Today Movement Begins

March 27 has always been a special date for me (too long to explain!). Today, according to the fetal growth website I have been following, movement begins. So our little ones are starting to move for the first time. Our twins are 14 weeks, 1 day today.

On March 23, Adhipen's birthday, they began the 2nd trimester, if you are looking at it by gestation, and on April 1, Uma's birthday, they began the 2nd trimester if you are looking at it by conception.

The Story Behind the Little Blue Lights

Today is the first day of spring! I noticed the birds chirping in the early morning yesterday with new beginnings or life, and our little ones are now about thirteen and a half weeks.

Crystal was in India and saw the scan of the babies on the day they turned into their 2nd trimester. I was very excited that she was there! It felt in essence that it was my eyes watching. She said that all looked well, and the babies looked strong. I had sent a package to Pannaben with gifts. She was able to give it to her. My friend Tony is going in April and so we are sending a smaller package again.

On my altar I have four pictures of the moon that I had taken last year (March 9, 2009) when I went to visit Crystal and my dear friend Neha, both of whom, to my chagrin, live on the East Coast. At that time, I was just not sure how I would pay for the surrogacy. My practice had dropped alot when I took off for maternity leave with Uma, and with the economy, money was tight. As always, the trip was just magical and I had resolved, deep in my heart, that somehow, I would find a way.

On the day I was supposed to leave, Neha and I got into some deep talking. Both of us literally flaked (very uncharacteristic of both of us) on how much time I would need to get to the airport and on the plane, and indeed, Uma and I ended up missing our plane. As we were driving back from the airport, we looked up and noticed the most amazing moon either of us had ever seen! It had rings and rings of color around it. Saturn, was placed dirctly below it and was shining brightly. With our camera's we both attempted to take a picture, but neither of us could capture the rings of color. My camera captured a bright white moon with beautiful Saturn below. Her camera captured, for whatever reason, captured the pictures you see to the right. There were four of them, each so interesting looking, almost like sperm and ovaries!

Neha and I started to talk about my dreams of surrogacy. I told her how I used to feed crows on Saturday for a whole year because Saturn in the planet in my vedic house of children, which causes fertility problems. In order to remedy this, vedic astrology had me saying a Saturn mantra and feeding crows. So it was very significant to me that the planet Saturn was actually there. It was a rare occurance, and had we not missed our plane, I never would have seen it.

I also told her how over the years of disappointment in trying to have a baby, everytime I would get discouraged, I would somehow either find a crow's feather, or suddenly see a blotch of beautiful blue light. I would feel in my heart that it was a message from my spirit baby to keep on trying. One time, I even had this light appear in the form of a discharge after my ovulation wa over. If it was not such a beautiful color, I would have been alarmed!

As I was telling Neha the story, she said, "wouldn't it be amazing if the blue light showed up in the photos?" I agreed it would be. We both looked at each other, and decided to check. Sure enough, under one of the photos, there was the blue light! When I got home, I noticed that a blue light had appeared under a second photo. Both Neha and I swear that it was not there initially! Unfortunately, you practically need a magnifying glass to see the lights in the photos posted here, but they are very clearly seen in the pictures on my altar.

I felt deep in my heart that this time the blue light was again affirming that I should not give up. I vowed as I flew back on the plane the next day that somehow I would find a way. Miraculously, within three weeks after that, my practice literally tripled!

And now here we are...!

Now We have Two....

I was sitting down to type and a friend emailed me to ask how things were going. I decided that the best thing to do was to post what I wrote to him:

We were supposed to have our next scan on March 10, which, in India, was last night. I hardly slept last night in anticipation. When I got up this morning and there was no word, I decided to call Dr. Patel tonight.

I called her about a half hour ago. Right away she told me that the procedure had already been done yesterday. The baby's heartbeat stopped while they watched it. When Crystal comes, Dr Patel is going to scan again to make sure that all is well, and that the baby is indeed dead. Right now all is well with Panna (our surrogate) and the other babies though she made me nervous when she said that there was something (I did not understand what that "something" was) that she still needs to do to make sure that Panna does not abort the other two.

I asked her how she chose which one to abort. She said that she chose the least robust one.

I must admit that I was shocked to have her say that it had already been done. Crystal and I predicted that this was what she would do. To be honest, I am very grateful to her. I feels that this was very compassionate of her - at least it feels that way to me. On one hand, I am very relieved that we did not need to give our "okay" like we would have here in the US. It would have been sheer agony to say the words" yes, we need to do the reduction", which is probably why I have avoided calling since our last scan. I would have felt like an emperor who signs a death sentence and someone's life is now taken. She did the "deed" to our child without our giving our verbal "consent." Still, I suppose our silence on the matter was as good as a verbal consent.

She said that she would send the scan of the two live fetuses and one dead one. I am feeling like I don't want her to, but then again, maybe I can use it to do a funeral of some sort for the little one who had to go. It is so very sad. We knew that this was a possibility by putting in four, but really hoped it would not amount to this. Well it did.

There are all the "reasons" why this was necessary, but still....

My heart aches right now. That is all I can say about that in this moment.

Najla