Almost 12 weeks

Hello.  Everything is going great with this pregnancy.  So far this has been my easiest pregnancy yet, minimal nausea and no vomiting.  If I get nauseous it's usually because it's time for me to eat.  I had my first visit with my OB last week and it went great.  Baby looked great on the ultrasound and is finally starting to look like a baby and not just a little blob on the screen.  If I lay on my back I can feel the top of my uterus poking up but I don't think I'm starting to show yet.  I still have too much fluff to be able to see a baby bump. All the screenings came back good.  We also found out what we're having.  Apparently there is a blood test they can do now at 10 weeks to find out what you're having.  Amazing!  So, we're having a girl. 😁  It's funny because me and "M" both thought it was going to be a boy.  LoL!  "T" even mentioned that people tend to have less morning sickness with boys so I thought, ok that makes sense because I already thought it was a boy.  Apparently I'm just going to have less nausea and morning sickness with each pregnancy, idk.  I also did my first sugar test this week for the gestational diabetes screening and passed with flying colors.  Sugar was supposed to be under 135 and it was 115.  Yay!

I had my last day at Petsmart this past Sunday.  It was bittersweet.  I'm going to miss everyone but I am so happy to have my weekends back.  Plus, I can see where it might be a problem trying to work there while pregnant because I'm constantly having big dogs jump on me and several times have came home with scratches across my stomach.  This weekend I have a birthday party to go to for my nephew on Saturday and my bff's baby's first birthday on Sunday.  So glad I don't have to worry about missing those this year.  Plus, my oldest daughter, Alyssa, is leaving on Sunday to go to Washington for a week on a field trip.  Then the week after that Tommy is going on a field trip with Zoe to Alabama.  They're going to a science museum or something.  Alyssa's birthday party is going to be on Memorial weekend, that Saturday.  Then the next day we're going on vacation to Myrtle Beach for a week.  Can't wait!

First Ultrasound

Ok so good news, the HCG tests came back good and everything looked good on the ultrasound.  We were all so relieved!  I swear it felt like it was taking the ultrasound tech forever to tell us anything or show us anything.  It was torture! 

So the official due date is 11/14/19 which means I'm 7 weeks along today.  I get to start weaning off meds next week.  Yay!!!  When we were talking to the doctor after the appointment the other day about coming off the meds she said they were going to start weaning me off the injections first and I would be on the suppositories until 12 weeks.  I swear I thought I saw her head spin around when I asked her if I could come off the suppositories first and stay on injections.  LOL!  I don't think she's ever had anyone request that before, she looked dumbfounded.  She kept telling me I can change my mind at any time and it's ok.  It's just that with the injections it's a once a day thing and it's quick and over with in about a minute and I don't have to think about it again for 24 hours.  Plus that whole area is pretty much numb by now from all the injections.  It's something that has happened with every surrogacy and the feeling always comes back later after stopping the injections.

I have one more ultrasound with Emory Reproductive on April 10th and after that I get released to my OB and my first OB appt is April 22nd.

I'm just so happy that it worked and happy to be pregnant.

2nd Transfer

Well, unfortunately, even after several positive pregnancy tests the blood test still came back negative.  They said it was a chemical pregnancy.  So we're on transfer number two now.  I was getting lots of very strong positive pregnancy tests and the first beta 9dp5dt was 242 which is a very good number.  If it had doubled every 48 hours then it would have been 968 13dpt but instead it was only 750.  750 is still a good number for 13dpt but the fact that it didn't double is seriously stressing me out.  I have another beta test tomorrow morning so fingers crossed we get a good number.  I really want this to work out.  I really like the guys and want this so bad for them.  And I want this to stick so I can get through this first trimester and get off all the meds and injections.  My backside is so sore and full of knots from all the injections.  Anyways, fingers crossed for tomorrow. 🍀

Oh, and my oldest daughter, Alyssa, recently started softball.  She had her first game tonight and her team won 6-4. 😊

Also, I'm leaving Petsmart.  I'm thankful for the experience and knowledge I've gained but it's time to move on.  I'm very limited in what I can do there training wise.  That makes it very difficult to help certain dogs.  I don't like not being able to help them, it's very frustrating.  And this working every weekend thing is for the birds.  I miss my family and I hate having to miss out on everything on the weekends.  Plus, I can make as much money working from home training one dog a week as I can working at Petsmart all week.  I'm trying to stay on until they find another trainer which will hopefully be soon.  I told them I can only stay through April though.  I've got several birthday parties, plus Mother's day and Memorial Day holidays every weekend in May.

Surrogacy #3

Well, as you can tell from the title I'm doing my 3rd surrogacy.  I signed up with GG again and they told me they didn't have any matches for me.  I don't know if it had anything to do with my weight because I had gotten up to 220 at that time or what the reason was.  But everything happens for a reason.  In January of this year my husband and I started keto and I lost 55 lbs.  Then I signed up to do a surrogacy for a local agency, Tomorrow's Parents International.  Everyone in the surrogacy world here in Ga has heard of THE surrogacy lawyer, Sara Clay.  Well, she started her own agency and since I'd heard lots of good things about her I decided to try her agency.  Everything has gone great with her and I have no complaints about her or the agency, they've all been great.

I got matched pretty quickly with a local couple here in Atlanta which I love.  I'm very excited about this couple being so much closer and being able to share more of this pregnancy with them.  They are great guys, super nice!  We've only met for dinner once so far and that's the only time outside of the various surrogacy meetings that we've gotten to hang out.  Hopefully that changes soon, once the pregnancy progresses and we get to know each other a little better and the weather gets nicer.

We are using Emory Reproductive Specialists this time and they've been great.  I love that they are in the same hospital where I'll be delivering.  The med protocol has been a little different but it's working great.  I don't think my lining has ever gotten so fluffy.  The last ultrasound before the transfer my lining was at a 15 which is great for me.  With my first surrogacy it was "almost 7" the day of the transfer.  Even with the twins I don't think it ever got over 8.

So, my transfer was this past Saturday, 12/22.  Sunday night and all day Monday I had a lot of cramping.  By Tuesday (Christmas) my boobs were getting sore and it only got worse over the next 3 days.  On Thursday I was feeling a lot of pelvic pressure and discomfort and today I've been kinda nauseous off and on but nothing too serious and I get tired easier.  I'm usually a night owl but I'm doing good to stay up until 11:00 these days.  I took my first pregnancy test yesterday and got a very faint positive.  I was kinda surprised to get a positive at all though because I'm notoriously late getting positive tests.  With my first surrogacy I took like 15 pregnancy tests over several days before I got one to come back positive 8dp3dt.  The same thing happened with both my kids.  I've always known I was pregnant before the tests could detect it.  Besides the twin pregnancy though, this is the first time I've ever gotten a positive so soon.  It was positive on the first test, 5dp5dt and the next morning as well.  I think I'm going to wait until Sunday to test again and hopefully the line is a little darker.

I am working now.  I work at Petsmart as the dog trainer.  I enjoy it, it's definitely a fun job.  I've been there for a little over a year now.  The kids were getting older and they were like, "Mom, when are you going back to work?".  So here I am...lol.  They are 11 and 9 now.  My oldest started middle school this year which is scary.  They grow up too fast.  She just got her own cell phone for Christmas.  I remember I was at this same point in my first surrogacy as I am now, when she was starting pre-k.  She was crying every morning and the teacher would have to pry her off my leg so I could leave.  I was an emotional wreck between that and all the pregnancy hormones.  It's crazy how quickly time has gone by and how much the kids have grown and changed.

But this is going to be my first pregnancy with a job so it'll be interesting to see how it all works out.  Only one girl at work knows anything about the surrogacy and I'll probably keep it like that for a while.  At least until after the 1st trimester if possible.  I worked up until 3 or 4 months with my first pregnancy and I've been a stay at home mom ever since then until now.  Hopefully I can work up pretty close to the delivery.  I really hope I don't have another huge baby or twins.  The likely hood of having twins this time is very low though because they only transferred one embryo.  But fingers crossed for a nice 7 lb baby...lol.

Ok, time for everyone's favorite part, the pictures.  I'll try to keep you updated as the pregnancy goes on.  I go in on Wednesday 1/2/19 for my blood work pregnancy confirmation.

Creaping along 3-7-15

 3-7-15 is when I wrote this and somehow it didn't get posted.  So when I saw it today I posted it but now it has today's date and isn't in chronological order anymore.

Nothing much new going on.  We went out to L.A. for our screening and everything came back fine, we are cleared for takeoff.  They sent my profile over to the guys and they loved it.  The guys aren't going to be able to make it to L.A. right now for a match meeting so we're going to do a video conference next week and the guys will come out for the transfer.  It's so tempting to just send the guys a message on FB and tell them hi.  I hate all this waiting.

Photography business is going good.  It's been pretty steady but I have done a lot of free shoots since I started.  I did a free photo shoot contest when I reached 100 likes and had a lot more interest in it than I expected.  I have my first official wedding Saturday and another photo shoot on Sunday.  With Christmas right around the corner I am happy to have the extra money but it takes a lot of time to edit all those pictures.  December is going to be a busy month.

Delivery Day!!!

Me with A, E, baby boy and Dr. Tate after delivery.

Well, we made it to 36 weeks 5 days.  The babies were born on 11-9-15 at 10:14 and 10:29 p.m. at Emory Midtown hospital in Atlanta and they're doing great.  Baby girl was 6 lbs 7 oz and 18.5 inches long.  Baby boy was 6 lbs 10 oz and 21.5 inches long.

This is how it went:

I couldn't sleep so at 2 in the morning on the 9th I got up to go to the bathroom.  When I tried to get up off the toilet some fluid started leaking out.  At first I just thought I was peeing again because I hadn't been having any contractions or anything but after a few minutes I couldn't get it to stop and it only got worse every time I tried to get up.  I got my husband to bring me some pads and I called my OB who said to go ahead and come in.  I called my mom to come stay with the kids and started getting a bag packed for the hospital.  It was very annoying trying to get packed with fluid constantly leaking out.  I went through several pads but it just wasn't enough. 

We finally left the house and headed for the hospital around 4 a.m..  We stopped and grabbed a biscuit on the way because I figured they wouldn't let me eat once I got there.  We got to the hospital around 5 a.m., parked in the parking deck and with fluid running down my legs proceeded to walk to labor and delivery and get signed in, still not really having much contractions.  They took me back to the triage to check my vitals and check to make sure it really was my water that was broke and I wasn't just peeing everywhere.  Luckily it was my water because that would have been really gross...lol.  After confirming that it really was my water that was broke the guys started making arrangements to get here asap.  After about 2 hours in triage they finally moved me into a delivery room.  A little while after that my mom and step dad came up there to stay with me while I was in labor.

{Due to the last minute time restraints the guys weren't able to take he same flight.  E flew out first and A had to get everything worked out with his work schedule then find a last minute flight out then his flight got delayed about 20 minutes and he just missed the delivery.}

After they got me into the delivery room they hooked me up to the monitors to monitor the babies' heartbeats for a little while.  The nurse that came in was pregnant too and had the same due date as me and she was using the same OB as me.  How weird is that!?!  She was having a hard time getting baby B's heartbeat, she couldn't really find him.  I told the nurse he was way up in my ribs but she never checked high enough and said he couldn't be way up there.  Then another nurse came to try and where did she find him?  Way up in my ribs! 

By about 7:00 that evening I finally got the wireless monitors on both babies so I could go walk the halls to try and get contractions going because by this point I still wasn't contracting very much (about 1-2 contractions per hour).  Plus they were talking about putting me on Pitocin to speed things along because baby A's heartrate kept going up into the 170's.  They did finally check me when they were getting me hooked up with the wireless contraction monitor and wireless heartbeat monitors on the babies and found out I was already 5 cm dilated and that was after not much contractions all day.  So after a little walking my contractions started to pick up.  It didn't take much.  I only walked the halls twice and started getting really uncomfortable and my lower back started to hurt.  I went back to the room and hung out for a minute and leaned down on the bed to try to take some pressure off my lower back because it had started hurting.  After a little bit of that they wanted to try to pump fluid back into baby A's sack hoping that it would help her heartrate come back down.  I got into bed for that because I didn't like the idea of trying to walk the halls with fluid constantly being pumped in and flowing back out.  When I started to get back into bed I remember it felt like I was sitting on her head and I immediately stood back up.  They told me that her head couldn't be that low and that I was fine to sit down so I turned around another way and sat down and didn't feel anything so I don't know if her head went back up or what but they didn't want to check me for fear of introducing infection since my water had already been broken for a while.  Plus it had only been about 2 hours since my contractions really started and according to the contraction monitor my contractions still weren't that strong.  They asked me if I was going to want an epidural.  I did but I was worried about getting it too early and my labor stalling out so I decided to wait 20 minutes and see how I felt.  After 20 minutes I went ahead and told her yes on the epidural so she got the IV bag hooked up because you have to have a whole bag of fluid before you get the epidural.  We got about half the bag of fluid in before my OB got there.

It was about 10 that night when my OB, Dr. Tate, got there.  He looked at the contraction monitor and said, "Well, your contractions aren't very strong." just as I was in the middle of a contraction.  I wanted to kick him in the balls at that point because they sure as hell felt strong to me.  Then he went ahead and checked me.  As soon as he did, whatever he touched caused a huge contraction and uncontrollable pushing.  I was already 10 cm and the baby was coming out quick.  He started yelling at the nurses because at this point he realized the contraction monitor hadn't been calibrated properly so this whole time my contractions had been reading way lower than they really were which is probably why they didn't expect me to be as far along as I was .  The doctor said, "We're not going to have time for an epidural!  I'm not even going to have time to change!  I might have to deliver this baby right here!"  (They normally deliver twins in the OR.)  So all the nurses are scrambling around everywhere and my hubby and E quickly got all suited up to come back with me. And I was still like, "No, I need an epidural!  There's still time!"  LOL!!!

They told me not to push and just breathe and that's what I did as they wheeled me to the OR.  They didn't even have time to put me on the other bed in the OR.  They told hubby to hold my leg and asked if he (E, who was standing behind me) could hold my other leg.  Hubby said he didn't care, that it was up to me.  I didn't even realize who "he" was at that point but I didn't care either and just said yes.  As soon as he came over he was holding my leg with one hand and my hand with his other and I new that it was E because his hand was shaking so bad.  Baby girl came out screaming with the next contraction just 15 minutes after my OB had gotten there.  I can't believe how fast everything went.  The contractions and pushing were intense but not unbearable.  I distinctly remember, in the middle of pushing, thinking "Hey, there's the ring of fire I always hear about." Then as soon as it started it passed and she came out.  Then after she came out I was thinking, "Oh crap!  Did I tear?"  And as E was cutting the cord and the doctor was checking for the next baby I was trying to tell if I had torn or not and was thinking, "Nope, I think I'm good."  LOL.

After the girl came out the boy automatically turned head down and got ready to come out.  After 1 or 2 contractions the doctor broke my water to help him come out.  Some fluid gushed out then his head immediately came down and with the third contraction he was out.  Just as his body was coming out, the rest of his water; a HUGE gush, came out with him and splashed everyone including hubby and E and myself.  He was screaming very loud when he came out, even louder than his sister had been.

After both babies were out the placentas didn't want to detach.  The placentas were stuck together and fused to the inside of my uterus so they were pulling on the cords trying to get them to detach.  After pulling for a few minutes the cords broke off and the doctor had to go in manually to remove the placentas.  I remember thinking, "What is that?  OMG it's his arm!!!"  He was elbows deep scraping the placentas away from my uterus!  Talk about painful!!!  That was worse than delivering both babies!  Thank god he is a petite man!  And it's funny because as all this is going on the nurse is asking me if I'm doing ok, to which I reply, "I've been better!"  LOL!  When they were almost done they finally said, "Lets get her some pain meds."  And I remember thinking, "YES!!!  Why didn't I think of that?!?"  But it was very disappointing.  The pain meds didn't help but luckily they were about done.

Finally everything was over and they cleaned me up and sent me back to the room with the babies and everyone.  Baby boy was doing great and we got to hold him.  They said baby girl sounded like she had a rattle in her chest so they put a CPAP machine on her.  I found out later that they had the pressure or something too high when they put it on her and it punctured her lung and caused air to start filling her chest.  If it had been any worse that could have been REALLY bad.  She had to have an x-ray to check the air in her chest then again the next 2 days also, to make sure it was getting better and has to be on antibiotics for a week to make sure she doesn't get pneumonia.  She's doing much better now (4 days after delivery).  She's got all the tubes out of her and just a monitoring wire left and she's eating great.  They said as long as everything goes good she can go home Monday night or Tuesday morning.  Yay!!!  Baby boy could have already left but A and E were able to get a room at the hospital (all the rooms were full on D-day) and have been taking turns staying with both babies.

I can't believe how fast everything went after my contractions really got started.  It was only about 3 hours from the time I started walking the halls and got contractions going until the babies were born.  I also can't believe I went all the way through transition and dilated to 10 cm without even realizing it.  I knew the contractions were getting a lot closer together but I don't think anyone was really paying attention to that because the monitor said my contractions weren't very strong.  The whole time I was just trying to focus on keeping my body relaxed because I know that if you tense up it can stall labor and keep you from dilating.  (Read Ina May's Guide to Childbirth!)  My mom said she couldn't imagine laboring with an audience (I had her, my step dad, E, and hubby in there with me.) but I think it probably helped me keep my mind off the pain and stay more relaxed because everyone was just hanging out and talking.  Plus I think it helped that the nurses were telling me that my contractions weren't that strong yet because I kept waiting for them to get worse, to get "bad".  Little did I know they were already bad.  My mom said I had everyone fooled because I was doing so well.


It was a crazy delivery and definitely a lot different than anything I had experienced before and everything I expected but I think everything happened as it was meant to.  The only thing I would change is what happened to the baby girl.

Walking the halls with mom, hubby and E.

With A, E and baby boy after delivery.

First time holding baby boy.

Hubby holding baby boy.

First time visiting the babies the next day.

Showing baby boy to my kids.

Wide awake.

The happy family.  :)

30 weeks!!!

Yay!!!  We made it to 30 weeks which is a big deal in the surrogacy world.  Both babies are doing GREAT.  I'm doing great too.  The heartburn and indigestion are still really bad and it's getting hard for me to be up on my feet for over an hour at a time.  My stomach muscles start to get really sore and my stomach starts to feel really heavy and I just feel this overwhelming need to sit down.  I've got this belly band thing that goes around my lower belly and helps hold it up and takes some stress off my stomach and back muscles and I need to start wearing it more.  Since I'm in the 3rd trimester now I've also noticed I've been getting tired easier.  Naps are very important these days.  I'm doing pretty good on my weight gain with this pregnancy I think.  I gained a good bit during my first trimester but I think I've only gained about 5 lbs since then so it kinda balances out.

Babies both move around a ton so I get to feel plenty of movement and I'm loving that.  I had an appointment with the specialist last week and the baby girl (did I mention we're having a boy and a girl) weighed 2 lbs 15 oz and baby boy weighed 3 lbs 4 oz so they are great sizes.  I really wonder how far along I'll go with the twins and if I'll go into labor on my own this time.  I've only gone into labor on my own once and that was with my first pregnancy and I was 4 days overdue.  I've carried babies over 9 lbs and over 11 lbs without going into labor so that's something I'm really worried about.  I've been measuring 10 weeks ahead at every appointment except the appointment I had yesterday.  Now I'm only measuring 8 weeks ahead...lol. 

The guys came up for the 20 week ultrasound and we had a great time.  It was so good to see them.  They brought their little boy and we all got together with mine and tommy's family for dinner two nights and everyone loved them.  We met up for my daughter's birthday and went to lunch then took the kids to the children's museum.  After that we walked down the street to the park and let them all run off some energy before we went to the hospital tour. 

I'm sure I'm leaving a lot out but I'm a horrible writer so it is what it is.  I'll add the pictures later.  I've got a new laptop and no pictures on here yet.