Back to work

So I went back to work Sunday. The work is easy enough because even if I'm tired and adjusting my body still, somehow my hands and mouth somehow seem to remember what to do even when my brain hasn't caught up yet. Thank God for caffeine. I like working on a lower stress slower shift given the major life changes we've gone through, and it helps me keep my focus first on my family as I envisioned. The hard part is sleeping. I have enough opportunity during the day when Vivek is sleeping, but my body is still fighting it. It will get a bit easier after a week I'm sure, and after Tara is home then I'll have even more time to sleep or get stuff done since I won't be carving out several hours of outside care for him and travel to the hospital to see her. Vinnie is doing a great job and working out a schedule that works for him. Unfortunately Vivek seems to be fussy and gassy for a few hours late at night so that makes it tougher on him, but I help him catch up on sleep in the morning. I'm so proud of the job he is doing and we are making it work. It makes you love your husband so much more to see him being such a good father.

Sunday afternoon Vinnie took care of my stepdad and Vivek so I could bring my mother to see Tara finally. It was long overdue since her last memories of her were less than pleasant two weeks ago. She managed to hold back tears and held her for an hour.

Tara is doing fantastic. She is now down to 1L of oxygen on the nasal cannula! Only slightly more than room air, and on a low flow rather than fast flow. She got her last dose of steroids, and they moved the orogastric tube to her nose to prep her for bottlefeeding. That made her very happy because she hates tubes down her throat. When I saw her last night for the first time she seemed comfortable and like her old self, happy and adorable. She was not getting upset or agitated to get messed with and when she coughed she did not go into a coughing fit. She stared at me for an hour making cute little faces, and I'm pretty sure Maleka is her favorite nurse. The doctor called today and left me a message while I was sleeping, and said the occupational therapists gave her the first bottle feed. She did gulp as expected and they had to work on pacing her. We'll see where we go from here, but the residual effects of the pneumonia are abating.

Meanwhile Vivek decided to be a candy striper for the day and we visited my husband's cousin Preeti in the hospital. I had been to her baby shower the previous day, which had been moved to the Presbyterian Hospital of Plano cafeteria due to her medical issues in her pregnancy. Her baby is 3.4lbs and she is 32 weeks along, so I assured her she is in a great place and not to worry. I know how much it helps to see a baby that was as small or smaller than yours big and healthy, so glad I was able to do for her what my brother and sister-in-law did for me. Vivek showed off his 8lb frame and was a perfect angel as she held him. It lifted hers and her husband's spirits I'm sure as they wait the 1-4 weeks until their early delivery, and it was nice to donate most of his old preemie clothes to a good cause.

Friends in far away places

So someone I met on the interwebs who is also having twins just arrived in Anand, and ever so graciously checked on my babies for me and fulfilled my request to email me some pictures of them! I just about fell out of bed and was yelling at my phone to load faster! It is so good to have a friend along this journey!

I have yet to see my baby boy not crying. My little girl is chilling in all 3 pics I have of her. All reports from the nurse Suvarna are good and it really emphasized that breathing without assistance at this point is very, very good.

The baby shower was yesterday, and I am overwhelmed with how many wonderful and and generous friends I have. Unfortunately I couldn't figure out how to work my new camera that my father-in-law gifted us, so I'll have to wait for my mother to email me her shots to post here. I had a wonderful time, and got some beautiful gifts. Most especially I got two little hand-knitted baby blankets with the alphabet on them, and two tiny knitted outfits with adorable fringed hats! Can't wait to dress them up for photos. My father bought us the Snuza Halo monitors so that I can have peace of mind.  I just was reading some Amazon reviews and there were several life saves reported, so this should help me to be a more relaxed Mom and sleep a bit deeper. As someone who has heard the screams of parents whose babies have died of SIDS...it changes you to the point you have to take every precaution because you know bad things can happen to good parents.

I got mandated to come in early on my last day of work before I leave, but fortunately they flexed me out and someone else took overtime so I can still work just 8 hours. I may get the nursery painted tonight after all...we'll see! The to do list for tonight is daunting, but I can sleep on the plane. I'm frustrated because I have a very small stack of items to take that I can't seem to fit in the suitcases. 4 of them are books, which I really don't want to sacrifice. The breast pump is really the problem because it is taking up so much space. I'll figure it out. I'll figure all this out. I can't wait to see my babies!!!!

Belly pictures!

Well I humbly requested belly pictures of our surrogate, and I got them!!! It gave me a huge jolt of excitement, and it made things feel very real.  It is what I needed. I'm like a kid at Christmas and can't sleep! The pics included her face, but for her confidentiality I cut them out for this blog.

The pic seems to have stretched wide a bit somehow when I saved it. Overall she looks very healthy. It seems that the women there never smile for pictures, but that may be a cultural thing having to do with appearing demure. We are only at 26 weeks, so I can't imagine how much bigger she'll be full term! I feel so much more connected to her now after seeing her, and my thoughts turn more to her health and welfare as this has made her existence more concrete to me.

I attended a different La Leche League meeting yesterday, and they were very supportive and I liked it much better than the first one. I'm still not in full agreement on LLL perspective on some issues, but it was a good place for support and information. When I'm no longer working evenings starting Sept, I will switch to the evening meetings and will probably find more working women who I can identify with more than the stay at home gals. I feel more educated on mastitis, and have decided I need to fork over the money to rent a hospital pump because it truly is much more efficient and well worth the money. It will hopefully pay for itself by us not having to buy formula hardly at all.  There was some intense discussion on how a woman slipping out her nips in public without a cover is normal and natural and should be accepted without discomfort and staring. I get it, but can't see myself being a breastfeeding crusader that is going to whip them out no matter who is watching. Plus, I have to do both at once and that makes being discreet a lot more difficult. I wish LLL had a list of places to rent breast pumps and a price list from having called around, so that everyone didn't have to do all their own research. I also wish they had a list of places to buy nursing bras. However I think I found two of the best places thanks to some dedicated time Googling.

The invitations for the baby shower are out, and this morning I will transfer money to India for them to host a baby shower for Manju. The text of Dr. Patel's email is as below:

I want to ask you if you would like to do a baby shower ceremony over here. We do it at the surrogate house in the 7th months.

 

The whole event costs about 125 USD.

 

This is done according to Hindu ritual, where in a priest performs the ceremony & prays for the safe baby delivery for mother & child both. The inmates of Surrogate house will have a nice lunch & Manju & other surrogates receive gifts. This whole can be done in total 125 USD  if you agree to it let me know.

I did add a polite P.S. to the bottom of my response letting them know that "inmate" was not the best term to use, because it gives Americans the wrong idea. I don't want people criticizing Dr. Patel with the false assumption that the surrogates are like prisoners and have no freedom, because I know that is not the case.

Now a nap, then off to buy a nursing bra!

What's in a name?

I finally realized it is okay. It’s okay to not be happy and overwhelmed with excitement all the time. It is just too much for my psyche to sustain on a regular basis. I’ve been feeling so guilty that I’m not over the moon all the time, and at times am anxious about becoming a mother or frustrated that I’m so far away and the waiting feels endless. It is a lot of pressure when you’ve been glum and a drag to be around for so long due to infertility, that you’d better be really happy now gosh darn it! I am mostly, but just not all the time.

And when I finally got the latest scan report on the 4^th of July and didn’t get the expected shot of ecstatic happiness, I felt like something was wrong with me. Don't get me wrong....I’m thrilled to know they are both still healthy. I just wish I could make out anything on the scans, but the bigger they get I can only make out indiscriminate body parts. Out of two pages of pictures I can only make out that one is a side profile of the head, and the rest are anybody’s guess.  My mother got me all excited by emailing me back when I sent her the report and saying “Is it true?! Are you really having two girls!?” I must have looked over the scans for an hour trying to see what she saw, but then I finally realized she saw where it listed the surrogate’s gender on two separate pages as female. Sigh.  I understand now the drive for women who do surrogacy in the US to have a close relationship with the surrogate. I don't think it is so much about having a relationship with the surrogate as forming a relationship with your baby and the surrogate helps facilitate that by involving you more closely in the pregnancy. If a close friendship also results, that is a wonderful bonus.

The invitation list for the baby shower is done, and will go out very soon. That has me very excited! I had a brilliant idea and made myself some very cute signs for the shower that have our selection of 6 names on them with the meanings. I realized that if I thought I was getting tired of explaining and spelling out names at some fun parties we went to recently, I would get REALLY tired of answering those questions at the baby shower twenty times over in a loud room.  It was surprisingly easy and only took less than an hour of discussion with the hubby to make up our minds. Of course I did many hours of research before hand on thousands of Indian names first to pick out ones I liked. I made index cards with every name I liked including the meaning of it and any nicknames it might spawn. I kept the toss pile so if our kid tells us later they don’t like their name I can show them some of the others so they’ll be grateful because it could be worse. One that was a definite toss pile was the girl name “Anala.” It sounded beautiful. But I took a second look. Think about it. 

I am slightly concerned that the boy name I picked if it is a boy and girl have initials that don’t exactly spell out something desirable, but I love the name so much I’m just going to pin my hopes on the kids on the playground not connecting those dots. Who thinks about what someone else’s initials anyway? I hope I don’t live to regret that statement.

So without further ado…here are our name selections!

I would add that I am impressed that my husband is secure enough in himself to not be threatened by the selection of the name "Arjun."  It is in the top 5 list of Indian names currently, and I love the correlation to mythology and the sound of it.  But I also have a mad crush on the Bollywood actor Arjun Rampal.

 

Father's Day Reality Check

I've been working so hard with as much overtime as I can get. At this point with so few updates and as time has drawn on... it is somehow feeling less real instead of more so. I keep thinking this is all some elaborate delusion that I've made up and I'm really locked in a rubber room at a mental hospital dreaming up the wish that I'm actually going to be a mother of two in three and a half months. The doctors and nurses give me pills but instead I rock back and forth in a trance pretending that all my dreams have finally come true.  The initial plans taking shape for a baby shower though may help it to become more real when I have a room full of folks celebrating, because surely that many folks can't participate in my delusion.

My first reality check was coming home after an exhausting double shift the day before Father's Day and finding that I really should have been more specific when I asked my husband to pick up some "dishwashing liquid."  Sigh. But kudos to the man for staying up late cleaning it up, going out at midnight to buy the right kind of soap, then waiting up another hour and a half to run another dishwashing cycle!

For Father's Day Vinnie and I celebrated by taking him out to lunch, then went to visit Babies R'Us. I don't know if it was a reality check or just sticker shock. Vinnie and I test out the super comfy gliders with matching ottomans, but the most utilitarian looking dark brown one that matches the nursery is $400.  Instead I am practical and purchase a changing pad cover for $11. Since 4th of July is coming up they have the cutest little red, white, and blue swimsuits and dresses...so I was a little frustrated about not knowing gender. So many cute clothes and I don't want to waste money if we don't get a girl. Sigh. But Vinnie does look awfully good in pink. I did get two patriotic onesies at WalMart the other day. So would it be a good idea to show up to my US embassy appointment with my babies in "I Love the USA" outfits?