photo of surrogate and baby
Where do I start…
It was the most surreal experience ever…like watching from outside of my body. Absolutely life changing.
I just wanted to give my life some meaning. I wanted to make it matter, and I wanted to do something worth remembering. I wanted to know what it felt like to be completely selfless. Doing what I did was a gift for them, but it was also a gift to myself. It gave me a purpose. It gave me life.
I’m not sure I’ll ever truly know my purpose, I think when I figure it out, I’ll be dead. However, having said that, I think this experience has gotten me a little closer to figuring it out. I think love is the answer to everything. If I can learn to love and to be loved then my life will be okay. At this point in my life I’m just trying to focus on what I can give rather than what I can get out of the world. To be more focused on how I can be of service to others, rather than how they can be of serivce to me. To be less selfish and less concerned about my own well being. Doing what I did was the least selfish thing I have ever done in my life. It was never about me. It required me to give up my self-control, to give up myself, so that I could give to someone else. It sounds like a sacrifice but it wasn’t. Besides my own kids, I have never felt such a great love in my life. When I looked at that little baby, I just felt so much love for her, and her parents too. Not a mommy love, but something so great that I can’t give it words. I have never been good at allowing myself to love or to be loved. Being a part of this taught me how to be transparent. To trust and to be trusted. IT CHANGED ME. It made me appreciate my own children more as well. I am so lucky to have them. A lot of my life has been about making big mistakes, and feeling lost. Battling depression and low self esteem. Wondering what the hell it is I’m here for. I don’t feel so lost anymore. I still don’t understand what the hell I’m here for…but I think if I focus on love then I will be okay. I know it sounds cliche, but love can change the world. Whether you belive in God or whatever you want to call it, it is love.
Honestly, during the pregnancy I didn’t have any bad emotions about it. There were a couple times when I wondered if I had done the right thing, I wondered if I was crazy for putting myself through the needles, the appointments, the stretch marks, the afterpains…I wondered if I was nuts. There were times when my family was strained, when my marriage was strained, when my kids were missing me… but the thoughts were fleeting, and they were quickly gone when I thought of how it would be when she was born and what it would be like to watch them become parents…finally. Those were the times when I really needed people to listen to me, when I needed support and reassurance.
And then of course, there were some feelings of sadness when they went home. A completely natural feeling after birthing a baby. I don’t care how much you prepare yourself for it, it is sad when they go home. Not because I wanted to keep her, but because I didn’t want the experience to end. Because I fell in love with all of them, and I miss them very much. I didn’t really cry at the hospital. When I came home the next day, I walked in the door and I absolutely fell to pieces. I just cryed so hard. But not because I was sad. It was just everything all put together and it was so overwhelming. I couldn’t believe that I had done it. I was so amazed at the life that I helped create. Watching her being born and then seeing them hold her, it was like seeing God in the flesh. God was right there in the midst of it all and I believe He was smiling down on me at that moment. It was the most pure, beautiful moment ever. There was so much love in that room. The memory is so vivid in my mind still. I feel so blessed to have had this experience. It just really changed me from the inside out.
So there it is in a nutshell (well not quite but you know what I mean) :o) Some people asked me why I would do it, how could I give the baby away after carrying it for 9 months. But the baby was never mine to begin with. She was always theirs, and it was the most natural thing in the world for me to give her to them. I didn’t think of the birth as a childbirth, it was more going for surgery or something. I can’t really explain it. I love her so much. But I never loved her with a maternal kind of love, not while she was inside of me and not after she was out. It was like a love for my best friends baby. I feel so blessed to have been chosen to help them on their journey to parenthood. It definitley takes a different kind of person to be able to separate yourself from the experience. You have to be able to detach. I know many wonderful amazing women, but I don’t think any of them would be able to be a surrogate. It takes an amazing amount of courage and commitment. A whole lot of trust and honesty, patience and tolerance, and most of all love. I still can’t believe I actually did it. It seems like a dream sometimes.
I don’t believe anyone knows the will of God for my life or theirs. We can only go by what’s in our hearts, and it was in my heart to give the way I did. I know God was there with me the whole time. I am a spiritual person, not a religious one. I believe in love. I believe God tells me what is right by what he puts in my heart. As long as Him and I are ok with that, nothing else matters. And now that I have practically written a book, I will sign off! LOL. :o)
I will leave you with a prayer: I always loved this prayer because it talks about being selfless and forgetting about our own ego’s and thinking of others first. I think St. Francis had the answer here.
Prayer of Saint Francis: Lord, make me a channel of thy peace; that where there is hatred, I may bring love; that where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness; that where there is discord, I may bring harmony; that where there is error, I may bring truth; that where there is doubt, I may bring faith; that where there is despair, I may bring hope; that where there are shadows, I may bring light; that where there is sadness, I may bring joy. Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted; to understand, than to be understood; to love, than to be loved. For it is by self-forgetting that one finds. It is by forgiving that one is forgiven. It is by dying that one awakens to eternal life. Amen
God Bless you all in your own journey