Yay

I am officially approved by Circle and might be looking at IF profiles by next week or so. Not sure if they will present me to the MO IFs that started this whole thing or not. They seem to like to match me with international IFs. I am open to exploring my options but am in no hurry. We shall see what time brings. On another note, life has been pretty stressful lately and I have not been eating well at all. Is it okay for me to be happy that I lost about 3 pounds this week from stress thus taking me to the lowest weight I have seen in about 9 months or so? Probably not okay but I am happy none the less. I will take any help I can get on this miserably slow weight loss journey. I am looking forward to a peaceful weekend. Probably won't get one since I most likely will be called in to work....but I am praying. Boy #2 was in the regional spelling bee today. Turns out boy #2 sucks at spelling. Being the mom I am, I teased him relentlessly for his early exit. I'm off to bed...have only slept a total of 9 hours in the last two nights combined and I'm so exhausted that I'm sick to my stomach. Here's praying for a wonderful night of sleep.

Wow

So I got out of bed this morning and stumbled into the bathroom. I am not a morning person. Anywho, I glanced into the bathroom mirror and did a double take. I looked thin. Now you have to understand, I haven't looked thin in a year now. I last looked thin in early March 2010 when I went to CT to get knocked up with Cletus. Since that day I had gained 33 pounds and since Dec 2, I have been trying in vain to rid myself of said 33 pounds. I have been doing p90x like a madwoman but to no avail...if anything I thought the p90x was making things worse....my muscles were getting bigger but there isn't alot of cardio in p90x so I still had some fat that would not go away. Now to you naysayers, yes I get that I am less than four months postpartum. Yes, I get that I am old and decrepit. But understanding that and being okay with a tub of jello for abs and thighs are two different things. But I digress. Back to this morning. I rubbed the sleep boogers from my eyes and looked in the mirror again. Still skinny. I pulled up my shirt to see if that would release the layers of ab flab that I knew were there. It did not. Now I am in no way saying my abs look like those of a woman who has never had a baby. But they look pretty darn good for someone on the brink of 40 who has had six pregnancies and eight kids. I THINK that if I work at it I can actuallly have a bikini worthy body some day. Not that I will do any bikini wearing. Anywho, we have two weeks left of p90x. After it is over we are going to continue to do it but stretch it out a bit and throw in some days of cardio. So our second 90 days will probably take about 120 days to get through. After my morning mirror lovefest, I tried on all my prepregnancy jeans. And they all zip. My skinniest ones are not comfortable yet but my biggest ones are actually loose. Who knew. Throwing away the scale (and giving up chocolate for Lent) seem to be working. Now if it would ever warm up we could MAYBE get some cardio in outdoors and burn off the rest of this flab....just in time to get pregnant again. Off to get ready for the neighbors' birthday party. Our wonderful neighbor had triplets two months before I had the Swedish twins. Suprise triplets. Non-IVF and non-clomid, completely natural triplets. Caused by drunken make up sex after a massive fight. Wow. Better them than me.

Soooooooooooo

I was approved by my wonderful RE to carry again. How this amazing feat took place I could not tell you. I am a year over his age limit. I have had 3 c-sections and he does not accept you if you have had more than two. It must be my "charming" personality? The fact that I can totally rock this whole surrogacy thing? I don't know. Now that I'm approved, I have to be declared sane by my agency again (because people sometimes go from being sane to insane overnight apparently). Now realize that I have been declared sane by said agency in 2005, 2007, 2009, and hopefully now again in 2011. Pretty sure I'm sane. How many MMPI tests have you taken in your life? I'm feeling pretty flipping sane myself, if the MMPI doesn't drive me insane. After that maybe I will finally get to talk to the somewhat local IFs whose ad started this whole misadventure. Because yes, here we are a month later and I have still not been allowed to speak with these men. Maybe they are phantom men? Who knows. My guess is that they are taken already and the agency wants to match me with someone else. I'm not even sure I am ready for this whole rollercoaster again....I just wanted the opportunity to talk to some local IFs. WAHHHHHH. If I'm declared sane and I find some IFs who will accept my many times sliced uterus, we will move on to them finding an egg donor, me getting poked and prodded by the RE, contracts, drugs, transfer, pregnancy and then happily ever after with a baby (or two) for them and retirement for me. Oh and my husband quit his job yesterday and then recanted his quitting today. The man truly drives me batty sometimes (but not really...see previous note on my amazing ability to convince others of my sanity).

Since last checking in:

Life is moving very fast around here. Blink and you might miss something. Lots of very exciting and scary things going on. More to follow................

Trying to gain some perspective

Everyone has aspects of their job that they dislike. I love what I do at my job but as the company as a whole gets bigger, I am starting to really dislike the corporate atmosphere. We are suddenly all about career development an people development. Big fat UGH. Why is it not enough that I show up every day and do my job well. We won the award for the best lab (out of 25) last year so we definitely do our jobs well. Double UGH.
So this year we have a new review process and have to develop goals and such. I wrote my goals down and had them "revised" (i.e. changed). My goals this year include getting 100% on a yearly test, reviewing some SOPs, participating in boilouts more (boilouts are where we disassemble the components of the plant and clean them. Participating more fully in them means I get to crawl through icky tubes that are usually full of ethanol but are now empty and scrub them with various brushes and toxic chemicals. I drew the tube cleaning because I am smaller than the guys and yet strong (damn you postpartum weight loss and p90x)). My final goal is to visit other plants and learn about them. Our closest plant is 400 miles away. So soon I will be going on a business trip. Many would be excited about this but I say triple UGH. 1000 miles of driving in 3 days with two 8 hour visits to other plants thrown in for fun. What does any of this have to do with lab work? Seriously. I have no desire to move up the corporate ladder. If my boss quit I would not even apply for her position....I like the hands on work in the lab. I've done office work and it's not how I want to spend my time.

So yes, I know I'm being a brat. It is only three or four days. It's just that the overall tone of my job continues to change as the corporate office finds more and more ways to insert their claws into us daily. If I am honest, at this point I am staying at my job for three reasons:
1. My awesome co-workers (we laugh all day every day).
2. The rate of pay (cost of living in this area is low and I make very good money).
3. The insurance....no surrogacy exclusion (yes I know I just posted I am done with surrogacy but if you haven't figured it out yet, I am just a smidge indecisive about many things)

:) :) :)

Today I:

1. Decided that surrogacy is over for me.....and decided that I am ok with that.
2. Finally got all my lab machines reprogrammed after losing my hard drive last week. And when I say programmed, I mean I had to write the code and everything. I rock.
3. Bought a new car. It is exactly what I have been searching for for some time now. Can't decide whether to retire my Cavalier or keep her. She has 169,000 miles on her and has a few things that need fixed. We had decided not to put any more money into her but she has some life left and I hate the thought of giving her to anyone who won't treat her like she deserves (yes I know, it's just a cavalier but I've had it for 6 years and it's been so reliable for me...plus it was my first manual).

Life is good. I feel at peace about things finally. It's good to know that my days of jumping though hoops so that others can judge me wrongly and cruelly are over. Though I will miss the excitement of surrogacy and the feeling of a baby (or two) tumbling about in my belly. :)

So...

I haven't heard anything so I'm gonna go out on a limb and say my medical records disqualified me. I am suprisingly okay with that. Time to move on to greener pastures I guess.

Making progress

Beginning steps are done. Waiting on medical records from delivery and I will send those off. Then I guess it will be time to take the "hey I'm not crazy today" test (aka the MMPI) for the fourth time.

One step at a time. :)

Changes

So since I last signed with my agency they have changed the process of becoming a surrogate a bit and even though I am certainly no newbie, everyone has to go through all the steps. I don't have an issue with that and I have learned a bit along the way. For instance, I have all of my medical records from the most recent pregnancy except those from the actual hospital stay. I have learned to request medical records as I go along.

So far I have filled out the packet, requested my hospital records, made copies of my other records and talked to my midwife.

Why did I talk to my midwife? Get this: she had to write me a note stating that she had talked with me about the risks of a fourth c-section, should that become necessary. Well duh, there are risks with every pregnancy, every surgical delivery, every regular delivery. I think it's humorous that they need to make sure that I realize that pregnancy is dangerous. I have been pregnant enough that I think I know that already. What's more, I wonder if the surrogates whose BMIs are bumping the top of the allowable limit have to be counseled on how dangerous pregnancy could be for them and the baby they will carry?

I guess I'm just having trouble accepting that I might be considered high risk. I really am getting older and really have been pregnant alot. I know that. It is just so hard for me to accept that this part of my life is coming to an end. Part of me would really like to just walk away right now and have it be over. I am not emotional. I am not attached to any IPs. My body is finally mine again. I have escaped from the surrogacy world with my heart intact, my body mostly intact, and my soul quieted. Why should I jump back in again and risk getting a bad set of IFs or a bad outcome or a horrible complication? I would really like to talk to these local IFs but I don't feel ready for the rest of this process yet. I just want more time to be me and to decide if this is what I really want. So what does that mean? I don't know.

Why do I feel like I'm cheating?

So it happenend like this:

I was reading on SMO the other day and someone mentioned all the crazy classifieds that were out there. So I clicked over to the classifieds and read a bit (note: I must be crazy because none of the ads sounded crazy to me.) (note: Incorrect grammar is a big turn off. Whether you are hoping to grow someones child or you are an intended parent hoping to attract a great surrogate...bad grammer is a huge no-no). Anywho, I got to the Circle ads and saw one for some IFs in MO. I was shocked and intrigued. So then I flip over to facebook and just casually mention that I was intrigued by Circle's listing for two MO IFs. The next day, literally the next day, Circle calls me to ask if I would be interested in talking to the MO IFs.

Whoa nelly. I have just reached the point where I might casually entertain the idea of another surrogacy. My body is finally starting to look like my body again instead of the body of a beluga whale. My hormones are settled. No one at work has called me a money grubbing whore or asked me if I was going to do another surrogacy to finance a new roof for at least a week. In short, life is calm. Peaceful. Or as calm and peaceful as life gets with five kids.

But sure, I will talk to the guys. Hold the phone says Circle. You have to fill out all the paperwork again before you can talk to the guys. Consent for a background check. Consent for medical records. Consent for them to pick through your garbage. Hmmm. I get that there are procedures, but come on people. I have carried five babies for you now. I have experienced international surrogacy, single father surrogacy, bedrest, reduction, twins, quadruplets. For heaven's sake...I just delivered a baby for you 3 months ago. I seriously doubt much has changed in my life. I have been signed with you guys for 6 years. But ok. Probe away. I am who I am and I'm pretty sure they know who I am.

So that is where we are now. Just yesterday I broached the subject with my long-suffering husband. He rolled his eyes, muttered, "I knew it" and said go ahead. He was my last roadblock. But I find myself in no hurry. I feel like even thinking of another set of IF's is somehow betraying my Swedish guys. I know that my role in their life is over...or I try to tell myself that it is. My job is done. But we still text weekly and I just got new pictures in the mail TODAY.

So to those surrogates out there that matched again after a perfect surrogacy (or two)...how did you do it without feeling like you were betraying your last set of parents?

Let's start at the very beginning

Or rather let's not.

I'd really rather not.

And yet I have to.

You get no points for previous experience.

So yeah....let's start at the very beginning.