Hi! Welcome to my long overdue (ha ha pregnancy humor) attempt to keep family, friends and anyone else who wanders in updated on our much-anticipated baby.
It’s hard for me to believe, but we are almost 20 weeks pregnant. Almost halfway there. I have several blogs in which I share different parts of myself, but after we found out we were expectating, I thought it might be nice (and fun) to have a blog devoted to all things baby. I meant to start the blog after our first ultrasound and then after our second. And then after we were released to the OB and then out of the first trimester. And then after my school semester ended. Next thing I know, here it is 2009, and our baby is halfway baked. Oh well. Better late than never I suppose.
The truth is that I haven’t felt confident enough to create this blog until now. Some may call me a pessimist; I prefer realist. I’ve been terrified each and every moment of this pregnancy. However, I must reference my stock phrase, my mantra: so far, so good. And then I’ll knock on whatever piece(s) of wood I can find.
You see, I am not carrying our baby. J and I are building our family via gestational surrogacy. Hence the “with a twist” part. In case the word surrogacy conjures up visions of histrionic Lifetime movies, let me tell you a little about it. There are two types of surrogacy: traditional and gestational. Traditional surrogacy uses the surrogate’s egg and the Intended Father’s (IF) sperm. The surrogate thus has a genetic connection to the child. In gestational surrogacy, the surrogate does NOT have a genetic connection to the child she is carrying. She is the oven, and the Intended Parents (IPs) provide the genetic material, the “bun.”
The fact that we are pursuing gestational surrogacy naturally begs the question of why. Or maybe it doesn’t. I know I’m nosy and would want to know why. I don’t want to rehash the sordid history of our infertility here in what is supposed to be a happy place to focus on the future and our expectations, so let’s just leave it at the fact that I have a uterine anomoly and endometriosis that make it difficult for me to a) get pregnant and b)carry a pregnancy.
Finding out that we were pregnant was the best day in the world after 3 years, 1 month and 14 days of hell.
So, welcome! Ask questions. I’ll try to answer what I can. Or just enjoy the ride!
Family Building With a Twist 