New wings

I've been reading a book titled Broken Open by Elizabeth Lesser. Her writing style isn't my favorite, but once i got past that i started to enjoy the book. It's about the hard times in your life when you fight and resist the change and heartache and once you realize its a Phoenix Process you come out of the ashes for the better.

I've been personally trying to apply it to my own issues with this surrogacy. I fight change like the most stubborn bull you'll ever have met, there's no denying that. So I've been trying to just listen and let it all in, something that is not easy for me. I finally finished the book and the end really hit home. It says how if you just let it in and stop fighting and acknowledge your own selfish desires in it, you'll be able to open up and find peace.

Well, sitting there getting my pedicure it hit me flat in the face. I'm fully giving up the homebirth. This journey has made me to feel like a prostitute. It never bothered me when people compared surrogacy to prostitution. I am getting paid for my services by using my own body. But i always had in the back of my head 'but I'm not doing it just for the money'. Well since things have gone downhill, the money has been the only positive allowing us things like our couch and our new puppy. So I've been focusing on that, which in turn has led me to feel like I'm selling my body. So i was grabbing onto the homebirth because it was something IM promised me from the beginning and it was my selfish desire to at least have a beautiful birth experience so that i could walk away at least patting myself on the back that I gave this little girl the best possible start i could and the IP's a bonding experience they never would get at the hospital.

But the homebirth was for me. It was MY way of controlling the IPs, of letting them know this is my body it will be my birth and it will be the one thing that i remember from this journey and i wasn't going to let their fears (as all new parents have) steal that from me. I was insisting it was the last gift i could give them, but let's be honest. At this point i don't want to give them any gift, so how could it be one? This is a business transaction in their eyes and i am coming to terms with that. And having a homebirth would have meant laboring and delivering with the IPs there, which isn't conducive to me birthing since there is no trust.

But I am coming to terms with the hospital delivery and starting to hear my heart say 'it can be good this way too'. Something i haven't allowed myself to even dare to consider since my dd's traumatic birth over 5 years ago in a hossy. All these months I've been terrified of a hospital birth, I've said so many times 'i cannot do it, i will end up dead or missing my reproductive organs if i step foot in a hossy'. My own fear of the hossy was trumping the fear of these IPs safety for their child.

I came into surrogacy to give a gift, business transaction, lies and deceit or not. I was like a horse with the blinders on and I was only keeping myself in the fire, not allowing myself to go to ashes and then fly away stronger. I am no longer fearful of the birth, regardless of where it is. I know my mw's will be by my side, my advocates and they wont allow me to crumble and give in to meds or things i don't want. I know my DH will be holding my hand and afterwards will love me just as much, regardless if we deliver and walk away 4 hours later back home to a plan that is vastly different then we had imagined this whole thing to be. I know i will be safe and come home in one piece and i now know, I AM STRONG enough to deliver anywhere through anything.

This new fact has me surprised and taken back. I never have thought i am strong enough to deliver in a hossy, to be honest. I know what it takes, and i never had it in me to stick to my desires with people pushing things at you. I also know that this is the best way to avoid contact and control from my IPs. They can control what happens to their daughter, but at the hossy they cannot interfere until she is born. Something that legally, they could try to screw up with at the homebirth.

I also am realizing that this will help me to become a better midwife. How can i practice if I'm unable to help transfer patients to a hossy due to my fears of being in a hossy? How can i hold my laboring mother's hands and say 'it will be OK, you have the strength no matter where or what happens?'. Sorry to go on and on about my issues, its definitely been the biggest phoenix process I've ever had since DH and i split. I think I'm starting to try out my new set of wings and its for the better. I'm at peace with our plan, I'm done fighting it and at the end of the day, i do feel stronger and I'm thankful to you ALL for holding my hands through it, not pushing me into the fire before i was ready to be there