Revealing Our Journey

It has been a few weeks since our last posting and I have been so anxious to give you all some updates. Unfortunately life has not been the easiest to work around and finding time to fit in some writing has been difficult. Ben and I have been searching for the perfect home to buy and have nervously been awaiting a call back on an offer we have made. I had been planning a surprise 30th birthday party for him all month and finally I pulled it off without him knowing thanks to an enormous amount of help from my close friends and family. I began classes for this fall semester last week and our son David started school today. Whew! If that wasn't enough, I had the worst UTI ever for over a week and I finally went to the doctor to get some antibiotics. THANK GOODNESS! Of course now that I start feeling better Ava is not and she had a horrible vomiting experience a few nights back. Glad to say that her sickness only lasted 12 hours and the entire family is back to normal and healthy.

Our next huge step was to discuss this surrogacy experience with our son David. I have been ridiculously nervous and have been rambling thoughts back and forth (on paper of course). Those who know me personal, know that I am religious when it comes to writing a crazy amount of notes down. It is my way of staying organized and it has gotten my this far so I see no need to change it. Due to our mixed matched schedules Ben and I were not able to talk to David together about surrogacy. I think it is neat that David gets to individually speak to both of us and see how we both feel separately first then we will bring the conversation up as a family. We went into this wanting to do it in pieces so that we don't overwhelm him with too many thoughts but also wanted to keep it as simple as possible.

Here goes everything....

This past Sunday morning David and I were watching Jon and Kate Plus Eight on Netflix. As we were watching all the kids interact with one another David randomly asks "where does the egg come from?" I was completely thrown off guard so I replied with a question, "Where does what egg come from?" He says, "The egg that makes all the babies". Perfect! I was waiting for the right timing and here it was. I paused the show and asked David if he knew where babies came from. This is such a touchy subject I imagine with every family and I wanted to make sure that it was appropriate for his age being only 6 1/2. David told me that babies come from an egg and a mommy's belly. Okay, this is a great start! I explained to David that mommy's have eggs and daddy's have sperm. When the eggs and sperm are mixed they form into a baby right inside a moms belly. He thought for a slight second and had no more questions about how a baby was made, which I was thankful for because it could start getting awkward with him wondering how the sperm gets to the egg ya know?! He looked as if he was soaking in the information and that he would accept the response I gave.

David 

 

 

After I got what I thought would be the hardest part out of the way I talked to David about what makes a family. He said "a mom, a dad, and kids make a family."  Cute! We began discussing how there are many ways to make families and I asked if he would like to know the different ways. He was interested so I explained the traditional way which we just discussed and next would be adoption. I asked him if he knew what that meant and he surprised me replying "when a mom and dad can't take care of a baby another mom and dad adopt them." Not too shabby little man! I explained that not every situation of adoption is the same but he knew as much as he needed to know at this point.

 

I was getting pretty nervous because next on our list to talk about was surrogacy. He seemed to still be interested but he was beginning to get distracted so I needed to make this quick and simple. I told David that another way to have a family is through surrogacy. Right after I said that, he felt the need to say the word surrogacy a couple times, must be that it sounded neat to him. I told him that some mommy's have broken bellies and are not able to carry babies inside. He asked how bellies can be broken and answered his own question all in the same sentence, "OH because their baby bones don't work right?" All I could do was smile because it is so darling how he says things sometimes. I told him, "Exactly!" Except I referred to them as baby parts rather than baby bones.

 

David seemed to be pretty distracted, showing signs of boredom,  so I needed to give him something to be excited about. I started talking about laboratory's and instant excitement came from him. He started talking about scientists and doctors so I just went with it as this is a long conversation to keep a 6 year old interested in. I told him that sometimes when a mommy has a broken belly they go to a doctor in a laboratory and the doctor takes the mommy's eggs out and puts them in a lab dish. Okay, he is real interested now! Then the doctor mixes the egg from the mommy and the sperm from the daddy all together. I told him that some mommy's who have great working bellies are able to help carry other mommy's babies that don't have great working bellies. I believe an eyebrow raised at this statement. "How?", he asked. I said, "After the doctor mixes the egg and sperm in the lab he puts them into another mommy's belly so that she can keep the baby safe". He wanted to know how the doctor got the embryo into the other mommy's belly but before I panicked with thought he tried to answer his own question, "Oh they go into surgery and have to wear a mask?" I know, not exactly the right answer but I let him go with that and stuck with it.

 

Finally we were having this conversation and it seemed to be running better than I thought it would. I just had to come out and ask David what he would think if I carried another families baby for them. He said, "you don't have a broken tummy because you had Ava". I told him, "that's right", and that if we were a surrogate family for another mom and dad, the baby would not be our baby and it would not be his sibling. He said the cutest thing in the whole world, "No, the baby would just be my friend".

AWWWW!

 

We have one picture of E and A via e-mail and I asked him if he would like to see who the parents of the baby would be. I told them their names, where they lived, what they did for a living, and how they could not have a baby without our help. He was excited! I again told him that we would not be taking the baby home with us in the end. I explained that we were going to help them have a baby of their own and give their baby a safe place to live until the baby was ready to go home with E and A. He  said in the most mature way, "Yep!, They will come to the hospital with us and be in the room but some people don't want to watch the baby come out so that's okay". HAHAHA! You never seize to amaze me David! Right again, we both agreed that the best way to describe what we were doing is babysitting. He kept saying that we would be the baby's sitters. I told him that this is something very special and that we are happy to be apart of it. I asked him how he was feeling about all this information and he said that he didn't know but with time I know this can turn into an amazing thing for all of us. Ultimately he needs a little time to absorb what I just told him and it always takes time when you are taken from your everyday norms into something a little different. I expect him to be a little scared or to have questions and we will do everything we can to include and comfort him.

 

We have decided to let David choose the nickname for the baby or how we refer to the baby on a daily basis and in our blogs. So far his ideas are jones or sassy. hehehehe. Any ideas are welcome so that we can throw them out their for the little man to think about. Not so sure about calling the baby sassy throughout the experience. tehehehe.

 

Ah, it is a sigh of relief to finally tell our David story and we are so thankful for all the love and support that so many of you give on a daily basis. To recap where we are on the medical stand point, I am still on prenatal pills and birth control but will be starting Lupron injections in exactly one week! In a way I am super excited yet on the other hand a little nervous about the shots. I've heard these aren't bad what so ever compared to the later injections I have to take so I can be thankful for that. Since I start actual fertility meds soon we have to get our legal side of things finalized and I am getting super nervous about that because we have yet to hear from our lawyer. I am not able to begin any fertility meds until our contracts are finished so if we are not done with them by September 11th it will push back our transfer date. Fingers crossed that things will all work out this week and I will post on any updates.

 

Good Night Friends!