12 weeks.

Will start taking good weekly bump photos for F&C. I will post here too. I'm so excited that things have gone so well this round for us, the excitement keeps building and building. I now have a little pooch popping out.

So with that, here is baby bump at 12 weeks.

12 Week Ultrasound

Today I hit 12 weeks. I also had the nuchal ultrasound. F&C have been anxious for this appointment and to get to this point. I was sure hoping Skype would work for them at the facility I was at, since the last one had no good reception for it.

I arrived and was greeted by my awesome friend Stacy. She has done ALL my ultrasounds with my girls, so it was great to go back for the surrogacy. She rocks. We were ready to roll on the appointment and I turned to video on Skype for F&C. It worked! It was so great to watch them see their baby literally bouncing around on the screen. They got to see and hear the heartbeat. Baby looked awesome, and checked out perfectly.

I had to stay after the ultrasound for the genetic counseling. Which didn't mean much to me, since this baby is not mine, or related to me in any way - therefor my genetics play no part in it. But, again, I was able to Skype F&C in so they could listen to the counselor and make decisions on their baby's behalf. Made me feel so much better and more comfortable that they were able to do that.

I had a quick blood draw, met with Dr. Gonzales who is the perinatal doc, and was sent on my merry way. Actually, before I left we schedule the anatomy/gender scan. Set for August 5th, 2014. Eep! We can't wait to find out the gender of this babe.

 Everything went so great, and I am so beyond happy for the parents to be. Seeing their excitement today literally made my year. I know I made the right choice in following my calling to surrogacy, and in choosing the parents to bless. I feel so lucky. I am forever in awe at this whole amazing, crazy, beautiful process. Upon arriving home I was able to video Skype with them a bit longer. They said they will try to be here for the gender ultrasound. I lit up! I really hope they can be here for that. Would be wonderful to meet them.

Here are a few photos from today's ultrasound. The first is the baby, and the second is a sweet little footprint. I totally loved that photo, you can see all five teeny tiny toes.

At 12 weeks, I am still feeling great. I do find myself getting tired early into the night. Like 7pm. Other than that, all is great. Baby is now the size of a plum and just a little bit over 2 inches long. Heartrate today was 165. My guess on gender.....GIRL. We will have to wait to find out on August 5th.

First OB Appointment

Today I had my first appointment with my midwife. I'm so glad to be seeing her now. And for the time being the appointments will be slowing down. It will be nice to be at ease and let the baby do its thing.

Kim was my midwife for my pregnancy with Allie. She is so awesome. And supportive of this surrogacy. I had gone to her for medical clearance when I decided to do surrogacy, and she was supportive and said to be safe and only transfer one. I took that advice. And here we are, pregnant with one healthy babe!

Just a normal appointment, getting re-established with them. Got all the information logged, then we were gonna listen for baby's heartbeat. I got pretty nervous when we couldn't find it with the doppler. Kim tried for a few, then said "this baby is gonna make me get my ultrasound machine out." So she left to get it. I said a quick prayer that baby was just in a weird position and all was fine! She came back in, and we tried with the ultrasound. Baby was in a strange position, with its back facing up, so it was hard to see the heart beating at first. We finally got a good view, turned up the sound, and there it was! Heart beating at 167. PHEW. Relief. And I got another photo for F&C. Not the greatest, the machine was basic, but we take what we can get! Can't see the baby, but here is the heart rate. Next up, 12 week nuchal scan, next week.

10 Weeks

The 10 week appointment with Dr. Caperton went well. The appointments there are always short and to the point. Measure baby, check heartbeat - and everything always checks out great. Baby is growing like a weed! I was exactly 10 weeks, and baby measured 4 days ahead. I was so glad to see him/her doing so well! F&C seem to be getting more and more excited as the pregnancy progresses and I love that. I am able to get ultrasound photos and video of the hearbeats at these appointments. I can't wait to start showing a little more, and getting lots of pictures and videos for them. I am trying to document the best I can so they can be as involved/connected as possible. Here is a photo of their baby at 10 weeks. I am now released from Dr. Sahakian's care and can see my own OB.

I have been feeling so great. I had a bad headache for about a day after stopping the meds, but I hydrated well and ate a good breakfast after waking with the same headache, and it eventually disappeared. Honestly, I expected to get morning sickness this time. I have heard a bunch of other surrogates feeling sick because of the meds, when they had none with their own pregnancies. But, much to my surprise I haven't experienced any of that. And I am so thankful. If anything, I have a few days of being tired. Baby is now the size of a prune!

Testing Crazy!

I never posted here about how nuts I was about peeing on pregnancy tests. I wanted my IP's to be the first to know, and to let it soak in, and all that jazz.  But once you get that, in my case, super faint - early line, you have to keep peeing to watch it get darker. Even though I got the lines with our first transfer, and it ended up chemical, I wanted to be prepared for BETA results this round as well. At least if it were neg, I would expect it.

So my transfer was a 5 day transfer. They say the best time to test is 5 days after a 5 day transfer, but I started at 3.5 days. I was so anxious. And guess what? I got a SUPER faint positive. I was cautiously optimistic. And knew I needed it to get darker. Anyhow, it did. And here is just some of the tests I took <3 

Oh HAPPY Day!

I was just shy of ten weeks....to be exact I was 9 weeks 2 days when I had a crazy reaction to my injection. Everything had been going well with them, and suddenly things were different. I did my injection just the same as every night. They were getting harder each day, the oil was building up and I had little knots that were starting to form. Pushing the injections in was getting more and more difficult. Anyhow, as I was doing it, my back starting itching so so bad. Then after I was done my back turned bright red. Once the red had started to fade, I was left with a lot of busted blood vessels that looked like a bruise spread across my back. 

I emailed Dr. Sahakian, and he told me to stop the injections, take benedryl and ice the area a few times that next day. Since my ultrasound was 4 days away he said we could re-evaluate then if things looked good, I would be off them for good. It was such an exciting day. I didn't think he would tell me to stop quite yet. But he knows what he is doing :)

So after the ultrasound looked good, I was able to say goodbye to all the needles and meds! Here is a look back at all of them hahaha. Nothing goes undocumented right?!? To other potential surrogates that may run across this blog, just know that the meds really aren't that bad. I was a needle phone before, and they really aren't painful.  Grow baby grow!