Carrying love in your heart.. and on your hips

Your body changes after each pregnancy, not unexpected. But I was a little surprised at how my body was able to give the twins back to their dads once they were born, and then put all the weight back on!
Listen up hips, thighs and stomach, I know you enjoyed carrying the twins but it's time to move on and drop the extra baggage.

I have noticed my hips having a little extra padding after each birth which doesn't hurt when you are holding a baby on that hip! But after a surrogacy, there is no hip-sitting-baby, but oh those hips are still there.
I gained 30 pounds with my first child, 15 pounds with the second. Adjusting to having a toddler and new baby kept me active. Though when my doctor asked "Do you work out? On purpose.." I had to laugh to myself, since there wasn't much time for purposeful exercise with two young kids, working and being in grad school. I am not a fan of down time, if you couldn't tell yet :-)

With the first surro twins I was told to gain 35-50 pounds. I ended up gaining 25 pounds, with happy health babies (that belly was all them!),  and topping out at 180 when they were delivered at 35 weeks and 4 days.

Being on bed rest and not having much of an appetite after the C-section, aided me in losing all the pregnancy weight at my 2 week check in.
I patted my self on the back for getting a couple of pounds below my pre-pregnancy weight. Then reality kicked in. Once I was mobile enough to move but not stand for long I looked for quick and easy snacks and had pretty limited activity due to the pain. This resulted in the weight slowly creeping back up.
Working in a doctors office, there was a scale around every corner giving me easy access to weighing myself numerous times a day and realizing I was gaining 1-2 pounds a week after returning to work. I was gaining weight easier then in the beginning of the pregnancy when I was actually trying to gain weight.

This was probably one of the least expected things I was expecting after the pregnancy. Don't get me wrong, I knew I would gain weight. I knew I would have to recover from the C-section before working out again. And I had heard the older you get the harder it can be to loose weight, but it still surprised me that it was easier to continue gaining than to even out or loose.

Going into this next surrogacy I have to plan on continuing to focus on physical activity and my actual habits throughout AND after the birth. Making sure to have healthy options available after the delivery and not expect to have the weight fall off like it had in the past. For me, it was always much easier to eat healthy and really focus on taking care of myself during pregnancy. Even more so with a surrogate pregnancy since every choice I make is directly affecting someone else's child(ren), which just feels like you are held more accountable. Maybe skip that snickers bar or coffee you may be craving...

I ask myself, what would the mom be doing while pregnant? How would she be taking care of herself and the baby? And make sure I can follow each thing she would want to have happen during her pregnancy, because this is her pregnancy. My body, but her pregnancy.  I am just the Stork.

Current weight: 180 ... I guess it's time to return to my Pinterest page to review all those exercises I pinned while lying in the hospital dreaming about how I could not wait to get out and start exercising! Cheers to more Doing and less Pining!



You are Matched!

The face-to-face could not have gone better! It was a nice, laid back day and the kids behaved relatively well while demanding attention in the most adorable way. Jacob said that I should grow some babies and give them to Patty so I think we have his approval. While Briella is a little more hesitant for the sole reason that the bigger I get, the less likely I will play board games with her.  When a friend picked her up from daycare last year and she found out I had the twins, her first response was "great, now she can finally play a game with me again!".

Honestly, after 20 weeks pregnant with twins there is no reason I will be sitting on the ground since I can't get back up on my own! So I will have to find ways to make B feel special this time, and see many pedicures in our future since she loves getting her nails done.

 

As for Patty and Shawn, I feel like we would have been friends outside of this anyway experience anyway since they are so similar to Dave and myself. She came in and hung out with me and this kids at first and Dave gave Shawn a tour of our property and they bonded over the skate ramps and the bmx track like little kids. 

Patty kept saying to let her know if she gets too “annoying” or “gets too involved” which I thought was funny since I think that is exactly how she should be when I’m “babysitting” their kids. We talked about how I may want another kid at some point in the far future, which may just be because my kids are past the baby phase and I am missing it but Dave doesn’t think we need any more kids. Patty joked around saying if one of the embryos split we could keep the third child, which showed me we have a very similar sense of humor.

Over all I think it was a great success and we could not have asked for a better match. I think this is exactly what I was hoping for with a couple that wants to be super involved, with the bonus of a possible friendship after as well.

 

It looks like we are going for a mid/late-September transfer,  that way I would be due in early June and most likely have them in mid-May (possibly by Mother's Day!) and I could recover the last week my kids are in school and Dave can be there to help me while they are in school. That should make it a little easier on my family and I should be back to normal-ish by the time the kids are out of school for the summer.

 

I could not imagine being super pregnant with twins in the winter and trying to walk in snow. I could barely make it up the stairs towards the end last time! Do you hear that Vermont?! If you could avoid snowing in May next year that would be great...

 

Next step is moving the embryos to clinic, and my IUD is scheduled to come out at the end of June!
 

Let the fun begin :-)

Parent Meeting Tomorrow

Tomorrow is the big day! We will be meeting with my future womb mate's parents. So many questions are running through my head.  Will we hit it off right from the beginning? Will we hug when we meet? Will the conversation flow smoothly? Will my kids try to dominate the show and perform like we are their audience?

Well I know the answer to that last one, of course they will. I wonder how it will be this time with Jacob being older and understanding more about what is going on. He was two when we started the last pregnancy and he didn't really care that my belly grew, I spent some time in the hospital and had a couple weeks of down time. When he visited me at the hospital he was more excited to take a tour than to hang out with me or see the babies.

The pregnancy timeline will be different this time, starting in September instead of December which may work out good for me if morning sickness kicks in right around the time colder weather moves in and lazy days lounging on the couch are more in style. Although I may be 6 months pregnant with twins in February, when we get the most snow. And last time around that time stairs or long walks became an enemy so hopefully I don't fall down in the snow or I may be stuck there until someone comes along and hoists me back up!

Either way it will be a fun, exciting new adventure with new friends! Looking forward to getting this show on the road :-)