Surrogacy 3.0

When last we left our heroine, she was on sabbatical from surrogacy, recovering from a year on meds, and healing from a bit of heartbreak.

Enough of the third person.

As some of you know, I've spent the past few months matching with and going through the lovely contract process with new intended fathers, Dave and Jimmy. As of last weekend, we are officially ready to proceed with our babymaking journey. Actually, as of this evening, I'm officially on meds! I've never done lupron before, so this should be interesting.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. I wanted to tell you the story of last weekend, when my whole family (me, Luke, the kids) flew to Connecticut to meet our IFs in person, Jimmy for the first time (we met Dave shortly after matching because he happened to be in Chicago on business), to do medical screening (which felt almost incidental to the weekend), and to bond.

This was the kids' first trip on an airplane. The ride was short (about 2 hours), and they were champs, depsite Quentin's fears about the dangers of flying. Once we touched down at LaGuardia, he was a convert. "Flying's actually quite fun!" said he.

It was very late when we arrived at Dave & Jimmy's house on Thursday night, so everyone just kind of crashed. Friday morning was all about screening. The kids got to eat gluten-free cereal for breakfast (The guys stocked up on GF treats just for Q), and we drove to New Haven to see Dr. Doyle. I was very impressed with him and his bedside manner. He seems quite confident that we can make this happen. If all goes well, we'll be transferring two awesome fresh embryos by the first of September. Fingers crossed! The protocol for medications will be very different from what I did with my previous surrogacies - there's just never a dull moment and I never stop learning! I will spare you the pictures of my hysteroscopy, but I *did* take a picture of the printout of my uterus - oh come on, tell me you're suprised.

We were all very tired after our late night and busy morning, so on Friday afternoon we went back to the house and everyone but me napped. Jude took some time to become a member of the pack first, though.

I was silly and stayed up to read. It was actually just what my introverted heart needed to be ready for the rest of the weekend. That evening, we went out to dinner at a local pizza place that served fantastic GF pizza. Jude was pretty hyped up, and spent most of the time we were waiting for food running up and down a set of steps in the alley, swinging on the railing, and being generally Jude.

Saturday we drove to Mystic Harbor for a sailboat ride, which was amazing, even with the rain during the second half. Quentin got to "drive" the boat, and refused to abandon his post, even in the rain. He did, however, make me find him a poncho.

I took a lot of pictures on the boat. I think I need to find somewhere else to upload them, though. ;)

After the boat ride, we took a walk in downtown Mystic, and Jimmy pointed out Mystic Pizza to us, setting and title to a Julia Roberts movie, apparently. We walked across a drawbridge, shopped for toys, and got ice cream and floats in a little local ice cream shoppe.

Throughout the weekend we also played some games (Quentin became obsessed with this puzzle game, whose name I can't remember and should because he wants one for his birthday now), did some crafts, and a ton of chatting and hanging out and bonding. The six of us couldn't fit into one car, so the kids' seats were in Dave's car and Luke and I took turns switching off between that car and Jimmy's. It gave us each a chance to chat and bond and get to know the guys in our own ways, and it was really great. It turns out they are the same sort of interesting mix of irreverently silly extroversion and deep and meaningful introversion as I am. We learned about their families, they asked us advice on parenting, and I think we all understood that this is going to be amazing, and we'll be in each others' lives forever.

One thing about surrogacy that I had heard but had to experience for myself. New intended parents are like a new baby in the family. And if you have more than one child, you probably know where I'm going with this. When you are about to have a new baby, you think, "How? How can I ever love this child as much as I love my first? How can there be enough love in the world for that?" And it's the same when you've had amazing intended parents and begin to embark on a journey with a new couple. You wonder how you could possibly get lucky enough to love and adore your second set as much as the first. But just like a second child, you find that you DO have that much love to go around, that the bond is different but no less, that your life and your heart have expanded yet again. ♥

I could go on and on. I could tell you about how gorgeous Connecticut was, about a silly trip to the grocery store and cooking bacon in a vegetarian kitchen. I could talk about how we broke all the rules and discussed politics and religion, about Jude's outburst of the F-bomb and the moments when the kids were just Done. I could show you a million pictures. But I'll just leave you with these last few. My heart is full and happy.

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