34 weeks thoughts

There is absolutely nothing happening on the baby front here. She is moving around well, getting bigger! We have a MW appointment on Tuesday. The only things of significance is I had a little slip on wet tiles and did my already painful pelvis a huge mischief but all is well and baby seemed unfazed by it all. I have been having to have a pain killer during the day as well as night to be able to move but I am sure the pain will lessen a little. Or this is now just the way it will be till the end and I will get used to it! My legs aren't cooperating at all at the moment so they don't lift when I think they are. Cue lots of stumbles anyway. See a child's toy, step over it but I don't miss it at all as my legs just aren't working the way they should. Ugh.

Emotionally, I am not feeling too good either at the moment. From conception, I will be honest and say that my feelings have changed. Usually down to the hormones. So at the very beginning, I found the whole thing very exciting- I had been trying for 2 years and now it was really happening.
 Then perhaps, the next week I would be feeling a little overwhelmed as there wasn't any going back, a sense of responsibility so overwhelming that it was hard to concentrate on anything else. But then say we would have a scan and I would see my IPs faces and I would feel nothing for the blob on the screen, so i would go back to being laid back and just happy for them. Content in my decision.
 But then maybe a shift in hormones, or a small disagreement between my IPs and I,I  would start questioning myself. Am I strong enough to do this, to what cost emotionally would this birth cost me as a person? Then maybe in the second trimester, I would go back to feeling really proud as people were asking about my stomach and what the situation was. That has been the biggest, over riding emotion for me the 8 months- pride.

But every now and then I get worried again. Sometimes I can have a dream say, so realistic and she is there with the other children, or I dream about the delivery and it is a horrible experience with 'evil IPs'. The psyche is a powerful thing and mix that with hormones, it isn't easy to avoid dreams like that and they can last all day afterwards.

Now, I will NEVER ever think about keeping the child. It is NOT my child, I know that. I don't want another child, and especially this one. I am a TS, not a mother. But I still have these days where I wake up panicked, thinking what on earth have I done and what am I going to be like after. I have thought through every situation, played through every eventuality before I did this. I am an over thinker. This blog proves that. But thinking and planning is one thing. Reality is another! Until you are there, you can't say how you are going to be and I don't want to be left unhappy, empty and used up and on days like today that is my biggest fear. I know that by next week my feelings will have settled down again and I will go back to being excited and proud. It is the way that I as a TS have been and I am sure there are other surrogates out there that feel the same.

I met my Ips family last night, as one sister will be the guardian should the IPs die and it kicked up feelings for me that I wasn't so sure about. I made this baby for C and V, as a huge gift and I am proud of that and excited still. I have wanted to, not for money, because I believe that they will make fantastic parents, have so much love to give and they have waited so long for this. It was a calling out of love for them. But should they die, I didn't like the thought of handing the child over to these strangers in a delivery room, who aren't genetically related to her and who are almost 50 years of age and have grown up children. It didn't make sense to me that should the IPs die between now and the Parental order being granted I would have to, when I am the one that cares so much for her already with a biological link and a warm spot in my heart for her. Sure, I don't want another child but in that scenario? I find that really weird.
As a surrogate I can't voice that and if I do, I am wrong. I can't imagine looking at the child's face and saying that a piece of paper made me hand her over in a delivery room to people that weren't her parents, I didn't know them, they haven't been vetted and who probably wouldn't want to have to start over again anyway. What would she think in 18 years time about that. (apparently they would love another one- but I just felt like saying have one then, you don't need this one- hormones flying!)
 Just to add too, if the child goes home with the IPs for a few months and becomes part of their family, and then they die, I wouldn't have problem with it- its exactly like what happens up and down the country sadly when children are orphaned and so not my place to intervene. What I am talking about is before the baby is born and in the very first few days/week. That just feels different to me.

Anyway, them dying in the next 3 or 4 months isn't going to happen. Its just part of the planning process that we had contracted earlier. The chances are it is hypothetical so therfore no need to get hung up over, right? And of course I will stick to the contract so my opinions are invalid and pointless anyhow. But the aftermath of that thinking is that of course,  it kicked up some worry in me. Am i supposed to be feeling so protective and thoughtful about her? Technically, most surrogates and IPs would say no, it's not my place. Just baby make, collect cash and a little thanks and move on, to hell with her feelings, and what I am feeling. But I guess that I am just different to that and always have been.