What have you done to make a surrogate pregnancy feel more real? Our dear Surrogate lives on the other side of the country so physical contact isn't much of an option.
Thoughts?
Monday, August 5, 2013
Sort of...
We are, God-willing, fifteen weeks today. Or rather, I am nothing, but our dear Surrogate is fifteen weeks and feeling well, thank God.
I am more grateful than I can possibly express that things have been going well. This is a precious tiny hope.
But I am not excited. I am terrified. I am tense. I wonder when the ticking time bomb will explode. I wonder if I could withstand it. I have friends and cousins who are pregnant, with similar due dates. Where they are excited I am scared what the next day will bring. Two years since losing Peanut I miss him just the same, and feel the same numb disbelief and longing and hurt I did on 19 August 2011 when they told me I had to terminate a pregnancy with a beating heart.
And then there is that feeling of being a fake mommy-to-be. I know pregnancy doesn't make the mother, and I am grateful not to be part of the conversation about nausea and constipation and bloating and heartburn...But at the same time I feel like an outsider, or perhaps a junior member of the club who will never have a full-fledged card, or maybe someone peering in a window to somebody else's party.
But please don't think I am complaining when science is working a wonder. I mean it when I say I am so very grateful. I am however confused, and worried, and trying to sort out the feelings of being "sort of" pregnant.
Other people will announce their pregnancies. There will be Facebook posts, and discussion at work. But I am telling only my closest friends, and I weigh each one carefully. I am telling about twenty people outside of my immediate family (and Mim's "immediate" family includes grandparents and aunts/uncles) and that's it. And those twenty include my program coordinator and the scheduling coordinator, and the program director of my future fellowship, who obviously need to know.
Of course, keeping a big secret is easier without a big bump :o)
On an entertaining note, I ended up visiting the emergency dept. Saturday night after a needlestick injury where the patient on whom I drew the arterial blood gas was hepatitis C positive (but with a virla load of only 14,000, thankfully!). Of course one of the nurses asked if I could be pregnant. (She obviously didn't know about Turner's Syndrome.) I told her I am pretty sure that requires functional ovarian tissue!
Of course, the fact that one of the ED docs who I know assessed me for the needlestick injury makes me feel all sorts of weird about her knowing I have TS. I am not ashamed of it. But it is sort of private health information and a bit of a bigger deal than the HTN and hypothyroidism which I readily disclose to anyone.
TS sisters, what's your disclosure policy? Whom do you tell? Or if you don't have TS, who would you tell if you did?
I am more grateful than I can possibly express that things have been going well. This is a precious tiny hope.
But I am not excited. I am terrified. I am tense. I wonder when the ticking time bomb will explode. I wonder if I could withstand it. I have friends and cousins who are pregnant, with similar due dates. Where they are excited I am scared what the next day will bring. Two years since losing Peanut I miss him just the same, and feel the same numb disbelief and longing and hurt I did on 19 August 2011 when they told me I had to terminate a pregnancy with a beating heart.
And then there is that feeling of being a fake mommy-to-be. I know pregnancy doesn't make the mother, and I am grateful not to be part of the conversation about nausea and constipation and bloating and heartburn...But at the same time I feel like an outsider, or perhaps a junior member of the club who will never have a full-fledged card, or maybe someone peering in a window to somebody else's party.
But please don't think I am complaining when science is working a wonder. I mean it when I say I am so very grateful. I am however confused, and worried, and trying to sort out the feelings of being "sort of" pregnant.
Other people will announce their pregnancies. There will be Facebook posts, and discussion at work. But I am telling only my closest friends, and I weigh each one carefully. I am telling about twenty people outside of my immediate family (and Mim's "immediate" family includes grandparents and aunts/uncles) and that's it. And those twenty include my program coordinator and the scheduling coordinator, and the program director of my future fellowship, who obviously need to know.
Of course, keeping a big secret is easier without a big bump :o)
On an entertaining note, I ended up visiting the emergency dept. Saturday night after a needlestick injury where the patient on whom I drew the arterial blood gas was hepatitis C positive (but with a virla load of only 14,000, thankfully!). Of course one of the nurses asked if I could be pregnant. (She obviously didn't know about Turner's Syndrome.) I told her I am pretty sure that requires functional ovarian tissue!
Of course, the fact that one of the ED docs who I know assessed me for the needlestick injury makes me feel all sorts of weird about her knowing I have TS. I am not ashamed of it. But it is sort of private health information and a bit of a bigger deal than the HTN and hypothyroidism which I readily disclose to anyone.
TS sisters, what's your disclosure policy? Whom do you tell? Or if you don't have TS, who would you tell if you did?
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