Baby Uber's final ride

 Thomas and I went to the hospital at 11 pm. That's when my L&D nurse Ana would be working, and if she wasn't, she'd hand-picked the nurses. It's funny. Any normal given night Thomas and I have to really work on getting to bed at a reasonable hour. But when you know you have to be somewhere at 11 pm, it's a lot harder to stay awake lol. Thomas at the registration desk pretending to sleep.

 

 

Parents arrived and we got situated in our rooms. 

Ana was not only the charge nurse, but also was one of two ladies that helped give me the hormone injections at the beginning and is basically a L&D hero/

You can't really see the shirt but it say "Baby uber" and has a prego lady followed by 2 baby footprints and then two different colored hearts for the parents. On the back it says #surrogate-all designed by Kirsten Gorski.

Once I got garbed up and hooked to to IVs and what not we sat around and talked for probably a good 2 hours. We finally sent them to their room to get some sleep since the next 16 years will probably be filled with very little of that lol.

My epidural was interesting this time around. I could still feel my legs and the contractions but they only felt like the braxton hicks ones. An interesting effect of this one was if I had to lay down my blood pressure tanked and I got super nauseous, tingly, and then almost instantly fell asleep. And weirdly, the anti-nausea stuff they gave me didn't do a thing. (turns out after all was said and done, there was a bunch of moms that night that responded in similar ways to the epidural. So maybe that batch was made differently. Fast forward to finding out she was breach...Dr. was supposed to come at 5 to break my water but didn't show up til 9. Little girl was such a mover that they couldn't keep track of her heart beat even though she was clearly moving. At one point it took a good 15 minutes to find her. When the dr. did come he decided to take an ultrasound. Low and behold....she was breach...

Dr gave me and Thomas a few options. He said we could lay me flat and try aversion to get her back in position. I was not too excited for that given how I'd reacted to laying down so far. Plus there was no guarantee is would work, though he felt fairly certain it would. The other option was to do C-section which we knew was a possibility anyway because she had a higher amount of amniotic fluid. Backing up to a few days before, I'd asked Thomas to give me a blessing and in it it mentioned that if anything went wrong, the drs would know what to do. So with that in mind, I looked the dr straight in the eye and asked him what his gut told him. He said C-section. The only reason I wasn't crazy about it apart from a longer recovery was knowing that my blood pressure would for sure tank on the OR table and I'd get sick and be stuck like that til it was done.

Alas, we told the parents that was the plan of action and we got Thomas and me all garbed up. They had to give me some weirdo medicine shot glass that tasted like spicy sweet tarts. BLEHHGHGH. They wheeled me into the OR and I immediately felt claustrophobic. They laid me all the way down and I was find for about 30 seconds...then it started to come. Tingly arms which they splayed out on either side, wave of nausea, seeing stars..all that jazz. They gave me more numbing medicine and went from my waist down to chest down, making it feel like I couldn't inhale or exhale. Plus they had a blue curtain above my chest and it contributed to the calustrophia. The nausea got to me at least three times and let me tell you...throwing up is bad enough when you're able to do it in a sink of something, but laying down the only place you have is to your side. I'll let you paint the rest of the picture in your head lol.  20-30 minutes we were like this.

I would hear occasional "Man that's a lot of fluid...." But I know I wasn't in any danger cuz they were talking about vacations they had planned and while they were stitching me up, they may have been just tying quilts based on their demeanor hahaha. I was kind of delirious for it but I heard," There's a leg...oh, here comes another leg...oh there's the head...oh and a hand....oh wait...she's hanging on for dear life and doesn't want to let you go....oh there we go...about 15 seconds later I heard the crying. This "star fish" as I refer to her in that moment (and later Dr agreed that's exactly what she was like hahaha) made me feel like Izma from emperor's new groove....No, I wasn't crying tears of joy...all I could think was, too much noise and I quote in Izma. ( Let me clarify, I got to see her about 5 hours later and she is so stinking cute, so no worries...I'm not a monster haha.)

 

 

 Backing up to when I first told our parents that I was going to do surrogacy, their biggest concern was how was I going to give this baby up. Let me tell you....in that moment...nothing has ever been easier, which worked out superbly for her parents who wanted her with every fiber of their being, and rightfully so. (I'm ecstatic for them and humbled I got to do this for them.)

(Full disclosure. That smile was a flat out lie. Thomas took this literally seconds after they finished the c-section. This would be a more accurate depiction of how I was.

 

 

When I was fully back in my right mind I shared my true feelings about certain staff that I'd met along the journey and let's just say the nurses and the dr all broke out in hysterics and agreed with me, and to quote Forest Gump, "And, that's all I have to say bout' that."

 

I got wheeled back to my room and started to feel more and more like me. Now I just had to let the epidural wear off for the next few hours. I was so excited because I've planned for months that I was going to have sushi right away. Well when you give birth, that's true.....when you have a C-section...you have to wait almost 24 hours before eating anything serious just to make sure your intestines and stuff work properly. So Jello, cran-apple juice, and saltines were the delicacy of preference. Although they managed to taste like filet mignon cuz I hadn't eaten since like 10 the night before. 

We got to see my kids and my in laws which was fabulous because they're who I thought of during the terrible awful c-section. It honestly probably would have been just fine if I hadn't reacted so weird to the epidural and my blood pressure didn't cause me so much trouble. 

 

Recovery was going great. We got sleep except for the incessant beeping of monitors and newborns that I could hear down the hall. It was so fun to see the parents with their little lady.  

 

The snafoos started the next morning when I decided to take my anti-anxiety from before the process. Apparently they didn't mix well with the meds they were giving me for recovery and I got a gnarly headache that I'm still treating and nausea that we eventually found a good behind the ear patch for. 

But the not being able to eat real food, plus taking awesome pain killers (which totally gave me a false sense of security on how well I was healing, cuz I didn't feel anything with them.) made for a very rough next 36 hours or so. Vicious cycle of take pain meds but you need to have something in your stomach, but food makes you nauseous, and the stuff they give you make me an absolute zombie. I literally woke up Tuesday to take meds, eat something quick for the meds, and then promptly fell asleep. No one but my nurses heard from me that whole day. 

We finally found the happy medium for meds and food. I was eventually able to get up by myself and make it to the restroom. When I finally checked out I was able to walk myself to the car while holding Thomas's arm. 

The whole experience from when I was accepted by the agency in May to the whirlwind of a 12 year anniversary for Thomas was in many ways like a mission. We saw many miracles. We had some truly scary moments. But overall it was one of the coolest things I've ever been able to do, or will do in my life. 

I couldn't have done it without Thomas. I thought back often about the guys I dated and wondered how cool they would have been with it all...and I think, no one would have been a better partner through this than him. 

I also couldn't have done it emotionally or physically with my dear L&D nurse, Ana. She was there through injections, funny dr office stories, and overall support. I also couldn't have done it without my friend Mary, as she also helped with injections.

I couldn't have done it without the help of my ward family. From meals to babysitting to just checking up on me. 

I'm also grateful for the open-mindedness of my immediate family. 

And most importantly, for the Lord. He helped in ways I know I don't even know about, as is His MO.