I know this probably sounds silly, but one of my biggest fears when I decided to really do this was that I would put on a ton of weight and not be able to lose it after the pregnancy. I know that probably sounds really vain but it was a legitimate fear!
My only pregnancy I’d had was fifteen years ago at the time and I didn’t know how it would impact my body this time around. What I’ve discovered, having been a surrogate twice now, and having become friends with so many amazing women who have also been surrogates now, is that none of us “let ourselves go” in the same way during or after our surrogate pregnancies in the ways that many of us did during and after our personal pregnancies.
Now this is not scientific data, and it’s purely anecdotal, but I have a couple of theories. One of them being that once you bring home a newborn baby that requires round the clock care, your self-care goes flying out the window and you usually don’t see it again for MONTHS after delivering your own baby.
It’s not the pregnancy that does this to you, it’s the BABY!
Your sleep, diet, and fitness go back to being your first priority after delivering a surrogate baby, and the burden of caring for that newborn tiny human falls squarely on his or her parents…who, sad to say, will probably be the ones letting themselves go at that point.
The dads of the twins I carried probably put on a few lbs, grew some new grays and wrinkles in caring for those two sweet babes round the clock…not me!
So in my only personal pregnancy, I gained 47 pounds, and took about 4 years to finally lose it all. During the twin pregnancy, I put on 22 lbs and had lost 40 lbs within about 6 months after delivery. In my most recent surrogate pregnancy, I gained 18 lbs, and lost it all within 3 months.
So it’s all relative. You’ll gain what you’re comfortable and healthy to gain, and you’ll lose it as quickly as you decide to. For me, it was fast.
I joke that the twins were the best diet I ever went on because I was a little heavier than I wanted to be on the day of embryo transfer and I’ve never gotten back up to that weight since.
