Welcome to the World Baby L!

After many years of infertility my good friend G is now a mommy! She and her husband's little girl was born last night via their Traditional Surrogate. I spoke with G a few minutes ago and she is of course over the moon. Baby L is perfect, healthy and beautiful. Their TS is feeling very good and according to G did wonderfully.

Congrats to all of you! Love you G!!

Whirlwind Trip

Joe and I got home at 2AM from a quick trip to CA. Joe had a job interview down there. It is for a temp job with the Parks Department that he is very much hoping to get. We left here at 5:30 Tuesday night. Got down there at about 4AM. Slept a few hours then did some stuff that needed done before the interview. We went to the school that we are hoping to get the girls enrolled in. We have to cross school boundary lines to get them there so we had to find out what was involved with that. The process is now started and we should know the middle of next week if they will let them. I hope so because I refuse to send them to the school that they should go to. My second option may be homeschooling (gulp).
If the Parks job doesn't work out Joe will go back to work for the school district. He was with them for 19 years and they have told him that they would put him on a substitute. That would be just fine if needed but I know that Joe is really hoping the Parks job will pan out. He likes the idea of what he would be doing and feels it would be good experience. His interview was at 2 yesterday afternoon. He'll find out next week. Just in case he did get all of his paperwork in at the school. Either way will be okay. I'm not looking for work down there. I'm still the bookkeeper at my current job (love the Internet) and with the Wedding and the Baby coming we decided it didn't make sense for me to work at all. Even temp work which is what I had planned on. I guess that I will be plenty busy keeping my travel trailers tidy. Surely that will be a full time job in itself. LOL.
I was up early this morning and got my bookkeeper duties for the day done. Next on my agenda is cleaning my house. Then I'm going to go and work on the trailer. Clean it and start moving stuff out there. We only have one trailer here the other is in CA already. It is my sister and her husbands that they had planned on selling and instead are letting us use as long as we need. We won't take that one to Wyoming with us. It is older and there is a fear that it wouldn't make the trip. But it will sure make our CA life more comfortable. Some days I truly think we are nuts for doing this. Of course, then I remind myself that since our house sold so fast we really don't have much of a choice. It's all good.
One of my closest friends (also an Intended Mom via Traditional Surrogacy) may become a Mommy today. She called me this morning and they think that their surro's water broke. They are a couple of weeks early. I'm sure everything will be fine but all of my prayers are with them today.
I am totally bummed that we were only a couple of hours away from J but we didn't get to see her. It was just too quick of a trip for us to try and go down there too. Our anticipated moving day is November 8 and then I'll be able to pop over and see her more often. As nuts as I sometimes think that we are for our housing situation I am very glad that we will be down there. It will be nice to be so close for the birth and for afterwards. As we get closer to the baby being born I think about J even more. I'll probably have to do one of those big deep thoughtful posts again soon talking about my feelings of this whole surrogacy thing. But that is a post for a day when I have had more than 3 1/2 hours of sleep.

Need to Rest from the Weekend

Whew. I'm glad it is Monday. This weekend was crazy busy. We packed, we took loads to storage, we spruced up the travel trailer, I had a birthday, we packed some more, we took more stuff to storage, etc, etc. That was our exciting weekend. I went to bed each night exhausted.



This morning we all got up early so KiKi could get to school for a field trip. She is part of the leadership group at school and they are visiting another school today. It is a huge thing for her that she loves. Joe and her left this morning at 6:05. Angel and Ogre who have their own apartment in the city have been here since Saturday. Ogre is still working in this town so they came back here and brought their laundry. I find it so amusing that after only being moved out for 3 days Angel came back with about 3 loads of laundry. I think that she is going to need to figure out how to go through less clothing or that coin operated laundry is going to cost her a fortune.



Our new home (AKA travel trailer) now has brand new flooring. We put in new tile and new carpet. The carpet is wonderful. So beautiful and feels so good. I'm going to give the place a good cleaning this week and then we will start moving stuff into it. Trying to scale down from a 3 bedroom home to a storage unit and two travel trailers is not going to be easy. We are parting with a few things. I'm using freecycle alot to get rid of some stuff. I like that we can pass it on to others to use. Once we get settled in Wyoming we will replace things.

I am only working very part time now and mostly from home. It is so odd to not go to work every day. I'm not sure how long it will take me to get used to it but I'm willing to give it a try!

A Packing Day

I am supposed to be packing right now. I've done a bit already and have decided that I need a break. I am happy that I have been doing lots of sorting and purging over the past few months when we were getting ready to put our house on the market. It should make this final packing easier.
Last night we took our first load to our storage unit. The storage unit is the size of a single car garage. I will be needing to get rid of quite a bit of stuff in order to get things to fit. I planned on getting rid of lots so I guess that is okay. The actual getting rid of might be difficult. But I keep reminding myself that it is just stuff and I shouldn't have any sort of emotional attachment to stuff.
Our plan is to move 2 weeks from tomorrow. I have a daily chore list mapped out for us and if we follow it then this should be fairly painless. Tonight we are taking Angel's stuff to her and KiKi and LuLu to their dads for the weekend. Tomorrow we are doing a few things to the trailer and then taking a couple of loads to the storage unit. Joe says that soon I will have nothing left in the house for us to sit on or sleep on but my 'plan' allows us to have both of those luxuries until shortly before the move. Silly man.
I should end my break and get back to it. I want to have all of the upper cabinets in the kitchen cleared and and packed up. Most of those items will go to storage instead of going with us since I don't use them often and space will be at a premium in the trailers. Our adventure is beginning!

Four Girls and a Boy

Angel is 'officially' moved out. Her bed is still here and a bit of clothes that she said she couldn't get washed and could I please wash them and bring them when I bring her bed to her (she still needs me!). When we are closer to moving she will also take a few items that she asked for from my junk. Namely, this desktop computer that I am typing on right now and the desk that I am resting the computer and my arms and coffee cup on. I'm glad that she can use them and it is better than putting them in storage. I have a new laptop which makes more sense for our soon to be tight quarters.

Bear seems to be doing well adjusting to life back in school. I know that she is incredibly busy. She has a full load at school, works 20 hours a week there in one of the theatre departments and also has two other little jobs that she works weekends only at. I am impressed with her drive but worry about her a little too. She did seem very happy and healthy though when we saw her on Sunday.

KiKi told me last night that she is breaking up with her 'boyfriend' so she can have some freedom before we move away. Okay let me explain this boyfriend. She is waaaay too young to date or have a boyfriend. But she calls him that. They see each other at school and twice he has come over here and under close super vision (and an 11 year old spy- LuLu) they were allowed to play video games and his guitar. That is the extend of her relationship. Oh and the phone. I am truly beginning to wonder if the phone is attaching itself to KiKi's ear. It might end up needing to be surgically removed. I'm not quite sure what kind of freedom that she is wanting from this obviously engulfing relationship but that is what she said.

LuLu is growing up right before my eyes and very fast. She is the same height as KiKi now and both of them are only about 3 inches shorter than me (I'm not very tall at 5'2"). LuLu actually came to me yesterday to borrow a shirt. I'm not sure how I feel about my 11 year old borrowing my clothes. But then I kind of like it that she thinks my clothes are acceptable for wearing by an 11 year old.

(For some reason I do not have a picture of LuLu by herself on my computer.)

Baby will be here before we know it. J is 28+ weeks along. I think about J and Baby often. It is hard for me not to call her up all the time and ask her what he is doing. Is he kicking? Is he turning? Does he have the hiccups? I am curious about it all but I don't want to be a stalker so I limit my calls. It was great to be able to go down last weekend. Just to be around J and see how beautiful and healthy she is makes me happy. Once we are living closer to her I imagine that she will get sick of seeing me. I plan to make it to every appointment that she has from here on out. Looking at this picture of baby is so odd. It is amazing that technology can give us such a clear view of babies that are still in the womb. Joe and I have been enjoying the DVD that came with our package. Watching him move around is wonderful. We can see his little hands going all over the place in the video. It is very fun!

Wedding Stuff

Yesterday went well. Angel and I got lots done for her wedding. Ogre, Angel and I met with a baker at a brand new bakery that just opened last week. We were able to discuss with her what the plans were but she didn't have any books for them to look through so they are going back next week. We are pretty sure that they will have a small two tier cake and a sheet cake. The two tier will be white cake with cream cheese filling and frosting. And either Pink with white dots or White with Pink dots or ribbon. The sheet cake will be chocolate cake but unknown frosting color. Angel likes white cake and Ogre likes chocolate cake so it sounds like a good compromise. And budget friendly for me since the sheet cake is only $25 and the two tier cake is the least expensive that we can get and still have it look like a wedding cake.

Ogre then went to work and Angel and I went to the seamstress for the second dress fitting. The dress was beautiful and fit perfect. It was determined that no additional alterations were needed so the dress is now hanging in my closet. It was almost overwhelming to me to see Angel in it. I am not sure when she became old enough to get married. Sometimes I still see her as a little girl missing her front teeth.

We then got some lunch before heading off to the reception hall. Joe was able to join us for lunch and the field trip to the hall. I am happy to report that the reception hall is much bigger than my mind remembered it. I was stressing a bit about how we were going to arrange everything in there and get all in that we needed to get in. We know that we need a table for the DJ, the bar, the cake table, the candy buffet, the food buffet and the drink station. Plus a dance floor. Oh and seating for somewhere between 80 and 100. And I did mention that the ceremony will be in the same place right? I think it will work. We mapped it all out yesterday and with minimal need for rearrangement at a couple of times we can get it all together.

Then it was off to the florist. We are on a super tight budget for this wedding. Remember, we are right in the middle of a surrogacy and a move and this wedding came slightly out of the blue. So our budget is waaaay low. To help with saving costs I am going to do the flowers. I have no real training but have done bouquets before and some basic flower arrangements. We went to a florist shop that a lady I have know for about 12 years owns. She was so helpful and very encouraging that I could do the flowers. She can order them in bulk for us if we want or the local Safeway store will order them. Either way the savings is huge compared to what we would spend for florist to prepare them. I even plan on making the boutonnieres and corsages. I think I will do a practice run on those before the actual event. They seem to scare me a bit more than the bouquet and the arrangements. The bouquets will be hand tied bouquets. Angels in Pink Roses and the girls in Pink carnations. The boutonnieres for the Groom (Ogre) will be a Pink Rose and his groomsmen and the dads/grandpas will be a Pink carnation.

Next we went to a discount store in town called Deals Only. It is a scary store. They have odd lots of things that didn't sell at other places. They sell a little bit of everything. Food (I'm scared to buy that there), hardware, housewares, beauty supplies, all sorts of odd and ends. We found some amazing deals there. First we got plastic wine glasses 48 of them for $2, then hot pink serving bowls for the salads (did I mention that my sister who is a professional caterer is catering the wedding? I am the assistant caterer) which will work out so nice and bring Angels wedding color over to the buffet table. Gosh, have I even told you the wedding colors? Shades of Pink and Silver with a little white thrown in. Anyway, back to our Scores at the Deals store. We found hot pink double heart plates for serving the cake, pink napkins, Pink fake roses that we will mix in the arrangements with real ones. The hot pink colors were too good to pass up and we figure since it is a night time wedding we can get away with throwing in a few fakes (we'll just keep the lights low, haha). We found floating candles for 49 cents a piece and a few other things that I know I am forgetting. Total cost spent $38.00 WOW!!

Today Angel is heading to the city. She starts her new job tomorrow. Her first apartment. I know that she is excited about it. I am excited for her. But I keep thinking of that Billy Ray song "Ready, Set, Don't Go". It is a weird sensation. This is very different than when we took Bear to college. I can't really explain it but very different.

Today I am going into the office. I actually better get ready I didn't realize it is quite as late as it is. With having my replacement there I don't have too much to do but sit around and wait for her to ask me questions. Makes for a long day.

Working From Home

Today I am not really going into the office. I will stop by there later but for the most part my replacement will be handling everything. Of course, I have already spent a total of 30 minutes on the phone with her and it is not even yet 9AM. HMMMM. It is nice to be needed but I'm hopeful that soon she won't need me much at all.

I do have a busy day planned. There is a furnace guy coming sometime between 10 and noon to service the furnace as part of our sales agreement. Then I'll pop into the office for a short time (like an hour or less) then it is off to town. Angel has her second wedding dress fitting today and we are going to go to a bakery and chat about wedding cakes. Then we are going to the wedding/reception hall to take some measurements of the place so we can plan the layout. It is going to be challenging doing the wedding and reception in one place but that is what Angel and Ogre want so that is the way it will be.

Angel is officially moving out of my house tomorrow. Most of her stuff is at her new apartment and she starts her new job in the city on Thursday. Friday night Joe and will take her bed to her apartment. It is exciting for her but a little hard for me.

We are moving from here the first week of November. That is also exciting and hard. I know that in the end it will be worth it but I think the next few months will be challenging. I am very happy that KiKi and LuLu are still excited about this. I hope they are just as excited when we are a month or two into it. I figure that November will go well because it will all still be new. December will be okay because we will all be looking forward to Angel's wedding and Christmas. January will be great because that is when the baby is born. February might get a little iffy. The weather and the tight quarters will probably start to get to us. March will look better because in theory the weather will improve and we can get out more. April will be wonderful because we will be looking forward to early May when we head for Wyoming. So that doesn't sound so bad, right?

My biggest 'issue' with this move is the fact that we won't have a real house for a while. We will be wintering in California in two travel trailers and then when we get to Wyoming we will live in one trailer while we build our garage. We will then move into that while we wait for the house to get finished. We know that we can make the garage home-like so that won't be too bad. But I am feeling a little bad about bringing the baby home to a travel trailer. I guess we didn't plan this too well but we really didn't feel that we could reject the sales offer on our house because the timing wasn't the greatest. With the mortgage market the way it is we are feeling pretty darn lucky to have our house in escrow and if all goes well we will almost make a small profit (when I say small I mean very small). It will at least put us in a good position for moving to Wyoming in the spring.

Been Awhile

I have become very bad at blogging. Things have been so crazy busy here that the blogging is about the last thing that I think about. Or I start posts and then get too busy to finish them and by the time I go back in the info is out of date.

What we did this weekend was totally fun. We went down for J's OB appointment on Friday. To get there as usual we left here Thursday evening. Got into the town that Joe's parents live in around 3:30 AM. Slept until 6:30 and then got up to finish the journey to J's town. It is another 2.5 hours south. All was going well and we were right on time maybe even a little ahead of schedule. We stopped for gas and then somehow got a flat. Joe my master flat changer had us back on the road soon. We pulled into the doc's office right at the time the appointment was to start. No problem usually because he is always running a little behind. We go into the office and No J. I ask if she has already went back and YEP. She had. The only day the doctor is running on time is the day that we are late. Is that Murphy's Law??

Doctor said that J is doing well and Baby is doing well. He looked so cute on the ultrasound screen. After the appointment we went for lunch. J's daughter was able to join us and my youngest girls were there. It was very fun. Then the BIG EVENT of the day. Our 3D ultrasound! I have to say that was the most amazing thing I have ever seen. They have the room set up for multiple people with multiple viewing screens it is kind of like being in a sports bar and not knowing which TV to watch but the wonderful thing was that each TV had our little guy on it. He was so cute. I couldn't believe how much he looked like Joe. But I think that he had J's lips. It will be interesting to see if he looks the same after he is born as he did in the ultrasound. That was the first 3D ultrasound that I have ever had (don't think that technology was available with my girls). I was kind of nervous about it and not sure if we should do it but I am so glad that we did. It was wonderful. It was so fun to have the girls (mine and J's daughter) in the room during the ultrasound. They were very excited and J's daughter was jumping around so happy to see the Baby. I will love having the memory of our two families together seeing the little guy that we all created.

Craziness Update

We have been having fun here.

Angel- Now has a wedding dress. It is beautiful. We were able to buy it off the rack and it only needs small alterations. A little hemming and the halter part of the dress needs shortened. She is also going to have a french bustle put in so the small train can be put up for the reception. They chose the location for the wedding and the reception. It is a nice place (and the price is right). They are working on the guest list and have picked out the invitations. Once the guest list is closer on numbers we will order the invites. 73 days to Wedding Day!

Bear- is still adapting to a full load at school and a 20 hour a week job.

Our House- We did reach an offer agreement and the home inspection was done today. Hopefully that will turn out well. We found out today that there was a law passed last year that is going to require extra work and money from us to satisfy our counties requirements for the 'lot-of- record'. I'm actually less than pleased with this new development. I understand it but it still frosts my butt. This will be the 5th house I have sold the second that Joe has sold. Neither of us has ever had such a stressful transaction and we are not even a quarter of the way through it. I think that a lot of it has to do with the way the market is. I will say so far it has been very educational and I am incredibly happy that we listed with a realtor instead of doing a For Sale By Owner like we originally planned. Right now we are scheduled to close mid-November. So that brings me to the next part of this update:


Where will we be living next month? Good question. We didn't plan on the house selling so fast. Once we heard that we were getting an offer we scrambled a bit to come up with a solution. We do have property in Wyoming. BARE Property. No house. The idea of living in a travel trailer or two through a Wyoming winter is more than Joe and I can handle. Plus our surrogate is in California. She is due in January. We do not want to be in Wyoming which is even further away than we are now when she goes into labor. So our solution is to winter in California. Joe is from Northern CA and his entire family is still there. His grandma has been nice enough to offer for us stay at her place. She has an RV pad with hookups (water, electric and sewer). We will park our trailer there and my sister will loan us her trailer. So we will be a family living in two travel trailers for the winter. Northern CA in a travel trailer is much more doable than Wyoming in a travel trailer. And Joe has a job lined up. It is a temporary job that will run from early November until spring. Our plan is to be down in CA the second weekend in November. Lots and lots to do in a short amount of time.


KiKi and LuLu- I expected them to be upset about living temporarily in CA but they aren't. They both tell me they are excited. They will go to school with Joe's nieces. I am hopeful that this will be a fun adventure for them.


J and Baby- Doing good. We get to go down and see J next weekend for her OB appointment. And we are going to have a 3D ultrasound. I am very excited that once we are down in CA we will only be 2 1/2 hours from J. That is nothing compared to our distance now. 94 days to baby day!