“Is it …….. beautiful, mama?”
He asked, holding up a dandelion before blowing it into the wind.
Words could not even describe what his heart is like right now.
Everyday I am blown {like that dandelion} into a million pieces by him.
Everyday.
“It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, baby.”
My heart feels so conflicted these days.
I have passion.
That has never been something I lacked. Whether it’s a passion for something positive though, has always been the problem.
I had a passion for getting in trouble in elementary school (HECK, preschool .. I once told my preschool teacher not to talk to me like that because I had a belt in my cubby. Oh yes, I did!)
I had a passion for good grades… once.
I had a passion for skipping school, a passion for teaching, a passion for children.
But most recently my passion grew into my cake business.
It has been a fantastic outlet for my passion. It provides supplemental income for my family. It makes me feel important and wanted. It gives me a hobby. I love it. (Truthfully, I love it ‘most’ of the time.)
But my heart is torn.
My heart is SO full with surrogacy right now. I want to advocate, I want to educate. I want surrogacy to be my everything right now.
I took a hiatus from my cake business. At first it started with a (rare!) 2 weeks with NO ORDERS! I was scared at first. Then realized it might be nice. Then, I started turning down orders. First it was a cake I didn’t really have time to do. (I could have made time) Then it was a cake I didn’t really want to do. A cupcake order I didn’t feel like making, and it just snowballed. I didn’t fill one single order in April. I didn’t bake one cake, or one cupcake.
I rationalized it all to myself.
“I have to make a lot of short notice trips to LA, I shouldn’t plan any cakes.”
“I don’t know when the IVF will be. I should plan any cakes”
“What if I’m on bed rest?” “What if it’s a difficult pregnancy”
Really, I just wanted to be pregnant. I wanted to do this. I didn’t want to fog my brain with cakes. I needed to focus on being a happy healthy environment to grow this couples child(ren).
SO, I made the decision. I would (of course!) keep the commitments I had through September. I have 4 cakes on my books through the end of September. But, I wouldn’t be taking anymore. At least not until this surrogacy journey is over. Then I’ll decide if I want to crank things back up and get the business going again.
That day I decided to hang it all up and call it quits….. I received 5!!!!!! cake orders. I didn’t turn down a single one.
And they haven’t stopped coming in.
I’m taking this as God’s sign that I’m not done.
That He is telling me I have room enough in my heart for both passions. I can grow a family for an amazing couple and still make brides’ dreams come true.
I can do both.
I am trusting WHOLE HEARTEDLY in His plan. Because it IS NOT mine.
But the best plans sometimes aren’t.. right?
It’s time for an update on the surrogacy front. Right??
When the thought came to me in early October that it was “time,” I didn’t do a lot of research on Surrogacy Agencies. It was about 10 o’clock at night and I just started googling looking for agencies that dealt with Surrogates in Utah.
The first one the popped up looked good. Nice website, I thought.(I ALWAYS judge a company on their website.) It seemed like a larger company and I had heard the name somewhere before.
There was a tab to fill out an application so I filled one out. Not a lot of thought went into it.
I trudged along with that agency but after meetings and phone calls with them, something just didn’t feel right. They were great and nice people but my gut was just telling me that it wasn’t right. I couldn’t explain it then, and still cant explain it. But in this “industry” a gut feeling is sometimes all you have to tell you that something is right or not right.
After 6 months with them (and VERY little progress) I started looking at my options. I made friends with a surrogate that lived near my home town in California and we talked often about her agency. She was SO happy with them, and she had EVERYTHING I wanted with an agency.
About a month ago, I wrote an email to them. Trying to explain the best I could how I was feeling and what I was looking for in an Agency. Instantly, everything felt SO RIGHT. Like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders.
So, I broke up with the agency I started with and I am starting ALL OVER with a new agency. It’s difficult for me since I already invested so much time with the other agency that I feel like I’m back peddling.
But my new agency has been AMAZING at making me feel comfortable and welcome. And not making me repeat too many of the things I already had to do. So… we’re starting over!
As I mentioned before, Utah’s law is a little rough to deal with. Most of this agencies clients are homosexual men, or single parents. So finding me a married heterosexual couple might prove a little harder and might take a little more time.. Luckily, they may already have the perfect couple for me!!!
This week they flew myself and my husband to LA for a few things. I was HORRIBLY sick in the 2 weeks leading up to the trip but did EVERYTHING possible to feel better before going. (SERIOUSLY, E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G, including but not limited to: Sleeping in frozen socks and putting garlic cloves in my ears..)
Amazingly, I felt pretty good the morning we flew out, but OF COURSE, it hit Aaron.
So what I had hoped would be an fun getaway to LA together turned into me sitting in a hotel room while he slept. Sigh…. But it’s okay because the meetings we had were all so great.
First, We meet with counselors in downtown LA and had some good talks. About us, and what to expect on our journey. I was nervous, but not overly nervous. The counselor excused herself a couple times and I freaked out every time she left. Wonder if I was talking to much or saying the wrong things.. Aaron assured me I wasn’t!
We walked around among the skyscrapers and sat under palm trees. All the while amazed that this was really happening. (oh, and that there was SUN!!! it was 40* in Utah!) We ate lunch OUTSIDE!!! (big deal!) Then headed to our hotel in Pasadena. (Which we didn’t realize was almost an hour drive, but we both had a nice nap in the car!)
I finally convinced Aaron that we at least needed to go out to dinner while there and he was such a good sport to suck it up and act like he felt okay.
The following day we were all ready to head to the fertility specialist. He is SUCH a great doctor and a nice guy. I may be easily impressed but the doctor himself came to get us from the waiting room then took us into his office to explain everything to us. He stayed with us for a long time and really took his time. I was so great. I’m excited to work with him. They did some normal gynecological tests then filled my uterus with saline to expand it and preformed an ultrasound to check for any abnormalities. Not the most pleasant thing I’ve ever has done. But it wasn’t too bad. Besides a small polyp (that he wasn’t worried about) he said everything looked great and gave me the ALL CLEAR!!
We had planned on going out to a nice breakfast after our appointment so hadnt had anything to eat yet, so when we walked into the lab and saw 12 vials that needed to be filled with our blood, we got a little nervous. Thankfully they were prepared with juice and snacks!
Now, we wait for the official letter of medical clearance and the letter of psychological clearance. Once we have that, the matching process can begin.
I have a feeling it won’t be too long before I’m boarding another plane out to LA to meet the parents.
Just, next time. I don’t want either of us to be sick. :)
So.. There we are. Waiting. A LOT of this journey will be spent waiting. But I’m okay with that. Because I know after all of that waiting comes a baby or maybe even BABIES!!!!
