Thursday, September 30, 2010

Major suckage

So if this were my baby, I would be having a home birth. You all know this. But it is not my baby, and no matter how many times I try to convince myself that it's my body and that's just as important as it being their baby, that argument just doesn't wash with me.

So I went to plan B. Paid for the midwife out of pocket to the tune of 3700 dollars. Planned to labor at home for as long as possible and then walk down the road to the hospital literally a block away and deliver. Woo hoo. Still get to see the midwife. Still get a normal vaginal delivery (and a VBA2C to boot).

But hold the phone. This is Susan's life....where major suckage waits around random corners. Recently we rounded a corner and ran into him.

Turns out that the charming judge here in backwardsville will not sign the paperwork necessary to get the guys name on the birth certificate. They need that so they can get the passport and citizenship papers for Sweden. Which they need to be able to take their baby home. Why won't the judge sign you ask? Well because they are gay men and it is simply WRONG to be gay. Hmmm. In my mind it's wrong to flaunt your judicial power and it's wrong to judge others and it's wrong to be narrow minded and stuck in the 1930's. But hey who am I right.

So we move on to plan C. We will drive to the next county over, labor in a motel, and run our happy rears across the road to the hospital when I'm crowning. So we call the hospital and ask about procedures, etc. Turns out they won't deliver a mother who does not have an on staff OB. They will ship you out to the other hospital in said town. The other hospital will deliver you if you just show up. Progress. But hold the phone. Susan's life, remember? The judge in slightlymoreprogressiveville will sign the paperwork but only after seeing records from an OB stating that the dads were involved in the pregnancy, etc. Will he accept records from a midwife? Nope. Midwives don't count. Apparently they are almost as offensive to this judge as "gasp" gay men are to the judge in backwardsville. Egads.

So I give up. I have cancelled further midwife appointments. I have eaten the 3700 dollar fee and will get none of it back. I saw her 5 times. So I paid 700 dollars per visit. But who give a shit right? I'm just the hired uterus here and since I get all my money milking the parents it's okay for me to absorb that fee. I scheduled an appointment with an OB. I might as well start scheduling the c-section now.

I'm a tad bit angry and disappointed here. Seems like with this journey, which was supposed to be a picture perfect sibling journey, everything bites, other than the baby. Oh well.

Saturday, September 25, 2010

Friday, September 24, 2010

31 weeks

****starting to be a bit uncomfortable but nothing too bad yet.
****got my paystub for the last two weeks. Worked 90.3 hours.
****number 2 could be partially to blame for number 1.
****31 weeks today.
****No contractions really yet other than a few BH daily.
****Will take pics tomorrow....look as if I have an alien in my belly trying to get
out.
****Busy weekend planned. Must tar roof (again), pull out broken windows that
cracked from the cold last winter, take out air conditioners (it is finally
cooling off here), go to local festival, oh, and try to rest a bit.
****Exhausted alot. Still swimming twice a week (heavenly), walking in the
mornings, doing yoga twice a week, and walking some evenings.
****Gained alot of weight recently. Had to choose between cutting out sweets
or exercising more. Decided to throw scale away instead. Definitely the
right choice.

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Darn scientific studies

I am a scientist....a chemist in fact. When I was in school we were encouraged to read scientific articles and studies and to really analyze them. To this day, I get a little excited when I find the abstract of a study (or even better, the actual study). I won't read the parts of studies that make it into the regular news because in general the media tries to distort the data to make it read the way they want it to. They usually have an agenda.

Anywho, today I was perusing some journals and made the mistake of reading a study about bonding. They were talking about how a baby hears the voice of the mother/carrier and bonds with them. And how if they don't hear that same voice after that they will miss the mother/carrier and mourn for her. Let's just say that I was crying after reading that. I don't want to think that the baby misses me, even for a brief point. I know that the guys are everything the baby needs but it makes sense that the baby would miss the voice it knows.

Sunday, September 19, 2010

30w2d

We had a massive thunderstorm come through this morning around 4 am. Lost power, lightning hit the back house (no damage thankfully). Anywho, turns out that the massive change in barometric pressure caused me to have a ton of BH contractions. It felt weird since I haven't really had any yet. Thankfully my cervix is still tight and closed. I honestly never knew that barometric pressure changes could cause contractions. Guess it makes sense that since a full moon can, then so can a massive storm. Luckily as I said, they were all false contractions. So we continue on. I am starting to think about delivery and wondering where I will deliver and when.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Going so well

So I saw the midwife today and things are going so well that I still only have to see the midwife once a month instead of every other week. I am 29w4d and I see her again at 33w4d and then will go to biweekly appointments.

Weight gain is 16 pounds. BP is great. Cletus is great. No gestational diabetes. Iron level in blood is wonderful. In other words I am healthy as a horse and so is Cletus.

After the midwife (who Joe also loved) we went Xmas shopping. Got about 75% done and we got something for the boys that they are going to love.

Have I mentioned how much I am loving this pregnancy? I hate to say that it is easy because I will jinx myself but so far it feels easy. Loving it.

Saturday, September 11, 2010

Back and feeling like myself again

Well we survived the funeral and I am feeling much better. Funny note about the funeral.....a friend of DD's made a slideshow to play on the laptop showing DD preggo and then pics of the babies. The music they chose was rap music. I kid you not. The same song, over and over again. I finally went over and turned the volume way down. I think they were too scared of me to call me on it.

So DD has moved in with her boyfriend and now lives about an hour away. Other DD is involved in school and work. Oldest DS is busy with his friends and doesn't live at home anymore either. We are back to our nice calm life with our two 12 year olds and we are loving it. Praise God for calmness.

Cletus has had a growth spurt. I was measuring the boys today to find out what size pants to buy them next week, so I measured my waist also. It is 39 inches, up 4 inches in just 2 weeks. Egads. I have gained about 18 pounds which I guess is okay. I don't worry much about the weight because I know we have a massive workout schedule ahead of us after this baby comes.

Confession time: I am really hoping for a vaginal birth for many reasons. It's better for the baby, better for me, and easier to recover on. Yet a part of me (here comes the confession) really wants a vaginal birth so that I can carry again. I know that that is crazy. I should be done with surrogacy. After this journey I will have delivered 5 beautiful babies to three wonderful men. That should be enough. Why am I already having this craving again? What is wrong with me? It's not that I can't find fulfillment in other areas of my life....it's just that nothing makes me feel as complete and as wonderful as surrogacy does. But my DH would KILL me if he knew I was even thinking of another journey. Oh well. I need to get this baby grown, delivered, and then physcially recover from that. We are doing P90X immediately postpartum and then I'm going to do a triathalon. By the time I do all that I will be 39 and hopefully too old for surrogacy. Plus the kids just keep getting busier each year. I am not going to rush into anything and I hope the craving will go away.

Sunday, September 5, 2010

My breaking point

Exhaustion tends to be what breaks down my walls and today I am exhausted so for the first time in a LONG time, I bawled like a baby for hours. I just feel like I can't take anything else and while I know it is just because I am so tired from lack of sleep and emotional stress, it doesn't make it any easier to deal with any of this crap. I am just so tired.

My breaking point came while watching Juno....more specifically the scene where she has delivered the baby and is laying on the bed with her boyfried crying. I have never watched Juno (although I have seen parts of it) and I would highly recommend it but not while exhausted and hormonal.

I am so tired at this point that I don't even know if I'm making sense. I just don't feel like emotionally I can take one more thing. I cried for the guys and the baby and the twins and what they are all going through. I have been the parent left behind, the one that dries the tears of the kids and it is a horrid place to be. I cried for myself and the lack of contact with the dads this time and my worries that this baby will be ignored. I cried for my stepdaughter and the horrors she had to endure yesterday and the emotional journey she will have to make now. I have been down her road and it is not an easy one. I cried for my oldest son that does not live with us but refuses to make the right choices in his life. I cried for myself and the emotions that I know are ahead at the end of this journey.

Yes I sound whiny and yes I know that things will look better tomorrow. But today....today I am exhausted.

Note to self: Adding Juno to the list of movies to not watch when exhausted.

Our first grandchildren

So I am only 38 and was not at all excited to be called grandmother. But life is not always (read never) about what you want and what you are excited about so when the step daughter turned up pregnant, we tried to embrace it. We were scared for her because we knew she was not ready to be a mom. We were scared for us after we found out it was twins because we knew that in all likelihood we would end up raising them. One baby she might have been able to do but two would be beyond her. We tried to gently guide her to adoption but the noteriety of twins had her burying her head in the sand about the reality of the situation.

Yesterday morning, at 10:30 am we found out that her water had broken. I ran to the hospital down the road. After examination they sent her in an ambulance (at 105mph) to a larger hospital an hour away. After many hours and many tests, it was determined that the pregnancy could not be saved. 12 hours after the ordeal began, she delivered the first twin. An hour later, the second was born. To see my child in that much physical and emotional pain is something I hope to never have to witness again. I guzzled bottle after bottle of water, praying that Cletus would hang in there throughout the long day on my feet and he did thankfully.

Step daughter is trying to move forward. We are trying to adjust to yet another sudden change. We were quietly rearranging our life in preparation for full time parenting of newborn twins and we no longer have to do that. Tears are very close to the surface today. The whole experience brought back memories of the birth and death of my daughter 15 years ago. I pray for peace for my step-daughter and my poor husband.

I have never seen a fetus at 19 weeks gestation and had no idea that they would be red. They were both perfectly formed, though the girl was much larger than the boy. They had fingernails and toenails and were beautiful.

Saturday, September 4, 2010

Growing older, growing fatter, hopefully growing wiser

I have found that for me, the hardest part of parenting is letting go. Our three oldest children are all out of the house now and living independently. It is strange to think of them as adult children but I guess they are. None of them ask us for money or support of any kind. They all make their own decisions. So I guess they are adults. It is hard for me to not "rescue" them when I see them struggling but I have seen way too many kids whose parents helped them too much and they never became independent so I have learned/am learning to back off. I bite my tongue when I want to offer advice and let them make their own mistakes. It's very hard.

I am 28 weeks pregnant now. From the fiasco of bedrest last time, I know that if the baby were born now he would have a 98% chance of survival and a 95% of a normal life. But he's gonna stay in for awhile I hope. Still not really any Braxton-Hicks contractions and not any complications. I finally see the midwife again in 10 days or so. We ended up going over 6 weeks between appointments this time and that feels like a long time. Not that I have anything to discuss with her....all is well in babyland. I think that Joe would now be ok with a homebirth but I have not discussed it with the guys. The are busy and worried and I refuse to try to sell them on homebirth. When/if they come over, they can talk to the midwife about it. But I am still resigned to laboring at home and delivering in the hospital. Cletus has had a growth spurt recently and I definitely look alot more preggo now than I did two weeks ago.

Today will be a roofing day. The roof leaked in the last rainstorm and needs a bit of a patch job. Can't wait to pay off the rest of our debt so that we can start socking money away for a new roof. And siding. And windows. Our house is 100 plus years old and is a money pit if I ever saw one but we love the space. Our master bedroom alone is 600 square feet and easily holds two large dressers, a massive desk, a queen size bed, and a small table with enough left over floor space that both Joe and I can do yoga.

On the subject of debt repayment, we have paid off our line of credit, which was actually the old credit card debt. We are left now with our car payment, two student loans and the mortgage. The plan/hope is to pay off the car by the end of 2011, the student loans by the end of 2012, and then start saving for housing repairs. We will never use a credit card again because we feel as if the last 5 years of our life have been devoted to paying off the debt from the previous 10 years. No thanks. From now on, if we can't afford it, we are not buying it.

The two kids that still live at home just had eye and dental appointments. Thankfully all was well with both at both places so we just paid our co-pays and were done. One of them does need braces but I don't believe in braces until the mouth is done growing. So many kids get them now at 10 and then need them again at 14. No thanks. We'll wait until he's done growing. Next up will be physicals for them and then dental appointments for Joe and I.

And that is our life. Boring, same old same old stuff. Just the way we like it.