Once David graduated and found a job, I would be able to be at home with the kids for a while. It was a deal we had made when he went back to school. I worked my buns off in a job that I didn’t really like (loved the people, thank goodness!) for him to go to school. I had earned some time off! Plus, I was pregnant (surprise!) with baby number 4 and I love to be home with my babies if possible…

When my husband David and I met, I learned early on that he was homeschooled. He was smart, outgoing, socially aware. Everything I had heard homeschoolers were NOT! I knew one homeschooler that I met in high school and, while she was nice, she was certainly the picture of socially awkward. Also, shortly after we married, I went with David’s family to a homeschool convention in Richmond, Virginia. While it wasn’t as out there as I thought it would be, the kids all seemed so different to what I was used to. I was 19 years old at the time. At 19, different is, well, weird. Surely, my husband was an exception, right? He was the only “normal” (that’s using that term loosely with him!) homeschooler I knew (I didn’t know his sisters too well at that point and his brothers were too young to tell just yet). As a result, I was very hesitant to embrace the idea. So I started digging into homeschool vs. public school to find out how this might work in my world…

Although I am not currently potty training, I have (with lots of help!) successfully potty trained 3 little boys. Several friends have recently asked for breastfeeding advice for their little boys, so I thought I’d give a few pieces of potty training tips that may (or may not) help other parents going through it. I will admit we had a lot of help potty training our middle two boys, Micah and Elijah. I was working full-time when they were potty trained, so others played a large roll, but I can still give tips based on what we did and what they did. It does, however, involve some bribing, so don’t necessarily take great parenting notes from this one, BUT bottom line, it was temporary and it worked…

I have always considered myself to live a pretty healthy lifestyle. I eat vegetables, I exercise regularly and drink one cup of coffee a day. I have also considered my beauty regimen to be pretty low maintenance. I take a shower, apply body lotion afterward and face cream. Then I usually call it a day. If I’m headed out somewhere special, I may put on a little make-up, nothing too fancy. So, imagine my surprise when I started learning about harmful chemicals being used as ingredients in most of my personal care products. There I am going about my daily life thinking I’m doing the best for not only myself, but my family (husband and two little girls), only to find out that the personal care products I’m using may be causing more harm than good, especially in the long run…

The surrogate pregnancy process has been both more stressful than I ever could have imagined, but also more rewarding and meaningful to me too. It has been such a blessing to know that I am growing a person for another family to raise. A family that, without me, wouldn’t have had this chance. That feels pretty amazing. I will update once the baby is here and my emotions are all sorted out, but I’ll leave off with this quote that I love regarding surrogacy: “I make families! What’s your super power?”

Overall, surrogacy has been one of the most amazing experiences of my life. I would do it again tomorrow if I could. When people tell me what a wonderful thing I did, all I can think of is, selfishly, how wonderful it was for me too. What a blessing it was for me to be able to help, in such a huge way, create a family!

The placenta is full of iron to help new mom’s body recover after birth but should you encapsulate your baby’s placenta? I’ve encapsulated several placentas now and I don’t always find out whether the clients found it helped them or not. I figure the ones it did help will probably contact me (and they have). No one has come begging for their money back…

Where did we leave off in this journey? I had completed my first transfer in May and we were hopeful for a quick, painless success. My intended parents have been through so, so much that I so badly wanted this to be easy for them. I hadn’t had ever had a problem getting pregnant in the past (3 out of 4 babies were surprise blessings!) and I had never had a miscarriage. Failure, honestly, wasn’t on my radar at all…