And we must go on...

So there we were, home with no baby, and a scar that ran from my belly button to my... well you get the picture. What to do? We did everything right, were friends first, dated, got married, great careers in place, and planned our pregnancy. Life was great! Boy, did my world just get turned upside down! But life doesn't always go according to plans. WTF?!
The idea of surrogacy started when I was still in the hospital. The next morning after the surgery, the on call Doc, who is the husband of the Doc that did the surgery, came in to explain the details of what happened. I was more sober then and had lots of questions. As he was explaining all this "stuff" to me, one thing stood out in my mind. I still had my ovaries! So I asked him, "hey Doc, you're telling me that I have eggs, but no oven?" "yes", he said. I said, "that means that we can still have a biological baby?" "technically, yes, but let's focus on getting you better first", he said. Okay, there's still hope!
I felt like I'd been hit by a Mac truck! In the next several months came all of the usual questions, the "what ifs". What if I would have waited longer between the fibroid surgery and getting pregnant? Maybe I should have asked more questions about my low blood pressure that day at the doctor's appt. Maybe I should have seen the signs, there were none, but I should have known anyway. This was my body and I didn't see it! The doctor should have known something, right? Was I being punished for bad decisions I've made in the past? Of course all of these thoughts were irrational, but you can't help to think "what could I have done differently?" Grieving SUCKS!!!!
During the grieving stages, my solace was research. I needed to understand more about this rare condition that cost me my baby and almost my life. The bottom line is this, Placenta Percreta is not something that anyone can predict or diagnose. The placenta embeded itself into the uterine wall so deeply that it actually breaks through. A medical mystery. Other research that helped with my sanity was information about surrogacy. I knew it existed, but knew nothing about it.
About a month after the surgery, my Aunt Paula called. I remember I was at a friends house. She was so excited when I answered the phone. She told me that her and a coworker were having lunch recently and the topic of surrogacy came up. This woman told Paula that she had always wanted to be a surrogate for someone, and my aunt's eyes lit up. She said she had a niece that just went through a horrible experience and proceeded to tell this woman my story. Paula asked her if it would be okay for her to give me her information and maybe I would call. I wasn't ready. We still needed time to process our next move.
So, the holiday's come and go, boy that was a rough Christmas, and on to Easter. I know Paula wanted to ask me if I had contacted her coworker, but I still couldn't. When George and I got back to Austin, it was time. We were ready to move forward. I called, she didn't answer, so I left a message. She called back, WOW! We spent over 2 hours on the phone, like we had been friends forever. This was crazy! Good, but crazy. Lisa was so easy to talk to, I strangely didn't feel uncomfortable with her at all. We decided to talk things over with our husbands and set up a meeting.
I did not tell George much about her because I wanted him to form his own opinion. He has great instincts and I trust that. So, we met memorial day weekend 2009. Things were a little awkward in the beginning, but after a 4 hour lunch, we seemed very comfortable. After we left, I asked George what he thought. He said they were the one! Okay, here we go, we are really going to do this! AWESOME!!!