15 weeks and a big scare

Hi all! I hope this finds you all having (or had) a fabulous and safe Halloween and hopefully your kids are not too Candy wasted. I am feeling great today, 15 weeks pregnant today, but these little surro twins gave me quite the scare yesterday. 

This might have a little TMI so for the squimmish please turn away now - I will sum it up for you at the end..

I was at work and standing at the copier and I felt th

at little tell tale “trickle” you feel when your monthly friend makes her visit. I thought it was odd but didn’t think anything of it. I am in my second trimester after all, no cramps, it must just be discharge or my imagination. I went about my work and about 15 mins later I made one of my many trips to the bathroom. As I pulled my pants down I just stared at this quarter sized blood stain (on my favorite white panties.. of course) it took me a while to register and then my heart started pouding, and as soon as I sat down a huge gush of blood came out. Im not talking a little spotting, I’m talking BIG time gush of blood. I panicked. I stuffed a bunch of toilet paper in my pants and with tears streaming down my face and my whole body shaking I ran to the other side of the office where my mom works and because she was on the phone I mouthed “Im bleeding…like a lot!” and she immediately hung up the phone and I called my doctor. We rushed to the doctors office as fast as we could. The entire 20 mins drive I just kept thinking about how much blood there was and how I was sure I lost one or both of these precious babies. I was shaking and crying and making all sorts of deals with the man upstairs; “please let these babies be okay, I promise I will never sneak a morning half-caf cup of coffee any more, I promise I wont complain about how big my belly is, I promise I will eat better…please please just let them be okay” 

 The one gem I was holding onto was that I was not cramping at all. I text Hunnie and a best friend and they kept me positive even though I was thinking the worst. We got to the doctors and they rushed me into a room and the Doctor came in shortly after. She immediately checked my cervix – Closed, hard and high. That alone was a huge relief, no one was vacating just yet. Then she checked on the babies via ultrasound, before we could see a heart beat we could see both sacks with a wriggly baby in each, we soon hear both their strong heartbeats. I cried again in relief. I was so happy they were okay, I was so happy I did not have to tell (S) and (T) that I lost one of their children, I was just so happy! 

But the next question was, why the heck was there a very large amount of blood? There was no definite answer, as in most pregnancies, sometimes bleeding occurs and as I have been researching, it seems to happen often with twin IVF pregnancies. The doctor explained that it could have been a blot clot created by the IVF process and with the growing babies the placentas shift and settle and that can often push the clot out. Another explanation was a uterine hemorrhage which is where a hematoma builds in the uterus and can often go un noticed as it grows, if it goes un noticed for too long it can cause a placental abruption causing pre-term labor, which this early in the pregnancy means no more baby. So if it was the latter of the two it was good that my body dispelled it before it could harm the twins. Thankfully it seems it was just that initial gush of blood and it stopped right after. 
 Either way it was a very scary experience, one I hope never happens again. I emailed (S) and (T) to let them know. I really was not sure how they would react as they still seem a bit distant. But (T) wrote me back with kind words and she told me to call her anytime I wanted to talk, she also text me this morning asking how I was and we had a brief conversation. 

 Today I am feeling normal, I am still taking it very easy, and I’m a bit paranoid but like I said, the babies are doing great and I don’t need a blood transfusion (my doctor briefly touched on that as it has happened with other twin pregnancies she knows of, yikes) and that’s all we can ask for. Work has been amazing. I have such a great boss, co-workers who are so understanding and were genuinely worried about me and the babies yesterday. Even the CEO came in today on his birthday to give me a big hug and kiss on the cheek, asking how I was and to take it easy. I have also known him for about 10 years, idk if he would have done that if I wasn’t like a niece to him lol. I hope you all have a fantastic Halloween tonight! Xoxo

**For the squimish - some pregnancy stuff happened, it was not cool, but the babies and I are okay in the end. the end :)**  

Now please enjoy this picture of my big ol' 15 week twin belly! 

  

Second Trimester

Here we are, two days shy of 12 weeks. I can’t believe we are approaching into our 2nd trimester already. So far pregnancy has been good to me as it has my other two pregnancies. Mostly good days sprinkled with a couple headaches and sick spells. I am gaining back my energy and appetite which is great -I missed my energy, and with a new full time job and two kiddos to chase after that energy is greatly needed! The babies are very healthy and in the last ultrasound they are starting to resemble real babies –not the alien blob like things that they used to look like. I often find myself sitting back and thinking “omg there are TWO in there!” and thinking about the next few months and what it will be like to have a belly times two, kicking times two, stretch marks times 2 and then giving birth times two!? I am not scared at all, it’s more of an exciting fascination and wonder of what it will be like. (S) (T) and their family and friends are very excited for twins and anxious to find out the sex of the babies. Last month was an interesting month in regards to my relationship with them. I felt as if they were becoming distant, not responding to emails and when they did, respond they hinted through a few answers to questions that I had as if they did not want to be as involved as I originally thought. I was disheartened in thinking they thought of this as more of a business transaction rather than a budding friendship and journey that we are all on together. I was a little angry but mostly sad. I think I felt lonely, I am not doing this for myself, my partner, my family, I am doing this for them, to give them the gift that I get to come home to everyday. So when they took a step back from me, It seemed like it left an open space or hole. Never once did I regret becoming their surrogate. I am very proud of what I am doing and very excited to be able to do this for them. I decided to be okay with what they wanted out of our relationship. This is their life, their baby after all and I completely respect them. Everyone has different wants and needs out of life and maybe I was too pushy for a ‘bonding’ experience with them. So I backed off my IPs, giving them the space I felt they needed. I blubbered the issue to my surrogate friends and they picked me right back up and supported me. I seriously love those gals, there is such a kinship among us as this is a difficult journey to explain to anyone else but another surrogate who gets the beauty, the feelings, emotions and sometimes the drama that comes along with this. So a few weeks went by with little to no contact, and then out of the blue this week (T) has completely opened up and we have been emailing every day, talking about baby gear, gender, my kids etc. It has been great, back to what it was before when we all first met. Before I was fully on board to be a surrogate I researched a lot, and one of the things I came across often was articles about intended mothers becoming jealous of the surrogate who is able to become pregnant, able to care for, feel and enjoy the intended mothers child while pregnant. I can’t imagine the heartache and conflict that could cause in a woman. The more I think about it I am wondering if maybe she was experiencing some of that surrogate jealousy and needed time to sort through her feelings. If that’s the case, I feel bad for every feeling angry at their need for separation. I can only imagine how much pain infertility has caused her, and though she will have her darling babies in 6 short months, I can understand the confusion and difficulty hearing and seeing another woman who is blabbing about how great the babies are doing, seeing her belly grow, wishing that she would be the first to feel her babies move. I commend her (if this was the case, I could be totally off) sorting out her feelings and I am sure it takes a lot of pride sucking to get over something like that. I am very happy with our communication and I am going to read up and make sure that I am more empathetic to her and know that at times this might be a rough for her. Regardless, this has been such a great journey. I saw someone post this on facebook the other day and I could not reign more true to me than it does right now. “By becoming the answer to someone's prayer, we often find the answers to our own.”