Surrogate pregnancy update and new blog

I'm officially in the second trimester with the surrogate pregnancy now. Last week baby's parents flew down so they could attend the 13wk scan with me. We got some really lovely images of baby as he wriggled around.

I've decided to do a separate blog for the surrogacy journey - rather than bombarding you guys here. He's a lovely work-in-progress, that's for sure - but I'm sure my pregnancy experiences will be best kept in their own place :)

We had our second scan today. This time the mum got to come too (which for her meant getting up at the crack of dawn to catch a flight here, seeing the baby for all of maybe 5min on the ultrasound, then having to fly back home this afternoon!).

It was a magical 5mins though. This wriggly little miracle danced and jigged about in my belly. The fertility specialist showed us where all the bits were - but it's pretty self explanatory at this stage. In this snapshot you can see the amniotic fluid/sack as the black circle, baby is the baby-shaped white form in the middle of it! Head in the middle, body leaning up on the left and a leg jutting out to the top. The other white splotches towards the top of the black circle are bits of umbilical cord coming into view.

It was truly amazing to see the detail we could see - the spirals of the umbilical cord, the feet, with tiny tiny toes, fingers, the jaw line, the brain! Just incredibly when baby wasn't even quite 4cm long yet.

Needless to say both myself and baby's mum are over the moon. We didn't expect things to happen first go with the embryo transfer. We didn't expect that the baby would necessarily stick around after we got the positive pregnancy test. But things are looking good. It's still too early to get too settled in the security of the pregnancy progressing to full term safely - but we're both hopefully optimistic. :)

Black, White and Gold

These three little cherubs were under construction earlier this week. Then I got sick.

I don't usually get sick. This was new for me. Everyone else in this house can have temps and coughs, or be vomiting and up all night complaining - but I just don't *usually* seem to succumb.

Until tuesday. I went to bed tuesday night with a slightly sore throat and a bit of a headache, slept really badly and woke up feeling like I'd been hit by a truck. I spent the next few days mostly in my bed dealing with what I'm assuming was just one of the many winter viruses going around brisbane this season, combined with the worst morning sickness I've had in any of my pregnancies. But we all survived (I did ask Mark to put me out of my misery at one stage...  Thankfully he declined! lol).

 He actually stepped up and took on a lot of the things the kids were used to me doing - on top of all the bear fabric order packing and business emails... and we got through! I honestly have never had such an appreciation for my usual good health. I had definitely taken it for granted.

I'm still not better, but I'm bloody well better enough to get back to work. I have some wonderful nausea wafers to help with the morning sickness, and I think the excessive amounts of sleep have just been what my body needed to get on top of the virus.

I managed to get these three cute little cherubs actually finished this afternoon too - just in time to snap some photos before we ran out of light. I've called them 'Sovann' (means 'gold' in Cambodian), 'Sareh' (which means 'pure' in Persian) and 'Sable' which means 'black' in English.


'Sovann': 

All three girls are currently available in our etsy store. If you'd like to adopt all three, this is certainly possible (until one or two get adopted anyway), and postage will be combined.

They've been made in three colours of our kid mohair fabric range. We've sold out of the white, but have a reasonable amount of the gold and black left if you're inspired to make something like these guys yourself. The pink kid mohair would work nicely too.

~*~

'Sable': 

~*~

'Sareh': 

And in the midst of all the illness and craziness of the last week, we had our first ultrasound scan booked to make sure the little surrogate bub was growing like he should, and had implanted in a good spot (and that there was only ONE baby!) - and everything is looking good, nice heartbeat and the perfect size for where he should be. One tiny (1.01cm long) baby at 7wks gestation.

Rainbow Bears (and some BIG news)

It feels like it has been a VERY long week! lol. And in many ways it has. I had been posting progress pics and promising to get this group of bears finished each day this week over on the facebook page - but it just didn't happen. Tuesday Byron has a temp at kindy, so we had to go pick him up early and he just wanted to be cuddled. Then thursday we get another call and Chelsea was vomiting at kindy - so again I head back down and collect them both early (we get her home and she has a miraculous recovery and eats all afternoon!).

Then today (friday) we had them both home because they can't go back to kindy until there has been no vomiting for 24hrs (though I doubt the severity of the original vomiting episode...). So we ran a few errands this morning, then tried to keep them entertained this afternoon while Mark and I ran around like headless chooks trying to get all the last minute parcels out the door, and getting the last touches on these bears finally done.

I JUST squeezed in a photo shoot this afternoon before the sun went down. In the midst of all of this craziness I got a phone call to let me know that the blood test I'd had done first thing this morning had come back positive - I was indeed pregnant. (this is the digital test I'd done yesterday - so I kind of knew what they were going to tell me! lol).

BUT - that's not all. The craziest part about this is that this baby is not my husbands. It's not mine either! lol

I'm currently a gestational surrogate for friends of ours who are physically unable to carry their own baby (this just means the baby is genetically nothing to do with me - I'm just the 'oven'). It's only recently become a legal fertility option in Australia in the last few years, and is only legal if done so altruistically - un-paid. It's still very early days (as in today would be considered 4 weeks pregnant) - so we're just taking it day by day, but I was too excited not to share with someone!

We actually did embryo transfer the day before I started work on the five bears in the top photo - so this has kept me nice and busy while we waited.

Legally I'm not able to share any identifying details about the intended parents, so will keep things anonymous in that department. But I do hope to be able to share this journey with you guys as things progress over the next 9 months :)

But - back to the bears! lol. Little Orchid is actually the only one left available from the batch of 5 at the moment. She can be found in our etsy store, but I'm not sure how long she'll stay available for?!

(if you like her - get in quickly as this was the last of our super long pile german white mohair - and I don't know if I'll be doing my rainbow dyeing in the forseeable future!)

I'll post the close up photos of the other 4 bears over the weekend... right now it's nearly midnight and the buzz from today is giving way to a desperate need to sleep! :)

my amazing MamAmor birthing and breastfeeding doll

I've recently stumbled across an amazing handmade creation called a 'MamAmor' doll - there is a facebook page and a blog and a store if you wanted to check them out too. Basically, these incredible creations are cloth dolls with very clever detail that allow them to birth and breastfeed their babies in a tastefully blend of stylized realism. Which is just a fluffy way of saying 'I love this doll'!

This is my doll 'Pamela'. I should really correct that and say Chelsea's doll.... but I think i bought her just as much for me as for Chels. Chelsea's only 3yrs old, so the birth questions haven't really begun yet. She knows she grew in my belly and then she 'got out' - but that's about as much detail as we've gone into so far. She was too young when Byron was born to understand (she though everyone had babies in their bellies)... so i figured this could help me answer questions when the time comes.

Plus, I just had to have one. Handcrafter to handcrafter!

(doesn't she have amazing hair!) 

So this is what these gorgeous dolls look like undressed. I love that she looks like a woman - real mumma curves. The genius of this design for me are the press stud nipples - meaning the baby can actually 'latch on' (photo to come).

The photo above shows the mumma with the baby in her belly. There is an extra piece of fabric, kind of like a pocket that the baby can be slotted inside of like a real belly. The baby can also emerge as if being born as well.

I also love the detail of the placenta and umbilical cord - also attached with a snap clip so that it can be removed after birth (the base of the clip then acts as a belly button! So cute!). I think this really appealed to me after my attempt to make a pregnant mumma and baby bear back in 2010 who also had a removable umbilical cord).

Then mumma and baby can get down to the nursing. 

And cuddling. 

The doll was going to be a christmas present for Chels, but I couldn't help myself from showing it to her when it arrived. She had a mixed reaction - all wide eyed with wonder at first - then got distracted by a toy her brother was playing with (that was hers). So I think I might put her away for now with all the chaos of christmas and the many commercial, plastic toys the kids will get over the next week or so... I think Pamela will be overlooked. So she can be my doll for now. Until I hear those curious words 'Mum, when i was a baby, how did i get out of your tummy?'...

An update on my 'critter' sewing adventures

I've been a bit slack with updating my bear blog lately. Between the two very active children in my life, the husband who is home for a few weeks over the christmas/new year period, 40+ guinea pigs in the backyard, a reasonably well behaved dog, giant fish and now two new baby cockatiels... we have a busy little world!

But here is a look at the last bunny I made in my newest rabbit pattern. This little lady is named 'Maple', and she has already been claimed. She was made from a mix of coffee and cream ratinee curly mohair - which I think worked quite well as something a little different.



Maple ended up sitting a lot straighter - which is what I originally wanted, after I changed the method of stuffing the tummy/legs (really firm, heavily weighted belly, firmly stuffed and weighted feet, and much softer top-part of the legs).







I've also been working on some quirky new guinea pig plushies (because I am a little guinea pig obsessed...).




(The belly of the mumma piggy is lined in 100% cotton quilting fabric, and padded so that the babies snuggle in well and stay in place while mumma sits over them - kind of like a guinea pig version of a babushka doll!).


Babies in the tummy...

...babies out! I think it's something a little different, and a little fun, and will appeal to those who loved those 'puppy surprise' toys from years ago. (or even those pregnant barbie dolls that used to be available... which was me! lol)

He's Here!!!

Byron Chris Nicholson was born at 6:59am on Tuesday the 1st February after a very fast 4 hour labour! He weighed in at 9lb 12oz (4.42kg) and measured 56cm long! (head circumference of 36cm).

He's a very easy going little guy so far. He has wispy dark hair, and what appears to be quite dark eyes at this stage. He's still really sleepy, so we don't get to see his eyes open much.

Chelsea has been fantastic. She's very interested in him, and has been very accommodating of his presence in the house. She slept through for us last night, which made being up with Byron a lot easier to cope with.

We're home already (we got back yesterday lunch time) as the hospital was needing to make room for the many pregnant ladies being evacuated from the latest north Queensland disaster - a category 5 cyclone!



We're all doing well, and I thought I'd share these pictures.

Still waiting...

I go to bed each night thinking maybe tonight will be the night - but so far the most disruption to my sleep has been the hourly toilet trips!

I had a doctor appointment yesterday, and it looks like my blood pressure is creeping back up again (after it went normal for a few weeks there). So I've been booked in for an induction on Monday afternoon. If nothing happens spontaneously before then.

Be warned - the following photo is pretty full on! :P Last time I gave you my perspective of The Bump - this time it's Chelsea's perspective!!!

39 weeks pregnant, the ever expanding belly and cabbage patch dolls

You've probably noticed on my little ticker thing on the left hand side that I'm 39 weeks this week. I was quietly hoping I wouldn't make it this far, that bub might have decided to come a little earlier for me. But it doesn't look like it will be the case. Chelsea was late, so he might be following in his big sister's footsteps.


These are some quick belly shots I grabbed this morning - this one is what I see when I look down! I feel like it is so big now that it's getting to the comical stage. I keep bumping into doorways with it, or knocking things down. Or (as happened at the shops yesterday), if I think too much about it and overcompensate for the belly, I just end up bumping things with my ever expanding buttocks!

No bearmaking has been done since Jindalee. I think I might have used the last of my energy reserves on her. Sewing up her seams was quite a challenge as well with all that fur and leather. So instead of cutting out and sewing bears during Chelsea's sleeps over the last few days, I've been trawling the internet for cabbage patch dolls!

For those of you who know me (or who have been reading this post long enough), you'll know that my interest/attention span is quickly taken up with a new idea, that I then have to exhaust, before moving on to the next idea. This manifests itself in new patterns that I never quite perfect, new techniques that I try a handful of times then move on from, a new fabric that I just have to have, that gets pushed aside by the time it arrives... :P

With the cabbage patch dolls it is because of this photo:


Chelsea is about 3 months old here, and this is her first introduction to a baby doll - my cabbage patch doll that Mark had bought for me some Christmas prior. (I went
through a brief cabbage patch obsession back then too). She still loves this doll, and demands that I undress it all the way down to its tiny nappy so we can poke it's belly button and count it's toes, then dress it back up again! She has lots of dolls, and doesn't really 'need' another one, but as is the way of my obsessions, I've decided that she does. And it needs to be a cabbage patch. Preferably a boy (so she can have her own baby when bub no. 2 arrives).

But you wouldn't guess how ridiculously hard they are to find!!! I've been to just about every department and toy story in the area and there are just none to be seen. One shop had half a dozen collector girl dolls at exorbitant prices, but not what I wanted. I've tried about 2 dozen online toys stores, ebay, gumtree - even etsy (don't know what I was expecting to find there though - there were lots of gorgeous handmade clothes for cabbage patch babies... :P)

In the end I bit the bullet and purchased a cabbage patch 'surprise newborn' from an online toy boutique. The question now will be who will arrive first - bub no. 2 or the cabbage patch baby!?

Merry Christmas

After being wiped out by a summer cold and chesty cough, then having Chelsea come down with it too, then having my pelvis seize up and not being about to walk for a good 24hours, this week has been a bit of a bad run! But today was lovely! Mark has finished work for the year, so we took Oliver and Chelsea for a walk through the mangrove board-walk 5mins from our house with the tide lapping at the edge on the walkway, and then spent the evening with Mark's Mum and the amazing street party they put on every Christmas eve. (I also hand sewed a tiny 4" pink and purple mohair baby guinea pig because I 'needed' to create something different, and little! She's very cute, and I'll get photos when I get a chance over the next few days).

I thought I'd share this photo of the three of us as well. Chelsea and Mark have their matching Santa shirts on, and I got stuck with just a stretchy red singlet top (there was no fitting this belly into a normal shirt!).

I'm almost 36 weeks now, and it feels like my bump is all out front. Bub gets the hiccups every day and gives me LOTS of squirms and wriggles when I lye on my side. I'm having fun at the moment imagining what bub will look like, and trying to gloss over how much my life will change with two mini-people in my care. Christmas is a good distraction though, I just keep telling myself to get through Christmas first, then new year... then it'll be time for baby!


Hope you all have a fantastic day tomorrow!!! Eat lots (but don't get sick!) and enjoy watching your loved ones opening presents!