A year ago this weekend: bumps, boy parts and beers

While Mr. Max just reached the 8-month mark on Friday, a year ago he was just a 20-week old fetus. And Mr. KK and I headed down to Augusta for the monumental event: ultrasound and measurements and finding out he was, well, a he.

Since no one besides our parents and a few close friends even knew Baby M existed, our trip was somewhat clandestine, done in as few hours as possible to minimize time out of work (gotta save those days for my non-existent future maternity leave!) and lies to innocent bystanders.

Oblivious to how stressful this one-day trip will turn out to be.

It was surreal to see our surrogate in person, baby bump and all. When she greeted us at the airport I just about lost it. Sure, she had been sending up bump pics all along, but to see it live – and touch it! – was pretty amazing. Her bump was small and round and perfect, and as I looked down, my stomach appeared equally as large from my airport dinner. 

At our ultrasound appointment the next morning, we watched, eyes glued to the monitor, as the tech pointed and clicked and called out body parts and measurements. We had never made it this far in the process before, so we were cautiously optimistic.

"Yo, Mom and Dad!"

Just to be clear: we're having a boy.

We met with the doctor afterwards and that's when everything sort of went downhill. 

To summarize: he unprofessionally scared the shit out of us saying horrible things like "not viable at 20 weeks" and "specialist" and "amniotic fluid levels", then referred us to a high-risk specialist, whom I disliked the minute I met (I have good instincts) and whose laissez faire beside manner earned her the name Dr. Earthy Crunchy Kookpot. 

Dr. ECK talked about the kidney issue, signed us up for monthly monitoring, and said, "I wouldn't worry about it until after birth."

The we found ourselves rushing to the airport to make our flight home, thunderstorms threatening all around us (gotta love the south!).

A nice layover in Charlotte provided us an opportunity to enjoy one of our favorite IPAs (stress drinking).

Hey NoDa brewing, you got us through some tough times.

Care to send us a case of this goodness???

Longest.Day.Ever.

Saturday night we had 4 anxious and excited parents over for the big gender reveal.

They thought they were getting the necklace reveal, but instead it was hidden in what they thought was my dad's birthday cake.

And here we are, one year later, with a happy and healthy baby (with one perfect and one not-so-perfect kidney), four infatuated grandparents, and two parents who couldn't be happier, or luckier.

Day 15: I'm feeling flush. (and we're halfway through the month, folks!)

I have an irrational fear of toilets.

To clarify, I'm not afraid to flush the toilet, I'm not scared of using the toilet, nor am I afraid to go to the bathroom outside of my own home.

My fear is more operational: I'm afraid of a toilet malfunctioning when I'm around.

Of all of the appliances in my home (including my bad-ass 8 burner propane stove), the toilet scares me the most.

Don't let toilets fool you; they have minds of their own.

I can't even begin to explain the panic I've experienced after I've flushed a toilet, and instead of the water going down, the flush fizzles out and all of a sudden the water starts to rise slowly. (NOTE: we are talking normal 'number 1' situations here, people. I'm not in the habit of clogging toilets, thank you very much).

The room gets hot, I start to sweat, and immediately I start to look for the little shut-off valve that's supposed to be my saving grace. But even if you do reach the valve in time, you still have a toilet that's filled with water. No bueno.

Cut to today, at a car dealership.

I had held on as long as I could, but I couldn't wait any longer…I had to pee. Badly.

So I went into the single person ladies' room and saw THIS:

The whole situation looked suspect.

So before I could even THINK about going, I did a test flush.

The toilet did a fake-out on me. I could feel the heat prickles on the back of my neck. 

The toilet pretended it was going to flush normally and I could go on my merry way of relief. HOWEVER, it stopped mid-flush and started swirling the other way and the water started to rise. Stranger toilet paper started making its way toward me.

I KNEW IT.

So I did what any normal person would do.

I made a beeline out of the bathroom and pretended I didn't know anything.

BUT, we bought a car from them, so I think I more than made up for my behavior. :)

no longer a Target virgin

I waited as long as possible before introducing Max to utopia Target, and the store officially has its newest, smallest, cutest guest.

Max, keeping a low profile. 

Never let them see your excitement.

Max was bundled, we had our list in hand (which consisted mostly of formula!) and we started what would be the first of MANY trips to the bullseye together.

I had something to return (of course) so we hit up the customer service line as soon as we walked in.

As we were waiting, a woman approached me.

Aaand, here we go.

She was middle aged, disheveled, and dressed in knee-high patterned rain boots, khaki shorts and see-through rain slicker (it was sunny out, btw) and sweatshirt with a picture of a cat on it, and her hair was standing on end. Honestly, she looked like she took a wrong turn and missed the exit for the OTHER big box store.

She peered into the cart at a peacefully sleeping Max.

"Cute baby," she said, staring at me.

"Thank you," I replied because, well, that's what you say, even to weirdos.

"I'll give you five dollars for him."

Excuse me?

Did this woman just offer to buy my baby?

And is five dollars the going rate for babies these days?

(If so, we just did everything totally WRONG)

Normally I would turn on the 'tude, but this woman was creepy.

"Haha, well, he's not for sale." Understatement.

She continued to stare at me. "I bet he kept you up all night crying."

Actually, he didn't.

"No, he's a good boy."

"Oh he's a good by, huh? Just wait." She bore her spooky eyes into mine, as if casting a spell of sleepless nights upon us.

"NEXT!" the cashier called out.

I pushed ahead to the service desk, and the weirdo found someone else to harass.

Now, can we spend twice as much as we should and buy a million things we don't need in peace, please?

Ultrasound FAIL

This past week, the stars aligned and my work travel coincided with an ultrasound appointment for my surrogate! Hooray!

I hadn't seen our little munchkin in 17 weeks, so it was wonderful to see how big he was getting.

The ultrasound appointment was at the high-risk OB's office, someone our surrogate has been seeing monthly since our 20-week ultrasound when they noticed a little something with one of the baby's kidneys. The doctor is one of two high-risk OB's in the area and supposedly very smart.

I don't like her.

There's just something about her that rubs me the wrong way. She's very earthy crunchy, always reading medical journals and suggesting new things for our surrogate to try. More fish! More vitamin D! Less fish! Baby Mozart! More Fish! More vitamin D!

Between the doctor and ultrasound tech, I started to wonder just what has happened to bedside manners in the medical world.

The fun went something like this:

as soon as we walked into the room:

TECH (to me): "You're the mother."
KK:  "Yes!"
TECH (to both of us):  "I have an adopted son, so I'm all for these 'group things'."


TECH (to me):  "Where do you live?"
KK:  "Connecticut."
TECH:  "Where in Connecticut?"
KK:  "New Haven area."
TECH:  "I have family in Groton."
KK:  "Oh, that's nice. Groton is a nice area."
TECH:  "My uncle worked in New Haven at Pfizer. He's dead."

reviewing the ultrasound photos:

TECH: "Left kidney is really small. Right kidney is a beauty. Don't worry, you can live with one kidney. You just can't play football."

What the???

KK:  "Um, is there a chance the baby is only going to have one kidney???"
TECH:  "Well, he has two now."

And then Dr. Kookpot came in the room:

DR:  "The left kidney now looks like…" BEEP BEEP. "Oh, excuse me, that's my daughter texting me."

She then stops talking to us to text her daughter.

DR:  "My daughter is moving to Charlotte for two months and wants to know if she can take my bread maker."
KK:  "Really? How much bread can one person make in two months?"

DR:  "Do you have a pediatrician up north?"

KK:  "Yes."

DR (to surrogate): "When you get to the hospital, don't elect the POW – the Pediatrician of the Week. Instead, ask for Neonatal Services and you'll get one of those doctors."

DR:  "Pediatricians don't go to the hospitals anymore. You know why? They don't get paid. Why should they work for free? These insurance companies are awful. I was on the phone with one the other day and I was in tears talking to them. Why should I go to the hospital and work for free? I work to get paid."

Hey, lady, I work for free all the time. I'm salaried for 40 hours a week, and I work well over that…for nothing. And how did we get on the subject of insurance companies???

DR:  "So the kidney. It used to be larger but now it's smaller. I'm not sure why, we'll have to check it out after birth. I've never seen anything like this in my medical journals. It must be rare. Maybe we'll write up your baby in the National Enquirer."

OMG. Please.Stop.Talking.

DR:  "You know, if I didn't know your history of the enlarged kidney, and I was just looking at this ultrasound, I would say the left kidney is a normal size, not too small."

((exasperated sigh))

KK:  "So the baby's kidneys might be fine?"
DR:  "Well, I'm not an expert. You'll have to have neonatal services do an ultrasound after he's born. This isn't my specialty so you can't go by what I say."

At least strangers aren't touching me.

One thing I don't think I'll ever understand is the strong desire for strangers to go up to pregnant women and touch their stomachs.

What the hell?

When we saw our surrogate at 20 weeks, it was amazing to see her belly. Our baby was inside of that belly! So surreal!

And even though it was MY little one inside of her stomach, I asked for permission to touch her belly. I mean, if someone was going to touch me, I'd like a little warning.

In what universe does it feel normal to walk up to someone YOU'VE NEVER MET BEFORE and rub your grubby hands on their baby bumps? I’m not sure how or when it became acceptable to just walk up to a stranger and touch them; in fact, I’m pretty sure if someone came up to me and touched me – ANYWHERE – I would not be cool.

Obviously not being pregnant, I haven’t had to deal with stranger touching.

What I have encountered is just plain curiosity…in the form of comments and questions regarding our “situation”.

Some are worth sharing...

MOST INAPPROPRIATE QUESTION:

"Did your husband and your surrogate…you know.." (insert creepy wink-wink)

Um, no.

Just…NO.

WORST COMMENT BY A MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL:

Doctor: "You know, I just don't know how a woman can carry a child all that time and just give it up like that."

Said to our surrogate by her doctor RIGHT IN FRONT OF US.

Hey kook pot, I can hear you!

Can they take medical licenses away for asinine comments?

(I swear, our surrogate is not keeping our baby. We're kind of holding her to that :)

QUESTION I STILL DON'T UNDERSTAND:

“So…do you know what you’re having? Did you get to pick the gender?”

It wasn’t like selecting a piece of candy out of the bin ("Let's get the blue one!"). 

It was science and random, just like everyone else who had babies.

SWEETEST YET MOST UNCOMFORTABLE CONVERSATION:

This conversation was had with my lovable 93-year old Grandmother who – God love her – is just trying to understand how this whole situation works. Because back in her day, well, you might not have known you were pregnant until a baby just popped right out of you. You could have been in the grocery store when it happened.

Gram: "So I have a question. Did they take Rob's…um…his…"

Oh man, tell me this conversation isn't happening. Duckies and rainbows! Duckies and rainbows!

Gram: "…did they take his…um, his genes…" (PHEW!) "…and then mix it with yours?"

Yep. Just like making a cake.

STRANGEST QUESTION ASKED:

The setting for this one was the IVF clinic as I filled out paperwork before a procedure that was filled with a zillion questions.

KK: “They want to know if I’ve had sex with monkeys.”

MR. KK: “There’s no way they're asking you that.”

KK: “Well, not in those exact words, no. But more or less."

KK: (a minute later) "Do you think people who DID have sex with monkeys admit it on this form? I mean, that seems like information you might want to keep to yourself, no?”

(And the answer is no, I've never had sex with monkeys.)

But I LOVE getting asked all of the questions, because it allows me to talk about something that is so exciting! 

We’ve had our lips zipped about this whole process for almost 6 years – SIX YEARS PEOPLE – not talking to anyone about anything. We are two awesome secret-keepers.

So my advice would be to ask away. I’m a pretty straight-forward person; so if you ask me a question that’s a little too wacky, I’ll tell you. 

But for the most part, we want to share our journey with you. It’s been long and painful and happy and sad and filled with uncertainty and wonderfulness…all at the same time.