Surrogate Mother

Oh how I miss blogging. I have been so busy lately I barely have enough time to do something for myself. These past few days, I have been taking care of 3 kids. Yeah, you heard me right-- 3 kids. You might be asking how come I now have 3 children when I only have 2 kids? Well, my sister entrusted her one-year old daughter to me for a week while she attended a conference abroad. Given the chance, my sister would have taken her baby with her but it's just not possible. Her two other children, aged 6 and 10 are with her husband. Hmm... she could have left her baby with the daddy too, right? Well, I have something that her daddy doesn't have. Have you figured it out yet? You're probably right, I have breastmilk.

My niece has not experienced being fed from a bottle so expressing milk for feeding is not really an option. Having refused to stay at their home for a week (my family also needs me at home), my sister travelled by plane last weekend to deliver her baby to me. For more than a year of her life, my niece has seen me for a total of about one month during 4 separate occasions, half of it during her infancy. In essence, she doesn't really know me that well.

I have talked about how clingy my toddler in my post here but my niece is the runaway winner in my opinion. Having chosen me as the next best thing in the absence of her mommy, she doesn't ever want me out of her sight. Sometimes I need to heed the call of Mother Nature and if she's awake, she'll insist in being with me in the toilet when I do my thing. Privacy is certainly not in her vocabulary, not that she's got one yet.

Cooking food is not something I can easily do anymore. Yesterday, I was holding my niece the whole time while cooking for lunch. Oh, I assure you it's not something I relish doing. It's dangerous and physically taxing. Add to that my niece's desire to help me out by grabbing the pan. So from now on, we'll probably just have takeaway.

More about my experience as a surrogate mom on my next post.