It's not all smiles and fairies frolicking amongst the flowers!

Well here I am finally in my third trimester, 28 weeks 3 days along; just over 10 weeks until we meet Squirt! That dosn't sound very far off and it's not but for some reason I've now flipped the switch from "this pregnancy is zooming by" to "argh the days are dragging slowly by"....that's probably because I feel like I have to drag myself everywhere and I just feel so lazy and heavy now, it dosn't help that my iron levels have come back low too so dozing off on the couch at 7pm (nana-alert!) is becoming a norm! After that it's all over rover and I'm acting like an over-tired, cranky, fidgety, tantrum fuelled toddler that's in desperate need of some time out!

It's about this time when the hard effort of growing an entire human being really begins to feel like an effort! A lot of people think that because this surrogacy journey is a beautiful, selfless and an amazingly generous thing to do for someone it makes me full of happy hormones and a smile that sits on my face 24/7 but trust me people, behind closed doors there is alot of frustration sometimes (just like any other pregnant household) and yes there has been plenty of petty arguments over really stupid stuff. At the end of the day it is an emotionally charged situation and when you have four people expecting one baby between them sometimes head's do butt! Yes 95% of the time it is happy happy joy joy and things run along smoothly but for anyone that ever intends to enter this experience for themselves, they have got to be realistic that it does test all sorts of relationships, in a way it's a good thing but it does get tiring from time to time!
I am feeling an ever increasing need to morph into an octopus sometimes; just to keep everyone happy and content with appointment times, schedules, home-life (juggling a toddler and husband), trying to keep Squirts real mum and dad (Sara and Lance) as involved as possible and then I feel like I also need an extra arm for myself, I forget to focus on myself and yes sometimes I have very selfish moments when I expect everyone to focus on me and I think nothing else should matter but the needs of the pregnant lady (I'm just being honest! lol) but the reality is the world does not revolve around me and  I will just do my relaxing once Squirt is born because that's when I can try and focus more on just myself... after 39 weeks of growing a human for someone else I do deserve some "me time", after all I won't be the one waking up every 2-3 hours from that newborn cry that seems to feel like a jack hammer on the brain at 3am while you shove match sticks between your lids trying to fight off sleep deprivation hehehehe so getting that relaxation should hopefully be easier to accomplish....and then my toddler walks into the room LOL....

Yes it feels like all I've done is moan and groan with this blog post about how exhausted I am but we're all entitled to have a little venting session from time to time and this is mine....just a really public venting session (lol) but that's what I signed up for when I said I would share every aspect of this journey!

On a more happier note Squirt has managed to creep his Uncle Terry out which was a funny thing to witness! You can actually feel the outline of Squirts little feet up around my ribs when he brushes them past and pushes them out and Terry felt the perfect little heel push into the palm of his hand, he jumped back and said he would never ever want to feel a human inside of him and I swear I saw him shudder with creepiness lol

Anyways I'll leave you all with my latest belly pic and will catch up with you all next week, no hormonal moaning I promise!

28 weeks along, hello 3rd trimester!

dizzy in space and bored in the desert.

Over a weeks span I have managed to travel to infinity and beyond and back down to earth to cross the sahara desert, okay you're probably thinking what the hell is she talking about!?
Well I'll start off with my travel to space, this involved doing my GTT (glucose tolerance test), I ended up doing it bang on 27 weeks, I was absolutely dreading it, I did not have a good reaction with my first one done with Hunter's pregnancy so was not wanting to do this at all but I knew it had to be done. So it was an early rising for both me and Hunter which in turn made him a very grumpy boy; a great start to the day! and off we headed to the testing lab to get it over and done with, I chugged back the flat tasting lemonade which wasn't too nice as I don't like fizzy drinks and surprisingly they let me leave for the hour needed for the goodness to kick into my blood stream, I was quite surprised they let me leave as they knew of my poor response to the test but it was better to lie on the couch at home than to sit in a waiting room on a squeaky hard chair....I was lucky enough to have Terry stay with me incase I fainted and sure enough within 20 minutes I was floating off into space, the room started spinning stars and I let out a few harsh words about how much I hated the test...to cut a long story short I ended up being sick and dizzy the rest of the day and it was no easy feat also trying to juggle the needs and entertainment of a 16 month old toddler and endure the heat of our kiwi summer on the brink of my third trimester but I mustered up my strength and got on with it....

My next pit stop in my adventures was to the Sahara Desert, this was 3 days later at 27 weeks 3 days along,   I had my latest obstetrician appointment and was meeting one of the other obstetricians in the practice to get acquainted with him should it arise that my ob wouldn't be available during the birth....well lets just say I have more success of squeezing conversation and a smile out of my pet rock that lives in the backyard. I'm sure he's a remarkable doctor when it comes down to the birth side of babies but I couldn't help coming out of the appointment feeling like I had just dragged myself over a desert, his personality was so dry I instantly felt in desperate need of water and a chap stick! I can't wait to see my beloved Dereck again and crack some terrible jokes and not feel the need to act "normal" lol
But the positive points of the appointment is Squirt is doing well, he's measuring just over 28 weeks ahead, so levelling out to a week ahead in growth and is estimated to be about 2lb 14oz's which puts him in the 75th percentile for size, so far he's living up to the big Smith baby tradition! Yes, it is times like these that make me immensely pleased that this baby is coming out of the sun roof and not the exhaust pipe! He's also turned head down which I had a sneaking suspicion he had done a few days ago as I woke up with that "stretched out" feeling all over my belly and every now and then I have a foot getting cosy in my ribs!

I'm really loving this stage of pregnancy even if I am suffering in this incredible heat and humidity, It's so amazing being able to distinguish arms and legs, the brush of feet and hands across your front and that weird feeling when he rears his bum up and my belly becomes obviously lopsided!
You can be promised of a movement frenzy when you finish meals and this is what I usually have to look forward to after every meal, on this particular day Squirt decided to be a bit more kind with the strength of his kicks and punches but it's still cool looking at the movement!

So this afternoon had a bit of excitement added into it, we had a 4D scan and got some super cute facial shots, I'm absolutely convinced he looks like a mini Murray (Squirt's Grandad) and Sara is convinced Squirt looks like a mini Lance, well all in all he looks like a mini Smith! lol

Taking a glimpse into Squirt's world is always so special and here are some special photo's to share with you all....

1st photo - smiles!
2nd photo - eyes open!
3rd photo - Squirt's foot!
4th photo - cutie pie!

Waddling in the surf, sun and sand!

Is it really January 7th already!? okay that holiday only felt like two days long instead of two weeks! But what a blast it was!
So where did I go? well for the majority of the holiday we went down to Waihi Beach, which is a little beach town about two hours drive from Auckland, it's extremely beautiful ....and extremely hot! I ticked onto 26 weeks pregnant down there and I certainly felt it with each waddle I took in the sun, I went through an entire can of sunblock and was thankful I packed my maternity togs (which I changed into awkwardly in a sun shelter while Terry held a towel up in front, and I still managed to moon a few people much to Terry's amusement lol) but the surf was a nice respite from that heat and on one particular morning I spent a good hour splashing around in the water and waves, Squirt seemed to sense where he was and happily bounced around too, it really wouldn't surprise me if he was a natural water baby as his daddy was a rower for many years and spent countless hours in the water.

25 weeks pregnant, at Waihi Beach

We spent the week down there with my sister Sara, her hubby Lance and little Miss Holly and friends of ours Hayley and Nick and their son Jack who is only a week younger than my Hunter.

The holiday gang building a water pit for the kiddies

We shared a lot of laughs and it was great spending time with everyone and the kids loved it all too, I also will admit I had a few uncontrollable hormonal outbursts and a few grumpy moments so I must say thanks to everyone for enduring the pregnantzilla!!

We all became a bit addicted to the Flip n' Bear pancake den. OH.MY.GOODNESS! That was pure delight on a plate, I swear Squirt probably piled on about 5 pounds of pancake fat; me about 5kg of pancake fat and the rest of the holiday gang each grew a food baby out the front of them lol
My mouth is drooling at the thought of those pancakes, they will be sorely missed and yes I shed a little tear leaving that place!

.....So 26 weeks you say, yup that's right 26 weeks 3 days along now; can you believe there is only 12 and a bit more weeks before we meet this little dude! I'm increasingly becoming paranoid that Squirt may decide to make an earlier appearance, I'm looking forward to my pain-free "birth" after a horrific experience with Hunter's 23 hour labour and the drama's that followed it but knowing my luck I'll go into labour at 38 weeks or the day before my planned c-section, I'll have a good laugh about it, at first, then I'll swear about it once the pain kicks in ....maybe I might strike it lucky and have a couple of cramps and bam! baby pops out suddenly on the toilet ....yeah right; but dreams are free. But really Squirt, Aunty will really appreciate it if you didn't come earlier than planned!

It's been rather interesting comparing photo's of my pregnancy with Hunter and Squirt and how big I was week by week, I was quite smaller with Hunter at this stage, in fact I wasn't this size until I was 30+ weeks along with Hunter, so Squirt really will be a bigger baby as predicted or it's just my pre-used uterus being a big more "relaxed" lol

25w pregnant with Hunter and 30w pregnant with Hunter (the size i am now at 26w with Squirt)

In the next couple of days I have my GTT (glucose tolerance test) to get done, argh the most hated part of all things pregnancy related! As I've said in previous blog posts the last one I had while I was pregnant with Hunter didn't go down too well so I'm absolutely dreading the fainting spell I might have and feeling like I'm floating in space for the the rest of the day, wish me luck, I think I'm going to need it....I'm confident I'll tell a rather entertaining update about that next week!

Tis the season to be pregnant!

So this will be my last blog entry for 2012, wow can't believe I am saying that 2013 is only around the corner! This year has been full of many new experiences, well unique experiences to say the least and full of plenty of blessings and a whole lot of babyness! I have spent half the year in total getting pregnant and being pregnant, watched my belly grow...and move! And I have met so many new friends and also strengthened existing friendships and also learnt who my true friends are, I wouldn't have made so many new friendships if it wasn't for Squirt and I am very grateful for all of the opportunities that have opened up for me and all the life long memories I will have from being a surrogate.

I was lying in bed yesterday morning waiting for my little monster to wake up and was thinking yay it's Monday (I know not many people are happy to see Monday appear) but this was different, it's hubby's last working week for the year and as soon as Friday hits then it's family time, I get to spend close to 3 weeks just hanging out with my boys and then I thought not only do I get to spend time with my son and husband as a mum and wife but I also get to spend the time being an Aunty with my nephew tagging along in my belly, what a lucky woman I am to be surrounded by all of these special guys....

So I'm now 23 weeks 4 days along, only 15 weeks and 3 days to go before we meet this special little dude, gosh that really isn't a very long wait at all!
I'm still feeling great besides the hayfever and a recent bout of a cold which has made me a little more run down than usual but I'll keep soldiering on and the positive side to being sick now means (hopefully) that I won't have any annoying bugs attacking my immune system on Christmas!

Sara ^ and Me! ^
23 weeks along!

I had an obstetrician appointment this morning, was very exciting seeing Squirt again, it's amazing how much he has grown in a month since we last "saw" him, he's beginning to become very squished up now with his legs tucked up and his hands cuddling into his face. I'm still measuring ahead, now averaging over a week ahead in his growth and has been estimated to be about 761 grams (about 1 pound 7 oz) not long before he hits the 2 pounder mark and the fat will really start piling on and only about 4 more weeks till I enter my third trimester!! It's all on now!!

So what's in store for January? Well January is going to be a very full on month full of lots of appointments, I'll be having my glucose/diabetes test; not looking forward to that as I nearly fainted doing my one with Hunter and spent the entire hour with my head hanging out a window half lying on a bed, was a sight to see that's for sure lol
And as I mentioned before I'll be entering into my third trimester which will be accompanied by a 28 week 4D scan, exciting!

So I'll be back in the blogging world on January 7th, so stay tuned for that and I hope all my readers have a very Merry Christmas and a fantastic New Year, stay safe over the holiday season and enjoy all the time with friends and family!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

A whale basking in the sun...

Oh my! has Summer hit our kiwi shores or what! Apparently it's predicted to be our hottest summer in a number of years...and I just happen to be pregnant...heavily pregnant all through these summer months!
I was heavily pregnant during Winter with my pregnancy with Hunter so never knew what all the sweaty uncomfortable heat moans were about from other women but now I feel their pain....it's a form of torture! Yes, a good form of torture that's so worth it but man is it hard! or should I say woman is it hard! (since males will never truly get what I'm moaning about).
Pre pregnancy I hover around the 55-60kg mark, I'm a petite little package standing short at 5'2", but now that I'm nearly 23 weeks pregnant and have a slight waddle starting, I feel like a whale basking in the sun! Someone please come hose me down! .....16 weeks to go, I can do this...with a lot of sunscreen and a lot of fan power!

So yes, I'm now nearly 23 weeks along, besides the heat I am feeling great about 50% of the time, the other 50% of the time I am battling hayfever, terrible hayfever! My eyes are puffed up, my nose is running like Huka Falls, my throat is itching, my sneeze dial has been switched on high, my head throbs and I'm constantly tired from this pollen attack! So thank the heavens for my husband who has been taking the brunt of my moodiness and picking up a lot of my slack from my self pity days, he washes the clothes, hangs them, folds them, cooks dinner, mostly on the BBQ (funny how Summer appears and men can suddenly cook), he makes me cuppa's and takes care of Hunter when he gets home from work....as much as he pisses me off I really couldn't do this without him, sure he snores like a buffalo on heat and wakes me 50 times through the night and constantly sooks over my mood swings but he truly is amazing and I appreciate it all, he does deserve a medal.

So Squirt has been grooving up a disco! moving around like boogie nights, all that moving and all of those kicks has me running to the toilet about 20 times a day and sleeping is getting....hang on...what's that strange word sleep? *mental note to check dictionary*
What's even more exciting is Sara and Lance have both felt Squirt kicking, it was very cool seeing the excitement on their faces, feeling baby kick under your hand is a very special bonding experience and it's even more special for them because they don't have instant access to feeling Squirt move around like my husband does. We can even see Squirt moving now which is always creepy (lol) but always makes you smile, being pregnant is so amazing and even though I've experienced this all before it's still full of wonders as baby grows bigger and bigger.

Squirt seems to be a much bigger baby than what Hunter was, he's always measuring ahead, about a week ahead now, whereas Hunter was always days behind and yet I've gained minimal weight; at about this stage I had already gained about 10kg+ with Hunter but with Squirt I've only gained about 2kg's BUT I also have to admit I pigged out like a wobbly hog living his last day with Hunter, I used pregnancy as an excuse to eat because I always craved sweet things and ate way more in one sitting than I should have....I'm no saint now though...I'm still eating naughty things, but I'm also eating properly with portions that are sensibly sized and eating the naughty things more for a treat after dinner etc.... my new motto with this pregnancy is eat for two not like you're two! .... tip top health for yourself is the best start you can give that little life!

Sooooo....do you want me to let you in on a little secret? of course you do!
Well Sara and Lance have decided on a name for Squirt! and I know what it is! Its.................................

a secret!!!!!!
Sorry this is a secret I cannot tell, you will all find out once Squirt enters this world! *pokes tongue out and runs away giggling*

So in other news me and Terry met with our lawyer, I must say she wasn't too bad, she had a great sense of humour and looked like a remake of Annie Lennox, she was rocking the bleached spikey hair and the shoulder pads tucked into her jacket....honestly she actually pulled the 80's look off quite well, in fact she pulled the look off better than today's teenage generation who try (and fail I might add) to rock my birth decade but that's probably because she actually lived through the 80's! Anyways enough of the 80's rambling... There's actually not too much to report on this front though, it was just boring talk about the adoption process and when we need to sign consent papers etc...and of course all the evil things I could potentially do as the birth mother and be fully within my legal rights to do so blah blah blah, an hour later and $300 plus GST to add to the growing list of costs.....

Christmas is only two weeks away! Next week will be my last blog entry until January 7th, I know I will be missed, shucks! feeling so flattered right now! but it will be my time away from the computer during the Christmas and New Year break, we all deserve a wind down from computers and cell phones every now and then and Christmas is the best time for this I say!
So I hope you enjoyed another glimpse into my world and will catch up with you all next week which will include the latest belly shot! yay!

Bella's Birthday.

Yesterday marked the one year anniversary of Bella's passing. The year sure felt like it had zoomed on by and it's hard to imagine my little niece would have been turning one yesterday.

To mark her special day we had a big family picnic, and we hoped the weather would cooperate being that Summer is here, well the weather wasn't exactly perfect, it was very cloudy and very windy but it didn't rain and that's the best outcome!
The day was filled with happiness, after all Bella is still apart of our family and deserved to have a first birthday like every other child in the family but it was also filled with sadness and longing....if this tragedy never happened then we would have had a little birthday girl running around with her sister and cousins, she would have had a table full of presents and she would be blowing out her candle after we sung her happy birthday....
Well she actually still blew out her birthday candle, the flame blew out just after we sung happy birthday and that brought a smile to everyone's faces knowing she was still there with us even though we couldn't see her.

Sara also planned a balloon release and we all wrote messages on the balloons before sending them up into heaven, there were a few wayward balloons sneaking off before the release and a few pops but other than that it went without a hitch and surprisingly none got caught in any tree's or brought down the town's power supply by getting caught in lines lol. I'm sure Bella had fun reading all the special messages written out just for her.

Bella's balloon release

As always it was lovely seeing the majority of the family and Squirt got lots of belly rubs, of course as soon as someone touched my belly he went all shy and wouldn't move but as soon as they stopped he would kick like crazy!
The day brought a lot of mixed feelings for myself, it was a lot harder than I anticipated and I had a big cry in the morning, Dec 2nd 2011 was a day that should have been filled with happiness but instead a year later I was sitting there thinking of all the horrible things that happened that day and I still can't quite believe that this all happened. But I still wanted my niece to have the birthday she so deserved and my contribution was making the cake; Sara is a "packet mix" mum (hehehe) so I always make the birthday cakes, it was only fitting that Bella have a pink cake with flowers and butterflies as these things have been significant to the family since her passing.

 

This past year has been hard, 3 year old Holly made the blow of Bella's passing a little more "easier" to absorb but the family couldn't have stayed as strong as it has if it wasn't for the help of supportive organisations such as SANDS Manukau and Features Forever who helped create some lasting memories of our little Bella. A huge thank you to Sarah and Lisa who run these places.

I would also like to take a moment to reach out to all those expectant mumma's who have had previous c-sections and are wanting to attempt a VBAC - please make sure you are 110% confident in this decision, get two or three different opinions, talk to specialists about why you had a c-section in the first place and if a VBAC may be an unattainable goal, really think about that percentage that ends in a ruptured uterus and is often fatal to the unborn baby and also puts your life at risk, yes it is a small percentage but it's still a percentage which means you are not bullet proof, don't fall for that line "it's a small percentage so it will never happen to you"....trust me, I saw it with my own eyes, it can happen. What you need to decide is if it is worth that risk. If the healthcare professionals gave Sara this advice in the first place and did their job while Sara was in labour then we would have a one year old little girl running around playing with all her new birthday toys....

Happy 1st Birthday Bella, we wish you were here with us, we wish we could have watched your first crawl and those wobbly first steps, gushed over your first smile and those first teeth that would eventually fill it, watch you take in the world and learn all about it and watch your personality develop, but instead we were robbed of your precious life in circumstances that were fully avoidable, we miss you and will miss you every day until we meet again in heaven.
Bella's memoriam notice - click here to view.

Bella Grace Smith 02.12.11

lawyers...

20 weeks 3 days along, less than 18 weeks to go, wahoooooo!

But we must push aside the exciting talk and submerge our minds into a less exciting topic....lawyers. Argh they're just as bad as real estate agents; you hate using them but you need them and they chow down on your money like a seagull, no chewing - just straight down the throat!

Yes we need lawyers in this journey, they are the ones that sort all the paperwork out for the adoption process, well I thought that's what their sole intentions were but apparently unbeknownst to me I have other intentions. It seems their trained legal minds know me better than I know myself, even though I have known my own self character for the past 27 years and know fully well what I'm capable of, or in this case what I'm not capable of - to them I seem to be a walking talking potential baby stealer.
Apparently once baby is born all I have to do is look at him and I could change my mind and claim him as my own! ummmmm ....in the nicest possible way - I highly 100% doubt it, I already have my hands full, just meet my son Hunter and spend a few days with him, you'll come out of it exhausted and run screaming from my house never to return again...ok he's not that bad (lol), I'm just exaggerating a tad but honestly I do not want another baby in my house for another three years or so, Hunter is enough for now and there is no way I could put that extra effort in to raise him at this age and a newborn....no way!


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Oh sorry! My brain just shut down sleeping while writing that last bit! Was exhausting just thinking about it :-P
Oh and not to mention my husband will be sooooo incredibly supportive with me bringing a baby home that's not mine or his in the first place to raise alongside Hunter, we would live happily ever after! .....yes, that was said with a lot of sarcasm!

So the lawyer wanted to draw up a contract, basically an agreement that I wouldn't become a baby stealer....well I flat out refuse to sign anything of that nature, it disgusts me I can be thought of in that way, I have never received an insult through this surrogacy journey until that moment!!
Luckily Sara and Lance fully support my stubbornness not to sign anything like that, they also have refused any papers be drawn up in that nature.

I can fully agree to it if you were using a friend or if you were using a surrogate through an agency but c'mon! I'm Sara's twin sister, her own flesh and blood and best friend for the last 27 years!
I had to hand my own niece who was stillborn over to my sister who had just come out of surgery and had also lost her uterus and any chance of carrying another child, that was the worst experience of my life!!! no lawyer no matter how many books they've read or how many exams they've sat can ever know the trauma and hardship I went through that night and also the trauma and hardship I watched Sara and Lance go through, so why on earth would I even dare put them through any more heartache!?
Sometimes lawyers need to step out of their robotically trained minds and think a bit more on a realistic personal level.....I guess they are just doing their job, but that doesn't mean I'm not allowed to be offended by some of the things that have arisen from it.

20 weeks along!