Nothing is ever easy. Even when things look up, when you've accepted everything and prepare yourself for anything you can imagine, something always happens to throw a wrench into your plan. Sometimes it's a good wrench, and sometimes it's a bad wrench, but no matter what, there is always a wrench. And no matter how much planning and preparing you do, the wrench that comes your way is never what you expect it to be.
Much like the first 'big' appointment 3½ years ago with my cardiologist, when I was expecting him to tell me about my future and I had no idea what that information would hold. I never in a million years expected him to drop the 'no babies' ball on me. That was the furthest thing from my mind. What a wrench that was!
As Murphy's Law would have it, Ryan started a new job a week before our prenatal consultation, so he couldn't come. We were both disappointed, but understood the circumstances. I asked my Mom to come as my support, and as a second set of ears. It always helps to have that second set of ears when you are gathering information. Our families, very close friends and our surrogate were all anxiously waiting to hear how the appointment went, since we were expecting to finally get a real 'time-line' as to when we can expect to be actually getting pregnant and having a baby. We were also expecting to get information regarding the actual amount that this surrogacy process was going to cost us. We were going to figure out if we needed to plan a social to raise money, and if any of it would be covered by our provincial government. Once again, our hopes were so high. Our expectations were simple and straight forward. We couldn't think of too many wrenches they could throw our way.....
Hahaha how naive we were. I did try to plan for the 'worst' and thought up all kinds of scenarios in which we wouldn't end up with a baby at all, or that our particular surrogate wouldn't work out for us since she is out of province, or something else along those lines. Nothing, nothing at all could have prepared us for what we heard....once again.
The Dr. that we saw, I'm not sure of her official title, but her job is to help high risk women through pregnancy, and her special interest is women with cardiac problems. After meeting with a resident, the Dr. came in to give us her professional advice and opinion.
She sat down, looked me straight in my eyes and said, 'After looking at your history, your specific condition, all of your charts and echo-cardiograms, I do not think that you are high risk enough to even need a surrogate at all. I think you can do this on your own'.
My Mom and I both had tears in our eyes, and I am pretty sure that both of our jaws were on the floor. This was not even on my radar as possible news.
We asked a billion questions, and went through all the different possibilities and scenarios surrounding this, what they would do, and how it would all work so that the baby and I would both come out in the end healthy and well. She reassured us and gave us all the information she possibly could. We left that appointment flying high.
The next step was to go home and wait for Ryan to get home from work so I could tell him the exciting news. He, of course, was quite skeptical, wondering how on earth we could go from preparing for a surrogate, to not even needing one at all? How had my cardiologist gotten this so mixed up? It must be this new Dr., and Ryan was not ready to believe her, or accept what I was telling him. He was in no way about to agree to anything that would put his new wife in any type of danger or risk. (Awww).
We made another appointment with her a few weeks later so that Ryan could be there to hear it with his own two ears. I was in disbelief too, but because I had heard it, by the time the next appointment came it was already sinking in for me. Between the appointments we began to tell our friends and family the 'news', and honestly I felt like I was telling people that we were expecting! Everyone's reactions were priceless and it was so amazing getting to tell everyone something so happy and exciting for once. Since we hadn't seen the Dr. again yet, we were sure to tell everyone that we didn't know what we were going to do and it wasn't 100%, but it was still sooooo nice to get happy, exciting news for once!
We went back to the Dr., and this time, she opened Ryans mind to the idea a little. We had an appointment with my cardiologist the same day, so we were able to go to him right after and see what he had to say about all of this. His response was basically the same. He definitely felt that surrogacy is a better option for us, as it poses no risk at all to me, and there are definitely risks if I were to decide to get pregnant. But the overall consensus was if it is something I really want to do, I can, and the chances of something 'bad' happening to me aren't as high as the Dr. had first explained to me. He told us that it is our choice, so now we are left to make this huge decision.
We don't know what we are going to do yet. Obviously we both want to do it naturally, but we also want to make sure that I am not only alive, but well enough to raise a child alongside Ryan. There are so many factors to consider and we are definitely going to make a very well-informed decision, not one based on desire or dreams.
While we take our time to decide how we want to create our family and weigh the pros and cons of each scenario (I may outline those as well as the 'risks' in my next blog posting) the biggest thing that we have taken, or I have taken from this new information is that I am much healthier than I was led to believe 3½ years ago. I am not on deaths doorstep and I am truly, incredibly blessed.
I am always the first person to expect the unexpected, but this was a wrench that I could have never anticipated, and I will hold onto for as long as I can. Sometimes life can throw you the most beautiful bone.
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