much more i have to accomplish. saturday marked the 10 week mark. while this is wonderful news, when sabrina called to let me hear the heartbeat i really got a big smack in the head.

for just over 2 years we have been working to become parents through surrogacy and egg donation, and making a lot of really difficult decisions. a funny thing happened to us, and it is something i suspect that a lot of people dealing with infertility deal with, we got so wrapped up in the day to day process of getting to pregnancy that we forgot that we have to bring a live human being home. that beautiful heartbeat that makes my heart melt belongs to a real human being who we are expected to raise into adulthood. don't misunderstand me, we are so excited about becoming a complete family i cannot adquetly describe how happy we are to take on this challenge. that said, this is terrifying.

i have thrown myself into the books, checked into infant cpr classes, cried a little, and researched much more than i should have. information is power, and sometimes that power can make you a little batty. what i am most terrified of cannot be easily fixed with books or information, at least not fully. i have wanted to be a mother since i was a child, and when motherhood did not come easily i lost pieces of myself along the way. at the same time, i picked up a lot of anxiety. when you face not having the life that you have always wanted, and spend years knowing that the main desire of your heart is just out of reach, two things happen. first, there is a tendency to loose sight of the bigger picture, because it is hard enough to focus on the next step. second, the desire to protect this dream becomes so strong that it can overtake your life. it is the second part of this equation that feeds the terror monster in my head.

children are not born knowing how they came into the world, they do not care that you have waited years for them. they have every right to live their life without having to carry the burden of being the cure for years of heartbreak. i know that i have to let my child experience all that life has to offer, including those things that can cause bodily harm, like walking! i also know that there is a part of me that is terrified that something horrible is going to happen. i know that this is a normal reaction, and i am really trying to curb the desire to buy up the world's supply of bubble wrap because a bubble wrapped kid would make potty training a wee bit difficult. still i cannot shake the feeling of terror. there is going to be a human being depending on me for everything and that is scary because it is supposed to be scary.

surrogacy is an amazing experience, but this is one of the downsides. i have way too much time on my hands. because i am not worrying about holding down breakfast or fitting into the pants that fit perfectly yesterday morning. i just have unlimited amounts of time to think about everything that could go wrong and all the things that could go right. there are no feelings of jealousy that celtus is being cared for by another woman, because there is no person that i would trust more than sabrina to bring cletus into the world. there are just those moments when i wished i had something else to occupy my brain. preparing the house is helping, because that process comes with millions of distractions.

having to take an honest look at everything i own and the purpose that it serves is exhausting, but so worth the effort. i am still amazed that i let things get to this point, but the deeper i dig through it the more i realize that i am ready for this part of my life to be over. i am ready to take on this new role and i am ready to do all the hard work that i need to do on myself. as hard as this all is, there is nothing that i would not do for the person attached to that heartbeat. because that simple sound is part of my heart. there may not be a grain of my dna, i may not be the physically pregnant one, but that heartbeat belongs to a person who will change my life forever. that heartbeat belongs to my child, and there will never be a mroe beautiful sound in the world.