Coaches Entry: Post Delivery

Oh my, where do I start...
Well, my name is Craig. I may have been mentioned before in this blog, or you may know me. If you don't, I am Jenny's lesser half/husband. She suggested that I make an entry in her blog. I'm not sure why because she has seen my level of writing, and as a teacher she has never been impressed.

Now that the introductions are done, I guess I'll start from the beginning and give my perspective. I met Marc during a Light the Night event in Dayton for a mutual friend's daughter who was going through treatments for Leukemia. He was introduced to me by my wife as an old friend who she went to school with, but had moved away before I returned from Florida. He seemed like an alright guy. I met him again briefly during our class reunion/fund raiser for Ally's Army. It seemed that old friendships were rekindled between Marc and Jenny though Facebook. As you may know, Jenny is very thorough when talking to friends and usually digs to know everything about you and your story. (I am often under scrutiny from her when I talk to friends because I seldom ask "important" questions that I feel aren't much of my business.) With that said, she knew everything there was to know about Marc and Michael's journey, including their efforts to become parents. She vaguely told me some of the details from time to time. At some point she told me of their attempts for adoption, and that it did not work out. Not long after this I remember her coming to me and asking my opinion about the possibility of her doing a surrogacy for Marc and Micheal. I said "that sounds okay I guess" and away we went...

During the early stages of the process, I wasn't included in all of the details, but I was kept in the loop enough to be able to say that I knew what was going on. I was finally able to meet Michael at a meet and greet dinner arranged by Jenny and Marc, while they were in town taking care of some of the details at the reproductive clinic. He seemed to be a pretty good guy as well. Apparently a pretty big deal back in L.A. but unfortunately I hadn't heard of him.

I guess one of my first real support roles was placed upon me when Jenny asked if I could go with her to an appointment to see Sally (am extremely nice nurse who works at the clinic, who Jenny has a love/hate relationship with). I think she might have been nervous about the ride home. Much to Jenny's dismay this is where the big 'ol box of needles and meds came to life. If you have read the blog to this point, you know what I'm talking about. Needless to say, Jenny was pretty shaken up and I'm glad I was there because I am not sure she would have been able to get home in one piece. I was not allowed to administer any of these shots even though I was trained by sweet Sally. I'm not sure why. I went for the actual implanting of the fertilized eggs. They decided to implant two eggs because of the normal success rate being less than 50%. Little did they know that Jenny's "uterus of steel" was more than ready for the task. I remember the first ultrasound to check if the implantation had been successful. I think I was the only one not surprised that they both "took". If you put two loaves in that particular oven, you're getting two loaves out!

Things were getting exciting and plans were being made. I was having fun teasing the fellas about things to come (these were going to be girls). Doctor appointments were becoming more frequent and I was much more involved by this point. Now came the time when discussions were had about who would be in the delivery room. Jenny's doctor only would allow one other person besides Jenny due to fact that it was to be done in the O.R. in case an emergency c-section was needed. Jenny wanted that person to be me. She was nervous about telling Marc and Micheal this, but I told her they would surely understand. They did, and all the plans were in place.

Delivery Day:

We were off to a good start and it was exciting to see the "Daddies to be" experience labor for the first time. Although it was fairly uneventful, it can be very interesting the first time. I was enjoying my role as the experienced Daddy showing Marc and Micheal all the gadgets and what nots around the room. I tried to explain things to the best of my knowledge. When I was unable, the labor nurse was happy to answer any questions for us. Side note, Best labor nurse we have had to date. One of the best moments during that time for me was when Dr. Lepi did a "cervical check" without warning and caught the Daddies completly off gaurd. I'll never forget thier faces. They looked traumatized.

It was my daughter's idea to do the live Twitter feed during the procedure. Facebook can get overwhelming when you're getting a million notifications for each comment and like. I think it worked out pretty well and it relieved some of the pressure off of the daddies for having to give constant updates. I really had fun doing it. There were over 4880 views of my account during that day. I gained 109 followers. Be proud #bogobabynation.

Delivery started out fairly normal, apart from being in the O.R. I, as the coach, was given the ever so important task of counting to ten. Thats right ten, not eleven, not twelve. When Jenny started to push I counted, 1 one thousand, 2 one thousand, up until 10 one thousand, let Jenny breathe, push and count, rest, and then again. Three times per contraction. When Kate started to came out, the doctor said she was face up. I knew what this meant because our son Drew made the same entry. So it took some extra pushing, but it wasn't too bad. A quick scramble with the ultrasound to make sure Eliza was still head down and Jenny was off to pushing again, and I was counting again. Poor little Eliza was face up as well and really took some doing to make an apperance. While Jenny was doing just fine on her job, I was a wreck. I kept losing my place, getting nervous, and really not earning my keep. When Eliza finally came out, I was relieved. My poor Jenny was exhuasted, but she made it. I will skip the unpleasantries that follow childbirth and just say it wasn't very comfortable for Jenny.

I was very proud to be a part of Marc and Michael's journey into parenthood. I have no doubts that they will be great parents. They'd better or Jenny will be knocking down thier door. I was/am overwhelmed to see all of the positive support for them.

It was wonderful to have your support and to get so many messages about our part of this journey being moving, amazing, etc. I hope that people who were inspired by our story will go out and do something for someone else. It doesn't need to be giving up space in your uterus. It could be much simpler, like helping the elderly, giving to charity, or donating blood. It's a great feeling to see that something you've done has had a positive impact on someone else's life. Peace.

It's time!!!

The moment we've been waiting for has arrived! The babies will be here today at some point in time! I choose to believe that they will be sweethearts and be here by noon, but I could be wrong. :)

The ultrasound today showed that they are both still head down and in position to make their arrival. We are reporting to Labor and Delivery at 6am and then the magic shall begin. Hopefully, we will have a very smooth and uneventful vaginal delivery. The hubby will be doing live Twitter updates. If you would like to follow along, his twitter is @Nockster1. I'll also have him do some facebook updates.

I should be sleeping right now, but I'm a night owl, and how can I sleep anyway?? I'm having twins today! I can't sleep with that swimming around in my mind. Too much excitement, anxiety, etc. I hope the guys are able to get a good nights rest, because it will be the last one they get for a while. ;)

We were gone most of the day at the doctor and hospital with monitoring, ultrasound, blood tests, and all of that fun stuff, so I didn't see a lot of the facebook comments and messages until late tonight. I gotta tell ya - you guys are AMAZING! You are so supportive, so positive, and always put a smile on my face with your wonderful comments. There is no way to convey what that means to me, and to everyone involved in this process. It really means the world! Thank you, thank you, thank you!! It's also nice to have written proof that I'm wonderful, amazing, inspirational, etc. so that when my husband or kids forget - I can show them and say, "See, all of these people think I'm a peach!" ;)

Speaking of my family, I want to say one more huge thank you to my husband and kids for their support. They are my everything, and I love them more than they will ever know. I am so blessed and so grateful every day to have them in my life. They are the people who inspire me and drive me to be the best possible person I can be.

I also want to thank my Mom and Step-Dad and the rest of my extended family and friends as well as Marc and Michael's family and friends for everything they have done for us, and for putting up with me throughout this process. They've dealt with my anxiety attacks, my whining about needles, they've watched my children, brought my family dinner, given thoughtful gifts and messages, and have just been absolutely wonderful to us. I don't know what I'd do without them.

And thank you Marc and Michael for your friendship and love. It's been a wonderful roller coaster ride, and I look forward to watching you as parents and seeing your girls grow up with your love and guidance, to be the caring and incredible people I know they will be.

I can't wait to share the details of the day with everyone tomorrow, and share pictures of the arrival of Kate and Eliza. It will definitely be a day to remember! <3

The countdown has begun!

Today's doctor appointment went very well. Both girls are head down still. Yay!! They are both a little over 5 pounds and very active. Everything looks good for a vaginal delivery next Friday. :) I can't believe it's almost time to meet Kate and Eliza! I'm excited and nervous - which I'm sure is exactly how Marc and Michael are feeling.

This has been a long journey and it feels strange coming to an end. I find myself picturing the events of the weekend - family and friends coming to see the girls, lots of smiles and happy tears, and then coming home to recover with my family, as the girls go home to bond with their Daddy and Papa and start their new lives as a family. I'm often asked if I'm worried that I'll have trouble with this. Will I miss them? Will I feel emotionally attached? Will it be hard to give birth to them and then watch them leave? I've asked myself these questions at various times both before and throughout the pregnancy to do an emotional well-check and see how I'm feeling. I am a baby person. I LOVE babies! Love, love, love! People know this, so they worry that I'll be too attached. I don't know honestly how I'll feel until I see them, but I know that I feel differently about these girls than I did carrying my own children. Of course, I feel a bond with them - they are living and growing inside me, but they are not my children. They did not come from me or my husband. I decided to enter this journey in order to help 2 friends realize their dream as parents, so that has always been my focus. I've always been excited to send them pictures, to call them after appointments, to share ultrasounds with them, to see their excitement at every stage of the pregnancy. It's a whole different situation than the pregnancies I had with my own children, where I'm shopping for little outfits and picking out names, and talking with my family about who they might look like, etc. It's a different kind of excitement. It's kind of like Christmas, I guess. The thing I love about Christmas isn't getting gifts. I love to get gifts, but that isn't what makes it special. I love Christmas because I love to see the smiles on my kids faces when they open just the thing they wanted and their eyes light up. I love to see someone open a gift you got them that you can tell is just perfect. It's such a great feeling to see that joy and to know that you helped create it. I'm looking forward to seeing that look on the faces of two men who I know I've found the perfect gift for! I'm sure I'll cry that day, and for days afterwards looking back on it. I'm sure I'll cry when they leave to go back to Atlanta. I'm sure I'll miss the girls. I'm sure we will always have a special connection. But I don't see myself being sad. I see myself excited for their family, and I know that we will remain connected. I am also so excited to get back to being an active mom and wife. My family has been so understanding and wonderful throughout this process, and I really look forward to spending time with them and getting back to our wondeful crazy life as it was.

I will tell you what I am nervous and scared about. I'm worried about blood clots, emergency c-sections, complications, and anything and everything that could go wrong. Have you seen this little cartoon:

That's me! So, I'm starting to worry about everything. I'm online too much researching problems. I'm trying to organize things so that if anything would happen to me, my husband would know who to contact about life insurance, and making sure that he and my kids know that I love them more than anything in the world. Yes, I get that anxious. I am trying to work in a little meditation, have talks with myself about being rational, etc. and I'm maintaining balance for now, but I wish I didn't stress so much about things that are out of my control. 

I'm a little stressed too because even though we are set up for a vaginal delivery, it will take place in an OR, just in case an emergency c-section is required. So, that means only one person in the room with me. First of all, that stinks for the guys because I want them both to be in the room when the girls are born. Also, it stinks for me because I want my husband to be there to hold my hand and support me through labor and delivery. It's going to be painful and emotional, and he's good at getting me through that. I'm not looking forward to doing that without him beside me. So, I'm trying to make peace with that, and accept it before next week. 

If you'd like to send your positive thoughts or prayers our way for a healthy and happy delivery, with no complications, and a happily ever after kind of experience, that would be awesome! 

One more update next Thursday before the big day, and then the blog will be filled with more cute baby pictures than you can stand! 

Mission Impossible

The important update info:

The monitoring went well at the hospital today. Heartbeats are strong, and the girls are both very active. Ultrasound showed that they are both head down still, and growing perfectly. :)

This next section of the blog may be TMI for many people - so beware, you may read about things you don't wish to know about if you proceed. I want to give an accurate description of this experience though, so I'm sharing it all:

My OB appointments every week now include a vaginal exam to check the cervix and see if there is any dilation. So, as we ladies know - this means you get naked from the waist down and sit on a roll of paper on the exam table with a big paper towel across your lap, waiting for the doctor to come in. Now, if the doctor is pretty quick getting into the room, no problems, but....if the doctor takes a while, many issues can occur. If there is a camera in that room, let me tell you - the people watching that feed are laughing hysterically each time I'm in there waiting for very long. It starts out fine for a couple of minutes, but then my feet dangling off the end of the exam table start to bother me. My calves and feet are both pretty swollen now, and dangling doesn't help - so I have to pull out that little shelf thing at the end of the table to put my feet up on. Now I'm sitting straight up with my legs in front of me. This is ok for a minute or two, then it's very uncomfortable. So, I decide I need to lay back. Well, the table is flat, so my boobs and gravity pair up and start to keep me from breathing freely and I need to bring the back of the table up a little so I'm laying at an incline. In order to do this, I'm going to need to get off the table and use the little footpedal thing to incline the table. This is a gamble because the doctor could walk in at any minute, and if he does while I'm working the footpedal thing, then my ass is in full view. I decide it's worth risking and I'll hurry. So, I get off the table, but now- stuck to my behind- is the paper I was sitting on, that is now tearing as I get down. So now I have to quickly throw away that paper, pull a new piece down the table from the top, get the footpedal thing fixed to incline the table, and jump back up there. Whew! I made it.
Then, sitting in my purse in the chair across the room, I hear my phone beep- I have a text. I forgot to silence it, which I'm concerned about because that's going to be embarrasing if it rings during my exam, and now I'm a little worried that I need to check the text because it could be one of my kids (anxiety issues). I think to myself, it can wait. Then 5 minutes go by and it beeps again. Another text. Now my anxiety is getting the best of me, and I'm gonna have to make a run for it, hoping that the doctor doesn't come in as I streak across the room. So, I jump down, and guess what happened again? Right...the paper! So, I fix the paper..again. Get my phone and check it quickly, silence it, and get back up on the table. If Caren, Cathy, and Jami (who work at the office) are reading this, I'm sure if there isn't a camera already installed, you are going to get one installed now. ;) Anyway, doc finally arrived, and we are in business. What we women go through...men have no idea!

The mission impossible is this: I have developed hemorrhoids that are pretty bad. I know, you don't want to know this, but I warned you up above. It's part of the experience, so you get to hear about it. Doc tells me that I need to "watch" them to see if they get worse or change in color because they might thrombos, which could cause a blood clot, so it would need to be lanced. This all sounds quite terrible, and I'm hoping that it shrinks and goes away with the meds he gave me to try, but what I find amusing is the fact that I'm to "watch" this for changes. I can't see anything past my stomach! I certainly cannot see that area of my body. I came home and tried using a mirror to check it out. Ummmm, not successful. So...looks like I'm going to have to depend on my loving husband to help with this awful task. How embarassing! Ugh. Oh...the joys of twin pregnancy.

Let's hope next week's visit is much less eventful. :) Two more weeks people, two weeks!!

You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have....the last month of surrogacy

A couple of weeks ago, I was honored to be a guest at the baby shower for Kate and Eliza, organized by Marc's family and friends. It was a very special day. I got to see old friends I haven't seen in quite a while, got to meet new friends, and spent time with people who I feel are like an addition to my family now.

I wasn't surprised to hear thank yous from Marc, Michael, and their family and friends at the shower, because I hear those from them all the time. They send me messages, say wonderful things when they see me, and do kind things for me. I've had desserts delivered to me at school, home cooked meals brought to my house, and at times when I was feeling really frustrated (like the needle crazy days), I would come home to messages in my email or on facebook from someone letting me know they were thinking of me, or wanted to thank me for what I was doing, or even sometimes from someone I didn't know who heard about the surrogacy and wanted to let me know they were inspired by what I was doing. So, I expected that I would feel welcome and have a great time with them at the shower, but not only did I have a great time, I felt so honored and special. I can't even explain how amazing I felt being surrounded by such wonderful people with such genuine love and happiness for Marc and Michael, these beautiful girls who are about to join our lives, and for me. It's such a great feeling to experience that kind of love.

I expected to see beautiful dresses, cute little outfits, lots and lots of pink, soft fuzzy blankets, cute cuddly stuffed animals, and more. I didn't expect to get gifts myself. I didn't expect to be showered with gift cards, handmade treasures, lotions and bubble baths for relaxing, and more. The gifts came from everyone - even people I hadn't met until that day! I hope that they felt my genuine appreciation at the shower for all of the wonderful gifts they gave me- the biggest of all being their kindness. I'm so excited to use the gift cards for massage, mani/pedi, books, restaurants, and visa cards for whatever treat I'd like- plus the bath and body products to relax with, the beautiful homemade items like the gorgeous blanket Marc's aunt Cheryl made me, the adorable peace sign decoration my friend Nikki made, and the wonderful pictures that Marc's cousin Malarie took of us all together. But, most of all, what I will cherish and remember the most are the cards with words that I could hardly read through my tears because they touched my heart so much, and the beautiful things people said to me as they came up and hugged me that day. I will never forget the way they made me feel. It's hard to even put into words how much it meant to me.

It warms my heart to see so much support for these men who are about to become Daddy and Papa here in a few short weeks. To see the excitement people have for them is just incredible. It's a testament to the reason why I felt compelled to go on this journey with them. These people know exactly what I know. They know that these men will be wonderful parents, that they deserve to be blessed with children, and that these children deserve to be blessed with them.

Alright, I know that was all mushy mush, but that was the good part of this journey. So now you get to hear the dirt on the "bad" that has hit during this last month of the pregnancy. I can sum it up pretty simply. Swollen feet, hemroids, varicose veins, hospital visits twice a week hooked up to monitors, doctor visits weekly always with cervical checks (men, I know you aren't aware, but this isn't a pleasant experience), Two 5 pound babies wiggling-jiggling-kicking-pushing at all hours, exhaustion, walking at the pace that my daughter describes as "a snail on slow juice", sore and leaky boobs, hearing my child's disappointed voice when it's nice out and Mommy just doesn't have the energy to go out and play right now, and the choice every morning between 3 outifts that actually still fit. So, that's the complaint section. I kept it to one small paragraph anyway. :)

I'll wrap up the post with good news! The babies are both head down, and we are hoping they stay that way so that no C-section is needed! They are both healthy, growing exactly as they should, passing all of their tests with flying colors, and ready to wrap their Daddy and Papa around their little fingers. They will be making their appearance in approximately 3 weeks!!! I'll try to do a post each Thursday from here on out after my doctor visit to keep everyone informed of what's going on, and how close we are to what everyone really wants to see - Pictures of adorable little girls! :)