C-section woes

I was really upset about having a c-section. From the moment Hottie Midwife first said the word till right now, I've been upset about it. Not only was I really upset about the c-section itself, but it sent me into months of soul searching over WHY I was so upset about it, which was probably more annoying than the c-section itself.


Let me first share with you some of the reasons I considered, which I have since realized were NOT, in fact, bothering me:

Attachment and all that

I've been impressed by how openly friends and acquaintances ask me the question on everyone's mind, "Do you feel attached?" I thought it was going to be another one of those beaten-around-the-bush questions, couched in "So how ARE you?" and "But how have you been feeling?" but people just come on out and ask, which I greatly appreciate.

I was prepared for a certain amount of attachement. When I  made my decision to carry for Winchester and Wolfram, I made a kind of budget of discomfort I was ready for:

9 months no drinking: :( :( :( :( :( :( :(
9 months no rugby: :( :( :( :(
physical discomfort: :( :( :(
pain of labor: :( :( ?????
attachment sadness: :( :( :( :(

Those four frowny faces translate to roughly a couple months depression that I was ready for. My actual discomfort was very different:


9 months no drinking: :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :(
9 months no rugby: :( :( :(
physical discomfort:
temporary insanity: :(
pain of labor: :( :(
anger over c-section: :(
attachment sadness:

Not so much as a moment. I bore one very nice baby, but there hasn't been a single second that I've thought to myself, "Sure would be cool to have an infant around here!" I'll have a baby for myself when I'm damn well ready - but right now I'm happy in my spontaneous, self-absorbed existence.

I am, however, excited to see this girl grow. Babies are a little boring to me, but it will be great to see her start walking and talking, etc. Wolfram, Winchester and she stayed with me for a couple weeks after birth before they could fly to Western Home State. It was cool, but it sucked that the two weeks we got to hang were her first two weeks - when she was possibly the most boring human being she will ever be. Babies can do nothing - NOTHING. She wasn't even in control of the wacky facial expressions she made! I'm sure that when she's older and more interesting we'll be able to hang out more.

Dating and Surrogacy, Part III

It's a funny thing to make the decision to break up with someone you love and who makes you happy. Oddly enough, this is something I've done twice in my life - once with a girlfriend who lived 3500 miles away, and second with Hotshot, just before I began my surrogacy.

We tease each other a lot about who broke up with whom, each accusing the other of leaving us helpless and heart broken -- but we both know it was mutual. We were afraid, and I think wisely so, to drag a fledgeling relationship through such unknown territory. So we called it quits, and each did our own thing for a while.

Four months later I was two months pregnant when we decided that maybe this pregnancy thing wasn't such a big deal after all. That's not to say the time apart was in vain - when we got back together we were closer and more confident in our love than we'd ever been before. We knew we weren't together because of momentum or because we'd taken the path of least resistance, but because we really, truly wanted to be.

LABOR

Over the past few months, I've occasionally gotten nervous messages from nice people who follow this blog: "hey, you disappeared, assume you had the baby, how is everything?", "How are you? I've missed your posts lately. Did you deliver yet?" I'm very sorry if I alarmed anyone, or caused them to conclude that I was scarred by giving birth to a breech hedgehog and experiencing intense surrogacy remorse. The truth is I've just had better things to do with my new freedom :D

The short of it is: on August 16th, my uterus tried to kill the baby. The doctors stepped in with a last minute c-section and saved the day! Winchester and Wolfram now have a lovely little girl (if I do say so myself!) no worse for wear, and I recovered quite swiftly.

The long version goes something like this:

"Altruistic" vs. "Commercial" Surrogacy

Recently, a reader commented on my lecture on surrogacy pointing out that all surrogacy is altruistic, regardless of whether money is exchanged. The failings of the current terminology are not news to me, and I'd talked about them in the lecture, though they hadn't made it into the slides. But what's a girl to do when right from Reproductive Technology Council comes this definition:

Altruistic surrogacy: Altruistic surrogacy means a practice whereby a woman agrees, for no financial gain, to become pregnant and bear a child for another person or persons to whom she intends to transfer the child’s care at, or shortly after, the child’s birth. (Specific expenses incurred, associated with the pregnancy and birth, may be reimbursed).

The alternative term you can find floating around is compassionate surrogacy. OH! Well take a huge sigh of relief, because THAT's certainly better!!!

32-33 week fetus

While babycenter is calling it a pineapple or jicama (a vegetable - fruit?? - I'm not even familiar enough with to judge), I now say that you are carrying a chihuahua in your belly (at about 4 pounds 17 inches)

Isn't that cuter than a jicama???

30-31 week fetus

Babycenter really blew it this week. They couldn't even find a single fruit to misguidedly compare your fetus to - they had to settle for FOUR navel oranges! Lame!

My point of comparison is much more tangible (to me) than 4 navel oranges. So tangible that I am touching it right now. As I do every day. For what often seems like most hours of the day.

I am speaking, of course, of my lifeline. My 3lb 16" diameter MacBook Air: