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:

Ignoring and acknowledging pregnancy

Reason #53 why being a surrogate for your first pregnancy is different: my current lifestyle.

Sooo... you never see pregnant chicks out at bars. And definitely not at clubs. Ok, yeah, fine, we can't drink -- but I don't think that's why. People go out and don't drink all the time: they're driving, have to work early, they're broke... whatever. So why does pregnancy suddenly make them stop? 

A lot of pregnant ladies already have kids, and people with kids go out less, so there's one possible factor. But what about first timers? My only guess is that they're nesting -- getting ready for the Parenthood. I can see that happening with Winchester, even. He who used to stay up all night drinking whisky and smoking cigs is now in bed knitting at 10pm.

I'm not knitting, and I most certainly am not preparing for the Parenthood. So where does that leave me? As the only pregnant chick at the club. And it's kinda awesome -- going out sober is a totally worthwhile experiment (though I probably wouldn't make it a 9 month experiment if I had my druthers!). First, people watching becomes 1,000x funnier: drunk people are so silly! Second, dancing sober allows me to incorporate my work out routine into my social time: you see my awesome new dance move? Yeah, it's a hindu squat with calf raises. Drunk Deputy never would have pulled that off.

And then I woke up...

I dreamt last night about giving birth.  A few moments after the big event, I turned to the male nurse next to me and said "Was that as easy as I think it was? Did I LOOK like I was in a lot of pain?" and then I watched Winchester nervously fling the bloody, shit covered baby against his bare chest. I turned to my doula and laughed with her at him. I then got up, a little woozy, and decided that it was time for me to eat! I walked down to the hospital cafeteria, randomly bumped into some friends from high school, and got some sushi.

Can it be like this please?

Calling all surrogates!

Hi there!

I was wondering if you'd be so kind as to share with me stories of your hospital stay after the birth. Did the doctors put the baby on your chest right away? Did it stay in your room? Could you leave the hospital before the baby (please tell me yes!)? Where did the IPs keep themselves? Is there anything you think went really well or badly? Or, if you haven't given birth yet, what are your plans?

Cuz let me tell you: the idea of sharing a room with an infant is exhausting enough on my best days, but when I've just been through something as intense labor... eeks!!

- The Deputy