Recovery Period

After birth comes the recovery / postpartum period. I did find this to be more challenging than expected. While the birth was the same as my first (natural with stitches), I feel as though the recovery is longer and dragging to feel 100%. The restrictions also made it a bit of a challenge (no driving, no lifting, no housework etc.) It also felt weird not having a newborn to occupy my time. I’m a person that always needs something to do and sitting around doing nothing left plenty of time to think. I found myself the first few days / nights not sleeping much, not eating much, and going through baby blues. I reminisced my sons newborn stage a lot, but a good friend of mine explained exactly how I felt. “You miss the old stages that are now in the past, but you are excited for the new ones to come.” My son is 3 so we have plenty of time left to enjoy him being little, but it goes by so quickly and it makes me feel sad sometimes. I’m excited for the things to come for us as now that he is bigger, we get to travel and do fun things enjoying each other as a family.  There are definitely a lot of emotions that I didn’t expect but it didn’t have much to do with the surrogacy journey itself. The intended parents are enjoying their newborn, and I am so happy for them. We do keep in touch from time to time and receive updated pictures. While in the middle of the journey it felt like we’ve been doing this forever, but during recovery I just realized how quick everything went. You feel like you’re just starting the IVF process, embryo transfer, now all of a sudden the birth is over and your body is now recovering. It’s a very surreal experience. I’m looking forward to getting my body healthy again, wearing clothes that fit again, and focusing on my family.