Living Our Sunshine with Susann Deysel
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2 Mins Read

Ready, set, wait… for Delivery of Baby

How am I supposed to be homebound for 4 months when all I’m used to is working in a corporate world? That part of 4 months maternity leave scares me the most. It’s not that I don’t want to spend time with the baby, but I am also scared to miss out or the person that stands in for me messes up (because that can really happen).

I have made dear husband paint the walls for the baby’s room and he has finally finished that. We still need some bits and bobs, but we are keeping it simple. What we don’t have now we will buy.

I’m just going to say this, the baby already has a vanity with mirror and chair. It was a gift from her nieces that have outgrown their childhood furniture. It is so darn cute!

I also made this bumper for the cot… because I really like this colour and pattern. What do you think?

Cot bumper for baby

Other than that, dear husband is driving me absolutely nuts. His latest is, she cannot wear something if it isn’t pink. Seriously…

On another note, I will be on the hunt again for a surrogate to bring carry the next one for us. Double sigh.

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Hello from Salt Rock

While on holiday I never keep to my resolutions of blogging (I wonder why?). I start the holiday off with every intention of sticking to blogging, but it just never happens like that.

We’ve been in Salt Rock since the 17th of March and the weather has been great. On my birthday it was overcast and I thought it would be a waste to even go down to the beach, but after eating my birthday cake the sun came through and it just so happened that it was low tide. I had the perfect beach day.

Terror on my birthday

On my birthday, while I was eating cake on the beach in Salt Rock, Belgium was rocked by a terror attack. More than 30 people lost their lives. Innocent people. Before that it was Ankara and Paris. Senseless murders by fanatics.

If you hate the west so much go stay on your little piece of land surrounded by landmines so you can’t get out to get your western goodies and favourites. Seriously.

Shopping for baby

In my mind, if clothes I want to buy for the new arrival is made from what would make my sleeves they should cost as much as I would pay for sleeves – right? How can a little T-shirt cost R300? I’m not the stingiest person in the world, but I really don’t like feeling like I’m being ripped off.

I would also like to know how a pram could cost R6,000? How is that even possible?

Where did you buy your big ticket baby items? Did you buy everything new or some secondhand? I’m considering buying an overlocker and just making everything myself.

Update – week 9 or is it 10?

Since I’m not really involved in the baby process and the surrogate lives extra very far, none of this is really real for me. I have never been pregnant and can’t relate to the surrogate’s complaints of morning sickness or cravings.

The surrogate spent 2 days in hospital due to bleeding – which was scary. So far, all is good again.

 

 

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Happy shopping and 2015

Finally, 2014 is almost out the door and I have no regrets about it.

My family is currently driving around the Kruger National Park while my husband and I are in Ballito. Naturally I would have a cold the day after Christmas and completely miserable.

This week I discovered www.sticky-fundge.com. The have the cutest baby clothing made with 100% cotton. (We also found the Sticky Fudge factory shop thanks to Everything4Less.) I won a small voucher from Pretty Please Charlie to spend on the Sticky Fudge website and bought a few unisex items – will share when I’m back in Joburg.

Yes, I am buying baby clothes as I am an optimist (sometimes). We found a surrogate and just waiting for the high court to approve our application. I am so very excited!

Happy shopping at the sales after Christmas and a very prosperous 2015 for you and your family!

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How & Where To Find A Surrogate

If you were looking for information on how to find a surrogate, know that you are not alone – we have been down this road for 9 months (irony).

If your fertility clinic keeps a “waiting list for a surrogate” get onto this list asap. (That is the easy one.) Don’t rely on this “waiting list” to produce a surrogate for you – you are probably going to wait a very long time.

Be proactive about finding a surrogate. Talk to all your friends and family and ask them to share your story (if none of them are willing to be your surrogate). Get the info together on what your surrogate can expect – tests she will be expected to go for, fertility drugs, legal and everything else – and put this in an email anyone can send out.

What to expect when you are looking for a surrogate:

  • Expect many women saying they would love to help, but her husband won’t go for it.
  • Expect to be asked why you aren’t adopting if you can’t have kids.
  • Expect to be asked what is wrong with you and can’t you just have IVF.
  • Expect women saying they will be your surrogate and then just disappear – even if they have discussed it with their husbands and said they will make the appointment for first tests.

Don’t get your hopes up before your potential surrogate went for all the necessary tests and the legal contract is in place.

Never give up. Cry each time you’ve been let down by yet another potential surrogate and get up the next day to start looking again.

Do not limit yourself to 1 clinic or city. We literally put the word out that we would be willing to have a surrogate anywhere in SA that would be willing to travel.

Find your surrogate and hopefully you will be lucky to have your own kid.

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My infertility journey & search for a surrogate – a story of heartbreak (Part 2)

After all the bad news I had to educate myself on all the details of my condition, alternative treatments and making sense of FSH, AMH and a bunch of other letters that made no sense. Most importantly, I had to find a surrogate somehow.

What is Endometrioses? Here is what the Mayo Clinic posted on their website:

“Endometriosis occurs when tissue that normally grows in the uterus implants and grows in other locations. This extra tissue growth — and the surgical removal of it — can cause scarring, which may obstruct the tube and keep the egg and sperm from uniting. It can also affect the lining of the uterus, disrupting implantation of the fertilized egg. The condition also seems to affect fertility in less-direct ways, such as damage to the sperm or egg.”

Finding a surrogate had become my number 1 task. When I wasn’t asking people I was running a Facebook campaign encouraging people to share my posts. I was proactive. I believed that their would be some person that would stand up and say “yes, I will do this for you”.

There were plenty of “yes I want to help” or “how much will you pay?”. There even was a “we have talked about this numerous times and DEFINITELY do this”. To this day not a single person stepped up to do what they said they would do.

Every single person that got my hopes up just to not deliver on that promise of becoming my surrogate drove me into depression. I removed myself from the outside world, from any place or person that could remind me of what I will never have. It has been 9 months since I have been a part of my old life. There is nothing left of the old happy me.

 

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Faith is a joke

The last few months I realised a few things:

  1. I can count my friends on less than 2 hands
  2. You cannot rely on religious people to be selfless
  3. People do not understand what it is to get the “infertile forever” verdict
  4. People definitely do not know how hard it is to find a surrogate else they would be sharing

The past few months have been hell. I could have done with at least more of my friends just dropping an email to say pretty much anything – just so I know that they actually cared. That didn’t happen and now I can seriously say that I have cut down on even having them on my Facebook list of friends.

You would think that if you asked help from a church (or a few of them) to just put the word out that there is someone that needs a surrogate that they will oblige. Wrong. Churches don’t care, Christians aren’t selfless and I will never set foot in one of these places.

If one more person tries to tell me that “God has a plan” or that maybe it is for the best I will not keep my cool. (Seriously, I heard these things from my friends as well – I wonder how these tactless bastards would feel if they were in my shoes?) I also do not want to hear that anyone will pray for me, because there isn’t anybody up there…

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Getting the word out

Getting the word out that a surrogate is needed seems to be one of the biggest undertakings I have ever attempted, but when you have no volunteers from your family or friends…

Like this Facebook page and help share the posts to find a surrogate for us.

Share this page with your friends on Facebook or Twitter by using the following:
#mykidwillbe #surrogatewanted

 

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Happiness in February

In my struggles to come to terms with infertility, trying to find a surrogate and turning into a right royal bitch I have barely had time to think of topics to write about, but here goes…

In the month of February I had only a few days of happy. Most of the month I looked like my whole body was dragging, but I tried to find the silver linings. Here they are:

  1. My awesome cat, Mr Genie. I love that he is now staying at home more and always in my general vicinity.
  2. Cool feature necklace I bought for V.day as I couldn’t make myself not wear black.
  3. Winning an awesome Carol Boyes wine stopper. I used to have parties and hope to do this again someday and whip this out.
  4. I dyed my hair a shade towards red and love it. I think I will be going lighter until I feel like a ghost.

What will be coming up that might cheer me up:

  1. Seeing my primary school friends – because they are awesome people.
  2. Going to Ballito for the week of my birthday.
  3. Seeing my parents for cupcakes on the beach on my birthday.
  4. End of summer sales!
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Where Are My Friends?

The last 2 weeks have been hell for me. I found out that I am infertile and it really was a big sad heartbreak moment for me. I always dreamt of having my own 2 and now there is only a small possibility – if I can find a suitable surrogate.

I have not been able to focus on much else or had time to think of Valentine’s Day. This year, we will just go to the movies and watch ‘Pad Na Jou Hart’. No gifts. I am not in a celebratory mood.

I always thought that I had good friends and that they will be there for me when I needed them. I was wrong. I feel abandoned by my oldest friends.

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