My new friend Kristen took a giant step forward today and publicly celebrated the fact they too plan to have two surrogates help them! Yup, Jon and I, and Ajasyt and Isis or not the only crazies out there! Yay for us ALL!!

Kristen, I am proud of you for holding your head high and taking pride in your best intentions and joy for the future! Own it sweetie!! May God rain babies on you and fill your home with more love than you know what to do with. ((HUGS))

I'm posting this just to say hi to someone that I know has been reading. She knows who she is. ;)

Now the important part..........

Don't just read, reply too. :) :) :)

I have met more and more couples falling out of the surrogacy world because of IVF costs. I was reading another IM's Blog yesterday and she reports that she has 130k+ and it isn't enough for international surrogacy. At first I thought "she is crazy" and then I sat down and added it all up.....YIKES!

When we first started this I felt really blessed to not be one of those people who does IVF cycle after IVF cycle on themselves before even moving onto surrogacy. I couldn't even imagine the costs of that! Then God taught me that was in fact in store for me as well. I have no uterus and yet we have had three IVF cycles and still no baby!

We have an upcoming RE consult and I should be excited but instead the stats and numbers and future costs are all running through my head. There is this nagging voice that says don't get too excited because you know what happened last year. I'm not a negative person but this is all stats and to pretend "oh of course every dream will come true" is just a bit naive to me. In reality, I could be sitting right where I am today and have spent and other 40k. I know we are in this for the long haul so how can "what if" it does not work, what if my eggs turn to dust? "What if's" can eat me up. I don't want to let my family down again. I don't even want my surros to get excited because I don't want them to have to experience the down sides because of us.

This is my little tiny melt down, stomping my feet asking God to just give me a sign already! If he would just give the date and time I would chill out and go along for the ride......really is that too much to ask? Tell me this works or if we have more disappointments. I can deal with it but I just want to know. I want to be able to prepare the team for the bumps. Come on God...a sign...PLEASE

We seem to be covering a lot of territory in the USA if you look at the map. I even noticed someone was viewing from South Africa. How cool is that?!?! Now if only more of them would reply. (I think I might be starting to sound like a broken record now.)
:)

I hate to see a day go by without a new post so I'll share something that is frustrating me recently. There are so many people I know and have come to care about only because of infertility. Knowing their struggles, it only upsets me more when I hear about yet another teen I know that is pregnant. Not only does this make my heart ache yet again for my friends, it causes another parenting issue for me. I try to teach my children about sex, reproduction, responsibility, etc. However, it seems that this year has been filled with moments in which I'm forced to educate them about certain things earlier than intended or I find myself continually re-educating about things we've already gone over.

Now on to the recent problem. My daughter is in 6th grade at our middle school now. I found out there is an 8th grader that is pregnant. The father is also an 8th grader. These kids are 13 years old and will be 14yo when they become parents. I don't know if they plan to keep the baby but it doesn't matter. The point is that their own parents probably didn't educate them. If they did, there was too much opportunity for unsupervised boy-girl activity and private time. (Before you think I'm being too judgemental, I know a little about the parents and that's what I'm basing some of my opinions on.) I should add that this boy is a kid I know because he used to spend time with my son and nephew. My nephew told us that this kid was bragging about having had sex. He even went so far as to say he could have as much sex as he wanted because he couldn't get anyone pregnant. I wish my nephew had asked him why he thought this. It might have been enlightening.

It's my personal opinion that it doesn't matter if there is any kind of sex-ed in your school system. You should teach or reinforce these things at home too.

I have a family member that recently became a grandfather. His 16yo daughter became pregnant. He told her she couldn't give up the baby. He was complaing to his SIL the other day about how his daughter isn't very good at taking care of the baby and how she was complaining about the responsibility. His SIL told him too bad and he had no right to complain. He's the one that wouldn't let her give it up. It made me angry because we all basically thought this was how it would end up going. Don't get me wrong, this girl loves her baby but she could have made another couple happy parents. I believe she would have been OK with that decision if she'd had the support to do it. That's not what she got. She got to be a mom when she wasn't ready because her daddy said she had too. Was that for her sake or his?

Sorry about this rant instead of my usual weird humor self but it's been a rough few days struggling to find the words to talk to my 11yo daughter about someone so young having a baby. It's not easy talking to my son about it either. I seem to find myself doing it alot these last few months, and days, though.

Just being me...I will offend some and be loved by others. I tend to be loved or hated and I don't see myself here any differently.

I feel like this time we have two surrogates who also chose to be my friend before offering to carry for us so I doubt they will be offended by me being me. I am fee to be crazy me!!!

My madness.......

1. Pray like mad.....never stop. I figure God is in charge so it is best to go directly to who is in charge of the show and make sure I take the time to ask him for what I want.

That seems pretty sane right? Well, I don't stop there......nope not me. My brain starts going and the craziness just comes pouring out.

Naming of Our Embryos. - Yes, they need potential names every single one of them. If we are transferring 2 embryo's we need FOUR names. Two girls and two boys. This isn't so hard but when we transfered 3 frozen embryo's I needed three boys names and three girls names. Then when we transfered four frozen embryo's I needed four of each. The biggest problem came in when Jon could not cooperate with me and help. So then I am frustrated with Jon because he veto's all my additional boy choices. Doesn't he understand that our children will not stick if they think we have not even cared enough to consider what their name can be? This seems so logical to me, how can Jon not understand my insanity?

The naming doesn't stop there, if/when they stick they need nick names because I need my friends to cheer them on without me revealing their potential names. When we had twins we were calling them Tigger and Roo because one of the embryos looked like "baby Tigger" (like you see in a cloud). Susan called them "George and Martha" because on the small picture I put up "Baby Tigger" looked just like a nickel. The doctors called them baby A and Baby B. Crazy enough as long as they have names it brings me comfort. It makes them more real.

I talk to them - Yep, I like to go all out on "crazy" and take their little pictures with me every where and tell them I miss them and how much I love them and want them to grow.

Funny thing is I don't get the idea other IM's do this or if so not to the same degree as I do. The great part is IM's have a bit of a reputation for being crazy people by surrogates who misunderstand us and make assumptions because we are not big shares of our real feelings. I think I might be the craziest of the bunch but I am also the one willing to tell surrogates who call us crazy to sit down because they are off base. Ahh.......if only they knew haha

My question to other IM's is what do you do or have you done that is a bit nutty?

A very close friend of mine had a baby yesterday. By "had" I mean her surrogate gave birth to her her beautiful daughter. What an incredible day. She sent me a picture shortly after Bailey's birth and I cried and cried and cried. A few months ago, I did the same thing at the birth of my other dear friends son's birth. Today I saw a video of Brendan....again more tears. My tears over these children is a flood of hope through my heart. These are children who arrived after years of infertility and parents who would not give up even when everything in the world tells you it won't happen. Through the battle their parents were willing to fight and the hearts of the surrogates who gave of themselves in ways I cannot ever fully understand these babies are here. They have healed deep wounds. As Wendy (AKA Baileys mom) said to me yesterday "you forget it all when you look at her face".

Welcome to the World Bailey and Brendan thank you for the smiles, you both make this ache I carry a little lighter today. To their mommies.....I love you both with all my heart.