Weekend Update

Friday night I was on the phone with Carly and I was bored. So I said offhandedly, " I should come visit you". Right away she started squealing "Yes! Come visit! Are you really thinking of coming over?" She was super excited. I said "sure, why not?"
This was around 7pm.
She lives about 50 minutes from me, and I've never seen her house.
So I hopped in the shower, and headed out by 8pm.
I arrived at 9, and visited with her and Ben until 12pm. We had a great visit.
Our phone calls have been a little strained lately, and I think that this visit was just what we needed.
When I arrived, I showed her and Ben my belly. Carly gasped! She thought it was so great.
When I was about to leave, Carly seemed bummed that I was leaving. I reminded her that even if I left right then, I wouldn't even get home until almost 1am.
I had to talk to her on my cell phone for the first 15 minutes or so after leaving her house, due to the fact it was so dark, and it was hard to find all the street signs I needed.
While we were talking, she told me that she would have been happy if I had wanted to spend the night. That made me feel good. I knew then that they had really enjoyed me coming over.

I can't believe we're heading into pregnancy week 17!

We have our OB-Gyn appointment tomorrow morning. Right now we're going every 4 weeks.

In other news, last night (Sat) the phone rang at 1:40am and it was my best friend. My best friend is my sister-in-law, Lee. She called me crying, saying that my brother-in-law (Allen's brother, Duke) was vomiting blood and was hallucinating a bit. He refused to go to the hospital.
A bit of background-
Duke (my husbands brother) is a good hearted guy. A good person. But he's an alcoholic. He was hospitalized a few years ago, twice, and almost died. His liver almost completely shut down and he was every shade of green and then yellow for months. He looked like an alien with green face paint on. It was unreal.
he was released, and told that if he didn't quit drinking, it would kill him.
Well, we think he stopped for about a year, then slowly started sneaking liquor. His choice- straight vodka.
Lee, had started finding his hidden bottles here and there over the last couple of years. He still refuses to go to AA or get any kind of outside help.
This past couple of weeks , Lee has found 2 more bottles.
Then this past week, she told me that she knew something was wrong, he had been sleeping almost every day, all day. ( my brother-in law doesn't work, he's got other issues as well)

So last night, Lee called me, freaking out. Duke was vomiting black blood (like coffee grounds she says) just like a few years ago when he almost died.
She could not get him to go to the hospital.
Another point to mention here is that they don't have insurance of any kind, and haven't had any since Duke lost his cleaning company last August. (the one I used to work for)
So she is completely breaking down on the phone.
I talked to her until almost 4am, and then we hung up, with her unable to force him to go get help.

When I woke up this morning, Allen told me that Lee had called, and Duke finally agreed to go to the hospital.
We went and visited them today, as the hospital is only 5 minutes from our house.
So far, he has been admitted, and they are running tests on him. He is already starting into his DT's, shaking and hallucinating from the lack of alcohol. He was thanking Lee for bringing Vito (one of their dogs) and putting him under the hospital bed. He's a mess. And he'll only get worse over the next while.

I feel so badly for my sis-in-law and best friend. She has been keeping her family (they have 2 boys)together for so long. She loves a good man with a bad addiction.
I hope that this time, is the one that wakes Duke up. But I said that the last 2 times, and you can't make someone get help, who doesn't want help.

So that's my update, I'm tired, and I don't have time to check for spelling mistakes.
Forgive me.

Awww you guys... *shuffle feet*

Thanks for all the great comments and emails.

I find that I really want this journal to be a place where I can let it all out.
But I'm learning that in reality, it's a very difficult thing to do.
I'm censoring so much.

Here's the thing. For me so far, this surrogacy is almost 100% about the relationship I have with Carly, and to a lesser extent Ben.
And the things that have been bothering me are Carly related.

I'm just having a hard time dealing with her worry, and daily monitoring etc. I know why she's like this, she's lost 6 babies. So I knew before I even met her that she would be hyper vigilant, protective and a huge worrier. So, I get that. I truly do. I do my very best to soothe her worries. I go way out of my way in fact. But I'm starting to wear down. I find that I want to avoid her phone calls. (which I don't, but i want to...)
It's very hard.
I know she trust me 100%. She's just so afraid that something is going to go wrong like it has to her, so many times.
It's hard trying to take care of myself, the twins and her...

And yes, I've told her about the blog, and how much I've put "out there" and she's OK with all of it. But she doesn't know the name or URL, and she really isn't a computer type of gal, so I don't have a lot of worries about her looking for it. Plus she'd just ask me if she wanted to read it and if I needed to, I'd pull anything down that might hurt her feelings.

I'm just afraid of talking about how she's making me feel etc, because I fear a lot of my readers are women who read Julie's big list, are having hard times themselves and may think of me badly and will side with my IM.

Make sense?

Anyway, thank you all for the great comments. I think I'll be posting more soon.
I'll try to tell the truth about the intricacies of a surrogacy relationship, in the best way that I can. It's not easy!

1 day shy of 16 weeks!

Carly and I had a long talk tonight. About an hour and a half!
She told me all about her family and their plans for her baby shower.
And like all families, there have been bumps in the road, and differences of opinions.
It's fun to get to sit back, and be a part of things, yet not be involved at the same time.
Carly has 1 Mom, 4 sisters, and one sister-in-law. So there's a lot of ideas being kicked aroound. I guess at one point he sister Camille said to Carly "Why don't we just give you the money that we're gong to spend on the shower, and you can use it to buy everything you need. I mean people are going to come visit you after the babies are born and bring you gifts then, and they shouldn't have to give 2 gifts."
WTH?
Yeah.
Carly said her reply was something like " I don't need gifts after they're born, I kind of need to be set up before their born. And I don't expect them to bring me gifts when they visit too..."

I said to Carly. " AGH! What the hell is she thinking! It's not even about the GIFTS! It's about celebrating the upcoming arrival of your children! It's about spending the day around people you love, and opening gifts, and having this be YOUR TIME, YOUR DAY! How many baby showers have YOU attended"
Carly said "A million" (they have a huge family, and are expecting well over 100 women at the shower)
Then Carly stared saying "You're right! I should have told her that! These babies are my miracles!"

Oops. I hope I didn't add too much fuel to the fire.

As for the pregnancy, did I tell you that I've been feeling the babies move since around 13 weeks? Crazy hunh? We'll be 16 weeks this Thursday. Their movements are getting stronger and I have to say, the first night I felt their little swimming movements inside, I smiled and had tears in my eyes. It was such a great moment. I loved telling Carly the next day. She couldn't believe it. But it was the babies moving that night almost 3 weeks ago, and I've felt them every night since, always around 11:30pm, when I lay on my left side in bed. So amazing.

I'm still on the Zofran, and I've tried not taking it a couple of times over the past week.
NOT a good idea.
This morning as soon as I got up, before I could even take my pill, I was gagging and threw up bile into the kitcheen sink. At 8am. Nice.
The other problem I've been having is constipation, and believe me, I've been trying everything to get back to normal, and nothing's working.
Metamucil, Colace, fruit, beans, lots of water, and today even 2 infant glycerin suppositories. Nothing. Well nothing but a few pellets.
Any ideas?


Let's see what else? You know, I lay in bed at night and I think of all these things to tell you, and then when I sit down to write, nothing.

So that's it for now. My brain just died and it's time for bed.

Here's the deal

I haven't been posting.

The reason is because I want to be able to let it all hang out and I feel that I can't. I want to be able to be talk about everything, and I feel that I have to censor myself. I'm scared to post about my true feelings. I'm afraid to bitch or whine, lest my readers think I'm not happy about what I'm doing. I'm afraid to give you guys the wrong idea about what it is really like.
Am I making any sense here?

So I've found that since I havn't been giving the whole story, I'l just give none of it, just important updates. And yet, that feels like a disservice too.

I just don't know what to do. I started this journal with the intention of giving an accurate account of what it's like to have a surrogacy, and the complicated relationship it entails, with all the feelings associated with one. Instead, I've found that it's much harder than anticipated, and I'm afraid of the judgement I'll get if I do.

Help.

13 weeks

Just a quick post to say that everything is A-OK.
I'm 13 weeks tomorrow, and things are going great.
We had our first Ob-Gyn visit Monday morning, and we got to have a quick peek at the little munchkins, and I didn't even have to take my pants off this time!
Hooray for abdominal ultrasounds!
We have our 18wk U/S scheduled. Hopefully the babes will cooperate and we'll find out the sexes. I scheduled it for the day after Mother's day- Monday May 15th.

Also, thank God for Zofran. I am feeling like my old self again.

More soon.