My Trusted OB Is Leaving!!!/Learning To Trust Again

We saw our OB doctor yesterday. He checked Alice to see how far she was dilated. He said, “Um.. I’ll give you a 1 if you want”. She’s maybe a 1 on dilation and not effaced at all! What? I thought she would at least be a 3…???

The important one, Baby mamma, said, “I won’t be surprised if I go over, I feel too good!”
Well, as long as she is comfortable and content, then I’m great waiting a little longer. Hopefully, she can stay comfortable until her and baby are ready.

Dr. Draper said he wouldn’t be surprised if she was still pregnant when he got back in town. He also told us that, being selfish, he really hoped that Alice would still be pregnant so he could be there.

Back in town!!! What the hell did that mean? Our OB, kindly let us know that he was going to be leaving out-of-town ON our due date, and wouldn’t be back for nine days. What the hell kind of timing is that!!

My mind started spinning in way too many directions. A lot could happen!…. I needed him there!!!
Having Dr. Draper at the delivery, was of the utmost importance to me!!! It is a MUST!!!

I tried to talk him out of going, but unfortunately, it was work related and he had to go. He reassured me that he would communicate to the OB team all the birth plan details, as well as the legalities of the unique surrogacy situation. He told me that the most important things, was for baby mamma and my baby to be safe, and that they would be under great care.

Nothing he said comforted me at all! I could not believe this was happening. Why is this such a big deal?? I felt frantic!!!

After we left, I was able to talk to Alice about it. She’s such an amazing support for me!
I realized that the desperate feelings of needing him there, was coming from my previous experience with my hysterectomy.
After my hysterectomy, I had a lot of thoughts about whether the doctors did everything they could to save my uterus.
Because I knew Dr. Draper, and I KNEW that he did everything he could to save it, those thoughts were alot less intense and didn’t have the power to completely drown me in my sorrows. I had a great relationship with him during my pregnancy with Destynee, and after that, he continued to be an important source of support for me.

I only had the hysterectomy experience to compare to this experience, and I felt scared that another doctor wouldn’t do everything they could to make this experience great.

Well, once again I could not control the situation and got another opportunity to put my trust in God. I knew that He would handle it, and asked that He would allow whatever was in the best interest for everyone involved to happen.

10 more days!!! Jeeze! I am so READY!!! On the other hand, that would mean Dr. Draper would be there, sweet!!! We’ve been working on this pregnancy since June `09, so what’s one more week or 10 days……We can do this!

Will there be Enough Eggs (Follicles)?

After two weeks of shots, we were ready for our ultrasounds. Alice’s uterus looked amazingly beautiful, as the doctors put it.
My first ultrasound showed only a few eggs (follicles). I didn’t know what to expect, and immediately started stressing. They reassured me, that it looked very normal for the first ultrasound. I went home and tried to imagine more eggs developing in my healthy ovaries.

The next day, I went back hoping for some miraculous change. There was only one more egg:( The doctors seemed a little confused as to why my ovaries were not responding to the medication like they had hoped…..They wanted to give it two more days.

The third ultrasound was about the same, only now the few eggs that were healthy and big, started getting too big. They were nervous that the eggs would die, and there wasn’t enough middle-sized eggs. I had five good eggs, and they didn’t want to wait another day, for fear of losing the ones I had….

It was time to make a decision…..We could either go ahead with the process and risk losing all of the eggs. If none of our embryos survived, we would be completely out of money, and have to come up with about $25,000 again, which meant that the $25,000 that we had to pay up front, would be gone. OR we could stop the process and try again in a few months….

I was devastated! Why weren’t my ovaries producing what the doctors thought they should? I had heard from several sources, that after a partial hysterectomy, I would lose my ovaries within 3 years. It had been almost 3 years!!! Were my ovaries dying? Did that mean I could never have a baby through surrogacy? All this hard work, time, money & engergy spent, for nothing!!!? I knew it! I knew something would be able to stop us from achieving our dreams…..I felt like a failure…It was my fault once again, that we couldn’t have anymore children.

My mind began to find that familiar dark hole. I immediately confronted the doctors with the many questions running through my mind….They reassured me that my ovaries appeared to be very healthy and that having a partial hysterectomy, didn’t necessarily mean that my ovaries would die in 3 years.

I was slightly comforted, but I was still not convinced that there wasn’t something wrong with my ovaries.

First Surrogacy Consultation Appointment

I again became excited at the thought of starting the surrogate process. Our first consultation appointment was June 30, 2009. Me, Gordon, and Alice all were there. The nurse discussed every step in detail. She discussed the financial portion, and seemed to doubt that we could come up with all the money and seemed hesitant to continue the process. It was about $28,000 to start. We had some ideas, but really didn’t know how it was all going to work out. It was too overwhelming to figure out; we had family that we borrowed some of it from, and left the rest to God. We knew that if we were supposed to continue in the surrogate process, God would continue to open up the way.

There were still several steps we had to go through before we could even start the process. We had to have a psychiatric consultation. We had to line up an attorney who knew all the surrogate laws specifically and could write up a contract between the couples involved. We had to be cleared through the courts. And we had to have background checks and full blood work and examinations…..Jeeze!!!!

I couldn’t believe how many people could control whether we could have our own baby. It felt like such a sensitive, personal subject, and EVERYONE had to have their hands in the middle of it. I immediately went to a negative place and again felt very sorry for myself. I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t simply have intimate intercourse with my loving husband and become pregnant in the peaceful, relaxing environment of my own personal space.

The Possibility of Surrogacy/The Beginning

I had settled into the reality of Destynee being our only child. I became less and less affected by my surroundings relating to pregnancy and babies. Although, I would gladly welcome another baby/child, I was very content with what I had.

In the mean time, I had a few people tell me that they would love to have a baby for me, but for whatever reason, it wouldn’t work in their life or they didn’t know if they really could. I felt their love in the gesture, but it was like a closed wound that would re-open each time it was mentioned. The more they talked about how awesome it would be, “IF IT COULD HAPPEN”, and I knew it wasn’t going to, it was as if lemon and salt were being poured into the wound.

My sister, Alice, came to me about 2 years after my hysterectomy, and told me she wanted to be my Surrogate Mother. I could see the seriousness in her eyes, that I had not seen before. It scared the living shit out of me. I told her that she didn’t know what she was talking about, that she needed to think about it in every detail for at least a year, and then maybe we could talk about it…..She probably thought I was a lunatic!!!
And maybe I was???? I wasn’t about to get my hopes up……I was terrified to go back to that obsessive, consuming, dark place again. I was happy right where I was!

She looked at me very understanding and intently, and said, “ok, I will”.

The Conclusion Around Experience with Destynee’s Pregnancy

18 Months So innocent!
2 Years Old What a DOLL!

As the months went by, I became more and more at peace with what life had to offer me. Of course, I had my bad days, but they became more rare and with less intensity each time. I stopped living in the past and future, and started living right here in the present! My heart is full of tremendous happiness with my more than amazing husband, Gordon, and my piece of heaven on earth, Destynee Noel. She has and will continue to teach me all that I need to learn from her. I believe our children have much more to teach us then we could ever imagine teaching them. We just need to listen and be willing to learn from them.
2 1/2 Years Old Destynee & Mommy!
3 Years Old The Love of Our Lives!!!

Ah-ha Moment/A Refreshing Ray of Light

I have a few friends and family that were able to help me realize some very important concepts for me to accept my new life and how to make the best of it.

I had one of those ah-ha moments, that gave me access to the key that could unlock all the possibilities of my new life. I realized all the miracles I was missing. I would like to share how it came about.
Destynee was about nine months old, and had an eye infection that wouldn’t go away. I had her on antibiotics, and changed her pillowcase everyday. I thought that maybe the cause wasn’t being addressed, so I decided to look at the emotional aspect of it. I was discussing it with my Aunt Bonnie. She told me that a bacterial eye infection represented fear of not wanting to look at something.
As I explained my struggle to fully accept Destynee being my only child, she intuitively suggested to me, that my longing for a “baby”, while I already had a baby, confused Destynee. I was continually focused on how to get my next baby, which made her wonder why (or fear that) she wasn’t good enough. She WAS my baby!!!

It broke my heart, when I realized the impact my struggle had on her…..

Aunt Bonnie saying that to me, was like a lightning bolt zapping my brain back to normal….It pulled me out of the gray funk I had been in since my daughter was born….It felt like the last missing piece to my puzzle. It was the exact thing I needed to hear at that moment, and I was ready to hear it.

I realized that I had been missing Destynee’s life and everything that came with it. I was missing all the joys of being a mother, the innocence of my miracle baby, the experience of everything I had been waiting for…I wanted desperately to take back those nine months and do it over again.

For once, I was able to focus on the positive side. I didn’t want to dwell on the past and how I hadn’t been there for her. I had been experiencing that for way too long.

As I looked down at my beautiful daughter, who was teaching me so much and waiting so patiently for me to get it, I was overcome by the pure Love of Christ…. I saw the possibilities of how I was NOW going to enjoy life with my baby. If she was my only child, then I was going to make it a damn good experience for both of us. I felt like a new mother…Like now I knew what I was doing and how I wanted it to look.

From that moment on, I focused on what I had and how grateful I was for it. I was literally able to remove the idea of having more children from my mind. That obsession would haunt me no longer…….PHEWWWWW!

Moments of Acceptance

As time went on, I slowly began to accept pieces of the reality. Everything happens for a reason, right? I started trying to discover why it had happened, in hopes that I could accept it on a deeper level. The process was gruelling and impossible to explain. I would love to feel that anybody could relate to me. Anybody???

Gordon and I discussed other options, like adoption, surrogacy, maybe caring for an unwanted baby of somebody we knew, and then the hardest to accept, the fact that maybe we weren’t suppose to have any more children.

I was determined to learn how to accept this, but I had no idea how to go about it….

Small Quantities of Joy

Although I tried to accept the reality of it all, I continued to be consumed in the darkness that haunted me. I didn’t feel like myself, and I didn’t know how to get me back….

My sweet baby girl brought me alot of joy. I was so grateful to have her. I thought about how it would feel to experience the loss empty-handed, without any children at all…The moment I allowed myself to be lit up by Destynee’s presence and love, I was tragically reminded of how I ruined her life as well. I couldn’t seem to stay on top.

My loving, supportive husband stood by my side like a strong anchor. He continued to reassure me with what I did give our family and all the things I sacrificed to get Destynee here. He never once mention anything negative that had come from it. He always told me how grateful he was that we were both alive and here with him.

Coping/Grieving/Hysterectomy

The first several months of my baby’s life, I was consumed by the grief from the hysterectomy and how I was possibly going to have more children.

There are five stages of grief; denial, anger, bargaining, depression, & acceptance. I went through all of them, and through them and then through them again. It was very difficult, because more than not, I didn’t know what I was going through, I just knew I was struggling.

I told Gordon, “maybe I still have my uterus since I don’t remember them taking it out. Lets see if we can get pregnant. I’m sure I can.”. I struggled with the reality of it.

I was very angry with myself (like I felt responsible for what happened), and with God (that He could take something so special and important to me). I was put to sleep to have a baby, and woke up with my world turned upside down. I never got a choice in the matter. It was not fair, and it didn’t make sense to me.

I had a very hard time being around pregnant women. I would stare and get lost in what I could never experience again…..I found myself bargaining with God, “If I could only change what happened, I would do anything”. I couldn’t make sense of it, because so much happened while I was unconscious. I tried to figure out what I could have done differently.

All I heard from expecting mothers was, “I look so fat” or “this baby is kicking me, it’s so uncomfortable”. Everytime I turned around, I was hearing negative things said about something so beautiful and wonderful. I couldn’t stand it!!!

I knew nobody could fully understand what I was going thru, so it was hard to talk to anybody about it. When I did talk about it, people would say things (trying to help), and completely trigger me. I couldn’t believe the things (called advice), that they were giving me. I didn’t want to talk to anybody, about anything!

I felt completely alone…..

The Crazys/Adjusting & Grieving

Destynee was severely colicky, had acid reflux, still on oxygen (which she hated), and had a very hard time sleeping. I didn’t get to recover in bed with my baby for two weeks, like most moms. I was busy traveling back and forth to the hospital while she was still in. Because of the antibiotics I was on, I threw-up for a month. I didn’t sleep for weeks. While she was in the hospital, I was pumping my nipples inside out every two hours trying to get any milk I could, and when we were home, she cried most nights from the colic. The damn oxygen alarm would go off every time she moved when she was asleep. To put it simply, I still had the crazys.

I was so worried that my baby would have to go back to the hospital and be taken away from me again. It was also around RSV season, so I struggled letting almost anybody hold her. I was a basket-case. I didn’t know how to be a new mother, deal with the crazys, and grieve my loss at the same time. I still struggled with the thoughts of leaving Gordon, so he could find someone better. He reminded me that leaving was not the answer and would not fix anything. He continued to support me in ways that cannot be measured.

I can’t begin to explain how I felt about myself and my life. I didn’t feel like a woman, but I certainly didn’t feel like a man. I didn’t know who or what I was…..My whole life I had wanted only one thing, a big family. I couldn’t see past that. That is all I have ever known…My family and siblings are where my friends and support came from…. And now I could never give my precious angel, Destynee, one of the most important gifts in my life (siblings). I could not see or even dream of my future…. Or Gordon and Destynee’s……I shattered my whole family’s hopes and dreams. I took it all away….I was the defect. It was the biggest burden I had ever experienced. I felt responsible for ruining their lives.