navigating a relationship

As we seem to be approaching the birth at the speed of light (25 weeks tomorrow) many people are starting to question the relationship that we are going to have with Sabrina after the birth.  I know that people are coming from a place of love and concern, really I do get that, but at the same time I find this to be the most invasive questioning and really it is something extremely personal.  So what does one do with such a personal question?  Writes about it on a public blog!  I know that seems insane but really I try to be very open about things and this is the easiest way for me to do this.

All things in life are only understood through the frame of reference which someone has to understand what they are experiencing.  Surrogacy is becoming more mainstream, or that could just be the fact that I am just seeing it more, but still more people know others who have gone down this particular path to parenthood.  Of course, more people just know the horror stories that make the news.  Ours is the farthest thing from that kind of story.  That is not to say that we are skipping through a field of daisies all the time, but when there are things that we do not view the same way we are able to be respectful of that and still express our opinions.  In the end we either just agree to disagree or one of changes the other’s mind. 

This is a relationship of friends where one person just happens to be carrying a baby for the other.  For purely selfish reasons I want to keep Sabrina in my life.  Then there are the multitude of reasons that I want our son to know the family that completed our family.  I will also be the first to say that when we first started looking at surrogacy I was perfectly happy with having someone have the baby and that would be the end.  My only frame of reference was that of adoption, which does not fit into surrogacy very well.  As an adopted child I knew that having my birth mother be part of my childhood would not have been good for me or my family, not that I have anything against open adoption. 

Adoption is only a good reference for surrogacy in that it teaches you that genetic makeup has nothing to do with who you consider your family.  Other than that there is nothing similar between these two paths to parenthood.  This pregnancy began as ours.  Yes, our son is the genetic product of an egg donor and the husband.  Yes, he is being carried by Sabrina.  But I literally willed him into being.  I worked through all the years of emotional sludge that comes with infertility and got myself to that place where parenting was way more important than pregnancy.  Without my intention to be his mother Cletus would not exist. 

Along this journey there have been those moments when I have felt the twinges of jealousy.   I do not think there has ever been a woman in my position that can honestly say that they have not felt the same.  Then one day I realized that there were always going to moments in his life that others are going to experience with him first.  I am just a little ahead of schedule with this particular mommy moment.  In a perfect world I would never have had to deal with this, but we do not live in a perfect world. 

Sabrina is currently playing the most important role in Cletus’s life.  I will be doing that for the rest of his life.  She loves him like she loves a few other people’s kids.  I am filled with this amazing warmth and light and unbelievable amount of love every time I look at that picture of Cletus as a five day embryo.  We all have people in our lives that have made a huge impression and have made our lives better for being in them.  All I can hope is that Cletus has Sabrina as one of those people in his life.  To me denying the existence of Sabrina would be the same as saying we were ashamed of how our family was created, which is the same as saying we are ashamed of our son on some level.

Honesty with our child about how they came to be was really the first big surrogacy question we ever asked ourselves.  For us part of that honesty was maintaining a relationship with the woman who carried for us.  In the end this is the story of how we became a family until Cletus draws his first breath, then it becomes his story which is not ours to edit.  I am not going to pretend that it will always be easy to tell him this story.  I know that there will be times when it is downright painful to help him process what this all means to him, but we are prepared as his parents to do whatever we can to help.  We made this commitment to ourselves and our child from the first conversation we ever had about surrogacy.

Then there was the moment in the ultra sound where I was holding onto the husband, also holding Sabrina’s hand, Cletus was on the screen, tears streaming down my face, and it felt like this was just the way it was meant to be.  I am not sure that I have the words to adequately explain what that moment was like.  All I know is that any worry I ever had about being able to handle surrogacy and whatever came after just melted away.  That squirming little image on the screen was all that mattered to any of us and he was perfect.  I cannot imagine anything that would make me ever not want to continue having those moments.  So Cletus might just be the first “insert brilliant thing here” to have both his mother and surrogate at his “insert fancy award ceremony here”, but I would not have it any other way.  I will always be his mother and she will always be his Aunt Sabrina who spent nine months growing him under her heart.

I will spend the rest of my life trying and falling miserably short of repaying this gift. 

Yikes!

Yikes, these past few weeks have just flown by!  The mother in law was here for a week (everyone say HI she is reading this) really it was a wonderful visit and I am so happy that we got to see her.  The husband could not take the whole week off of work, so for the first time ever she and I spent whole days together.  I will be the first to admit that I was a bit terrified of this, not that she is a scary person, just we had never really hung out alone for that long.  When the husband is around they get into conversations that go strait over my head most of the time, which relieves a lot of pressure to talk.  It was truly a silly thing to worry about, and I seem to be doing a lot more of this needless worrying lately, we had a great time or at least I did.  Since this is my blog I get to say that WE had a fantastic time!

The best part of the whole visit was getting to be around someone else who was so excited about Cletus.  Our immediate families live in different parts of the world, and the ones that live in the same country are very spread out, so there has been little sitting in the same room excitement.  My parents are coming through town this weekend to get me my next fix.  I really think that there is something addictive about people sharing their exicitement with you.  I have actually delayed telling people just so I have enough people to get me enough fixes between now and the baby shower.  I have always known that the husband and I have amazing families and friends, but there is really nothing like the love that surrounds talking about Cletus. 

This is something that I have never heard anyone talk about before.  Now, I have avoided pregnancy talk like the plague making it entirely possible that I just missed this part.  For those of you who know me, I am not a sunshine and rainbows kind of person, but this is just an amazing amount of puppies and unicorns pooping rainbows.  It is also completely terrifying.  We are going to be parents, that cluster of cells in the picture on my fridge is a real being that we are expected to raise to adulthood.  YIKES, this is suddenly a little scary, not that we can’t handle it, just a bit terrifying. 

I have really had a lot in my head that I need to get out here, but those are for different posts, which I promise will be coming quickly.

A True Gift

Our weekend in Oregon was nothing short of magic!  I know that it sounds corny, but really there is no better word to describe what we experienced with Sabrina and her family.  It was a weekend of fun and laughter, but mostly it was the weekend where I learned so much about myself.  Being an intended mother is a very weird kind of limbo not good or bad just very different from anything that I have a frame of reference for.  

I understand adoption as an adoptee and through my mother as an adoptive mother.  When we first started this journey I used adoption as my reference frame which is not even close to what this all feels like.  Never once have I questioned that our child will come home with us.  The baby has always been ours and always will be.  Of course, surrogacy is not without it's own set of challenges.

Jealousy can be a very powerful feeling that can ruin a relationship.  I have worried that I would be jealous of Sabrina getting to spend this time with our child, and at small moments I have felt a little of that.  Then out of the blue Sabrina e-mails me with some little event that only I would ever care about and I go back to knowing that for right now she is the best one to care for my baby.  Thankfully, I do not think that these feelings have ever effected our relationship, and after this weekend I know that they never will.

On our first night there Sabrina brought ice cream to our hotel, because that baby LOVES some ice cream!  Then came the big moment that I had been dreading since we began this journey, because if there was something that was going to drive me over the ledge I knew it would be watching my husband feeling the child that was made with his and an egg donor's genetics moving in another woman's body.  I got to feel the wiggle worm first and it was amazing to feel our child dance around, for the life of me I will never be able to put that experience into words it really was just magic.  Then the real magic happened, my husband sat next to Sabrina and felt lots of wiggles and kicks and I got to sit there and watch this look on his face that I will never forget.  In some ways I am happy that I got to sit outside the experience and just enjoy watching his face change every time he felt something.  My hubby is not the most expressive person all the time when it comes to this whole baby thing, not that he is not excited, just that he does not get giddy about it all.  From the first huge smile that accompanied the first movement I melted.  Yes, we were having this whole experience in a completely different way than most, but it was still our moment and I cannot imagine having it any other way.

Once I realized that I was fine, the world did not stop spinning and I was not a sobbing mess on the floor, I knew that this was all going to be just fine.  Like most things in surrogacy the fear of the unknown is infinitely worse than the reality.  For once since we began this whole process I am not worried about being jealous and that is a wonderful relief.  

That right there is our perfect little baby.  Everything looks great and we could not be happier.  I sat in the ultra sound holding the hubby and Sabrina's hand, and it really felt like it was always meant to be that way.  I have so many more things that I want to talk about, but I think this is enough for now.

 

You can see the sucking of the thumb, but what you cannot is that this is the compromise for not being able to get the whole fist to fit!  Oh, are we in for it!

Saige, in answer to your question there was no flavor to the lip stuff, but someone needs to make that into real lipstick because it never went anywhere!

One Moment Please

Our trip to see Sabrina and her family was amazing! We had tons of fun, that sadly wore me out so much so that the big long post is going to have to wait. So a couple of pictures will have to tide you over.

I got my face painted because it is fun and why not?

The ultra sound went great! The little one is doing great, but more about that tomorrow!

Half Baked!

Not only only of my favorite flavors of ice cream, but also the mark we hit today! This pregnancy is officially 20 weeks today, and no one has any idea where the time has gone, except for my parents. Sabrina is doing very well and says that Cletus is a very active little one, which I am hoping is not a sign of things to come. The husband and I are making our way up to Sabrina's for the BIG ultra sound on June 7th! So let me know what you believe, are we have a Cletus or Cletusette? I hate to let you know that I already know. In fact, I have been keeping this semi-quiet for a good long while now.

In a journey where there is so very little you get to have to yourself, knowing this has really been a wonderful thing. We never had that moment when we were the only two people in the world that knew we were having a baby. Really, we did not with the gender either, but for some wonderful moments we have been able to pretend.

When we first began looking at surrogacy it was very difficult for me to wrap my head around sharing all these moments with someone else. To my surprise it has been much easier than I could have ever imagined. Most of this is due to the fact that we have an amazing surrogate who lets us know everything that is happening and really does everything she can to make us feel like we are going through this with her. The other part is that there are little things we know that we are not telling others and we are so happy to have these little things that we really do not worry about the bigger ones. In about 20 weeks, we will have millions of moments that just the three of us share, and really that is all that matters.

a different feeling

I have been trying to post here for a week. For the past seven days I have come here, written a little and then walked away. I just cannot seem to hit the publish button. Whatever it is that is standing in my way is so powerful that I am feel paralyzed when it comes to this space in my little universe. There are so many things that I want to share, but at the same time I know that for some it is going to hurt to come here and see these posts. I know this, because I have been on the other side reading about the happiness of pregnancy and wanted to just crawl back in my bed.

I am sorry if you are one of those people who stumbled over here today. As frightening as this has all been, being firmly in the 2nd trimester is such a huge relief. The fear part now comes from the panic that comes when I get terrified that I am going to forget to get something that Cletus will need and then some ridiculous crazy thing is going to happen. It is all silly craziness, and sometimes it even gets to be funny.

Since Cletus has been making sure that Sabrina remembers there is a passenger on board, I am feeling like I can do more permanent things. I know that we are never really out of the woods, but I have to do something to keep me busy. So many people do not seem to understand that when you are expecting through surrogacy there is just no other experience the feelings can be compared to. I have known the date the baby was due since before the transfer, I know that sometime in October that baby will be mine. Until then there is nothing to do except drive myself coo-coo with every detail, and I mean EVERY mind numbing detail! The things that I know about strollers alone is enough to fill a book, and some days my brain is oozing from being stuffed with information on baby bottles. I am loving every minute of this. I have earned every minute of giddy pleasure that I get from this tiny step into motherhood.

We are no longer playing house in our heads. I put paint on the walls in the nursery, and trust me paint seems enormous when you have ignore that whole part of your house for so long. Our child has a room with paint picked just for it on the walls, that is just the most amazing statement in the world. Our child is real and we are about to become parents, we are about the end years of wanting and wishing. It may be taking a gestational surrogate and an egg donor, but our family is going to finally be complete.

Which leads me to one of the other reasons that this space is a bit uncomfortable. I know that infertility will never end for me. This child is not the cure to anything, nor should it be. Infertile will always be a label that belongs to me and I am sure that there are going to be many days when I still feel the pain of that label. For now though, my mind is other places and moving in a very different direction. I am not going to stop writing here, this is the place that has sustained me through this process, I am just going to have to figure out how everything fits together here now. Thank you all for being patient with me. I am working very hard to figure this all out while getting used to being happier than sadder!

The "What IFs"

All the what if questions I have ever asked is a variation of the scariest "What IF" ever. What IF becoming a mother turns out to be the worst decision I have ever made? Over the years I have tried so hard to avoid all of the “What If…” questions that seemed to permeate every part of my reproductive life. At some point I had to put these questions aside, I had to accept that parenthood may never come for us. Infertility is often accurately described as being on a roller coaster, for me accepting living child-free felt something like finally breathing in from an oxygen tank and sitting quietly on the sea floor. In that moment, just as on the sea floor, all I could hear was my own breath.
In that single moment I gave up on a lifetime of dreams because that dream was threatening to drown me. My body had failed me but somehow I needed to find a way to move on with my life and focus on the wonderful things that were attainable. Without accepting that I would never be a mother was something that I had to do for my own survival. Thankfully, my wonderful husband made this very easy for me, after we got married he made a rule that we would not talk about kids for three years. Not that I was always able to do this, but having him fully take the pressure off of me was exactly what I needed at the time. For those years I concentrated on those things that would fulfill me because I was going to have a lot of time on my hands. There were times when months would pass without me thinking of adding a child to our family. I was really getting to the point of total acceptance when our fourth anniversary rolled around.
We agreed that we would give it a little more time because we were just not in a place in our lives where children would have made sense. More and more our conversations turned to children, until we knew that we were really ready to take on the challenge of becoming parents. My infertility was no surprise, we knew years before we got married that reproduction was not going to be our strong point. I cannot properly express the level of happiness I felt knowing that some way we were going to have a child.
So here are the big huge questions that haunt my thoughts.
What IF becoming a mother turns out to be the worst decision I have ever made?
Somewhere deep inside I must really not want to be a mother if I could really imagine my life without every hearing, “Mommy!” On that day that I let go of this dream there was so much relief. Our life as just a couple has been wonderful. We really are those people who fly off to see concerts and once we took off to Europe on the spur of the moment. A child will make these things impossible, but then again we do these things much less these days.
What IF this dream turns into a nightmare?
There has never been a time that I have dreamed of sitting up all night with a sick child, or fondly imagined walking the halls with a child that will not sleep unless I keep moving. In my head there are always those wonderful moments of watching our child discover something for the first time or giggling uncontrollably at a magnificent laugh. The reality is that, for a while at least, my whole world is going to be turned upside down. That imaginary piece of baby perfection is going to become a real child with real demands. I worry that I will just be overwhelmed, that what my heart tells me is what I was born to do become something that I am unable to handle. There will always be the part of me that feels like being just a good mother will never be enough.
I am being given this child. Two women have given up parts of their lives to give me this child. We have spent years fighting to have this child. Our ability to have this child is a privilege that I can never take lightly. A culmination of living in a country that allows surrogacy and egg donation, access to finances, and a wonderful support system of friends and family have all made this child possible. For all these reasons I know that I am so fortunate to even have this chance at motherhood. Someone so fortunate should never complain. Long sleepless nights, days without a shower, and all the other joys of parenthood are not something that I can ever possibly complain about. All these things are what I signed up for, not only that but these are all the things that I have fought so hard to finally have.
What IF all this junk in my head is really just junk, and what I know in my heart is exactly right?
I worry about everything; it is just part of who I am. The worries about becoming a mother are just my way of preparing for the worst, so that the best is that much better. All it takes is a simple glance at the embryo or later ultra sound picture for me to know that this was what I was meant to do with my life. When I look at those pictures the amazing amount of love I feel for this child, grown in another woman’s womb and from another woman’s egg, makes me know that I was put on this earth to be that child’s mother. Yes, infertility has robbed me of my compassion, self-esteem, sense of purpose, and years of my life, but the sight of my baby makes me know that these things are not lost forever. Wounds heal, not through our children, but by a shift in our focus. I will always feel the loss of not being a physical part of making my child, but it will not always be the center of my universe. Love is too small a word for what I feel for this child.

This post is part of Project IF. For a better basic understanding of infertility: click here and for the background of National Infertility Awareness Week (NIAW): click here. To read other posts in this project, please visit Mel's list.