Surrogate Beth and Intended Father Nick attend the first ultrasounds together ! In this segment of their surrogacy story, they share their experience with the heartbeat confirmation and growth ultrasounds.
Adventures in Extreme Babysitting is a surrogacy blog series compiled by Heartland Surrogacy. In this series, we follow the journey of Intended Father Nick* and Surrogate Beth*. They share their thoughts and feelings at various milestones in their surrogacy journey.
Nick, what was going through your mind after the first ultrasounds?
Once we had two strong beta levels, some anxiety passed but not all of it! I knew Beth was pregnant and my lil guy was staying put, which made me very proud of both of them. Getting past beta week just led us into the next hurdle: Beth had quite a bit of nausea and fatigue, and it worried me. I was constantly concerned of a miscarriage. It was like I was able to take a deep breath after the beta test but immediately was holding it again.
I also felt terrible about Beth’s symptoms. My empathy took over, and I did my best to spoil her and my growing baby. Ultimately, it was just about giving the pregnancy time because Beth was still on her IVF meds and her hormones needed to level out. But a lot of the time I just felt helpless. Beth reassured me when she could and I tried to stay busy. Though I soon realized that tactic wasn’t going to help me much anymore; no amount of busyness could take the baby off my mind. And I now gladly accept that a large amount of my energy is already now focused on him and that’ll never change – especially after he is born. I am no longer just ‘me’.
Beth, Baby, and I had three ultrasounds after the positive betas, at 5.5, 6.5, and 7.5 weeks. Each ultrasound was amazing. I LOVED seeing him grow a little bit each scan. The ultrasounds were my security blanket. I honestly wanted an ultrasound every week until week 39, but I knew that wasn’t realistic. Beth was genuinely happy to see my baby growing strong and how the pregnancy was going. I’ve been so grateful and fortunate to have her as my surrogate.
After the third ultrasound, our fertility doctor felt confident about us moving to obstetric care…but I think our amazing team at the clinic knew me enough to offer a bonus ultrasound to help tide my nerves. (Spoiler…I said yes and never looked back! Actually, I immediately thought, ‘Can I wiggle my way into another ultrasound after that?’ But I behaved.)
So, we got a final 9-week ultrasound and he was doing just fine, growing along and almost seemed to be waving ‘hi’ at the camera with his tiny developing arm. We were released from our fertility clinic to Beth’s OB, and we just settled in for the ride.
I could not make the first OB appointment at 12 weeks due to work constraints, but it is hopefully the only appointment I won’t be able to attend. Beth made me feel better by sending me a wonderful audio clip of the baby’s heartbeat via doppler from the appointment and reported to me that he was still growing strong!
Beth seemed to know I was anxious for the next ultrasound (week 20) and she started sending me a weekly Baby Bump picture at week 11 – the next best thing! I don’t know if I ended up teasing her or if she was laughing with me, but I was and am so happy that she is a ‘show-er’. I’m not sure if I have expressed to Beth how much of my anxiety was alleviated by being able to see week-by-week growth and that she wasn’t a ‘tiny baby bump’ gal. I am guilty of providing her treats and encouraging her to eat as many as she wants to keep my baby growing! I am a terrible food-enabler with those I care about!
Beth, tell us about your experience with the first ultrasounds?
The first ultrasound was at 5 weeks, 4 days. I knew that was too early to see the heartbeat, but I was looking forward to checking in on the little guy’s growth. Since Nick and I live fairly close together, he was able to join me for all of the ultrasounds, which was great. During my first journey, I updated my iPs with pictures and videos after the appointment, but it was nice to have him there, sharing in the excitement!
The following week, I’ll admit to being just a little nervous. This was the appointment that we were expecting to see the heartbeat. I had been feeling adequately nauseated and tired, so I was fairly certain things were going well, but it’s hard to know which side effects to associate with the pregnancy and which are a result of the hormone medication. It was a great moment when we saw, and then heard, his heartbeat for the first time!
After a third ultrasound where we saw him growing as expected, I thought we’d be waiting about a month for an appointment with my OB. Then I found out we’d be doing one last ultrasound at 9 weeks. Even though I had been through a surrogacy journey before, the amount of early monitoring still caught me off guard a little and made me nervous, at times. My kids were conceived naturally and without issue. I didn’t have my first appointment until 12 weeks and only had one ultrasound at 20 weeks, and here we were about to have our fourth ultrasound after several blood work appointments. I just had to remind myself that surrogacy journeys are much different and more monitoring is just a by-product of the process!
Baby boy grew a lot in the week-and-a-half between the third and fourth ultrasound. I think that relieved a lot of anxiety for both Nick and me. We had officially graduated from the fertility clinic and I had just a few weeks left on medications. Things were going great and I was very happy to be a part of Nick’s journey!
You can read more about Beth and Nick’s incredible journey in other segments of this series.
*Names have been changed to protect privacy.