Our Carrier is Pregnant 28 Weeks/7 Months

28 weeks today! We made it to the 3rd trimester! 11 weeks to go!

Jessica says Max is still as active as ever and is pretty consistent on his 3-4am somersaults. Thats my boy! She also said that at this point she already seems bigger than she ever was with both her boys. We may have a big boy on our hands, who knows.

Yesterday was the 28 weeks appt and Jessca had her diabetes glucose testing. All good! Now we move to appts every 2 weeks. At this appt it was brought up to Jessica that we need to get a hospital/ labor and delivery tour and figure things out for that day. Eeeek! I want to do this and be able to ask lots of questions about that day and how things will work once Max is born. Will he get given straight to us for me to try and breastfeed? Will we get our own private room so we can have a little bit of alone time with him once he is born? What will happen if he needs to go to the NICU? This makes me so crazy nervous to think about. As much as I like things organized, in order, and perfect, things in the baby delivery dept has never quite worked out for us.

Jessica told me her idea of how she see's everything happening for the delivery and after. I agree with her for the most part. Jessica needs the support of her family and I know they have already been supportive of her doing this for us. I love the idea of both our families being there and coming together as one. The only thing that worries me is that I will not want to give Max up once I get him. I want everyone to meet him and hold him because so many are so excited for his arrival, but I have been waiting so long for this and scared at how fast things could get taken away from me again. My crazy mind is just spinning about this and how I will react that day once he is born. I see myself bawling my eyes out both for the joy of finally having a healthy baby delivered and also for Liam and Evelynn who deserve to be here. I am also scared that I may be worried about getting to attached as well for fear of him getting taken away or that I will hurt him because my crazy mind still likes to try and convince me that my babies dying is all my fault. I hate to sound slefish but sometimes I just want my baby and to get back to Alaska so that I can finally have what I have been wanting for so long. Ahh! I hate thinking this way, but yet so much to think about and it is getting closer.

In August I will also be working with our lawyer again so we can get the prebirth order put into place before Max is born. We really loved that Jessica lived in North Dakota because of the laws regarding using a gestational carrier. Maybe you all remember me first writing about these types of laws when we were first looking into getting a carrier. Anyway I will resum it up for you all. Alaska wasn't preferred because I would've had to adopt my own biological baby from the carrier, but Dereck would always be the father. In Minnesota you can't file a birth order until the baby is born alive, but would be put right in our names. The downfall would be if the baby was stillborn, then he would not be considered ours because the state doesn't recognize a stillbirth as a birth. In North Dakota, Max was always ours in the states eyes. We could do the paperwork anytime and no matter what our names on his birth certificate. Make sense. Were any of you ever afraid of any of this when you were trying to bring your rainbow home, minus the gestational carrier of course? I know I had a lot of these various thoughts with Evelynn as well.

I am on my count down for the number of weeks I have left at work and coming to MN/ND until I return with Max, hopefully, better be returning with him. I am excited but so nervous. Eeek! I have been to this point before and it's only going to get more nerve racking as time draws closer. I just have to keep staying busy, breathe, and think positive.

For anyone who is interested I will be in Minnesota/North Dakota for what could be a couple weeks before Max is born, unless he comes early like at 37, which I kind of hope. So what I am saying is that if anyone lives close and would like to try and meet up, let me know and maybe we can try and work something work. 

Operation Bring Milk Back for Max:

It has now been a month since I last spoke to the lady from the Nursing Boutique about my milk production and over a month since I first tried to start pumping again. I wish I could say things are going well with it, but I am getting discouraged. I am not producing any more milk than when I first started seeing milk originally after the 20 week anatomy scan:(. I had been pumping and doing hand massages about 5 times a day. I have also seen the acupuncturist twice, but going to start going more frequently once we hit August.

I called the Nursing Boutique back the other day and asked their thoughts on how they think I should be doing right now. I spoke to a different lady than I had before and she recommended that I start doing massages and/or pump ever 2-3 hours around the clock. It has been hard doing it more often during the day being at work because I don't have long enough breaks, other than at lunch, to be able to get set up and pump or even do hand massages for at least 10-15 minutes at a time. I also hadn't been pumping in the middle of the night, but I guess I need to start doing that again at least once or twice after I go to bed.
She also brought up herbs to me again, which I have mentioned I am not to keen on, but I kind of feel desperate and considering starting this one that is normally used with the Regulin to help produce more mam tissue, I think. I feel I am willing to do anything and almost back to wanting to do the Domperidone again just because it would be the easy route, expensive but easier.

This really is so much harder than I expected. It was different before when the milk was there, along with the need to pump to relieve the pressure, but now it is just kind of depressing. I hate that I want to give up so easily though. I have time to still get things working, but it was just so much easier last time. I remember people telling me how strong I was to pump and donate after my daughter died and how they could never be able to do that. It was rewarding to do it last time. I was helping babies with my daughters milk. I have a goal this time too, to be able to breastfeed my son, but without having the milk be there so easily, it sucks. I find myself struggling at the fine line between wanting to pump now so my son can breastfeed exclusively later and trying to move forward in life aside from baby. Yes, I want to do this, but the constant need to pump gets in the way of me wanting to get out with friends, hiking, working out, going fishing, getting away for a few days, and so forth because I have to be attached to the pump. I did it last summer, which was still inconviencing at times, but I made it work, but since my milk was in I could get away with longer time periods in between those pumps if needed. Now having to pump or feel myself up every couple hours I feel even more like that weird friend, even weirder than I did last summer. I know they all understand, but sometimes I get annoyed with it all because I think about how things should never have been this way to begin with. It's just frustrating is all.

I am going to do it though. I am determined. I will pump and massage every few hours, I will keep doing acupunture, I may start herbs in a few weeks. I have even been consuming large amounts of oatmeal because it is very lactogenic and even been drinking coconut water almost daily because it apparently is great for lactating moms. Come on milk, you know you want to come back with meds.

For anyone who is interersted here are some links the nursing boutique has given me to look into on how to do different types of hand massages, herbs used, and ways to increase a low milk supply-
http://newborns.stanford.edu/Breastfeeding/ and http://www.lowmilksupply.org/.
Also a popular one they gave me last year in regards to lactation and breastfeeding- http://kellymom.com/.

_______________________

Last weekend at work I ran into the lady who originally offered to carry a baby for us. She seems to be doing well and was so excited when I told her about Max. From talking with her she says that she would still love to be a carrier for someone. I think that's great and hopefully she can find someone, but I am still 100% sure that we made the right decision to go with Jessica.

Catching Up- July So Far

July seems to be flying by. I can't believe it is already the 18th. Keep it up time, keep it up!

I have had a lot of good days getting out with friends and enjoying our gorgeous summer. I also have dived into baby mode, which I wasn't sure I'd be able to do, or even want to do. I am surprised I have been able to do as much as I have and feeling pretty good about it. I never really designed the nursery much before. I had my deer theme with Liam and Evelynn, but didn't really make anything for the room, mainly just all store bought matching accessories for the nursery set I had. I think I mentioned before that I am now making the new nursery into a butterfly theme. New room, new theme, new baby, new start. Thanks to ideas from pinterest I think Max has got tons of fun things to look at. I'll try to post pictures when it's finished. I am also probably doing this a bit early but since I am feeling good about it, I did it now. I have gone through and washed all my baby clothes, diapers, blankets, and bedding already. I really didn't think I would be able to do any of this until after Max was here because I was so worried about getting everything ready only to have to pack it all away again. When I think about it though, it was close to this same point with my pregnancy with Evelynn that I truly started accepting the fact I was having a girl, and she needed girl things, and I started to get truly excited for her arrival.


I also got my first baby shower invite since Evelynn passed away. Now I did manage to go to two after Liam passed away. That was of course when I was 7-9 months pregnant with Evelynn, was feeling a little better in my grief, and these were good friends who had been there for me through that grief and my pregnancy with my daughter. Now this baby shower invite was for someone who I didn't even know, so I don't even know why I got invited, especially since anyone who knows me at all knows that I have major issues with pregnant people. Whatever. Guess what I am saying is that I did manage to go to those friends of mine with Evelynn, but I want nothing to do with anything baby/pregnancy related, unless its with my baby. Sound selfish? Sure, but I think I have the right to be.

I think so often about other people's pregnancies and their happiness. I have wrote many times about my jealousy of them and their seemingly perfect lives. Its true and I won't deny it that I have major jealousy issues, jealous of women who get pregnant easily and have perfect pregnancies, jealous of women who themselves have struggled for years to even get pregnant, jealous of all future pregnancy and baby talk, and even find myself getting crazy jealous of the women who have had losses but have since brought home their rainbows before me. It's ridiculous how much the jealousy can take control.

One of my good friends has offered numerous times already to have one for Max. Not really one with gifts and all that again, I have baby stuff, but more of one to celebrate this hopefully coming bundle of joy with all my friends that are excited for us. I can't do it. I can't even really put into words why, I hate that I can find the right words, but I just would prefer to wait and do any kind of celebrating until my boy is here. Then we can celebrate!

So will I ever mentally be able to attend any of my close friends baby showers ever again. Will it be different once Max is home? I have had a lot of friends and family get pregnant and have babies since we first got pregnant with Liam. Since most of these people have lived so far away it's been easy to avoid their happiness and for me to somewhat avoid the fact that I am so jealous of that. I have only had a few friends become pregnant here in Alaska. These friends, along with friends and family back home, and what seems like everyone else I see, all seem so happy and wouldn't think for a second that something could go wrong. I wonder about that sometimes. Not that I would expect all my friends, family, or others to come to me while they are pregnant or even just in the ttc phase, to tell me they are worried that the same thing that happened to me would happen to them. If they did that I would probably just get annoyed anyway, because well, all pregnancy talk, other than for mine actually, really bothers me, because you know, of course their pregnancy will be fine! So I wonder then, how can they all just be so happy, carefree, and so certain things will work out with their pregnancy knowing what happened with me. Honestly I am scared for all pregnancies. I know far too much about how babies die. I have a few really good close friends who are hoping to get pregnant in the next year. How can they talk about it so casually like its no big deal? Is it because the statistics of shit going bad are low and that they already had a friend go through it, twice, so the chances of it happening to them are even lower? Maybe it's just that they know just how precious life is and that they seen with me how easily it can get taken away, and so they will love and enjoy every minute of it in case it could be there last?

I don't know, but I have been definitely thinking about that so much lately. Then while writing this I went over to Brooke's blog to catch up with her and she wrote the most perfect post yesterday. It was all about other people's pregnancies. Even though I have not brought my healthy, living, rainbow baby home yet, it still seems so fitting, not to mention she always seems to find the write words to how I feel all too often about other people's pregnancies. Definitely give it a read.

My last blog post I wrote about the BLM get together that happened last month in Chicago. One of my fellow blm friends had some rainbow hats knitted for all the babies that came. I posted the same link as I did in the last post to another one of Brooke's blog posts that has some of those pics if you want to see them. Well, last Friday a package came in the mail and it was a little knitted rainbow hat for my little rainbow Max, just like they all had.

Thank you so much Sonja for the rainbow hat for my rainbow:)  

I also got some awesome shirts and onesies for Max!

Yeah! Max's rock came for the garden!



And Just Like That, The Sadness Returns & A BLM Get Together

May clearly sucked. June seemed to have gotten better, until now. It might have been that Dereck was home. Maybe because I had started a new workout/bootcamp routine and was feeling good about it. Maybe it was that we finally had sunshine and warmth. Which if you live in or near Anchorage, it is rare to have 70-80+ degree weather, and for multiple days/weeks on end at that. Who knows what made me feel better, but the fact is that those feelings of relief, less stress, and less worry are gone. Eveything seems to be making me cry this past week.

Their are few things for sure that I know have contributed to this.

First being that I was at a friends bachelorette party this past weekend, so of course their was talk of "when are you gonna start ttc" and "how many kids do you guys want"? Hearing this stuff still makes me just cringe. I swear I have even developed like a nervous twitch when I hear this sort of thing. No joke. The blm in me just thinks that this will be another person/friend that has their first baby before I have my first one even live long enough to bring home. I hate these thoughts, especially because I feel like I am just giving up on Max.

Then there is the other various blm's that I know who have recently had there rainbows. I feel so ridiculous and selfish that those jealous feelings take over, even with them. Afterall, they too have lost a baby and some I have even followed throughout their journeys. I guess I just get so frustrated to think that I lost my baby first, then lost my rainbow baby, and I am still trying to bring home a baby after all this time. Even one of my fellow uterine rupture babyloss moms, who lost her son right around the time I lost Evelynn, just had her rainbow the other day. I am happy everything worked out, she didn't rerupture, and the baby is healthy, but damn it already when is it my turn. Not that it's a competition, but still it frustrates me that I am still "here". I barely even take part in that group anymore because I honestly can't handle hearing of more losses, but even more so hearing of my pregnancies and births. Same goes for the surrogacy groups I am in. I suck:(

Then, I have been trying to slowly work on getting the nursery in order and organizing all of Liam and Evelynn's stuff. I can only handle going in the nursery for a short period of time before I just have to get out. It overwhelms me so much still. It's a different room, but still has lots of memories and sadness tied to so many of the items in it. I want to finish it for Max, but need to find away to work in it without my thoughts taking over. I also got all of Liam and Evelynn's stuff out of the nursery and together, and have been trying to sort through it to decide what I should throw away and what I want to keep. So much of Evelynn's stuff I can't part with yet, plus I still need to do her scrapbook and want to hold onto a lot of stuff for use in that. Liam's scrapbook is done but I still have had the majority of the papers I received at UCSF and from various other places about babyloss and grief. I finally got myself to throw most of that stuff away and will donate the books on grief to Hospice probably, which I did with a few others I had in the past. Why I still had so many random papers from the hospital, I don't know. Some I had never looked at and some I felt the need to hold onto in case I needed them again-ugh. I cried almost the entire time going through this stuff:(. At any rate they are all in the garbage now. I am expert in babyloss, what do you want to know?! The sad thing is that I bought a couple boxes, that I thought were to small at first for all there stuff, but now that I am going through it and discarding all this random stuff that really has no meaning, the boxes seem empty, and I guess I don't have as much stuff of their's as I thought. Boo:(.

I also hate that reaching 24 weeks bothers me. Most people assume their pregnancy will work out once they get a heartbeat, others one they reach the 2nd trimester, and then usually once they reach viability most figure things are good to go and that baby will be here, alive, healthy, and home in no time. Me, I am officially scared now. I hate the last half of the pregnancy. We are a little over a week away in Max's gestational number of weeks that Liam had fetal surgery and died. As far as we know he is healthy and fine, so was Evelynn at this time, but it still irks me. I have been doing good with not bugging Jessica but not I am worried and almost want to get an update from her everyday. It's becoming more real now, especially now that I am working on the lactation side of it. Ahhh! Approx. 3-3 1/2 months to go. Breathe, breathe, breathe....

Dang, I just got my period. Well that's not helping......but I do feel a little better for venting.

-----------------------------------------------------

I wasn't there, but want to post a little about it since my amazing blm friends tried to include me and my babies the best way they could.

BLM-Rainbow Get Together 2013

I so wish I could've been there with my Evelynn.

The weekend of June 7th, 8th, 9th many of my fellow blm friends got together to finally meet after blogging these past couple years since they lost babies. I loved looking at their pictures and seeing all the rainbows together. It was great seeing all the mommas together as well. To finally meet IRL a group of people that truly understand the hell they have gone through and the joy that their rainbows have brought into their lives. I hope next year I can be their with my rainbow Max. I love the way that Brooke wrote about the weekend.

Thank you for including my babies by lighting a candle for each of them. Keleen shared this picture with me that she lit candles 4 and 5 for Liam and Evelynn.

Our Carrier Is Pregnant- 24 Weeks/6 Months

Viability! Although that's never really mattered much for me in the past, but still happy to have reached it.

Less than 4 months and counting!

Jessica had her 24 week appt. on Wednesday and it went great. His heartbeat was 154 and he was as active as ever while the Dr. was trying to find it.

Next appt. is at 28 weeks, which will also be the 3rd trimester!!!

I have been trying to find a place in ND to go so Jessica can get a 4D keepsake u/s of Max for me, but having little to no luck in that dept. I'd really like to get some extra pictures of my little guy. Not sure what we are going to do, but I guess we still have some time to figure it out.


Since my garden is all planted I had been keeping myself busy with getting cloth diapering essentials. Yes, I am cloth diapering, and I am obsessed with all the cute covers there are. I wanted to do it with Evelynn, but Dereck said that was completely out of the question. Now I have him for the most part convinced, as in I'll be doing all of the laundry and dealing with the extra poopy diapers. Plus, all of the diapers he can change can be the all in ones and I'll deal with the prefolds and covers. Did I mention it is addicting, especially the homemade ones on etsy. So cute!!!

Operation Bring Milk Back for Max:

June 7th- Decided that since I started leaking a tiny bit that maybe I should just give the to pump a shot and see if I get more to come. Plus, I figured if I could get my milk back without meds, that'd be awesome.

Pumped only once a day for about a week and got about the same tiny amount out as I did when I first seen it after the anatomy scan.

June 13th- I had a chat with one of the ladies from the nursing boutique that helped me when I was first donating. She asked me how much milk I was producing while I was donating and couldn't believe how much I was able to put out in a day. She was also really happy to hear that some milk was already coming back with out doing much of anything. She told me that the pumping I did last fall already put me a month or two ahead of most people who want to get there milk to come in because the pumping I did for so long apparently changed my anatomy when it comes to milk production.

She really thinks that I will not need any meds at all, which is awesome, and what I would prefer. For now she thinks I should just start doing about a 10-15 min. boob massage about 3-4 times a day for the next week. Then the following week go up to 5-6 and then 7-8 times a day. She thinks in about a month my milk should be completely back. She said that with most people who have never pumped or breastfed that a month of doing this is the amount of time it would usually take for them to just get a small amount of milk to even appear, where as with me I am passed that so in this time I should be able to be on my pump producing away. Hearing that excites me and I really hope she's right. She recommended that I don't use my pump quite yet, as she is afraid it could wreck my nipples since there is a lot of pull and not much coming with it. My nipples don't seem to be irritated by the pump, so I have been using my pump once a day and then massaging them the other times. So far I am still getting about the same amount of milk to appear as I did when I first noticed it.

Their is herbs that she brought up to me, but honestly I am pretty against most herbs since the majority of them have had little to no testing done on them. Not to mention that the ones people believe could help in milk production, like blessed thistle and fenugreek have absolutely no evidence that they actually work. It was actually something someone made up because some cows were producing a lot of milk and someone thought that since they were grazing in a fenugreek field, it must be because of that. I am also just paranoid of everything that goes into my body these days when it comes to my baby.

Another thing she brought up was taking a concoction of birth control type pills that pretty much trick your body into thinking its pregnant, so milk production supposedly will happen. She said she has never done this with anyone, and again I prefer to not be on anymore meds than necessary.

The last option she brought up to me, which I am going to start in July, is going to see an acupuncturist. I saw one once before, because I had heard it could help with infertility, but hated it. She told me about two people that the boutique always use and that 80+ percent of the women that have gone to them have had great success with their milk coming in. She says they are the best in the state, so I am going to give it another go. When I called one of the acupuncturists and made my appt. the lady seemed to be super confident in my milk coming back almost immediately after the first couple sessions. She actually didn't want to start doing sessions with me until September. It is really important to me to make sure my production is in tip top producing mode and so I told her I want to get it going sooner than later, plus I am leaving the state in September so I need it going before then. Also, I know it is a lot of work to be pumping around the clock everyday and bringing my pump with me places, but this is important to me, and if I have a lot of milk coming then its just more milk I can start saving for my little guy for later.

Liam and Evelynn's Garden



I had started my garden project last summer after Evelynn passed away. At the time I had made the garden fairly small with mostly pinks for Evelynn, yellows for Liam, and white daisies for all of us and because I love them. I had wanted to make it larger and grow, as my babies would if they were here. Garden fever had taken over in early May and it truly was what got me through the month, as it was emotionally very hard on me. I can't wait until everything blooms. Here is their garden from last summer. 

View down from our deck



Gorgeous bench and planter



Evelynn's corner, full of pinks- peonies and dainthus



A memorial stone I got for Liam shortly after he passed away.



I added more colors this year- yellow/orange trollius, yellow and orange iceland poppies, yellow and red asciatic lilies, and chocolate lilies, the daisies from last summer are slowly starting to come up in back. 

   

Finally found a home for their rocks in their garden. Max has one getting made with his name on it as I write this.



Their potentillas are coming back. I planted a clematis between them and some pink forget-me-nots in front of them. Then I planted more peonies, tulips and some columbines around their rocks.

  

The ferns are coming back and then I planted more pink forget-me-nots and some himalayan poppies. To the left of these the primula is slowly coming back up and to the right of these is a rspberry plants, one bleeding heart is coming back, I planted some meadow rue, and dropped a bunch of ferget-me-not and alpine poppy seeds.

 

A little spot in our house just for them



Liam's buckets from his burial and Evelynn's pots from her funeral and burial