Robyn On Surrogacy

You may have noticed that I haven’t posted here is awhile.  Truth is, I’m a big old comment sponge and thus have seemed to spend more time blogging on my ‘home’ site because I get more comments there.  Also, with the pregnancy getting further along, I find that most of my posts at the other site are more and more focused on pregnancy stuff so it feels like I’d just be cutting and pasting to put more here.  If you are curious about said other site, it is http://robynanne.wordpress.com.

Anyway, Yes, things are still going well.  We are 27 weeks and 3 days along and these boys are growing like crazy.  I’m HUGE!  So huge, in fact, that I’m finding the pickings pretty slim in the closet these days for things that I can wear.  I suppose this is a bit of a blessing though as it encourages doing laundry which I don’t like doing because it is so much work.  These days, I’m quite a bit happier sitting still than I am up and moving around too much. 

Something to note.  At this point, I’m starting to get more nervous about the babes and their well being.  Not because of anything in particular, just because of my history and my expectations of feeling them move around more.  Before I could feel them, NOT feeling them wasn’t a specific reason to get anxious.  Now that I can, it bothers me for them to be too quiet at any given time.  I’m trying to find a decent balance of this much like I did with my pregnancy with Asher.  The trouble is that finding an anxiety balance at this point in pregnancy requires accepting that things can go wrong and if they do, that just is how life is.  The recognition that it would SUCK, S_U_C_K, but we would still make it through.  Being pregnant with someone else’s babies makes that hard to really do.  The whole concept of “Yes, I’m responsible for the life of your amazingly precious babies but if they were to not make it we will ultimately find the zen in that being how life works out sometimes.”  Well… that doesn’t fly so well.  All the same, it honestly really IS an important aspect of making it through any pregnancy while still sane.  A little “bad things happen to other people” twist on reality to make each day liveable.  Yep, I’m working on it.

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Our 17 week (16 week, but scheduling worked out at 17 weeks) appointments went well!  The two BOYS are healthy and growing actually a week ahead of schedule on all measurements.  All the other things, placentas, cords, and all that are just how they should be so that is good too.  The boys were super jumpy for the US so that was kinda fun to watch them move around and all that - even if it did make it harder for the US tech to get the shots she wanted.  We were also told that we’d be getting an US every 4-6 weeks to measure baby size so… YAY for that!

The clinic appointment part was pretty typical.  Things are going smoothly, which we are all thankfull for, so there were not many questions.  I had to try to explain my weight obsession with the OB and I’m not really sure why.  I guess I was hoping he’d tell me something magic or like “We expect you to gain about 2-3 pounds every week.”  such that I could stop being so worried about it.  Instead what he basically said was “It’s not such a big deal to gain a lot of weight and you really DO need to gain enough weight.” which, honestly, was less than helpful without the specific definition of ‘enough’ to be, you know, exactly what I’ve been gaining in the previous 17 weeks.  I knew he couldn’t say that though so again, I’m not sure why I even brought it up.

Honestly, when thinking about the weight stuff I have visions of me in that Baby Mama movie.  If you combine the ‘witch’ surrogate with the gay intended parents, you get me, P, and J all sitting in the group surro session.  J says “Well, at first we were a little concerned about Robyn here being a pagan.  We weren’t really sure about what we thought about a witch carrying our baby.” P says “But then she got so fat and we had worse things to think about so we stopped worrying about that.” J says “Unless she put some kind of spell on us… did you put a spell on us?”  Then I, in my goth-tie dye-birkenstock outfit (and I dare you to find that description ANYWHERE else on the internet) would roll my black eye liner encrusted eyes and say “So, has Franken won this damn election yet or what?”

OK, so maybe that would never go quite like that.  Also, maybe it is a good thing we aren’t signed up for any surro group therapy.  I don’t know that I could learn how to put on eye liner like that in time.  In truth, P and J have been nothing but wonderful about this.  They even spent some time at dinner the other night just musing on how amazed they are still that I’m doing this for them.  I get so uncomfortable with that.  I appriciate hearing it, it isn’t that, but I get so worried that I don’t know how to respond correctly.  Specifically, last night, I didn’t respond at all, such was my fear of saying the wrong thing.  In truth, I’m doing it because I want to see them having their dream realized and I want them to be happy.  Short of doing my witch spells, I cannot read their minds and while one assumes that they are, in fact, happy, it is really nice to hear it confirmed.  It sounds really sappy and altruistic and I don’t have such a high opinion of myself so I don’t think I could really be doing it JUST to see them happy.  I’m also doing it because it makes me feel good to know that I can make a dent in the unfairness of the world.  Not a big dent in the grand picture, but a big dent in the personal picture.  But… does it draw back from the goodness if I soak up the praise in a great big “Why yes, yes I am amazing.” attitude?  Of course it does… So I guess that’s how it goes.  I say thank you and look all squirmy and take a big bite of the amazing meal they treated me to for dinner after the appointments.

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(Shamelessly copied from my other site… I’ve started calling the babes Luke and Leia, at least until we know the sexes.)

Even with Leia trying to get away with a possible placenta previa, not to mention a breech presenation at just 12 weeks gestation, we’re going to talk about vaginal childbirth for a moment.  Having gone through said event 4 times in my life,  one would think I was fairly well qualified to do it again.  I do have a question, however. 

Pushing out twins.  Is it different??  I’ve been reading up on twin birth stories and most of the time, no one says anything.  Sometimes, however, a woman will state that it is MUCH different to push out that first twin than it is to birth a singleton.  One woman said that she felt she was only able to push on twin B and thus twin A was just getting the second hand push of force through twin B.  This sounds really horrible for the two of them but since it also sounds really horrible to me to be squashed into claustrophobic confinement with your sibling for 9 months I guess I won’t judge what it is like to be a fetus.  Any of you with multiple birth experiences… is it different to push with twin A?

OK, here is something else.  I was looking up different positions to push from.  I came across this picture:    Now, is it just me, or is it TOTALLY wrong that the woman in this picture looks all pleasant and smiley and as though she’s planting flowers in her garden and not actively evacuating an object the size of the pumpkin we just carved last night through her birth canal?  Really?  Has anyone actually birthed this way?  My memory of the actual moments of crowning and pushing were that it hurt so bad there was searing pain through my entire pelvis and I couldn’t even function enough to wipe snot off my face let alone suspend myself in a pathetic attempt at a chin up while crouching on a tipsy bed matress.  Logically, it makes sense… when you think about it with that casual dorky grin the woman in the picture is wearing.  In reality, in that moment of reality, is it actually possible, let alone an effective and positive way to give birth?  Just in case you aren’t in the ‘twin’ frame of mind, I give you 40 weeks: 

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Well, no US, but we did hear two heart beats.  There are still two little ones growing away in there.  YAY!  It is great to see P and J so excited about it all and it is also a kick to experience first time parenting all over again through their eyes.  We went out after for some shopping and every time we looked at something it was “Ah, but you need TWO.”  Hehe.  I know you don’t really need TWO of everything, but it is still fun to say.  It is interesting to play around with going shopping for this stuff while trying to not put too much bossiness in what you say.  Hopefully they took what I was sharing as advice from someone who’s been there/done that and not so much me just telling them what they should or shouldn’t do.  I do have to say that I’m proud that I didn’t buy any kid stuff for my kids.  It was certainly a temptation but I just don’t have the funds to spend and more importantly, they don’t have the need.

Our next appointment and the level II US will be sometime mid Novemeber.  I’m personally hoping to find out the sex of the babies but we’ll see what P and J decide.  They go back and forth a lot.  I have no advice for them for what THEY should do.  They do know, however, that *I* want to know! LOL!  I’m totally willing to know without telling them.

For now I’m off to the bathroom.  The one place where I don’t have to worry about my pants falling off.  Darn these maternity pants!  I know I’ll appreciate the room when I’m bigger but right now it is just frustrating.  Oh well, it is all good.  Mostly, because we heard to heart beats yesterday.  Also mostly because I only have the shot tonight, tomorrow morning, and tomorrow night and then I’m ALL DONE! 

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Our first actual OB appointment is today!  We’re hoping to hear the heartbeats.  Well, I’m hoping there ARE heartbeats, but honestly if we don’t hear them, we could get an US and I’d prefer to have nice strong heartbeats that we can’t hear and thus we need the US.

We are 11 weeks and 4 days today.  Crazy how fast those early weeks go, I know.  My husband said the other day “So you’ve got what, a few more weeks of these shots left?”  I could get “NO” out fast enough.  No, no, I have Tuesday (today), Wednesday, and Thursday left. 

Yesterday at work one of my coworkers how amazing she thought what I was doing was.  I had told the rest of the group in our morning meeting back on Friday and people were really possitive about it.  Well, I don’t think anyone would say anything if they thought it was wrong, but they MIGHT say things like “Oh I could never give up the baby.”  I’m not real excited about that comment.  What I hear, in undertones, is “I have a more maternal instinct to bond with my babies better and I’m not cold hearted.”  In truth, they probably aren’t thinking what they are saying through a whole lot.  If they really stopped to consider themselves in such a circumstance who knows what they’d do.  Anyway, the reality is that it isn’t the temperature of your heart, that determines your ability to give birth to babies that are not yours and watch them go home with their parents.  It is the way you think about life and genetics and parenthood that allows you to do that.  I happen to have a more scientific mind regarding this.  That would be the difference.  At least, that’s what I think.

Anyway, back to the point, my coworker stopped at my desk to say that she had told the rest of the girls working in her area (not everyone is in that meeting) and she hoped it was fine with me.  (Of course) She was just so touched by it that she had to share.  Now, first, I was thinking Cripes, I HOPE everyone shares this because eventually pregnancy is pretty obvious.  Next though, I was thinking that it was making me really uncomfortable to have someone give me such an extended “I’m so impressed” conversation.  Mostly I think this is human nature.  It also though, makes it harder for me to talk about it at all with other people because it starts to sound like I’m fishing for the praise when I’m not.  If I say “Man I’m so tired, this sucks.” The response is “You are so great for doing this.” Vs the regular pregnancy response “Oh, that is rough.  I had that in pregnancy and I hated it.”  I’d honestly rather hear the second.

Please send up positive thoughts that all is well with our appointment and that we can get another confirmation that both babes are doing well and growing.

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Tomorrow will mark 50 DPO.  50 days past the egg retrieval.  That marks my 100th PIO shot.  Well, that doesn’t count the PIO shots I did in the canceled transfer cycle, and it isn’t counting the lupron shots from either transfer but still, 100 shots.   Fun.  Last night when my husband did the shot he got a needle full of blood after he put it in so he had to take it out and restick me somewhere else.  That’s the first time that’s happened.  I think that I’ve done enough shots in my leg that my body just doesn’t bother hurting anymore.  Other than just a sharp, almost itching feeling from time to time, that ache is just not there.  This is good, but it does make me wonder a little.  My thighs on the outside on each leg where I do the shots are clearly all beat up just to look at them.

How’s this for a search phrase: “Does giving birth to twins hurt?”  I read that and nearly fell out of my chair.  Really?  Seriously?  That’s like, “Does it hurt to accidentally run smack into a tree?”  Not that I’ve ever given birth to twins, and I’m hoping like crazy that I’ll be able to have these two without any Csections, but I’ve given birth to 4 babies all over 8 pounds, 1 of which was over 9 pounds.  That hurt.  I’m pretty sure doing two, one right after the other, hurts too.

Speaking of Csections, I’ve been reading some scary things.  Stats about 60% of twins born via Csection and being required to have an epidural and give birth in an operating room and what not.  I haven’t asked my doc about the operating room, but I did ask about the Csection rate and the epidural.  He said that he does NOT require epidurals and as long as that first baby is positioned head down, he is comfortable with a vaginal delivery.  I’d prefer to not have an IV placed right away but due to my history of group-B pos tests, that’s probably going to happen.  It’ll be interesting to see if I go into labor naturally with these two.  I haven’t with my own babies but it is said that twins like to be born before the 40 weeks so we’ll see.  Now we just have to think ‘head down’ thoughts for baby A.

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Wow, thanks for all the comments!

Do you get the feeling while reading some of them though, that some people don’t realize I won’t be bringing these babies home or caring for them?  I mean, I’ll care ABOUT them, but diapers???  Not so much.  So, just to reiterate… gestational carrier here.  I’m doing the pregnancy, but not the parenting.  That is up to P and J.  Who are, of course, thrilled even though P does keep talking about all the horrors of premature babies and it makes me want to smack him.  Yes, I know, that is what he sees at work.  Still, respect your babies, doomsayer, and stop talking about the worst.  Granted, I come from a specific history with that too and I can say I’ve done the doomsayer pregnancy and it rather sucked and after it was overwith, I felt badly that I didn’t enjoy my 2nd daughter’s pregnancy as much as I owed her to.  That said, I know that I couldn’t have been any different really just as P can’t be any different really so he’ll just have to do what he does.

That, people, was an example of how to NOT stay on the same subject in one paragraph.  Sorry.

I have been rather ill lately, so I’m not sure what has been pregnancy related and what has been illness related.  At the moment I’m sporting a headache that I’m wishing would go away.  I’m also coughing quite a bit but that whole tendon pull thing hurts when I cough so I try to do these little wimpy coughs and, ya, not working.  I really hate this because it puts me on edge a bit, about the pregnancy.  I worry about the babies.  I don’t like doing that so usually I do what I did with Ash’s pregnancy which is just repeat “whatever will be will be and I have no control so stop worrying” but then I feel a little guilty because it feels bad to be so casual about babies being healthy.  A totally different kind of guilt, when they are not actually YOUR babies.  Not more or less from when it was my own baby, but different.  More of an obligatory guilt than a “bad mother” guilt.  All the same, I recognise that it is a requirement of not going insane so the guilt isn’t too bad.  I sometimes find myself wishing that I still had my home dopler though to listen for the heart beats.

We are 8 weeks today!  Only 4 more weeks until we are out of the 1st trimester.  I’m looking forward to that although I’m still a little nervous about ’showing’ at work and having lots of questions about it.

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We have TWINS!!

We got the ultrasound yesterday and found out that we do indeed have twins.  P was acting kinda nervous but to me - eh - it’s not three, right?  It was interesting, they were talking about how seeing the US made it more real and asking if it got me really excited to see them.  I think that’s one of the differences with having gone through this more times.  The first time, I do remember that US and seeing the little baby moving around struck me as being so concrete.  Now though, it was real from the very beginning.  I was happy to see the heartbeats.  I was relieved that they were so healthy.  I was glad to confirm that there were 2 babies.  Was it more real though?  No, not really.  Part of it too though, may be that they aren’t my babies.  The pregnancy is mine, and that is real without the US.  The babies?  Not so much.  I didn’t look at them and imagine staying up all night feeding them or teaching them to walk or anything like that.   That might play into it too.

I am VERY excited about it being twins though.  I wish I could tell everyone I walk past.  “Hi, you don’t know me, but still…. TWINS!”  I’m not sure WHY I’m so excited about it.  I think just the exclusivity of being someone that has carried twins.  I mean, I’m not excited about the more complicated delivery or the higher risks.  I’m not too excited about the higher possibility of bed rest and all that.  It will be very cute to see twins grow up together though - although how much of that I’d see is not really certain.  Ideally, we’d continue our friendship and hang out together and I would see them grow much like I see my friends’ kids grow.  That is what I would like.  

I went in for a second progesterone blood test today.  We’re hoping to get the amount of injected progesterone down as the pregnancy takes hold.  I’m down to 3ccs per day from 4, and after the results come in I’d like to be down to just 2ccs.  Ideally, I’d like to keep being tested to see if I could go down more, but 2ccs per day is where it seems some docs stop until 12 weeks when you stop them totally.  Since we will be 7 weeks on Friday (the date of our first appointment), that means I have a little over 5 weeks left.  Yuck and double yuck.  2ccs is nice, but so far it is still 2 shots per day, 1cc in the AM and 1cc in the PM.  I’ll see if I can do that in just ONE 2cc shot per day, but we will see.

I can really tell that my clothing is getting tight.  I’m hoping to hold out as long as possible before I give up my current wardrobe, however knowing there are TWO means knowing I won’t be able to button all my pants as long.  I’ll have to see when I can get some shopping time with the boys!

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So far, so good. The second beta was more than doubled and we have our cheesy and yet required ‘intro to pregnancy’ appointment coming next Friday. I dreaded this one with my last pregnancy (and even earned some choice comments left on my patient records regarding my attitude, I do believe) but this time it will be fun to watch P and J go through it. I just went in today for a progesterone check to see if we can get me lowered from my frightening double volume of PIO daily doses. Yes, once again, thank you ever so much to my thoughtful RE that said “You can’t ever have too much progesterone.” Dumbass.

In speaking of that, I’d like to link a blog that has touched to my concerns. The part that I agree with, well, I don’t specifically dissagree with any of her blog but I really really agree with this part: The donors and carriers NEED their own doctors in this process. A doctor that follows the donors and carriers and is specifically there to look out for them. A DIFFERENT doctor than the one that is looking out for the intended parents because there is a HUGE conflict of interest there and clearly, OH SO EVER clearly, the whole “do no harm” medical ethics clause is simply not enough to stand by. Here is the link: LINK

This woman’s daughter donated eggs and shortly there after had colon cancer and died. Now, no one is saying specifically that this CAME from the egg donation drugs. They are saying that there has been no research, no statistics, and no watch group out there following these people to SEE if there might be a link. One thing this mother noted was that she wanted the egg broker to follow up with the parents from the children conceived with her daughter’s eggs to notify them of the genetic risk. The egg broker said they could not because all the records were destroyed. My father donated a LOT of sperm and I presumably have half siblings out there in the world. I’ve since found out that he has a huge link to a rather horrifying illness it would be nice if I could contact those half siblings to notify them of this issue but there is no way to do so.

As I type this, I just got an e-mail from my agency. I notified them that I needed more PIO because the RE accidentally put me on double doses and instead of fixing it, just said that it wouldn’t hurt the pregnancy to have more progesterone so he was fine with it. The agency asked if I also needed HCG because apparently this RE’s protocol would also have me taking HCG! I’ve already been tested with HCG through the roof. Why in the WORLD would an RE put someone post transfer with positive betas on HCG? It just supports my theory that this RE is willing to consider my health a very very low second after doing anything it takes to make this pregnancy stick.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I KNOW I’m taking health risks for this. Last October I had a mass removed from my left breast that turned out to be fibrocystic. This is not a big deal BUT it can mean that I’m prone to fibrocystic masses and THAT can mean that I could develop breast cancer more easily. I’ve had a number of female relatives on my mother’s side develop breast cancer. It is not something that I should be playing with. I don’t take BCPs as a contraceptive because of the risks. This RE had me on BCPs before the cycles SIMPLY because he didn’t feel like trusting that I really would cycle when I said I would so he wanted to be sure. He didn’t care about my long term health, he cared about making this IVF procedure work. I’m on hormones now, in fact, so I know I’m increasing the risks. I’m willing to do it for the outcome. What I’m not exactly willing to do is put my life at risk just because, hey, you can’t risk a pregnancy with too MUCH progesterone. And why not toss in some HCG (which I’m not taking, thank goodness) while we’re at it?

It is extremely overdue to start giving donors and carriers their OWN doctors to JUST look out for them. Someone to follow them, to amass statistics like “Hey, a lot of my donors seem to be getting colon cancer, weird.” Someone to stand up for them and say “While a pregnancy cannot have too much progesterone, a grown woman CAN, plus, no one wants to have to give themselves more shots than needed. Let’s NOT flippantly double her PIO doses.”

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I’ve got my first beta back!  At 17 DPO (which I’ve taken to mean ‘day past oil’ is in, ‘days since I’ve started injecting myself with PIO’ because it is exactly the same as ‘days past ovulation’ with the fun difference of being accurate in my life.) I had a result of 1094 for HCG.  Because the average is in the 130-something range at 17 dpo, one starts to get antsy (or, in my case, excited) over the question, twins???  Actually, based on the numbers, twins seems on the low side, but we only transferred two so the odds of identical splitting aren’t super high.  (Although, totally possible, let’s not forget!)  A quick internet search will point out that the HCG level is hardly reliable for knowing how many babies are in there so we just won’t get to know until we get an ultrasound.  That is a very healthy number though so that makes me feel secure in the pregnancy.  Now we wait for tomorrow’s results to make sure the numbers go up like they should.

In sharing this with P and J, P had said something that in my enthusiasm, I’m afraid I brushed off more than I should’ve.  He was expressing how now that the realism of this is hitting him, it is much more frightening than it was before.  Now, this is EXACTLY how most parents-to-be feel so I totally understand and even expect it.  All the same, I wish I’d have taken him more seriously and let him talk about it.  It IS a scary thing - and based on what I know of their lifestyle now, it will be a HUGE change for them. 

Well, we will find out more as time goes on.  In the meantime, for research purposes, feel free to post what your own beta results were!

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