The Birth

Is there anything baby/pregnancy/surrogacy related that doesn't make me cry?  Apparently not.  Although I was a fan of the TV show The New Normal when it first came out I have to say that I'm liking it less and less as time goes on.  The grandmother changed personalities in an episode and a half, Nene Leakes is an awful actress and one of the dads is so self-absorbed sometimes it's hard to like him.  Nevertheless, I'm still going to keep watching because it's a story about a Jewish and non-Jewish pair of dads (one doctor and one in the entertainment field) who used a surrogate to have a son.  You can't get too much closer to my life! 

Last week the surrogate gave birth!  While the dads were in the middle of a crazy wedding ceremony the surrogate went into labor.  (What a shock.  No one has ever gone into labor in the middle of a wedding in a sit-com.)

While the show may not win any Emmys, what it did do was bring back all those memories from a year ago.  I still remember Chloe calling me with such a calm voice saying that the doctor was going to send her over to the hospital to be induced.  I remember calling Derek 20 times (who was in a meeting without his phone or pager) as I scrambled around my home trying to figure out what the heck I needed to bring to the hospital.  I remember wandering the hospital hallways trying to stay awake as the hours wore on.  I remember Chloe being wheeled into the OR and Derek and I wondering how long it would be until we met our children and found out if they were boys or girls or one of each.  I remember the nurse coming in and telling us our children were born.  I remember the nurse handing me Aaron and a bottle of milk and me telling her I didn't know what I was doing.  I remember seeing Chloe a half hour after birth wrapped up in warm blankets, shivering and wishing she was strong enough at that moment to hold the two beautiful babies she carried.  I remember having to psych myself up to give Chloe her thank you present and card before we said goodbye to her in the hospital.  And I remember crying as we said our goodbyes.

Of course it wasn't a final goodbye.  Chloe and I have kept in touch and she came to the kids' first birthday party.  She even wore the necklace we got her as her thank you present.

So although the show isn't amazing, watching the show this season helps me remember some wonderful memories: being matched with a surrogate, finding an egg donor, transferring embryos, going to ultrasounds and, of course, the birth of my kids.  I hope the show continues on for another few years.  It'll be interesting to see if the relationship between the dads and surrogate continues mimic my real life and my relationship with Chloe.