Showing My Ass to the World & Other Great Moments of the Pregnancy So Far

***From the Surrogate Sister***

Showing my butt to the world
You could say this was the worst moment and doesn’t even qualify for when I was pregnant, but it was too damned funny not to share. Before the implant, I went to NYU to get instructed on how to administer the new progesterone shots. The nurse said the easiest thing was for her to draw circles like mini dartboards on my ass so my husband could see exactly where to aim his shots. Later that day, we met my good friend Ann and my brother for a bite at Clinton St. Bakery. Afterward, we started on the long walk to the subway in the sweltering summer heat. Only two steps in, the kids began the round-robin complaint game. “I can’t walk one more step! Carry me!” So by the time we reached the throngs of Canal Street, I relented. As Olivia hopped up on my back, so went my dress up my back—exposing my entire ass for all the world to see—big bold Sharpie-drawn black circles and all. It’s one of those moments you thank goodness that New York is a big city and that you’ll never, ever see those people walking beside me again. I doubt they’d recognize my face anyway.

Seeing the fertilized egg on flat screen
I had no clue they would show me the fertilized egg on flat screen before they implanted the little bugger. That was amazing, honestly. To see the tiny egg with the six or so replicating cells inside on a huge screen above me was out of this world. It felt like a scene out of a sci-fi film set in the future. Of course, then, pregnancy will probably be obsolete and babies will be carried to term by large-bellied robots.

Telling H the News
I’m not sure if my parents and friends realize that H and I bought about five pregnancy tests but I’m sure they won’t be surprised. Most women have done it. The first one came up negative because I was just too damned impatient (what’s new) and had to try only five days after the implant, one day before any of the websites I’d scoured said a result would appear. The next one I tried the very next morning while H & J were fast asleep. There it was … this tiny microscopic thin pink line that you literally could not see unless you tilted the test back and forth in full light. But it was there. And having gone down this road a few times before, I knew exactly what it meant. H was a bit more skeptical until test four came back more solid. And then when the nurse finally called us to confirm the fact from the text results at NYU, we knew we were golden.

Seeing the heartbeat
Before the doc did the sonogram, he prepared me to not expect anything. “It’s really too early to see much,” he said. And then two seconds later, he says, “Oh look! There’s the heartbeat.” Even with it not being my own kid, there’s a sense of awe and amazement you get from seeing this tiny lima bean on the screen with that infinitesimal beating heart. It makes the whole thing real from that second on.

Being a Queen Bee
It’s as if someone just told me at 41 that I’m actually the daughter of a prince. I’m suddenly getting the royal treatment by my family. My husband, who has been my rock through this entire experience despite his occasional jabs about my mood swings, is taking a lion’s share of the kids work out of my hands, doing more around the house, and even tackling the dozen or so projects that have been on “The List” for ages. Our dad is as loving and thoughtful as ever, ringing me often to check in and make sure I’m feeling well. (Though he always did that before. I love him for that.) But it’s our mom, no surprise, who has been the most attentive. She stocked my fridge with groceries and cooked meals before I ever exited the plane from NY, took me shopping at Nordstroms, tended to me when I was down with the flu (despite her catching the same bug), and is spending tons of her free time with me and the kids, helping me get through the weariness of this first trimester. It would be nearly impossible to do this without their tremendous support. Thank you all.

Telling my sister and brother-in-law I saw the heartbeat
In some ways, it was a bittersweet moment considering they couldn’t be here to witness it. Like H said, there’s so much of this pregnancy they’re going to miss. The morning sickness, the hemorrhoids, the weight gain, the food aversions—yes, so much. I really feel for them. But seriously, it’s all those awesome moments they will only be able to experience vicariously through me. And it breaks my heart for them. Thus, this blog. I’m trying my best, in my way, to capture it here. So back to the topic, hearing their reactions was priceless. I couldn’t get a hold of H, so I called my brother-in-law. “Really? Wow! But I didn’t even know you were going into the doctor today!” J sounded like those people who would open the door to Ed McMahon. “Really? Me? That big check is mine?” My sister was next. She finally picked up, and immediately started crying for joy, making me cry of course. It was a beautiful, shared, quiet moment in time, and I felt suddenly close to her as I heard her jubilant and elated reactions on the phone. She said it made her whole week. It certainly made mine. It felt great.

I’d write more if, frankly, the last two weeks hadn’t been such hell. Suffice it to say, getting a dreadful flu with a relentless cough that blessed me with six sleepless nights in a row and a perpetual feeling of nausea—at week 6 in the pregnancy, no less, when I was already feeling queasy—and requiring antibiotics to overcome it was no fun at all. Here’s hoping the rest of T1 goes smoothly…