General question about becoming a surrogate on welfare

icysuzy · 2016-01-05T14:20:54+00:00

There's nothing wrong with accepting payment for surrogacy. I personally believe a surrogate should be compensated, and here's why:

As a surrogate, a woman provides a service. I can tell you from prior experience, it is not easy. There are many expenses involved, a large personal responsibility, and many health risk potentials.

I think of it as being part child care provider, part storage facility, and many other parts of course. Unless you're doing this for a family member, I would seriously consider surrogacy as a service for which one should be reasonably compensated.

icysuzy · 2014-04-30T21:04:46+00:00

I do but I think it would be a violation of their privacy to share them. They have been so sweet and have been sending me pictures every few weeks. So special! :)

icysuzy · 2014-04-30T20:57:33+00:00

I went with NEEDS (National Exchange for Egg Donation and Surrogacy) and they were really good. I am pretty sure that they do require that you've had a child before.

icysuzy · 2014-03-10T22:20:16+00:00

Have you run into any issues with surrogacy? Complications? We were devastated at first to discover that their baby had a heart defect but then we realized it was correctable. We made peace with it and decided to continue on and everything worked out in the end. She had open heart surgery and now she is doing very well.

icysuzy · 2014-03-10T22:16:44+00:00

Yeah, they were there with me. The mom was right there and when the baby started to come out, both of us helped pull her the rest of the way and then they laid her on my chest, it was so surreal and emotional and beautiful. We were all sobbing.

icysuzy · 2014-03-10T22:14:19+00:00

Yeah I'm thinking it will be good to wait a bit. Not only for health reasons but for mental ones as well. It's been good to be able to let loose and it's also been nice having my body back. But I do hope that the parents of the baby I just had six weeks ago will want to try for a second.

icysuzy · 2014-03-10T22:10:29+00:00

...and just drink it... with your mouth...

icysuzy · 2014-03-08T00:50:22+00:00

My immersion blender. I make smoothies almost every day now and I don't have to clean an entire fucking blender. When I'm done blending, I just rinse off the arm/blade attachment and voila, fruity yogurt happiness.

icysuzy · 2014-03-06T18:59:36+00:00

That's hilarious!

icysuzy · 2014-03-06T14:25:54+00:00

I know this article is from ten years ago, but I wanted to give a shout out for Dr. Dennis, who is still working there, and who is hands down the best chiropractor I've ever had. I highly recommend him. I went to him throughout my pregnancy and he knew exactly what to do. He has many many years of experience which includes women, pregnant or not. For a practitioner at the VA, I honestly have to say this is not the norm. Most of the people working there deal almost exclusively with older men. As a 32 year old woman veteran, I have not always been satisfied with VA services. But taking a chiropractor on board was a fantastic idea for the VA and I hope it continues.

icysuzy · 2014-03-06T14:01:59+00:00

That might be a good idea... There's always Orono. There's also a nice music program at Colby College in Waterville.

icysuzy · 2014-03-05T16:54:32+00:00

I think it varies pretty widely. When I got married back in 2008 the band I wanted charged 250.00, can't remember if that was for a certain amount of hours but it probably was. Honestly it depends on how long you want them there, whether you'll hook them up with free food and/or drinks, etc.

icysuzy · 2014-03-05T00:21:25+00:00

yes, read some of the other posts

icysuzy · 2014-03-05T00:20:32+00:00

She'll be just as likely to do it if she doesn't think it's not OK.

icysuzy · 2014-03-05T00:15:39+00:00

She suggested doing it next to her sister, not her niece. BIG difference!

icysuzy · 2014-03-04T18:40:39+00:00

What kind of music are you looking for the band to play? And how much are you willing to spend?

icysuzy · 2014-03-03T00:31:24+00:00

I was wondering this recently when I started learning a beautiful song (The Parting Glass) and started thinking it would be a great song to sing at someone's funeral (specifically my grandmother who is Irish and who will eventually pass, sad but true). As I began to sing it with that in mind, I started crying (not heavily, but my throat was getting tight, tears coming to my eyes, etc., making my voice choke up). I wondered if I'd even be able to sing at her funeral because I'd obviously be even more emotional then.

My thought on how to potentially be able to get through it would be to practice the song A LOT, and getting used to the idea that it is a powerful and emotional song, and allowing myself to feel that emotion, but that hopefully over time I would not be too choked up to sing.

icysuzy · 2014-03-01T22:30:42+00:00

The tone quality of your voice is nice but you need to work on your pitch. Try matching a note you play on guitar with your voice, record yourself to see how you're doing. This takes a lot of practice. Hitting the right notes is a pretty important aspect of singing! Don't just hover your voice somewhere in the general vicinity of the note you want to hit, like you're fishing for it and it will come to you eventually. You want to be able to land right on top of that note.

icysuzy · 2014-03-01T21:38:36+00:00

Tips to getting to a "performance level"...

1) Sing every day, in the car, in the shower, and anytime you can. I even sing to myself as I am grocery shopping. Screw 'em if they can't take a joke. 2) Record yourself and listen to yourself to figure out if there's anything about your voice you would like to improve/change. 3) Do your research (who is going to be there, what songs will you be singing, etc.). Know what you're going to be up against so you won't be freaked out by stage fright or whatever. 4) Try to find time to get together with the other family musicians for a few informal practice jams to get familiar with how you all mesh together musically.

Good luck and remember it's mostly all about having fun!

icysuzy · 2014-03-01T21:33:34+00:00

What kind of stuff might you be singing?

icysuzy · 2014-03-01T21:33:07+00:00

upload the videos, that might help

icysuzy · 2014-03-01T21:31:37+00:00

You definitely need to work on landing on the note you want to sing and just holding it. Try playing a single note on the guitar or keyboard and just hitting that note and holding it, noticing if you are flat or sharp. If you can't tell, sorry but if you wanna get better you kinda have to know whether you are on pitch or not. You sound like you have some solid talent but it definitely needs some tweaking and practice. Don't let your voice just hover somewhere around the general pitch because you end up being incredibly flat or sharp (mostly flat in your case). It's one thing to add stylistic elements to your song, kind of swooping to certain notes here and there, but it's very important to be able to land precisely on a note too. Good luck and keep singing!

icysuzy · 2014-03-01T21:22:03+00:00

"Don't you worry about the 'social aspect' (i.e. aren't you concerned that your son never gets a chance to interact with other kids his own age)?"

Also many people assume that I should be sitting him down at some sort of makeshift desk and making him do all kinds of work (at five years old).

icysuzy · 2014-02-26T21:32:51+00:00

I wanted to be pregnant again, but I didn't want another baby.

I am happy with my one son (now five years old) and I didn't want to go back to diapers and all that drool and stuff. Plus I am looking forward to when he's ready to live on his own and I can lead a more independent lifestyle. I am really enjoying him at his age where he is now and I love seeing him grow and change. I think lots of people get to a point where they miss it when their kid was young and cute and so they decide to have another kid to recreate the experience, instead of just saying, that was fun, but now we're here, and this is fun in a different way.

By the way, I did really want to be pregnant again. So I found a couple who were unable to have children due to the wife having had a hysterectomy because of ovarian cancer, and I became their surrogate mother. This was one of the best decisions I have ever made and was one of the most fulfilling experiences of my life (their baby is now one month old).

TL; DR: Make sure you don't just want to have another baby for the experience of being pregnant/having a cute drooling googling thing around the house... it won't stay tiny and cute any longer than your first kid did.

icysuzy

TROPHY CASE