I will feel better when...

This is an ongoing thing.  I am not sure if it is surrogacy specific, but it seems to be worse in surrogate pregnancy.  This little saying goes a little something like this:

• I will feel better when we find out the quality of the embryos after the thaw.
• I will feel better when I get my first positive pregnancy test.
• I will feel better when the lines get darker.
• I will feel better when the test line gets as dark as the control line.
• I will feel better when I have a positive normal beta.
• I will feel better when I have a beta with a doubling time of 48 hours.
• I will feel better when I see the baby on ultrasound.
• I will feel better when I see the baby's heartbeat on ultrasound.
• I will feel better when I make it out of the first trimester.
• I will feel better when everything looks normal on the anatomy scan.
• I will feel better when I make it to viability.
• I will feel better when I make it to 32 weeks because the baby has an excellent chance of being healthy.
• I will feel better when baby reaches full term.
• I will feel better when the baby is born safely and into his or her mother & father's arms.
• I will feel better when the baby is released from the hospital to go home.
• I will feel better when I have enough milk that the family has a nice stash.

Does the worrying ever end?  The family has invested so many emotions and money into ME, into MY womb and I will just feel better when the baby gets here.  I never thought about these things with my own pregnancy.  You lose your own baby and its sad, its hard, but its a personal and intimate thing between you and your husband/partner.  You lose the baby of a surrogacy and you have added more people into that intimate circle-- not in a bad way, but you definitely have more people that can feel hurt or people that you feel that you let down.

Today was our ultrasound-- That is where all of this is stemming from.  My intended mother texted me yesterday from the urgent care clinic where she was just diagnosed with a double ear infection and a sinus infection.  She still wanted to come down for the appointment to see her baby, but she would need her mom to drive the 4 hours to my town.  She wanted to know the name of a hotel close by but I would not have that!  I love spending time with her (and her mom too!) so I opened my house to them and I am so glad I did.  We sat around the kitchen table last night and talked for hours.  My IM is a military brat herself, her dad was career AF and mom served in the Navy for several years.  It was nice talking to her mom about how things are now for spouses and how they used to be.  We could have talked for even longer but we decided to go to bed around 10.

This morning once they got up (they both got to sleep in and it was well deserved since IM chases preschool twin boys all day!), we went to breakfast where she gave me this beautiful, sentimental necklace for my birthday/Mother's Day.  

 

In the card it spoke of how she appreciated that I was making her a mama bird of three babies just like I was a mama bird of three babies.  I just Love this necklace!!  

We went over to base and we all went into the ultrasound room.  That meant that Surrogate, Mom and Grandma all got to see first peek at baby!  When they did the ultrasound, they found ONE little baby in the uterus. My left ovary was angry with a cyst larger than an inch on it.  The sac was there with the yolk and a tiny little fetal pole.  The sac was measuring 6w0d.  We are currently 6w6d.  The tech said that usually this early, the sac measures 4-7 days small because there is a certain degree of inaccuracy with measuring it since it is so tiny.  I have to go back in a couple weeks to get another ultrasound so we can measure the heartbeat at that time since it is so early. 

These are photos of the sac and in the photo on the left, the little circle in the sac beside the other circle is the fetal pole.  The other larger circle inside the sac is the yolk.  The other one is a slightly zoomed out photo of the sac and the yolk inside of it.

Right now we will continue to be cautiously optimistic and send lots of GROW BABY GROW vibes!!

After my IM and her mom left, I went and took a nap with my husband who got off of work early!  Then got Leah off of the bus and Kurt went and got the little kids from daycare.  When I was sitting on the couch working on school work, the babysitter walked in and I was confused because I hadn't booked her.  Well my husband did for an early birthday dinner!  He took me to Chili's then Target to get my estrogen refilled.  Finally he took me to Lane Bryant to get some new bras because when I lost weight, I lost boobs.  I am happy to say I am a 35DD which makes it really hard to find bras, but I was able to order some from Lane Bryant in 36DD-- Their bras are THE BEST!!  I love them and I am sad that all of my 36DDD and Es are too big for me now...