Thoughts at the Half Way Point (almost)

We will be 18 weeks on Sunday and most twin pregnancies are delivered around 36 weeks, so we are almost exactly half way through. I can't believe it as I type this! It just amazes me. I wanted to post about how differently I feel now, half way through, versus early on because so much has changed! I love lists, so here we go!

1. I realize more than ever the profound sacrifice that J and R and their kids are making for us. From the moment that J offered to do this, I was indescribably grateful and in awe that anyone would make such an offer. When it actually worked, I was blown away that the offer was transitioning into a true life-changing event. I knew conceptually what a big deal it is to give birth and all the risks around that but what I didn't have a full grasp of was that pregnancy is more than giving birth - it's a true 9 month sacrifice. I guess I *knew* that logically but I never really thought much about the pregnancy part, only the birth part. I envisioned that J would be carrying a beautiful belly around and that we would magically have a baby in 9 months after the hard sacrifice of labor. I am fortunate to have the opportunity to be so close to J, both in physical proximity and in friendship, because I do get to experience a lot of the pregnancy to the degree that I can; we see each other weekly (at least), email multiple times per week and B and I go to all the appointments. Because of this, I am intimately aware of all the complexities of pregnancy (and potential complexities). J experienced frequent morning sickness until 15.5 weeks and it was really hard to feel like the cause of it (of course she never for a moment made me feel that way). R had to come home every day from work at lunch time to put their youngest to bed because J wasn't allowed to lift her. J still isn't allowed to really lift for the rest of the pregnancy so she constantly has to be aware of what she is doing and it limits what she can do with her own kids. While J had such low energy during the first trimester, she wasn't up to playing as much with her kids in the same way she would have if she weren't pregnant. J's mom and R have been looking after the kids every time we go to one of these appointments. It truly is taking a village for us to have these kids, and the every day sacrifice of J, R, and their kids - for 9 months (and before during the IVF procedure) - is mind blowing. These are the things I didn't know the extent of at the beginning of the pregnancy. I feel sheepish often because I HATE, HATE, HATE to rely on anyone for anything and this is the ultimate reliance, especially when you realize how much goes into it. There is no way to ever thank anyone for this kind of sacrifice.

2. I'm shocked at how quickly my injured soul from infertility has healed. Before getting "pregnant", I read all the time on message boards about how difficult it still was for people to get past infertility during their pregnancies and beyond; there was so much pain and hurt that even after reaching the goal, there was a shadow on the soul. I can honestly say I haven't experienced this for the most part (see number 3 for an exception). Infertility certainly has IMPACTED me and my thoughts in various ways, but I no longer feel the desperate sadness and anger that I felt before. I still worry more than the average person about the pregnancy, but even that has plateaued since early on. I do now believe we will have two babies in December, and I didn't believe that in the first few weeks. I no longer feel anger toward pregnant women, I no longer feel hopeless, I no longer feel sad that we had to go through 6 IVFs to get where we are. I am proud of how we got here and tell everyone about it. I have reached complete acceptance that this is not traditional and have no problems with it. It was eye opening to receive multiple emails after our big email announcement from people I knew in high school who said, "wow, that's perfect, I remember you always said you didn't want to be pregnant but you wanted kids". It's true...my whole life I have had this weird thing about not wanting to be pregnant but wanting to have biological children. I see this now as completely meant to be. And because we only wanted two kids and are having twins, I feel a genuine sense of soul completion and healing that I would never have thought possible. Our family will be complete.

3. I do have occasional moments where I feel...odd...despite everything I just said above. Odd is the best way to describe it because it's not sad or angry, it's just...odd. We are in Denver right now for a convention for B's company. Last night everyone started getting to the convention, and it's a bunch of people who all know each other (same industry and they come to this convention every year). So, last night, everyone was doing the standard greetings, catching up, introducing to new people, etc. Someone introduced us to a woman who was pregnant and due at the same time as us. I immediately had the thought, "we're due then too!" but felt I had to suppress that conversation piece because she was standing there rubbing her stomach and talking about how she was at the "fat looking stage". Even though we had something much bigger in common - that we are going to have babies in the same month and raise them for 18 years - I felt inferior because I couldn't relate to what she was experiencing right now. It would have been weird to interject our news at that point, even though if I were pregnant myself it would have been completely normal ("oh I'm pregnant too!"). I NEVER feel that way when I tell non-pregnant people our news, ever. I'm so excited to share it and explain our story. But on the random occasions when I am telling a pregnant woman about it I do feel sheepish.

4. I'm amazed at how fast my thoughts have become maternal. I stopped all advertising for my company (I own it) last week to put my career on a temporary hold in anticipation of wanting to be completely free during the 3rd trimester if J needs me and then being on maternity "leave" for several months. I'll have to do another post about the details of that. But suffice it to say that I am VERY career oriented. I have spent the last several years working as hard as possible to climb the career ladder, getting an MBA from a top school and starting my own company because the corporate world didn't move fast enough. Suddenly, that all seems less important. There, I said it out loud. I understand why women choose to not have careers and "just" (I use the term lightly) raise families. I would never, ever, ever have gotten that had babies come easily to us. I do belive it's the strange blessing of infertility to treasure children more than you otherwise would have. I'm fortunate that I'm in a position of owning my company and can just pull the plug on business for a few months without making decisions about quitting a job or formal maternity leave or anything. I do not know what I will choose to do eventually, but for now I plan to take a definite 4 months off, even up to a year. I want to enjoy every moment of having these babies we have worked so hard for. I never thought, even at the beginning of this pregnancy that I would consider taking that much time away or that I would be so happy with the decision. I do think I will want to work again because I enjoy the intellectual challenge of building a company. But I'm not putting any immediate timeframes on it. The maternal instinct has kicked in for me...I couldn't be there for the babies for the first 9 months, but I want to be there for them even more later to make up for it. :)

5. This post is getting enormous so I'm going to end with number 5, though I could go on and on. Lastly I will say that at this point I'm surprised that I'm still shocked this has all worked out. I would have thought I would have gotten used to the idea more, but I still have moments ... all the time ... that I can't believe we are actually going to have the babies I thought were never going to come. I get very emotional whenever I think about that because it seems like a fairy tale given that I had basically thrown in the mental towel. B and I lead a volunteer program through our church with teen girls living in foster homes. Back in January we did a session with them on prayer and trusting God. In that session we had all the girls write a prayer on a piece of stationary about something they needed to "turn over to God". We were going to mail it back to them in several months so they could get perspective on how much things change over time, even when you think you have hit the bottom. B and I always participated in the activities with the girls, so we did prayer letters too. They then all got tucked into the garage and since then the program has changed significantly to now include a lot more teens and the ones we had at the time who wrote those letters we don't see anymore. When we were cleaning out the garage last weekend I found the box with the letters. I felt bad that we had no way to get the letters to those girls now. I was about to throw out the box and then I saw my own letter. I didn't recall what I wrote in it but opened it up to see. It said (recall this was in January, before we had even started the IVF cycle for surrogacy):

"Dear God, Please help me to accept and be at peace with whatever way we are able to have a family."

I just about lost it when I read this. I remembered the hopelessness and pain I felt when writing it in January, not having any idea if the surrogacy would work and not wanting to face my feelings if it didn't. I felt guilty for teaching these girls to do something that I couldn't even do at the time. This was only 7 months ago. I guess the shock that I still feel that this HAS worked out and that I AM at peace now will take a long time to go away. And I probably learned a bigger lesson from our letter writing exercise than any of the girls we were supposed to be "teaching"; God did answer that prayer even though I could never have imagined the answer possibly being so perfect when I wrote that just 7 months ago.