Hello again dear readers. With today’s post, we are almost caught up to the present moment in our journey to bring new life into the world!
In the previous blog, I shared our adventures in the month of February, before we headed out on our road trip through the southern part of the US to Asheville, and I also covered that journey in Posts # 4 and 5. This post will share some of the important moments of March, after we arrived at our mountain home in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Western North Carolina.
On March 5th, after 12 days on the road and a week of settling back into our little mountain bungalow and Asheville routines, my son Nik drove down from New York to spend part of his Spring Break with us–that was the first time he had visited Asheville and he was our first house guest! In five days we went on three beautiful hikes, visited the local Hot Springs, and ate at three delicious restaurants, as well as a frozen custard place (check out the menus at Nine Mile and Taco Billy for a sense of the yumminess). After years of telling him about Asheville, it was great to finally share it with him and enjoy some quality time before he graduates from college and starts his new job in Cleveland later this year. Although the weather started out cold and rainy, to Nik the weather was quite a bit more pleasant than winter in New York, and the last few days he was with us the sun came out and it warmed up.
The Friday after Nik left, we met over WhatsApp with our surrogate mother, Tatia, and our coordinator from the surrogacy agency, Sopo. Tatia told us that at 28 ounces, our baby was doing well and was very active. When we learned she was listening to Classical music with the baby, we felt gratitude for her thoughtfulness, and asked her if we could start to send her children’s stories narrated in English, so that he could start to hear the language we would be speaking to him. She even sent us a photo of her belly for the first time, and it was so amazing to get to see her (our) baby bump!
Later in the call, we also learned that Tatia had given birth to her daughter at week 37, which could mean that she might deliver our baby 3 weeks earlier than the due date! Surprised by the discovery of this new information, we realized we’d need to head to Tbilisi earlier than we had originally thought, which made everything feel a bit more real. Maybe we didn’t have as much time to prepare as we thought we did…(on that note, here is a link to our baby registry in case you feel inspired – Thank You!). So immediately we started looking for lodging in Tbilisi and began to research flights, but almost as soon as we started our search, we realized there were too many unknowns just yet for us to commit to anything. But then, as if the universe had heard the question, “What next?” before we asked it, we stumbled across a Netflix series called Babies, and started watching it together. So wonderful to see so many adorable infants from around the world and learn about the science of bonding, the process of learning to crawl and speak, and the latest research on all things baby. The oxytocin was beginning to flow!
The following Monday, which happened to be the Spring Equinox, I met up with my friend Laurie and we spent the morning shopping for supplies to make stuffed animals. Remembering back to when I was a teenager and had hand-sewn a stuffed cat for each of my baby sisters when they were born, I felt a similar call to make a stuffed cat for Vanessa’s baby. So we shopped for patterns and fabric, and I also decided to make a stuffed bunny, in honor of the year of the Rabbit, for our baby.
That same day, we found out that Ryan’s brother Chris was in the ER with a life threatening health condition, and we spent the rest of that week on the phone with Ryan’s mom and our friend Lucas, who is a nurse in Longmont, trying to get a better idea of what was going on with Chris. Finally, after a conversation with one of the ER doctors, who seemed to suggest that Chris may not survive, Ryan bought a one way ticket back to Denver. The very next day, on Monday the 27th, Ryan flew back to Colorado to be there for his mom and, in case he passed away, to see his brother for the last time. For the moment, we decided it would be best for me to remain in North Carolina with the dog and the house, but I knew I would stay connected through daily updates and lots of prayers.
Needless to say, this was completely unexpected and the turn of events really shifted our focus. In addition to this, it was my first time staying in Asheville without Ryan, and metaphorically speaking, although the weather seemed to be clear and sunny at first, it was as if dark clouds were beginning to gather on the horizon. Nevertheless, since I knew Ryan was going to be gone for an unknown period of time, I reached out to several friends here and made plans to get together. Just when I needed it the most, everyone around me was so supportive, and I went on a creek walk and had pizza with my friend Amy, went out to lunch with another friend Laura, had dinner with my friend and mentor GuruMeher and his wife Siri Atma, and even went out to see a great live music performance, which my friend Sal was a part of (an event called WTF - Women to the Front). Such a blessing to receive support and not feel alone, and in that moment I felt so grateful for the community I had developed here.
Coincidentally, during the time Ryan was in Colorado, I had signed up for a four day online summit on babies and parenting, which started that week and took up several hours of each day, and immersed me in the world of attachment parenting and research. It really felt like I was taking a crash course in so many fascinating topics (like how to bond with a child before birth - which I had been doing from afar, the importance of postpartum plans, and the changes that a new parent’s brain goes through) and it awakened in me a passion for bringing more awareness and consciousness to our own parenting journey, and got me connected to lots of new parenting resources. In addition to feeling inspired to apply so much of what I was learning, I also had the thought that perhaps in the future I might share these ideas with other intended parents of children born through surrogacy…
This was, in effect, a series of peak moments for me. Still, even from the moment I brought Ryan to the airport, it was as if the clouds were starting to gather. In fact, earlier that very day, Toph and I went on a walk in the meadow near the house and, just when everything seemed to be going fine,
I found a tick on my pant leg that evening. That night I couldn’t sleep, feeling ticks crawling on me all night.
The next day, Toph and I went for a hike on the Blue Ridge Parkway, and encountered a large black bear in the middle of the trail. Luckily, Toph didn’t see it as I was able to grab her and slowly back away from it. Needless to say, this experience with the bear was shocking and I was so grateful that no one got hurt in the encounter. Yikes – ticks and then bears! The scary things were getting bigger! And then on Friday of that week, Toph injured her foot and I had to take her to the vet. Without notice, our days of hiking and play were over and all of a sudden it seemed like I was a single mom caring for a sick child again, and just like I felt when I was raising Nik on my own, I felt isolated and lonely. I didn’t want to leave Toph alone, so I stopped going to the gym, going out, or connecting with my community. It was as if the universe was showing me the way forward one minute, and in the next reminding me of the past. The timing of these series of incidents seemed like a good reminder of where I have come from, just as the workshops were inspiring me towards where I want to go.
Thankfully, almost as soon as Ryan arrived back in Colorado, his brother started to show incremental signs of improvement, and after almost a week he was extubated from the ventilator, which was truly a miracle. After spending 10 days in Longmont visiting his brother in the ICU, Ryan felt Chris was doing well enough in the hospital that it made sense for him to come back to Asheville on April 5. That said, we are happy to report that Chris is currently in a physical rehab facility in Longmont and continuing to improve and recover. Thank you to the many people who prayed for him to heal and stay on the planet!
So, this was definitely a stormy start to the Spring. Literally and figuratively, there were thunderstorms and then breaks in the clouds, moments of darkness and moments of hope - and things continued like this into the next month…
In the next post, I’ll get everyone caught up on the momentous events of April, which included an unexpected death, and a blessed birth.
“Impermanence is both a process of continual loss, in which things exist and then disappear, and it is also a process of continuous rebirth or creativity, in which things that do not exist suddenly appear.”
That is a lot to process! Glad to hear Ryan's brother is ok.
Black Bear = mother bear.
love Diana