Meeting "The Man"!

So it's now the 4th September, i'm 8 weeks, 4 days along and it's time to meet "the man!"....the man that will be in charge of delivering this baby! We have searched high and low and have decided to go with one of the best obstetricians available in Auckland, yes he's also probably the most expensive too, but every penny is worth it after the heartache and let down the hospital and midwife installed upon the family with Bella's arrival.

So who is this uterine genius you may wonder? well it's none other than Dr. Souter. You only have to mention his name and nearly all professionals ears prick up and comment how amazingly awesome he is!

So again the tribe sets out - me, Sara, both our hubbies and each of our kids, Holly and Hunter.
We get stuck in traffic, no surprises there in peak hour Auckland and eventually make it to the clinic with 1 minute to spare. We all walk in much to the amusement of the receptionist - "you're ALL here together!?"
"I'm the surrogate" i reply with my with feathers flared out like some proud peacock.
"oh you're our surrogate! how exciting! yes i've heard all about you on the phone to your sister!"

So i'm handed the pile of paperwork i must fill out which seems like the novel of my life, sign my autograph on the dotted lines and wait for "the man" to make his appearance which he soon does.
We all walk into the room, take our seats and have to explain who's who in all of this, it takes the better part of an hour for him to get his head around it all, i'm his first surrogate in all his years of practice so he has two couples, in a quirky sort of way, expecting the same baby. One thing you need in all of this is a great sense of humour, "the man" is fully equipped with one of those...we're gonna get along just fine!

He performs a quick scan, baby is measuring 4 days ahead which doesn't surprise me; i'm carrying my brother-in-law's baby, you only need to see the giants in his family to understand why this could possibly be another giant being welcomed into the world!
We talk through some serious stuff and come to the decision that baby Squirt will be delivered at 39 weeks via an elective c-section, so baby's new due date is April 5th 2013, a day after my husband's birthday.

After the appointment we're looking at Squirt's latest ultrasound photo in the carpark before parting ways and Sara is just beaming with excitement, "Did you see Squirt's cute little arm and leg stumps!?". She then does an impersonation of what Squirt looked like moving around on the screen, tucks her arms in & flails around a little bit.....epic fail. She does however succeed in looking like a miniature tyrannosaurus rex invading this small carpark! But you gotta love her enthusiasm, she's a mumma expecting a baby and that always installs the biggest excitement you will ever feel in your life!

And just to end this blog post off on an exciting in utero milestone, 3 days later at 9 weeks pregnant i pick up Squirts heartbeat on my home doppler, heard for the first time; that choo choo train sound is so intensely lovely!

Squirt, 8w 4d along, awww gotta love his/her's little T-Rex arms!