When I first got into surrogacy, I thought I would embark on as many journeys as I could. I wanted to help families until my body said STOP! (Don’t worry she sure did tell me no more after this second journey!) After the first surrogacy journey, I told myself and the “world” that I wouldn’t do another surrogacy journey after the birth of the first surro baby. But not even 4 months had passed from the birth, I was connecting with another couple to do it all over again. I suppose the need to help others runs deep inside me even when it affects my body and those around me. This time around it was an independent journey, just the parents and myself navigating surrogacy. Because the first journey was so recent, it was fresh in my mind of all the steps we had to accomplish.
Please note this blog contains a few trigger warnings: pregnancy bleeding, very preterm labour & birth and emergency caesarean.
I did a podcast with MomsHamilton talking about surrogacy. Take a listen here.
I also talk about the pressures of taking IVF medication during my first journey here.
This surrogacy journey’s timeline
Embryo transfer with the incredible mom :)
I remember the first journey when I signed up in Sept 2017 I thought that I would be pregnant by that xmas. Turns out patience would be tested, I wouldn’t get pregnant until Sept 2018. So going into the second journey, I thought maybe it would have the same timeline. HA, this time I had met the new couple and had a baby within 10 months.
A taste of what I went through
I / We faced a barrage of game changing experiences all within this pregnancy including but limited to: an early IVF pregnancy during the start of a pandemic, a deep hole of depression that came from the pandemic and the hormones I was injecting daily, a big sub-chorionic hematoma that bled for the first time at 12w 2d and that would bleed more then I ever would imagine for the majority of the pregnancy. Also the parents missed out on attending appointments as I had to go to the majority of prenatal appointments by myself.
Feeling uncertain how long this pregnancy would last because of all the bleeding, I was hesitant to book a birth doula and only looked at each milestone at a week at a time. Thankfully made it to the viability stage of 24 weeks before I decided enough was enough with the bleeding that I went to the hospital to get checked out only to be sent home the same day. The irony would be I would come back less then 24 hours later and end up have a short hospital stay where the baby would arrive at 24w6d via emergency caesarean. This doesn’t even include the turmoil I faced postpartum.
I have had 4 previous pregnancies and births that were walks in the park compared to this last pregnancy & birth.
My oldest helping with injections.
Plans gone awry
Going into this surrogacy journey, I had a plan to keep me going. I was going to work on my business, stay busy with awesome clients, take care of my mental health by regularly see a counsellor and stay connected with my circle of friends. I knew how crappy the first trimester of IVF was for me. COVID and pregnancy complications took all of those plans away. I became a shut in and hardly leaving the house, I had to stop working with my clients, my counselling was moved to online and it. was. not. the. same. Also had to stop seeing friends because well….lockdown. I thought those first 12 weeks would be the worst of it. So once I started coming out of the darkness, and starting to feel like a normal citizen again and accepting our COVID restrictions, this pregnancy had other plans in store.
Feeling crushed when we entered into the first lockdown of 2020. I couldn’t get out of the funk I was in :(
The 12 week ultrasound
A close friend was pregnant the same time I was, she was a week ahead of me, unfortunately she lost the babe around the 12 week mark. I remember going to my 12 week ultrasound thinking what if something is wrong and I end up losing the baby. I didn’t have a good feeling going to that appointment. Part of me wanted to go through that loss so I could experience a little bit of the pain that my friend has gone through WAY TOO MANY TIMES before. But how could I truly want the same thing to happen to a baby that wasn’t even mine? I still need to work through those thought processes.
Experiencing what I thought was a loss
That ultrasound appointment happened on a Friday knew I wouldn’t hear anything from my Doctor until the beginning of the next week. I got to see the baby’s heartbeat I left the appointment thinking everything was fine. Not even three days later I would be experiencing what I thought was a miscarriage.
There was so much blood and cramping and because the pregnancy was still so fresh, going to emerge on a Sunday night during a pandemic wouldn’t result in anything other than me having to go through the loss. When I called my Doctor that night, he said we would book a viability ultrasound for the Monday. Because of COVID, I couldn’t bring anyone with me to that U/S and I still hadn’t shared the news with the parents. I didn’t know for sure if I lost the pregnancy or not and I didn’t want to add fear or sadness until I knew for sure that the baby didn’t make it or not.
When this surrogacy journey really rocked my world
During the U/S, the tech told me that the baby still had a heartbeat. I sobbed out of relief. What a cruel thing to go through with all that bleeding and for the baby to still be alive. I had called the parents that night to let them know what had happened. It was then and honestly the first time I had ever done so. Told the parents let’s take this a week at a time, and to set the expectations low to avoid any heart crushing disappointments. I used to look ahead with all my pregnancies, imagining the birth but not this time!
I would continue to bleed for weeks after the initial bleeding episode. It became part of my normal life. Carrying a baby and bleeding. Like how F’ed is that? Blood and pregnancy isn’t a combo that you see in everyday life. While I was not instructed to bed rest, I did limit my movement which led to weight gain. I feared that extra movement would be detrimental to the baby. Trying to live life like normal but struggled with coming to terms with how this pregnancy was unfolding.
The bleeding did stop for a few weeks and I felt relieved that my uterus was happy with this pregnancy. This would be short lived though as I started bleeding again, just like that first big episode but this time I was able to feel fetal movement. The pregnancy still wasn’t viable so it was playing a waiting game. Keep vigilant for those little flutters. I promptly ordered a fetal monitoring kit because I needed to hear that heartbeat with how much blood I was passing. Think menstrual cycle bleeding on the daily.
The last official belly shot I took at around 17 weeks.
This post is getting a wee bit lengthy! Time to wrap this one up and get started on a part 2.
A quick note on how this pregnancy wraps up. I end up having an emergency caesarean at 24w 6d July 2020. As of Jan 2021, baby is at home with their parents thriving!
