Growing … Excitement, Friendship and a Belly!

*This is the fifth piece in my surrogacy story. Thanks for following along!

The embryo transfer was on May 11 in Miami, and my bloodwork appointment was early in the morning on May 20 in Gainesville.

Nine days of trying to just go about our lives. Nine days of praying (at least 20 times a day) for God to bless this sweet couple with at least one child from the two embryos that were transferred. Nine days of knowing in my gut that I was pregnant but trying to be calm, just in case this time my gut was wrong.

The pregnancy results were sent from the lab to the fertility doctor, and then to me and the bio parents. I waited all day for the phone call from the doctor’s office. The bio mom and I texted back and forth several times to see if either had heard anything. I couldn’t stand it anymore and drove to the Walgreens across from my office to buy a pregnancy test. I wasn’t sure if it would show the correct result so soon after the transfer, but I had to give it a shot.

My hands were shaking and the knot in my throat was growing as I sent a picture of the positive test to the bio mom. We did it! There was a little baby in there!

She called me as soon as she saw the picture and we squealed and laughed and screamed. Probably one of the best phone calls of my life.

Yay! Now What?

I continued several medications and had weekly bloodwork done (through week 16) to check my hormone levels. As my body accepted the pregnancy and the baby grew, the doctor would wean me off the meds and allow my body to take it from there. At this point, I was still under the care of Dr. Akerman in Miami, so in the next five weeks I made two more trips down to Miami for ultrasounds and check-ups. The ultrasounds confirmed there was one baby, not two, but we were overjoyed that one little one “stuck.” The bio parents and Jeff and I were so happy to see that little heartbeat on the monitor. It was so strong and beautiful.

One of the appointments was literally one day of travel. I flew out at 5:30 a.m., went to the appointment and dinner with the bio parents, and flew back at 9:30 p.m. I was still working as a magazine editor and was trying to save some of my precious vacation days for the holidays. The other appointment was on a Friday afternoon, so we made it a mini family vacation. We took the boys to the Miami Zoo on Saturday, visited with the bio family, played in the hotel pool and found some amazing restaurants in Coconut Grove.

At 12 weeks, we had my first appointment with my regular OB-GYN here in Gainesville. The bio parents traveled up to attend the appointment as well. I loved that they were so involved, and we were doing this as a team. And it gave my boys another chance to see who Mommy was helping. I wanted them to feel comfortable around the bio parents and understand what was happening. (Stay tuned for an upcoming post about how we told the boys about the surrogacy, and their reactions.) We fell in love with the bio parents right away, but the visits over these first few months gave us extra opportunities to hang out and get to know each other even more. We soon realized we were making life-long friends–a little bonus for all of us!

Along with my regular bloodwork, the bio parents also requested the test for early gender detection. I thought we would find out the gender a few days after the test, but it was actually two weeks later! When the nurse called with the results, she asked me if I wanted to guess. I have made four awesome little boys with my husband, and felt pretty much the same with this pregnancy, so I guessed it was a boy. Yep! There was another little boy in my tummy! Jeff and I joked that even when it has nothing to do with us, my body still likes to carry boys.

The baby and my belly were getting bigger every day! I made sure to take pictures every 2-3 weeks and share them with the bio family, so they could see how their sweet boy was growing.

I was 16 1/2 weeks along for my little family’s annual back-to-school beach weekend. The nausea was subsiding and my appetite was growing. Woohoo! We had so much fun playing (and relaxing!) on the beach one more time before the school year rush began.

I was a few days past 19 weeks for this belly pic. It was the start of Labor Day weekend and we had a fun few days of Gator football, Gator soccer and grilling out planned. I felt great and the baby was moving and kicking all day (and night) long. Such a happy, wonderful feeling!

We would never have predicted what happened next.

More soon.

Love (and grow) more,

Dana

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