It’s been a while since I’ve written anything. I’ll save you the suspense—it’s because I’m
pregnant and first trimester exhaustion is no frickin’ joke, people.
Mid-January we had the embryo transfer. It just so happened
that the transfer was the week of the craziest snowstorm Portland, Oregon has
seen in the past ten years and in the top ten ever. The transfer was scheduled for Thursday
afternoon, so my family and I decided to leave Wednesday after school, drive
halfway, crash, then finish the trip in the morning. We arrived at my parents’ just in time to
drop off the kids and get to the airport to pick up J & A, whose flight was
delayed, but luckily still arrived.
As we left the airport, I followed my protocol instructions
to empty my bladder, then began consuming my 32oz of water for the
transfer. Like with an ultrasound,
having a full bladder creates more contrast between the uterus and allows for
better imaging of where to place the embryo.
This is of course great for embryo transfer success rates. It is not so great for the woman who has a
full bladder for an hour and a half while she lays on a hospital bed and
someone pokes around her nether regions.
After the procedure, my clinic requires me to wait at least fifteen
minutes before handing me a bed pan, at which point I don’t even care if J
& A and my husband have left the room before I start positioning it and
letting loose. If they’re going to watch
me give birth, they’re going to see a lot worse than me peeing under a sheet,
so why not start mentally preparing them now.
The embryo transfer procedure itself, aside from the full
bladder, is pretty easy and painless. A
catheter is inserted through the cervix into the uterus and positioned at an
optimal spot in the uterus. After checking the surrogate’s and intended
parents’ identities fora third time since arriving, the embryo is brought out
and inserted through the catheter into the uterus. All in all, it takes about fifteen
minutes.
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| One perfect embryo |
J & A came up for the embryo transfer, and I’m so glad
they did. While it’s not a particularly
exciting process, and to some might be extravagant to fly 656 miles for a 15
minute procedure, for a lot of intended parents, it’s important to be
present. During the procedure, I looked
over at J & A, who were anxiously watching the ultrasound screen, teary
eyed, and it just reminded me, one more time, why I’m doing this. Seeing their
excitement about the prospect of being parents makes this whole journey worth
it, and that image is a great highlight reminder as to what this is all about when
I’m getting a shot or throwing up or fall asleep at my desk.
One of the biggest decisions a surrogate and intended
parents will have to make is whether or not to take a home pregnancy test
before the scheduled blood test. Most of
us surrogates have an unhealthy relationship with POAS—pee on a stick—and are
slightly obsessed to the point of POAS multiple times a day, trying to equate
the darkness of a line with a subsequent beta number at the blood draw. For
those of you newbies, home pregnancy tests detect amounts of HCG, or the
pregnancy hormone, in urine. The blood
draw, usually ten days post-transfer, quantifies the HCG with a number. Anything above 50 at that point is considered
viable, and that level should double every 48 hours, thus the reasoning for
three blood tests before doing a fetal ultrasound. One concern is with what is called a
“chemical” pregnancy, where your body recognizes the embryo and begins to
develop the subsequent hormones, including HCG, but the embryo doesn’t fully
implant itself into the uterus. With
this, there is usually a very low initial HCG level, or the level decreases
over the two week period.
J & A told me they would like to do a home test
together. The transfer was on a Thursday
afternoon, and we decided to test the following Wednesday morning. What J & A don’t know is that I’d been
testing for days prior to that. I knew
that they wanted to test together and the idea of having to see their reaction
to a negative test was more than I could handle. If I knew it would be negative, I could cope
and determine how best to move forward.
The pressure of the first couple of weeks after transfer is
immeasurable. Even with the most
supportive and appreciative IPs, there is immense anxiety of a failed transfer
and the disappointment it might cause. I
took the first test Sunday morning. Then
again Sunday evening. Monday
morning. Monday afternoon. Tuesday morning. Tuesday afternoon. Then again Tuesday evening after J & A
texted that they wanted to test together.
Yes, I have a problem, and I spent at least $75 on home pregnancy
tests. There were faint lines, but
nothing like what I saw with my first journey at that time (twins, though, I
kept telling myself—twice the HCG with twins), or my own pregnancies (which I
wasn’t expecting and didn’t test until at least another week in). Even still, by then I felt confident testing
with J & A that morning that we would see something. Early morning urine is supposed to be the
best for testing, as it has not been diluted with your liquid consumption
throughout the day. We made plans to FaceTime
when I got up in the morning.
I texted them when I was up, quick POAS, then dialed. FaceTime connected and I faced the screen to
the home pregnancy test. SLOWLY the line
started to appear, what I could see as a very faint line. But for them, through the phone,
NOTHING. Seeing their faces, trying not
to be disappointed, was exactly why I needed the reassurance of a positive test
before doing this together. I tried and
tried to explain that even if it wasn’t visible on the phone, I could see a
line. They weren’t buying it. We hung up, and I promptly took a picture and
texted them. See! See! I
promise it’s there. It’s light, but it’s
THERE!
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| Like most surrogates, I might have a slight POAS addiction |
So now we’re pregnant.
Top five reasons my husband is not excited about surrogacy:
1.
Sex, or lack thereof. Four days after starting meds, abstinence
begins. Abstinence, for the clinic I
went through, does not just include no penetration, but no sexual activity. At
all. Until confirmation ultrasound nine
weeks later. NINE very long weeks. Being that my husband I both work full time
and have three children, our sex life is not exactly what it used to be. But there is something about being told you
can’t have sex that makes you really really really want to have sex. The first four weeks of meds I was the
horniest I’ve been in years, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. Our sex life reverted back to that of my
early high school days, with lots of hand jobs and blow jobs and a little bit
of dry humping—but not too much to get me too excited, just like in high school
when you’d really get going and then your parents would arrive home and just
like that you were done. After the
confirmation ultrasound, I was released back to normal activity. Thing is, at that point I was six and a half
weeks pregnant and the first trimester exhaustion was more than I could
handle. We had a few good rounds, then a
few weeks of “as long as I don’t have to actually move, sure, we can have
sex.” Through this all, my husband has
been absolutely amazing. Sex is a
significant part of a relationship, and four months of disruption in that area
can put a strain on any relationship.
The bonus is that I usually have a surge in libido second trimester, and
my husband loves me all fat and pregnant.
2.
Perceived weakness of his spouse. My husband experiences significant anxiety,
and one of the things that causes him undue anxiety is when I’m not feeling
well. I haven’t quite pinpointed the
cause of this—the idea of me not being around one day, or the notion that I’m
not really as strong as I appear.
Regardless, he hates it when I’m sick.
It’s not that I particularly enjoy throwing up; it’s just that it really
doesn’t bother me that much. With all
four of my previous pregnancies, I had early morning sickness through at least
twelve weeks. Every morning I wake up,
get in the shower, brush my teeth, and throw up. It just is.
I’ve had some additional nausea with this pregnancy, mostly after 4pm,
often throwing up lunch and sometimes dinner.
On multiple occasions, we’ve been getting ready to eat dinner, or to go
out somewhere, and I’ll stop and say, I’m
just going to go throw up real quick and then we can go. You always feel better after a good
barf. Maybe not so much better that I
can actually eat dinner, but better. And
added benefit to this, especially after four previous pregnancies, is that
every time I throw up, I pee myself. It
doesn’t matter if I just went pee before I started barfing. The bladder is never completely empty, and
the pressure from the force of throwing up always pushes out whatever
remains. A good quarter of my monthly
stipend has gone to the purchase of panty liners and cheap underwear.
The ironic aspect of my nausea is that
babies love crappie food.
Things that I threw up my first trimester:
Lamb Shank
Pastrami and Swiss on rye
Tillamook Cookies and Cream Ice
Cream
Elk Tacos
Salmon Teriyaki
Fifteen dollar Belgian Waffle
Things I
did not throw up:
White
bread
Loaded
cheese fries from the bowling ally
McDonalds
Egg McMuffin
Frosted
Flakes
Frozen
Burrito
Kraft
Mac and Cheese with Hot Dog
Before you start the
your-baby-gets-the-same-nutrition-you-get-you’re-starting-her-eating-habits-right-now
lecture, I fit fruit and veggies in whenever I can, and processed calories are
better than no calories. I put lemon
and mint in my water so I can manage to drink at least eight glasses a day.
I’m used to this sort of diet the first twelve weeks and don’t
mind the opportunity to indulge in McDonald’s now and again. But not being able to keep down ice
cream? I did not sign up for this kind
of nonsense!! One of the top five
reasons I became a surrogate is unlimited guilt-free ice cream. What kind of
devil-baby doesn’t like ice cream? At one point, I texted J & A a jokingly
about not being able to eat ice cream. J
responded “What about a dairy-free popsicle?”
I tell you what, if my husband would have made some sort of asinine
comment like that, he would have been punched in the face.
3.
First trimester exhaustion. There is no tired like first trimester
tired. Except maybe first trimester
tired when you and your husband both work full time and are raising three
children. I did manage to refrain from
falling asleep at my desk (a feat I did not manage when I was pregnant with the
surro-twins). Still, for a good six
weeks I went to bed with my children every night between 7:30 and 8. We ate take out three nights a week, and
pre-made pasta or Costco concoctions two of the other nights because the energy
it takes to cook dinner was just too much.
A couple of those weeks, our weekly housecleaner wasn’t able to come.
Normally I would make up for that myself and spend a couple hours on Saturday
cleaning. Not this time. My husband knows better to complain about a
messy house or crappy dinner—and honestly he doesn’t mind anyway. But the only
time we have alone is that hour or two between the time the kids go to bed and
the time we normally go to bed so for those six weeks, the only way we communicated
was through texts during the work day, usually about who was picking up dinner on
their way home. Like the lack of sex and
watching me be sick, not being able to really spend time together puts an added
strain on your relationship. We’ve had
about two months where we’re more like roommates than we are spouses, and we’re
both looking forward to getting back to normal.
It’s those experiences where I don’t feel bad about being
compensated for being a surrogate. There
are times I question that—I really do.
But on a day where I throw up four times in one day, I can stop and do
the math and think I just earned $25 per
barf! When we normally limit our
take out to once a week, it’s nice to be able to say Just stop at Thai Orchid on your way home, and get me one of everything
because I’m not sure what will stay down tonight. And on week seven of no sexual activity,
I can remind my husband Next month we are
paying off your truck! While the
compensation is only a small fraction of my reasoning for being a surrogate,
it’s one that can get me through my worst days of pregnancy.
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| 14 Weeks |
I’m currently 16 weeks, and seem to have finally moved out
of the first trimester stage—a couple weeks late, I know. My exhaustion has definitely subsided, and
although I go to bed a little earlier than I normally do, it’s more because my
brain is done functioning by 9 o’clock than it is that I’m sleepy. I still dry heave most mornings before I eat,
and maybe once a week dinner comes back up, but I can eat pretty much anything
and drink plain water without gagging. My
belly has popped, and most days I look pregnant, not just fat. My libido is back to normal and I’m actually liking
my husband’s company. I’m hoping for a
good 18 weeks of enjoying pregnancy before I reach the “oh my goodness I can’t
even move what was I thinking” phase.
