ok time to tell all....

I am feeling a little better than I was , OK a whole lot better than I was yesterday so hopefully I will be able to get this out without descending into floods of tears.

Saturday S & E came to visit and we had such a wonderful day together , they were like different people , a happiness I had never seen in them before had taken them over , the whole world could have burned down around them and they wouldn't have cared.

They asked me later in the day if I would mind doing a couple more pregnancy tests so that they could wrap them for their parents Christmas gifts . awww but to my surprise the tests didn't show a strong positive,one had a very faint line and one had no line at all, now it was 5 days after my period was due so those lines should have been able to be seen from space, it concerned me a little and E too but we tried to reason it away , duff tests , just did them wrong ,etc etc.

I went to bed Saturday night praying that everything would be OK , don't let anything bad happen . I hardly slept at all, i felt sick to my stomach and then at 5 am the cramps started, I went to the loo hoping like you wouldn't believe that i was nothing and there it was , huge amounts of blood . I knew straight away that it was far too much blood for the pregnancy to be saved. I was devastated. I woke my husband and he just held me while I cried. of course it was far to early to call S & E so i called NHS direct and they confirmed it sounded like I was miscarrying and gave me this whole long lists of if this happens see your Dr or call back.

Just after 9 am I made the worst call of my life , the only thing I have to compair it to is telling my children their granddad has died ... that's how bad it felt. I picked up the phone dialed the number , E picked up and I couldn't speak, Steve took over from me and told her while I disolved in the chair next to him. I pulled myself together enough to talk to her and she was amazingly composed and calm , told me not to feel bad , i had given them so much hope and happiness that they would never forget this week. and to make sure I took care of myself because they would hate for anything bad to happen to me . She asked if it was ok for S to call later of course I said yes, why wouldn't I want to speak to my best friends in the world when they had just lost a baby.

I ping'ed the lady who gives me support from suk and boy am I glad I have that support . she was great told me to take from this the knowledge that we can get pregnant and my person knowledge that this is what I really want to do . i know in my heart and my head I want to give S & Ethe family they have dreamed of so long and I won't be happy until I do.

it was Mitch's 12th birthday so i held myself together the best I could , taking painkillers for the cramps and resting when i could. luckily Steve had the day off work.

later S called and we chatted for a while , S and I have always got on OK but were never as close as E and I and that has changed so much this last week , our friendship blossomed with the happiness that i gave them and that is something I will always be grateful for . S was talking like he wasn't sure we would try again , thanking me for everything , saying that maybe there just weren't supposed to be parents . which BTW makes me so cross .

I was so devastated when i got off the phone , how could he give up after all we have been through together, our friendship has been tested we have had ups and downs and come through them how can he give up on this now we are so close. but I understand this is the second baby they have lost and the hurt is bad, they were so high that the down was so huge it must have been unbearable.

Monday was a really hard day for me , I think the reality hit , loosing the baby , maybe even loosing my IP's , letting down my best friends , maybe even being responsible for them giving up their dreams. I spent all day in tears , unable to focus on anything , I wanted to speak to them but was in no fit state to pick up the phone.

Thankfully Steve got home early , and picked up the slack , doing the House work, taking care of the kids and being my shoulder to cry on . I am so grateful for him , so glad he is here in my life accompanying me through this journey . I wouldn't have been able to get this far without him and he's defiantly pulling me through this.

he called E later and explained to her how I was feeling, she said they are hurting so much , this has bought back all the pain they suffered when they lost their first baby at 5 months . I can totally understand that and feel so much for them , but they haven't discussed what they want to do next and to give up and stop trying would mean giving up on having a child and living the rest of their lives without hope and Evelina for one isn't ready to do that.

I called later , after a couple of glasses of wine and some R & R and spoke to E , we spent a lot of time telling each other not to feel guilty, she feels guilty for putting me and my family through this and I feel guilty for not taking good enough care of her baby. she is so worried about it happening again and I can't offer any reassurances that it won't . all i can say is that Its the first miscarriage I have had , my 5th pregnancy , and there is no reason to think it would happen again.

I am so worried that they are going to give up but I think in my heart of hearts and knowing them and the joy they get from children they won't be able to walk away. heck I'm not going to let them , i don't know if I could help another couple having failed them so badly, I have told them that, and told them that I desperately want to help them still and am not giving up on them . but you never know , how much pain can one couple go through in the quest for a child ? how many babies do they have to loose before they give up ? what right do I have to tell them to carry on ? could they be happier without risking this hurt and giving up hope than they are with hope and facing this hurt again ?

there are so many questions and only they have the answers. i don't know what the future holds for me as a surrogate but I desperately hope this isn't the end of our journey together.

Bad news I'm afraid

It is with an aching heart i have to tell you all that I have lost S &E's baby. I will be back to give more details later as I just don't feel up to it right now.

Its official

I am definitely pregnant , there are three things guaranteed to happen to me when I am newly pregnant

1. I stop drinking coffee and switch to tea .... Happened yesterday
2. toothpaste makes me gag !!!! This morning
3. I loose weight initially ..... Clothes are already feeling looser .

so there you go I'd know I was present without a test by now !!!

morning sickness has kicked in , not terribly but slightly , I am in desperate need of tea and toast every morning to stave it off . Bought a new toaster yesterday as my darling son had melted a pen in the old one and I just don't have time in the mornings to watch the grill normally I would wait until the kids have gone to school but not anymore .

S&E are being great so far , they have made it clear that anything I want just ask , Stef has volunteered E's expertise with the iron LOL.

I have amazed myself with my reaction to this pregnancy I have none of the normal excitement, none of the thoughts that I am going to have a baby aww . Widened get me wrong I am thrilled to be pregnant and went I am around S & E I get so excited for them but its not like it was carrying my own baby and that's great . I know its really early days but I has to be a good sign .

wow its been a while

My month off was great I had a fantastic trip to see my brother well worth waiting all my life for:)

Insems happened two weeks ago and went fantasticly, I was so realxed and it so happened that S&E were visiting at ovulation time . it was really relaxed and we had a great time together over the two days that we did insems , the third day we went to visit them but I forgot the insem kit we didn't bother and just had a great evening together instead.

and so that was nearly two weeks ago , I was lured into boots thursday and bought some tests but alas it was negative .












But not so when I tested today !!!!!! I am pregnant !!!!!!!!!!



S&E were visiting for the day so I gave them the test as soon as they arrived and they were in a state of shock for a good few hours , It was amazing and I feel so honoured to be telling these wonderful people that I am making their dreams come true . off course we bought some more test's so I will be testing again and again over the coming days but I don't expect the result to change .

If all goes acording to plan I will be a bit busy during august:)

taking a month off

I have decided that the stress is getting to me too much so i am taking a month off to breath and refocus on why I am putting myself through this . Its going to be a great month it means I have no worries about having a glass of wine with my brother when i finally get to meet him in 20 something days , and definatly no morning sickness . see everything has its up points.


I had some devistating news this week . the surro who I told you about that had gotten pregnant again after loosing the first baby has lost this one too. they went for a scan at 9 weeks and the babies heart wasn't beating . I can't imagine how devistated all involved must be and they are very much in my thoughts and prayers

not this month

I am really starting to think there is something wrong with me , why can't I get pregnant I have manged it easily enough 4 times before ??? you ca\n take form this tht yet another month has failed that leaves it to month 6 to be magical .

I am really getting fed up now, Insems are so stressful just because of the whole timing thing . leaves insems happening at around 7pm right at my sons bedtime when all the kids are around. I am really begining to think if my ip's don''t start trying to make this easier for me i am going to have to stop after next month . . I don't think they realize that this is stressful for me too and that maybe why we aren't getting pregnant .

never again will I work with carless IP's .

ona slightly different note we weere doing the old wives tail thing with the string and needle to see how many children I'm going to have. for anyone that doesn't know it . you hold a needle on a peice of string over your palm after rubbing it on the side of your hand and if it goes in a ircle its a girl and a stright line its a boy when it stops thats it no more children for you. well it got all my 4 right then went on to say I'd have a nother girl , then boy then girl .

we did it on steve agin up to date its right then says he's having another boy , so maybe theres another one to come in our family or the unthinkable will happen and he'll have one with someone else LOL


I know its just an old wives tale but its just a bit of fun and we need to do something to maintain the hope.

Some fantastic news

No I'm not pregnant ..... but remeber a few posts ago i told of the freinds who had lost there surrogate baby very early in the pregnancy ? well i am so pleased to hear that they are pregnant again , they held out on telling everyone until they reached 7 weeks which is still very early days but I can understand them not waiting any longer.

but this bought about a feeling in me that i don't like , I am actually enviuos of a surragoate that can get pregnant twice before I can even get pregnant once ! I don't like that feeling because its not like me . I am thrilled for her couple and just wish it was that easy for me.

not this month ..... or is it ?

well my period was due yesterday so I tested and got a big fat negative .. the dissapointment is huge this month I really thought it would work but it hasn't .

but saying that My period is now officialy late so I don't know maybe it was just too early for the cheap boots tests i bought. I'm testing again tomorrow if nothing changes I am not expecting a positive I am getting used to the fact that my body is doing everything it can to piss me off at the moment , not just screwy cycles but spots , my dermititis has flared up again , I have a huge spot in my ear that I can't have antibiotics for incase I'm pregnant , and I am knackered from not sleeping becasue my ear hurts .

yes I am whining like nobodys business but if I do it here at least It's out of my system and I don't have to bother any of my real life freinds with it .

so off i go to wait some more

all i seem to do is pee on sticks !

ok so a little in the life of a surrogate , first tyou haev to pee on a stick to find out when you are ovulating , if you have a slightly obsesive IP then this can be upto three times a day as you wouln't want to miss it , over the course of a week its a lot of peeing on sticks .

Then I obsess for a week at least about ot testing too early and now here i am contemplating doing a pregancy test tomorrow , just for the heck of it , incase its positive and i can surprise S & E . and i wouldn't normally test this early but E bought a pg test ready last time she visited doesn't she know thats just too much temptation for a surrogate.

So here we ho again another week of peeing on sticks is about to begin because you just know if its a negative it will be because i tested to early and if its a postive i will have to test at leat 5 more times to make sure . I swear i will start dreaming abut peeing on sticks soon , someone take them away !!!!

eww eww and more eww

well Its insem time again and part of my new approach was to try it the old fashioned way witha pot and syringe rather than with the instead cup. well this bit gets a bit graphic so if you don't want to read skip this and i'll make it clear when it's safe to look again.


see with an instead cup the semen is in the little cup and you just pop it in , nothing complicated or too icky however with apot and syringe you actually have to suck the semen into the syringe and inject it to the right place ( you all know where i mean and if you don't you shouldn't be reading this so stop) now this was very icky , call me nieve or stupid if you like but with the instead cup i don't is or where its going and with the syring it is most definatly not the case It felt much too intimate to be comfortable with and to be honest layng on my bed with pillows under my bum for 30 minutes was too much like trying to get pregnant the old fashioned way for my liking.




OK LOOK NOW

so needless to say we will be returning to the instead cup for all future insems .

on a lighter note I am really feeling for S at the moment having to juggle the demands of his work and his wife and having to put surrogacy into the mix he's a man under a lot of presure , still its all good preperation for fatherhood. because lets face it children give you more stress than anything else you will ever experience . anyway we are all felling hopefull that this will be our month heck one of them has to be .

anyway thanks for reading i have to go put my babies to bed they have school tomorrow .. can you hear the cheering going on in my head ?

well month Three was a waste of time ...

well maybe not . I feel I am learning more each month thought I would rather be pregnant already . take it from this that I am not pregnant yet and starting to feel like I never will be.
I am determined to have the best effort yet this month , my cycle is being screwy with me so I am prempting that as long as S&E are in agreement. they are away at the moment so I can't discuss my plans with them until they get back and its only fair that i discuss it with them first so you will have to wait a while before i let you in on the plans.

I am so sick of not being pregnant , I want to be so badly, I hate the insems they are just so uncomfortable , not that its something i can't bear and it doesn't make me gag like it does some otehr surrogates i just have to not think about it.

I want to get the first surrogacy done so I can work out if I want or feel I can do another ( there really are so many people I want to help its scary) , and to be totally honest I am so fed up of being celbate its not funny I am so close to marching my husband to the dr's for a vasectomy that he is starting to avoid me LOL.

everyone seems to think that surrogacy is a wonderful giving thing that surrogates do and think we must be angles but beleive me you can probably see it coming I'm not . I am going to whine and moan ( and occasionally be the happiest person alive) my way through this experience and hopefully make everyone see that being a surrogate is bloody hard work and most definatly not a means to make easy cash as so many people feel it is.

month 3 here we come

well my period arrived early on staurday so I didn't need to waste another test . I think I could possibly have been more gutted than S&E. anyway the countdown is on to the next insems.

I hate pregnancy tests !!!!

Ok with just a few more days to wait I caved and tested already , it was negative which has really got me down as I am feeling so out of the ordinary this month I was sure it had worked ( get used to that you'll hear it a lot over the coming months) so sure in fact I am now saying its the tests that are no good , they were only cheap ones from asda so I'll wait until sunday and test again just incase.

see if you had to go and see your dr to get a pregnancy test I wouldn't have gotten talked into testing early , probably too early , I would be sat here with my hopes high thinking its just a matter of waiting until it was time to see the dr. adn heck with all these tests on the market that promise results upto 5 days before a missed period is it any wonder that suckers like me go and test 3 days early just incase I get a + already .

anyway all think + for me just incase

Reality Check

I received some bad news today which has made me really stop and think.

One of our experience surrogates who was nearly 6 weeks pregnant has lost the baby . My heart goes out to hear and her IP's.

It has made me realize though that in the world of surrogacy we announce our much wanted and waited for pregnancies as soon as we get that + result without any thought as to if its a good idea or not . We are so caught up in fulfilling dreams that we don't spare any thought for what may go wrong .

I am in no means saying that these people have done anything wrong , Pregnancy is a very exciting time in normal circumstances but when its has been very much waited for , and is the last chance you have to be a parent I know you would feel like shouting it from the rooftops with a megaphone and there is nothing wrong with feeling like that so to tell the friends who have been there with you and understand your excitement is perfectly normal .

It has just made me aware that these pregnancies may be miracles but they are no different to normal pregancies and carry the same risks.

if you have a moment can you please spare a thought for these wonderful people who came so close to having there dreams become a reality only to loose it. And for the surrogate who had to break such terrible news to such wonderful friends.

step up for round 2

well here we go again , another insem's done and its onto the wait. once again i am going to try and stay relaxed about it and not hope too hard but I am expecting to fail miserably again.

just had a wonderful weekend in the lake district with SUK , S&E were there of course and it was great spending time together, we didn't have the children with us so that made it really relaxing for me lots of time spent chatting and socialising instead of running around after children , not that I actually have to do much running around at these things becasue there are so many people willing to do that for me .

the accomodaion was a bit of a nightmare , we have been using youth hostles for the main GT's and some are great but this one was awful, the rooms were dirty, my bed was under a very sloping ceiling so much so we had to put the matteress on the floor and the food was awful, its a very good job the wonderful view of lake windemere and the fantastic company made up for it.

there were lots of new people we haveb't met before and as usual theyw ere all made to feel welcome and it always makes things more interesting when you have new people as they are the ones who ask the questions and it great to answer them and see people becoming much better informed and educated and more sure in their dessisions. Surrogacy is still seen as a slightly taboo subject and while at SUK we do everything we can to make it more socially acceptable and widely talked about its is a long road and l;ots of new people seem relieved that we are all so normal and open about what we do. we couldn't do it if we were embarressed or ashamed and that shows clearly and puts people as their ease.

anyway enough waffle from me for one day ..hey its my birthday today so i am off to enjoy the rest of the day .
catch you soon

not this month

well a bit of dissapointment this month but not too much as I wasn't expecting it to work first time . I tested on the morning my period was due and it was negative so I called Eveline and told her . she seemed Ok though I think she may have been slightly more dissapointed than me .

so it onwards and upwards planning for the next set of insems in 2 weeks time

And the wait goes on

I ams ure the wait was never this hard when i was trying for my own children , I thought it would be ok as i have a 2 year old to keep my busy but it doesn't seem to be working out that way .

I am obsessing over the fact that i have been feeling slightly sick the last few days and tired like you wouldn't believe, there is probvably an explanation for it . it could be somehting to do with the fact I am drinking decaf coffee most of the time now , in fact it probably is .

couldn't down to test day is well and truely on . I have order some tests off a website so hopefully they will take a couple days to arrive . Steve is just as bad as me though he wanted to buy a test while we were at tesco's last night so i could test tomorrow morning . I really want to try and hold out at least until monday if not wednesday .

Evelina is keen for me to rest early but i have told her i'm not going to It would be too disappointing to get a negative just because it is too early to detect.

I have lots too keep me busy the next few days , first its the weekend so thats always hectic with 4 children in the house , and I have my oldest freind comng for lunch tuesday we have spent any time together for so long and we have so much to catch up on.

anyway thanks for reading if you are and I'll let you know how the wait continutes in due course

A great day was had by all

Saturday was a good day . It was agreement day which for those not in the know is a huge thing. One of SUK's staff comes to visit us all together to make sure we have spoken about all the very important issues things you don't even think about when you are having a baby normally. We have to discuss in advance what tests we will have , what we will do if anything wrong aswell as who would take care of the baby if S&E were to die. It can be a difficult day but we have spoken about these things a lot so it was no big deal to go through them again.

another thing done at the agreement is working out expenses, again we had worked this out long ago so it wasn't anything difficult but I will take a moment here to explain abut expenses to those who don't already know. The law says that IP's are allowed to give their surrogates money to cover their expenses , this is in no way payment for the baby but just money so that I am not out of pocket , things like money for extra food, maternity clothes, child care while I am at appointments, the idea is that me and my family shouldn't have to go without at all because I am pregnant and the expenses just cover that. What I did was make a document estimating everything I would need and costing it fully that way S&E know exactly what I want the money for . Obviously if anything happens and I need bedrest or a hospitable stay my expenses would increase and S&E have to agree to cover that. Really its nothing that they wouldn't spend if they weren't pregnant for themselves.

it feels so good to have the agreement done . Its official now ( though its nothing legal nothing about surrogacy has any legal standing)

well after that was done we had lunch bbq pork , salad and new potatoes yummy .

the afternoon was spent bowling ... The one thing we have found that entertains everyone from 2 years old to 40 . Steve won , Stefan came second and me third .... ME 3rd !!!!!! Took lots of photos I may share one or two with you when I work out how to put them on here .

then it was time for S&E to get back to the coach station so a taxi was called as we took soooo long bowling . The whizzed off in the taxi and we caught the bus home and ate the strawberries and cream we had forgotten about at lunchtime .

anybody out there got a time travel machine ???

and can I borrow it ?

two days in and I am already driving myself crazy and I'm not even looking for symptoms yet . Its 9.30 am and I have already tidied my 11 year olds bedroom and thats just never done by me!!!

I may well have to break out some paint and do some decorating , there are a few rooms that need doing But I may save that for next month if this one doesn't work . I heck I hope this one works not sure I can keep myself sain if it takes too long.

well what does that mean ???

I have realized I will be using a lot of abreviations in this blog so figure its a good idea to explain them all in one place.

SUK - surrogacy UK the organaztion that I belong to and the best one in the UK
IP - intended parents
IM - intended mother
IF- intended father
GT - get together - suk meet up
2WW - two week wait , the time between insems and your periods due date
Insems - home inseminations
PIP's - potential IP's

thats all i can think of right now but I'll add to this list as I need to .

A little history

I have always thought since I was 17 that surrogacy is something I could do. Its been there in the back of my mind for so many years then last summer It dawned on me that I don't want anymore babies but I love being pregnant and wasn't ready to never be pregnant again.... Maybe this was the time to fulfill a dream of mine . I thought about it read lots and thought some more . Got in touch with a great organization called surrogacy UK who sent me an information pack . A few days later on a journey that I knew would take an hour I asked Steve how he felt about it . Luckily and not totally to my surprise he was happy for me to go ahead .. Obviously he asked lots of questions and we talked for about 6 hours that day.

A few weeks later SUK were holding their agm and get together what a chance to find out more and meet the people involved so wee booked to attend . It was at that GT that we met S&E for the first time very briefly but it was enough for me to realize they were nice people .

I was originally intending to do Host surrogacy - that's where the IP's sperm and egg are fertilized via IVF and then implanted to me but at the GT having spoken to other surrogates I came around to thinking that I could do straight surrogacy- that's where we use my egg , his sperm and do home inseminations. If I could get my head around that fact that its just my egg not my baby it would be so much the easier option . I may want to help someone have a baby but I'm not crazy when I found out what IVF involved I was sure straight was the way to go.

a few short weeks later we had a mediation session in our own home with carol , one of the founders of SUK, she talked us through everything and made sure we were mentally prepared then it was just a case of STD tests and police checks and we were gold members . ready to find a couple and get started.

when we looked at the list of IP's S&E were the only ones we had met and Remembering they had seemed nice and after reading of everything they had been through in there quest to have a baby I decided that I wanted to get to know them better.

SUK isn't a matching service it relies strongly on friendship and says that you need to take at least 3 month before you decide if the couple are right for you. 3 months seemed like such a long time back then . The first time we met I knew that someday soon I would be trying to give them a baby.

as it is 6 , nearly 7 months on and it feels like I am ready . I haven't been ready sooner but our friendship is so good now that I know no matter what happens that friendship will remain for life and that is, by far, the most important thing in this they are my friends , my husbands friends my children think they are great and the feeling is mutual. Whatever happens for here on in we can handle it

And so we begin ....

After a long time getting to know each other S, E and I have decided its time to start our surrogacy , I have been charting my cycles for several months so easily predicted when I was going to ovulate this month and that just happened to be yesterday . So last night DH and I left our children with a sitter and made the trip to London . It wasn't the best thing to happen but it was far from the worst and despite a little embarrassment it went well. Afterwards we went out for a meal and spent a really pleasurable evening together before came home to relieve the sitter.

so I am officially in my first 2 week wait ... With not only my own disappointment to deal with if in doesn't work but theirs Also . I know I am able to fulfill their biggest wish and make their dreams come true I just hope it doesn't take too long to happen