The Church Body

 

On Sunday, as we were clearing the stage after church, I was putting away Justin’s in-ear monitor set. Sitting on the shelves are a dozen more sets, all labeled, with people I (and I know Justin) love so deeply. And miss so deeply since many are not able to join us for “in person” services for various reasons.

It has been on my mind a lot the last couple of weeks. As people who say they are part of the Church (as in the all believers) attack and tear down each other. I was finding myself worn down, frustrated, and just broken hearted. Most of the time, I wasn’t the one being personally attached, so why was it affecting me the way it was?

And I stood staring at those untouched monitor sets it started to make sense.

Excluding my actual household, there are many times my “church family” are closer to me than anyone else is. 

• We get the amazing opportunity to sing/worship our amazing Savior together. Every week (and sometime more) we get to celebrate together, sing together, as my husband puts it (paraphrase), “we get to sing as one voice with the believers from the past, present and future.” THAT is powerful.
• We get to pray together. When one of us is hurting we reach out to one another for a hand to hold, a shoulder to cry on, a word of encouragement, or even a word of accountability. My church family knows what is going on in our lives. They check on us and I KNOW, God uses them constantly to reach out to us when we need it most (even when I don’t ask for it).
• We learn together. We spend time in God’s word. Learning and growing. DISCUSSING (did I say that loud enough?) We work through the scripture together. We struggle through the meaning and application of His incredible word. We learn from each other and challenge each other.

Do you see it yet? Did you notice how much of that includes attacking, insulting, tearing down, belittling, etc?

None.

Because as the Body of Christ we are to work together. That doesn’t mean “agree” with everything. We work THROUGH the disagreements. And PRAY for each other. If we end up on different “sides” of a discussion that is OK, still Pray. Pray for God to make things clear to THEM (hint: or maybe even you). And still LOVE them. Still RESPECT them. Still worship, pray, and grow in your faith as the body of Christ.

So, as I miss, so very badly, my church family all being together in one place I will find peace in knowing that we are still part of the same body. This crazy, diverse, and beautiful body of believers from thousands of years ago, to today, to the days to come.

P.S. I MISS my Worship Team people so much! I love you guys extra special because as you all know, music has a special way of building beautiful bonds (and great harmonies)

The Parking Lot Exchange (Part 3)

So although the guy taking care of the baby was a stranger to me, he was obviously trusted by the parents. However, it still was hard for me to think about handing this baby to a man I never really met.

We had talked via text and he seemed like a nice guy, but it still felt so odd. Just thinking through how the hand-off would happen was odd... like some shady black market exchange, "meet me in the parking lot with the car seat and I'll hand over the kid."

But, I'm getting ahead of myself.

Here we are, Sunday morning.  Our last moments with baby Mason.  Dressing him in his "going home" outfit, packing up all his things, and making sure he had a full tummy for the drive home.  Then we were done. Mason, in his very typical chill state, just glancing around the room.  Justin spent a few minutes saying his good-byes before handing him to me.

THIS was probably the hardest moment of the weekend. It came suddenly really. I was doing OK. I was sad, like saying good-bye to a friend you know you wont see for awhile, but I was OK.  Then suddenly I wasn't. I KNOW most of it was hormones. I mean, the night before I cried while watching Guardians of the Galaxy...I don't cry at stuff like that. But still, I sat holding this precious baby fighting back tears.

I was really going to miss him. But more, I was feeling a loss. NOT the loss you might expect.  The loss of "that moment". I found myself wanting so badly to hand this kid to his mom and dad. His mom who hadn't slept more than a few hours the whole weekend because she was also grieving the loss of those moments she was missing. I was sort of throwing a tantrum in my head. It wasn't fair that they couldn't be here. It wasn't fair that he had to spend the first month (or 2) of his life without his family.

But also, it wasn't fair that the family that spent 9 months taking care of him had to say good-bye so soon (fast forward, all 3 of my kids have been super bummed about not getting the chance to meet him face-to-face...they've always had the chance to meet the babies).

The nurse comes in with the wheel chair to roll us out.  And there they are.  The guy and the nanny ready to take Mason "home".  I found myself avoiding eye contact. Worried that the tears would start if I caught anyone's gaze. I buckled Mason in and said my good-byes. I thanked the guy and the nanny for taking care of Mason and then we headed to our car.

The guy actually wasn't so bad. It was reassuring to actually meet him, even for a few moments. And I made it through the whole exchange without any tears.  Until my stupid fat head husband put his arm around me.  Suddenly, the flood gates opened and the tears flowed freely.

I'm honestly not sure how much of tears belong to hormones vs the actual emotion of the whole situation. We're all home now (well "home" for Mason since he'll probably be stuck in the US until the end of June/July). I'm grateful for sleep and family as we get back to normal.  I'm grateful for updates from the guy (and the parents). I'm especially grateful that the parents trusted us enough to take care of him for those few days.

SO, was it all worth it? Would I have done this again had I known what the end was going to be like? TOTALLY. I want to tell you all that I am VERY over being pregnant and will not do another surrogacy. I knew that before I even started, this was it. This was the last time. It didn't end like we expected, but it was still a pretty amazing experience.

Welcome Baby Mason (Part 2)

The delivery itself was pretty uneventful.  We had a scheduled induction. It took 5 hours from start to delivery. The epidural only worked on my left half (again). I went from 4-10 in like 3 contractions and he was out with 3 contractions of pushing (5 minutes I was told).

Look at that cute little baby. 7lbs 8oz. 20 inches.

Because I wasn't as numb as we all hoped, Justin was able to focus on doing a video chat with mom and dad so they didn't miss the birth of their son. That was huge. We were worried we would have to start the call just after his birth, but instead they were able to be part of entire first 30 minutes of life (then my battery died).

My husband was awesome. 1 phone with a video chat, 1 phone taking pictures so they had that too. There really isn't anything worth mentioning more about the delivery.

Oh, except the glorious moment where my amazing doctor got me setup for delivery and so nonchalantly said, "oh look, you have little pimple on your butt".

Mason was such a relaxed baby. Those first few hours he cried for like 2 minutes total.  At this point everything seemed pretty normal for a surrogacy delivery.  Then we headed to our post-delivery recovery room.

Then suddenly it was just us 3.  Mason slept for most of the first day/night. Waking him up even to eat was such a pain. At some point that first night though I realized something. Mason was in his little hospital bassinet (plastic tub), all bundled, fed, and warm.  BUT he seemed so alone. This poor guy should be with his mom and dad.  And here I sat just sort of numb and watching him. Happy to see this little guy, but realizing I was definitely putting up a wall. I realized I was so scared about accidentally stealing something from his mom that I was nervous to get to close.

DUDE! What was I doing? That is WHY we were taking care of this little guy at the hospital. He needed those first few days to be loved and cuddled and that's what we were there to do. Justin did a much better job than I did. Seeing him talk to his "little buddy" is what got me out of my head.

He really was such an easy baby.  He slept pretty great (minus some gassy moments on night 2) and had sweet awake time where we got to chat with the little dude and take a billion pictures and videos to send to mom and dad.  It was really a great couple of days. A mix of "I'm so glad I don't have babies anymore, this is exhausting" and "but it'd be fun to take care of you a bit longer because you're so stinking cute". As we woke up on Sunday morning it began to sink in that it was our last few hours with Mason. It would be the last time for a LONG time we will see him in person because of Covid stuff. Usually we get the chance to meet up with the families for the next 4-6 weeks as they get everything in order to travel home to China. This time since Mason isn't with his family AND because of the worries of the virus we won't be seeing him.  That was a hard thought to process. That in a few hours we were saying our "final" good bye.

Yes we would see pictures of him, just like we do of his big sister. I am super grateful for that. I also know that with the amount of time his parents spend in the US (typically) that we will actually see him again, even if it may be a few years. But we sure were going to miss that little guy. The last few hours really were bittersweet.

So enjoy more pictures of this precious baby and tomorrow I'll tell you how the "hand-off" went.

Preparing for Delivery (Part 1)

In all honesty, this one is more for me than you. There are so many things I don't want to forget about my final surrogacy journey.  I'm going to start with the weeks leading up to the due date.

If you don't know, the family is in Beijing. Up until recently, we were able to see each other a couple times a year since they have houses locally in CA that they visit.  I carried their first baby girl about 2 years ago and only agreed to doing a 4th surrogacy because of how close we had become over the last few years.

Once I heard China/US flights were locking down I began to grow nervous. What does this look like if they can't be here?

I kept pushing the thoughts away to try not and dwell on the "what ifs". I kept telling myself we had months to be in clear...there was no way this whole Corona Virus thing would still be an issue for that long.

Then CA issued the stay-at-home order 2 months before the due date and things got crazy. It was clear at this point that the parents would not be able to come for health reasons, so what now?

After talking things over with Justin and the kids we offered to take care of the baby until he could be taken home to Beijing.

They were worried it would be a burden. They told us that we were already doing so much for them they couldn't imagine asking more from us.  I didn't push back (although I wanted to).  There was this awkward tension.  Do I try to convince them it isn't a burden? Honestly with 5 sets of hands in the house it would be easier than when I had to do it with any of my own. BUT what if in trying to convince them I make them nervous?

There is this thing...deep down I think almost everyone has thought it (very few are honest enough to express it) that assume a surrogate MUST experience some attachment with the baby she carries.  She MUST be heartbroken to let the baby go. She MUST feel that maternal bond.

Having done this 4 times now, I want to tell you that isn't necessarily true. I try to tell people (the ones honest enough to ask those questions) that is like babysitting for a close a friend.  I love my friends babies and would take care of them anytime.  We miss those kids when we don't see them for awhile, because we totally love those kids, but in the end we are not "attached" to them like our own.  That is what surrogacy is like.

Getting excited to hear the heartbeat like a friend telling us they are pregnant.  That's the feeling.

BUT I didn't push with the parents to try and convince them to let us care for the baby.  I didn't want them to feel that we were trying to take anything from them. So with only a couple of months to figure it out suddenly everyone was scrambling to figure out what to do.

They landed on having a close friend of theirs who lives in LA take care of the baby. This was hard for me at first. A strange man (strange to me) taking care of this baby boy in place of his parents. This man who had no connection to baby. Would he love and cuddle him like he needed? I pictured some horrible orphanage from movies with babies having their basic needs met but laying there alone the rest of the time.

Obviously, deep down, I knew they wouldn't trust a person like that to take care of the baby and once we all connected and starting chatting it eased my mind.  They were also hiring a nanny to live with them to care for the baby since he hadn't had any children of his own.

Fast forward to a couple of weeks before the due date. We find out the hospital will only let this man in (not the nanny) due to Corona Virus restrictions.  Everyone decided it would be better for the baby to stay with Justin and I at the hospital instead. That made for a chaotic couple of weeks trying to get legal documents in order. I kept waking up every morning grateful I was still pregnant until we had the signed papers. A few days before the due date everything was in order.  Baby Mason would be spending a couple nights with us and it was a huge relief.

I suddenly realized how scared I had been to never get to meet this dear baby boy. Without the parents at the hospital he would have been taken out of the room immediately, no pictures or anything. Now I would have the chance to meet him and still be there to "introduce" him to his mommy and daddy (even if it would be over facetime). That was a huge relief.

I mean, that's why I do this. To help a family grow. To have that moment taken away would have been so much more devastating than I had realized.

So how did it play out in reality? That'll be tomorrow's blog.