Birth Story of a Proud Surrogate Mother

As I have said this pregnancy flew by so fast. June 1st I went into the hospital at around 9:30 am. The doctor came in to see where I was at as far as dilation goes, depressingly I was at 1cm long and high. So the decision was to give my cytotec to soften the cervix and hopefully get some contractions going on. They said I may need two doses before anything happened and the doses would be 4 hours apart. Within an hour of the first dose the contractions began and they were about 2 mins apart.

By 2 o'clock I had only progressed to 2cm. That was a bit depressing and I was beginning to think that little miss Shia's birthday would end up being June 2nd. There was lots going on in our room to help pass the time. Through watching some funny breast pump videos I found that laughter eased the pain of the contractions. There were quite a few people in there to keep me entertained. There was my husband, my mom, my cousin Tati came by for a brief visit but didn't stay for the birth, my sister, Mike and Rudy (AKA the daddies)Sara- she was documenting the whole day, Darcy- Mike's mom and Gina- Rudy's sister. The hospital was very great about everyone being there which was not originally the plan, there was only going to be a total of 5 people.

As dinner time rolled around there wasn't much of a change in my cervix, so almost everyone headed out for sushi. That was around the shift change of the nurses. MJ was our first nurse and Cheryl was our second. Right at the end of MJ's shift the contractions seemed to slow a bit. It wasn't until Cheryl took over that the contractions began to pick up and my water bag began to trickle.

It was about that time that I opted for the epidural, the contractions were so strong and at one point one of them lasted for 3 minutes then there was a less than 30 second time period that it started to taper off only to go right back up again for another 2 minutes. That was probably the worst pain I have ever felt during labor. I had my sister call my husband and let them know not to come in until I had the epidural and that I was still only at 2cm so there was no rush. My pain level was so intense I did not want anyone to see me like that. At this time in the room with me was my sister. The anesthesiologist seemed to take forever and of course I really couldn't get a break between contractions during my wait. Right in the middle of all this intense pain my mom came back from tending to my kids. I really felt bad for them to see me in that much pain. At one point the nurse had me sitting up and I felt this hard thump, it was the baby's head dropping. Cheryl checked me and there wasn't much of a change except for the baby's head had decended further into the birth canal.

After the anesthesiologist got there it was still quite some time before I felt any kind of relief from the epidural. My doctor came in right after the anesthesiologist and checked me. He looked back at my sister and told her that she better call them that I was at 7cm. He also said that they better run. I was so surprised that I had dilated so much within minutes! At the same time I was glad that we were almost there because the epidural wasn't completely working just yet. Within 10 minutes she was born. She came into this world at 8:29 on Wednesday June 1, 2011 weighing 6lbs 5oz. After she was all cleaned up from her bath I nursed her and she nursed like a champ! She is such a little angelic looking baby girl I could hold her and stare at her for hours.

It was such an amazing experience and I feel so blessed with our entire surrogacy journey together. Mike and Rudy have been amazing the whole way through as well as their families. Getting to see them interact as a family and the love they all have for one another assures me of all the love this little girl will have throughout her lifetime.

I have been blessed with two wonderful journies and had the pleasure of blessing two sets of parents with their dreams of having a baby. There is just no greater feeling than that.