A Potpourri of My Life

Noises

2009-10-15T16:44:00.000-06:00

Christopher has started making this little clicking noise with his mouth. The video is a little dark but you can still see and hear just how adorable he is.

7 Months

2009-07-29T21:41:00.000-06:00

On December 29th, 2008 I spent most of the day working. I work from home as a bookkeeper and I was frantic to get payroll done and all of the year end stuff done. I had a feeling that I would be very busy very soon.

At 4:23 AM on December 30th my cell phone rang. It was J. She asked "Are you awake?" Believe me at as soon as I heard her voice I was WIDE awake. I knew if she was calling me at 4:23AM that it was time. Time for our little man to be born. What an amazing day that was!

The past 7 month have continued to be amazing. Christopher is wonderful. He is getting to be such a big boy. He is trying to learn to crawl but the fact that he can't quite do it doesn't stop him. He just rolls and scoots wherever he wants to go. He says 'da,da,da' when he is happy and 'ma,ma,ma' when he is mad or hungry. He loves music even if I am the one singing it (Old McDonald is his favorite), he is quick to laugh and such a wonderful little man. Our life is a Joy!

Christopher and Daddy Playing

2009-06-28T18:18:00.000-06:00

Update and Video

2009-06-16T12:56:00.000-06:00

I know it has been a while. We are here in Wyoming. Still iving in our camp trailer but hoping soon to be moving into the Mobile Home we bought. People are are working on it right now, so maybe soon we can move in.

Christopher is growing up very fast. Look how cute he is!

Videos of Christopher

2009-04-16T11:55:00.000-06:00

A couple of videos of Christopher doing what he does best. Looking Adorable!

Christopher

2009-03-11T12:20:00.000-06:00

2009-02-08T12:32:00.001-07:00

Here we are last weekend at one of the parks. Joe is behind the camera. We have been trying to make Saturday's a family fun day as much as possible while working around my bookkeeping schedule. Our typical Saturday has had us going early to the farmers market and going for a walk down town or to one of the parks or to both. Yesterday the weather was a little cold so we didn't walk as much as we have been. After our fun time out we come home and I work.

I just finished up working now and have very little little juice left on my laptop. We are going to a going away party today for my sister and her husband. They will be moving to Wyoming in the next couple of weeks. I'm not ready for them to leave yet. I have relied on having my sis around. I know we will follow them in a few months but even then we will still live a few hours apart (unlike the few minutes we are apart now). The party should be fun.

Routines

2009-02-03T12:02:00.000-07:00

Things are going very good here. We are all getting into a routine with having Christopher. The girls are wonderful big sisters. They are very helpful. Things are pretty uneventful so I don't actually have much to report.

Christopher is growing like a weed. He is such a good baby. I finally got all of the w-2's and 1099's done for work. I am now just working on getting everything put together to go to the CPA. One of the big challenges with that is that the company I work for changed status mid-year. So I have to get everything put together for two companies instead of one. I have spent most of my weekends since the beginning of the year working and also about 5 hours during the week. I think that I will be working about 15-20 hours a week for the next 6 weeks. I'll admit that it is a little hard to juggle that with the baby but one good thing is that I can only work evenings and weekends due to the regular office person being in there during the day (we use a service that allows me to actually log on to the office computer from my computer it is a wonderful thing but only one of us can use the office computer at a time). During the times I can work either the girls or Joe or all are home. Built in babysitting!!

We have started the process of preparing for our move East. We need to get a couple of permits lined up and we need to arrange for power (can't get power until we get the permits). We will live in the trailer until we can get a modular or manufactured home put up. In order to live in the trailer we have to have a temporary home permit. I'll admit that the idea that our trailer is a temporary home is funny to me but those are the rules. In order to get the temporary home permit we also have to provide our plans for the foundation and structure of our permanent home. We kind of have something picked out but aren't sure so I ordered more info from a guy we met with last year. That should be here by Thursday. I'm hoping to be able to send our permit requests off my the middle of February. My sister and her husband and daughter will be leaving for Wyoming in the next few weeks. They bought 40 acres a few hours from us. It has been very nice living in the same town as my sister for the past three months. We haven't lived near each other for 18 years. I will miss her very much when she goes.

Christopher is beginning to fuss so I should sign off. We have been thinking of nicknames for him. I like Christopher and prefer no nickname but Joe wants a nickname. He usually calls him CJ but lately started calling him Siege (CJ but all ran together). I think I could like Siege...

Busy Week

2009-01-24T14:33:00.001-07:00

Whew. This has been a full week.

Monday KiKi, LuLu, Christopher and I met up with J and her daughter. We met in Old Sac. Neat area. Lots of little Tourist Trap shops. We had lunch, walked around, bought candy, went to a train museum and then had a snack before our visiting time was done.

I love all of us being able to be together. The girls get along very good. Christopher was wonderful. He is such a good baby. It was kind of fun for me to look at him and compare him with J. They have some similar features and he gets some of the same looks that she does. Most of the time I see Joe in him but sometimes he will do something and I'll think "that looks just like J". I have to admit that I had a small fear that Christopher would know that J was his bio mom when she held him and that he would like her better (yes, I know that is stupid but I want to make this blog honest about my feelings/thoughts and that is something that I thought). I think that KiKi really helped me with that silly thought. While we were waiting for J to arrive KiKi told me how lucky that Christopher is to have two mommy's who love him so much. KiKi is one smart 13 year old!

The rest of the week I have spent taking care of Christopher and trying to get bookkeeping work done. W-2's and 1099's and all the year end tax stuff is due. I have been working alot more than I had been and some days it is challenging. I'll be working on the computer while on speaker phone and nursing or holding Christopher. One day I swear that he didn't let me put him down for more than 5 minutes at a time! I managed to work 5 hours that day while holding him.

The breast feeding is going okay. I was hoping to have a little more milk than I do. And that Lact-Aid thing didn't work out so good for me. The idea of it is good but I swear that it hurt all the way to my back bone when he nursed on me with that thing. It was like he had to suck waaaaay too hard. So now I nurse him and we supplement with a bottle. He seems to be okay with going back and forth without any nipple confusion. I am hoping that my production will increase a little bit. We had some breast milk donated from a surro friend which lasted the first couple of weeks. That was so wonderful. And on Monday J gave me almost a full camping size cooler of milk. So we combine my milk, J's milk and formula now. He seems good with that mixture. But I'll tell you the kid will eat himself sick if I let him. The doctor said only 3 ounces at a time due to him having little spit up issues. Christopher thinks he is on a starvation diet when we stop at 3 ounces. One day I gave him a little extra and up it all came. I guess the doc knows what he is talking about.

Angel and Bear are doing good. We are hoping to see them in March. Both are staying busy right now and Angel says that married life is ok. They are actually going to be moving soon so that should be very fun for them.

Christopher

2009-01-18T12:11:00.000-07:00

Our little man is so amazing. He is such a sweet little guy. J always said that he was 'mellow' and she is very right. He is so good natured.

Joe is still on cloud nine. He says he can't wait to get home from work each day to see him. He will just hold him for hours and stare at him. Joe said that he didn't know that he could love someone so fast. Right now they are lying on the couch together taking a nap.

KiKi and LuLu think that Christopher is amazing. They love holding him and picking out his clothes and even want to help with diaper changes.

I can't even begin to tell you how much I love him. The fact that I was able to become a mommy again with the man that I love is huge. And it is all thanks to J. She is such an amazing woman to do this for us. Sometimes when I am holding Christopher I think about the sacrifice that J has made to allow me this. How can I ever thank her enough?

He's Here!

2009-01-02T15:44:00.000-07:00

Our perfect little guy was born on Tuesday, December 30th at 12:21 PM.

J was incredible. Being there and experiencing his birth was so amazing. I tear up thinking about it.

He is beautiful. And as J has always said such a mellow baby. I'll update more later (the juice on my laptop is almost out). In the mean time please keep J in your thoughts and prayers. She is having some difficulties from the epidural.

J we love you!!

Ticker

2008-12-29T13:55:00.000-07:00

Ticker says 12 days!

It is almost time for our little guy to be born. J had some contractions last night that kept her up but nothing going on this morning. I know that she is physically ready to be done. Tomorrow she has an OB appointment. KiKi, LuLu and I will go down for it. I can't believe how fast the time has went.
Joe and I are at the nervous/excited stage. Sometimes we just look at each other and say something dumb like "we are going to have a baby any day". We have been practicing how to make a 'bottle' using the Lact-Aid nursing trainer. Joe is better at it than I am. I have leakage issues. We also practiced diapering (on a scary looking cabbage patch doll) and using our baby wearing gear. I have a sling and a Moby wrap and Joe has a front pack. We put our little dogs in them and they work great for carrying them around.

So it could be any day now. Or it could be a few weeks still. I know that J is hoping for any day!

White Wedding

2008-12-26T17:04:00.000-07:00

Angel is a married woman! The wedding went well. The weather was challenging and added an element of stress but for the most part everything was good. Angel was beautiful. The turn out was about half what we had planned for but actually more than we expected considering the weather. The DJ was a no-show which caused some tears early in the day. In the end all was well and my little girl is now a married woman. Not sure how I feel about that yet.

J and Baby are doing well. I know J wishes that he would pop on out but the doc says it will be a while still. Doc goes on vacation early January. We were hoping that Baby would be born prior to Doc leaving. Now we are not sure. I know babies come when they are ready but we are all ready. Shouldn't that count for something?

Still Concerned

2008-12-16T10:59:00.000-07:00

The weather is still causing me issues for my wonderfully detailed plans. I think we have a new plan but won't really know for sure until tonight. One thing I know is that one way or another I'll make it up for the wedding.

The good news is that other than the few things that have to be purchase last minute (like food and flowers) we are ready. I also have a back up plan in case due to the weather my sister (who is a professional caterer) can't make it I can handle the food and decor on my own. It won't be nearly as nice but it will do. My biggest issue will the amount of room that I have for hauling all of my treasures up. Right now we plan to take my sisters truck which has a camper for protecting the decor items and my truck. However, if the weather/roads are too bad then my sister won't be able to go. We have a 4 wheel drive pickup so the roads will be okay but no camper shell. This means that alot of the nice decor stuff that we have won't be going with me. It will still be okay just not as 'fancy'. I'm still trying to remember my mantra. "I will not freak out"

Wedding Woes

2008-12-14T12:40:00.001-07:00

Saturday the 20th is Wedding Day. I was feeling pretty prepared for my part of it. Small problem has now come up. The weather. It is currently snowing in Oregon. Where Angel lives the city has issued chains required. Where the wedding is it is currently snowing. It is still 6 days until the wedding but the weather report is not very promising. The temperatures are supposed to stay at or below freezing for the week. I am worrying about traveling up to the wedding. Angel and Ogre do not want to postpone the wedding (I don't blame them) but they know that many of the people they thought would be coming won't because of the weather. My sister may not be going due to the weather which means that I need to replan the trip. It will work out somehow. But today I'm feeling overwhelmed.

LuLu's Birthday!!

2008-12-11T12:14:00.000-07:00

LuLu turns 12 today! Hard to believe that she could be that old. We will go out for dinner tonight and then back here for cake and ice cream. My sister, brother in law, niece, Joe's grandma and Joe's step grandpa will join us for cake and ice cream. We planned on having the 'party' in our house (travel trailer) but Joe's grandma suggested we just come into her house. Probably a good idea since 9 people in our little trailer would be rather tight.

Things are going well. I've been busy with wedding stuff, Christmas and settling in. J went to the doctor on Monday and she is doing good. The ultrasound estimated the baby's weight at 6 pounds 7 ounces. Wowzers. Hopefully he won't be a 10 pounder like Joe was.

Next Thursday KiKi, LuLu, my sister, niece and myself will drive back up to Oregon. Joe and my brother in law will come up after work on Friday. We do have alot to do to get ready for the wedding. This is a Do It Yourself wedding so I anticipate a busy couple of days. I started feeling myself stressing out over it yesterday but last night I found some peace in realizing that everything will work out just fine. Angel's wedding will be nice. There may be a few little hiccups but I am determined not to let it cause me a 'breakdown'. I am putting this here so I have it in writing that I will not freak out. I figure I need all the help I can get with keeping myself together. lol. My mantra "I will not freak out" is going through my head over and over.

I still need to pick up a couple of Christmas gifts but for the most part am ready. We won't put up a tree this year until a couple of days prior to Christmas because of our space issues. And for the first time it will be a fake tree. I'm glad that I have one given to me by my former mother in law. It will be perfect.

We have just about all of our baby stuff ready. I need to pick up just a few things that are not essentials. We might even have a name chosen. I'm not sure yet though since we can't seem to stick with any of our choices more than a few days. We should have one picked out at least by the time he leaves the hospital.

Travel trailer living has been good. We are very comfortable most of the time. It is good that KiKi and LuLu have a separate trailer. Most of the time we are all in our trailer but they do sleep in theirs and sometimes read or play their video games. Most homework is done in ours, all cooking and meals in ours, TV watching is in ours and the bathroom is in ours. So we all spend lots of time together. I love it. I take the girls to and from school too and I really love that. I feel very connected to them. It is so different than our life was in Oregon. I no longer go to work each day (which is very weird but I'm adapting to it). I do have a couple of minor complaints. The biggest is my lack of internet. I either have to sit outside in the yard to get internet or go into Joe's grandparents house (that is where I am right now). I have a router set up that I hoped would give me internet in the trailer but there is too much interference. I'm thinking of looking into getting a repeater but that will have to wait until after the wedding. My brain can't handle anything else right now. In the mean time I'll make do. Today I'm in the house baking LuLu's birthday cake. I'm also doing a load of laundry. Usually I go to the laundromat but Joe's Grandma asked me to do my laundry here instead of going to the laundromat. She says it is silly for me to go there when she has a perfectly fine washer and dryer. I love that woman!!

I'm still here!

2008-11-23T14:30:00.000-07:00

I only have a minute but for those wondering we are alive and well.

The move was fun (cough, cough). We are mostly settled now. Living in two travel trailers is different than I imagined. In some ways better in others not so good. I have to admit that so far though I don't dislike it. Space is my biggest issue. Where to put things has been a challenge. I discovered we all have way too much clothing. This is a two fold issue. Storing it and washing it. We have to go to the laundromat so less stuff would be better. Or maybe disposable clothes would be the best. Wear once and throw away. I like that idea.

Joe started work on Wednesday. He loves it. It is a physical job and he comes home filthy (again, my laundry issue comes into play here) but he seems very happy. The girls are adjusting to school. Some days are better than others. LuLu had a project to build a volcano. Joe and her finished it this morning. It is wonderful. Tuesday she will do a speech on it and then cause it to erupt. Now that I no longer work full time I get to go to the volcano party. I can't wait.

J and Baby are doing great. I'm still inducing lactation. Wedding plans are right on target. I only have Internet sporadically so not sure when I will be posting here again. Stay tuned!

Yippee!

2008-11-05T16:55:00.000-07:00

Joe got the job he wanted. It is certainly not anything near a 'glamorous' job. But he is very happy and so am I. He will start on November 16th so we have time to get settled. This just might all work out...

Food and Stuff

2008-11-05T09:39:00.000-07:00

I haven't been making my weekly menu for about 2 weeks now. I thought that I would be doing myself a favor by being able to be spontaneous each day and just make a meal based on the time I had available. WRONG. This has been awful. I hate not knowing what I am making in advance. So last night I planned out the rest of the week for dinners. Breakfasts will be oatmeal, cereal or toast and eggs. All served with fruit (if I can make it stretch for the rest of the week). LuLu and KiKi are eating lunches at school this week. Not ever my first choice but it helps me for the week and they think it is a 'treat'. Joe is only working part days and I am not going into the office at all (except for an hour here and there) so we are eating whatever we find in the fridge for lunch. Here are my dinner plans.
Tonight: Pot roast with carrots and onions. Served with rice and salad
Tomorrow: Beef enchiladas (made with leftover beef, cheese, onions), Spanish rice, salad
Friday: Pork Chops, pasta and green beans

That's it. Saturday is our moving day.
I pretty much stopped buying groceries about 3 weeks ago. I have been just picking up the absolute essentials (milk, cheese, veggies, fruit) since then. I had a pretty full pantry and freezer that we have really emptied out. The trailer obviously doesn't have the storage space that I have been used to so my food stock ups had to be depleted. But I'll tell you a secret. I do have two large totes almost full of food that I'm going to keep at Joe's parents house. I figure I can 'shop' there each week in addition to the regular grocery store.

It is almost pumping time again. I pumped at 6:10 this morning. I'm trying to pump every 3-4 hours. I have my fenugreek tea brewing right now. Today I'm going to try to keep track of my water consumption too and see if that helps. Thanks Cyn for the tip about the lanolin. I'll try and find some of that (but probably not until I get relocated).

I got my bookkeeper duties done for the day so the rest of my day will be spent working on the house. WhooHoo. I forgot just how much fun that moving is.

Moving Right Along

2008-11-04T20:13:00.000-07:00

Angel just left- again. She had came back for a few days but since she has to work tomorrow she went back to the city. I won't see her again until a couple of days before her wedding. I'm feeling sad but happy that she is stepping out on her own. And also happy that I was able to pass off lots of household items that she could use for her apartment. So much easier than packing it up and putting it in storage.

Lactation induction went better today. I still am not getting much milk but I am getting some. I have lots of hope that I will see improvement in a week or so. I am experiencing some cracked, ummm, 'parts' but I think that will get better soon. I know that pumping is not going to be anything like the actual nursing so it will be good if I can get my 'parts' toughened up. lol.

Another big day for packing and organizing. The walls are beginning to close in on the trailer with each load of stuff I take out there. What seemed like a semi-spacious area appears to be getting smaller and smaller. Putting my clothes in the closet I was beginning to wonder (as I was trying to shove a sweater in a drawer not meant for sweaters) what in the world were we thinking?

LuLu is feeling a little sad tonight. We won't be able to move our chickens. I thought we had a new home for them but that didn't pan out. I posted an ad on our freecycle and I'm hoping some very nice person wants them. These chickens are more like pets. And while they do give us great eggs their true purpose has been more of entertainment. One of the chickens (Bambi) even gets carried around. We got the chickens as freshly hatched babies with the assumption that they were all girls. We brought home 8. They were just little balls of feathers that looked like fur. A few months later we realized that one of our 8 was not a hen. LuLu was quite surprised the morning that she was out caring for them and 'Sara' started crowing. We renamed Sara Samuel. The 8 of them were a riot to watch. They talked all the time it was great. And then we lost one of our girls- very sad. When Samuel was about a year old he discovered just what a rooster was made to do. My poor little hens. He liked them so much that he rubbed the feathers off of 5 of them. Not a good thing. Then Samuel decided that he liked the girls so much that we couldn't go anywhere near them. Samuel now lives on a free range chicken ranch with about 80 hens to 'take care of'. A much better situation for Samuel.

Tomorrow will be another day of packing and pumping. I might try to throw in a little bookkeeping too.

Inducing Lactation

2008-11-03T17:17:00.000-07:00

I am sitting here with my breasts attached to a machine. I began the pumping stage of the lactation induction. If I told you it was fun I would be lying. If I told you it didn't hurt I would be lying. If I told you that I am thinking that inducing lactation might have been a bad idea that would be the truth. I plan on sticking with it anyway. But I can say that it is nothing like nursing or pumping in addition to nursing. It is not even like pumping after giving birth and having the baby in NICU (been there, done that). It is hard. And very disappointing to only see drops of milk. The first time I pumped I got about 1/2 an ounce total. Second time same amount. Third time less, and each time after even less. I have read that it will take 2-3 weeks before I start to get any noticeable amounts. Once I start hitting one ounce at pumping (and once we are moved) then I'll start freezing it. We have just over 2 months until our due date so I do have some time to get my output up. I started on fenugreek tea the same day I started pumping. I actually don't mind the flavor of it but it has an odd side effect. It makes my urine smell like maple syrup. How weird is that? And aren't you glad I shared that with you?

Moving prep is going well. Today I spent doing lots of little things. Joe got home around 3Pm which was great. He did a lot of little things too. I'm working on a list of the things I want to get done tomorrow. Saturday will be here soon!

Counting Down

2008-11-02T22:34:00.000-07:00

Our goal is to leave here on Saturday. We have had a super busy weekend. All of our big items (except the beds) and many, many boxes have been moved to the storage unit. Today Joe and I started loading up the trailer that we have here. It is challenging to get everything that we think we will need pared down to what will fit in two travel trailers. I find myself thinking and then over thinking if we will need something or not. At one point today I decided to throw a lot of additional items away that I was planning on keeping. I'm surprisingly okay with it.
Tomorrow, I have a full day. I have a meeting at the school at 7:30 AM, then I'll go into work for a couple of hours, then back home to work on packing and cleaning. Tomorrow will be my last day going into the office. Most of the work I do is from home on the computer now anyway. I was just finishing up a few projects. My replacement is doing wonderful and the less I am there the more it helps the owners transition to relying on her the way they did me.

Joe and I had a wonderful phone conversation today with my friend G and her husband. In the back ground we could hear Baby L. She sounded so cute! I wish we lived closer to them so we could go and see her live and in person. G and her husband sounded on top of the world. It was wonderful to hear the excitement, awe and love in their voices.

Welcome to the World Baby L!

2008-10-31T11:03:00.000-06:00

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

2008-10-30T10:54:00.000-06:00

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

2008-10-27T08:21:00.000-06:00

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

2008-10-24T14:34:00.000-06:00

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

2008-10-23T08:25:00.000-06:00

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

2008-10-22T08:39:00.000-06:00

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

2008-10-21T09:48:00.000-06:00

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

2008-10-20T17:02:00.000-06:00

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

2008-10-08T21:07:00.000-06:00

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!

What Is That Sound?

2008-09-30T16:15:00.000-06:00

That is the sound of my plans flying out the window. I know there are some great sayings about 'the best laid plans' and such. It has been nothing short of interesting here this past week. I'll give you all a quick update.

Bear- is back in school. Sophomore year at college. Things are going well except for she missed the deadline for her financial aid. She will still get it but not for six weeks.

LuLu- is tired of the 6th grade but has discovered that boys (one in particular) are less icky than they were in 5th grade. We are also discovering that she is taking about twice as long to get ready to go to school in the mornings.

KiKi- Ah, KiKi. Where do I start. She has a new obsession. The telephone. Earlier I looked over and she had a cell phone on one ear and a land line on the other ear. It is mildly amusing.

Our House- The realtor told me today that an offer is being written tonight for it. We are very hopeful that it will be an offer that we can't refuse.

Angel- This is the big news. Angel showed me her newest possession on Sunday. It is an engagement ring. I about fell over dead. I came back to my senses and then almost fell over once again when she told me that they are planning the wedding for December of this year. Gasp.

I'm thinking my new plan will be not to make any more plans for a while.

Planning

2008-09-23T08:21:00.001-06:00

I have mentioned once or twice (probably more) that I am a planner. I like to know what is going to happen and when it is going to happen. Surrogacy has shown me that I can't plan for everything. It has been a hard lesson to learn. I have discovered recently that I passed my planning traits on to my two oldest girls.
While Bear was visiting here a few weeks ago she shared with me her lists and planning journal. She says that the planning helps her with her full schedule (full time college student, part time employee at two different jobs). Growing up she says all of my lists and plans used to drive her crazy but now she understands them more. I showed her my newest obsession My Home Management Binder (it looks something like this but not nearly as nice). Bear liked it so much she made herself one! She rents a room from my parents and they include her food in that so she really doesn't have a home to manage at the moment but I love that she is thinking ahead for when she does. I do worry a little that my small case of OCD has affected her too.
Angel is also doing some planning. She is getting ready to move to an apartment in the city (just under two hours away) with two room mates. Yesterday we talked lots about her plans. She has made her budget plan and a general plan for things they need. Of course, planning a budget is a challenge when you do not yet have a job. (She has an interview today, so hoping that goes well). She is also working on a menu plan. She is a vegetarian and she tends to eat the same things over and over. She knows how to cook a few meals but doesn't expand much beyond that. I have started her a little cookbook so I'm hoping that helps her. And she made my day when she asked me if I could take her grocery shopping. I think though that her first shopping trip will be my cupboards since she hinted that they are very full and I really don't need all that food anyway. uh huh.
Joe and I are working on some plans too. Our house has been on the market for two weeks, we have closed on our Wyoming property, and we are planning for the birth of Baby. We are very much focusing on the Baby. Next month we are going down for the regular OB appointment and then we are going to have a 3D ultrasound done. We are also hoping sometime (maybe November) to be able to get some professional photos done with J. So much going on. It is very exciting!

Baby Thoughts

2008-09-21T12:28:00.000-06:00

I have been thinking alot about what could happen when Baby grows up. As I have mentioned we are planning on having a 100% disclosure policy as far as the surrogacy goes. We plan on it just being a part of his life to know about J and J's child (his sister). We won't live nearby but still hope to see each other often (just like seeing the rest of our family) and we will share pictures and video's. We want them to know Baby and Baby to know them. Even with all of that I still have a small fear that when he grows up he will be angry at us for this. That he will be angry that Joe and I 'convinced' his mother (J) to give him up for us. That he will be angry at J for giving him up.
J and I talked about this very thing earlier in the week. We are very hopeful that by always making his origins known that it will help with any feelings that he has. Joe, J and I will always be there for him. The three of us are in this together.

OB Appointment

2008-09-17T15:44:00.000-06:00

J had her regular OB appointment today. Her doc does an ultrasound at each appointment. Everything looks perfect. The baby is good sized (1 pound 10 ounces) and measuring just right. J is also in perfect health. She got the order she had been waiting for (dreading) today. The order to take the Glucose Tolerance Test. Yum. That stuff tastes so good (I'm lying) that I'm sure she will want to take a bottle of it home with her. I can remember that foul tasting orange stuff like it was yesterday. Poor J.

My Children and Surrogacy

2008-09-16T10:25:00.000-06:00

When Joe and I first became serious about doing surrogacy we talked with each of my girls individually in an age appropriate manner. The responses were slightly varied. Bear, my oldest, thought is was a great idea. Angel, my second girl, said something along the lines of "that's fine I'm almost an adult and will be moving out soon so I won't hear the baby cry all the time". Coming from Angel that was an affirmative response. KiKi and LuLu were very excited about the idea of having a baby sister from the beginning. It never occurred to either of them coming from a home of four girls that the baby could end up being a brother. As I mentioned, we explained surrogacy to each of them in a way that we hoped they would understand. I could give more medical style details to the older two. The younger two know about sperm and eggs. All four know that this baby is from J's egg and that J is the biological mom and that J's child is also going to be a sister to the new baby.

Things have went pretty well as far as my girls are concerned. Bear is hoping that the baby will be born on her birthday (7 days before our estimated due date), Angel who always tries to be so tough and act like she could care less has been buying the baby clothes and bibs and socks, KiKi also loves to buy things for the baby and even spends her own money on it (at 13 she doesn't have much money). LuLu had a little mini melt down when we found out that the baby is a boy. She was actually pretty upset about it for a couple of days. Apparently she is under the assumption that since he is a baby boy he will pee on her on a regular basis. hmmmm. LuLu finally got over the fact that he is a boy. When we talk about the baby everyone calls him "our" Baby. This has truly been something that we have all been through as a family. During the entire time we cycled the girls would ask, are 'we' pregnant yet?

Things have been so good that I was surprised when the other day LuLu came to me and in a very serious voice (for an 11 year old) said "Mom, there is something I need to talk to you about. But I want to make sure that I tell you it the right way. So I'll talk to you about it tomorrow when I can get my words put together". I'm thinking "wow, when did my little girl grow up so much?" And then, "uh oh, what is wrong". So the next day she says she is ready to talk. She said that she was afraid that since we were having a new baby boy that Joe and I were starting a new life without her and KiKi. That we would like the boy better than them. To say my heart broke hearing those words would be an understatement.

LuLu and Joe and I talked for a very long time. LuLu had really thought out her side of the conversation very well. She asked lots of very good questions. One of her questions was for Joe. She asked him if he didn't love her and KiKi enough if that is why he wanted his own child. Joe surprised me with his answer. He said "It is because of you and KiKi and how much I love you that I want another child. I never knew what I was missing before."

LuLu's next concern was that she couldn't think of the baby as her 'real' brother. That she would have to call him a half brother or a step brother. So I have to admit that this was a harder question for me to answer. The entire 'title thing' confuses me a little bit as I mentioned in this post. If it gets confusing to me then I would imagine an 11 year old might find it a little confusing. I was able to explain to her in a way that I think she understood. We are doing a Pre Birth Order (PBO). With a PBO my name will go directly on the birth certificate as the Mother. I showed LuLu her birth certificate where it says Mother and showed her my name. I let her know that on the babies birth certificate my name will be in the same spot. She seemed to be pretty happy with that answer and decided 'Just Brother" will work as opposed to step brother or anything else. I personally have mixed feelings about the PBO but for my little LuLu I was happy that we have that option and that I could explain it to her in a way that made sense to her. After that she was obviously quite pleased with the way the conversation went and decided to help us with our Baby Name Saga. She came up with some good ones.

Using surrogacy as an option to add to our family I knew that there would be some challenges. That we would have new emotions/thoughts/feelings to deal with. I know that I don't have all the answers to things that might come up. There will be things that I can't 'fix'. But I truly believe that by discussing our thoughts and feelings instead of keeping them bottled up inside we can accomplish more and it brings us closer together.

Beach Bums

2008-09-14T18:15:00.000-06:00

We went to the beach today. Sadly Bear had to leave yesterday and I just didn't feel like hanging around this house. It is only about half an hour to the beach so a very easy trip. We did something we don't usually do, we took our dogs. Rio our lab mix loved it. Chewy our Chihuahua loved it. Lucky our foster dog Chihuahua didn't love it. I think that sand and the walking part bothered Lucky. He is a super small little dog who doesn't really walk, he prances. He is living with us temporarily while one of my friends is setting up a place for him. This temporary thing has been going on a while now. He moved in with us last December. Secretly, I would like him to stay forever but don't tell Joe (wink,wink). The Beach here tends to be on the cold and windy side. Today was not the norm. It was beautiful. Almost warm and breezy. We had a good time.

Today our surro is 23 weeks. Time is moving right along. Her OB appointment that was on Friday had to be rescheduled so she goes in on Wednesday. We are still working on our Baby name. Boy names are sure hard.

I am feeling ready for this week. The house looks pretty nice for the Realtor Open on Wednesday- of course, I'll do the Tuesday night super clean to make sure all looks good. I have my menu plan in place for the week. I didn't follow the plan as good last week as I should have. This week I hope to do better. Joe has been dieting. He has lost 13 pounds so far. I have not been dieting. I should but I don't have the ambition for it right now. Maybe someday.

I get the night off!

2008-09-13T17:25:00.000-06:00

No cooking for me tonight. Joe is making burgers. I have to admit that I am almost giddy about the idea of him doing dinner.

Bear and I had a great time in town yesterday. I didn't end up buying anything for the house but I did get some great cloth diapers for the baby and a cow print diaper cover. I also found some scrap booking stuff on Clearance. I haven't made much progress on my scrap books but I have the backgrounds started. I just recently got a digital camera. Up to now I have been using either a cell phone camera or a film camera. The film camera makes things a little more challenging in the computer world but is good for the scrap book stuff- if I remember to get the film developed. I am not sure just how many rolls of film that I need to get developed but I know there are a few. I have a slight procrastination problem. Oops.

Burgers are ready! I'm off.

Update: How do you like my new background? It was absolutely free and simple enough to load that even I could do it.

Friday!

2008-09-12T11:32:00.000-06:00

The play was pretty good. It was very long though. We didn't get home until 11. The girls didn't seem too tired this morning but I hate keeping them out that late. One of the things about the play is that everyone is encouraged to throw popcorn at the villains. We were setting in the front so there was lots of popcorn thrown around. At the end of the play the villains get their revenge and throw popcorn back at the audience. KiKi and LuLu loved the popcorn part of the play. I'm glad we went to see the play but once will for sure be enough.

Just a few small projects to do this weekend. I'm painting the front porch and the kitchen door besides that just the ongoing cleaning stuff. I'm leaving work early this afternoon to take Bear to town for some girl time. There are tons of old junk stores here that we want to hit. I am on strict orders to not purchase items that are big due to our upcoming move. Haha... silly man. If I find the perfect (insert whatever) then how could I possibly pass it up?

2008-09-11T10:50:00.000-06:00

Have looked at my little baby ticker lately? Isn't he cute!? Sometimes I visit my blog just to watch the baby ticker bounce around. Is that weird?

We are getting closer and closer to double digits. I spend alot of time imagining what he will look like. J is such a beautiful woman and Joe was such a cute baby and in my opinion a super handsome man. Here see for yourself. What do you think?

That is my cute husband at the Portland Rose Test Garden. He looks good standing around all those flowers. Very manly.

I'm thinking the combination of the two of them will make a super cute baby.

J and I don't really look alike. We are both similar in height but that is about it. When we were looking for a TS though it wasn't a requirement for her to look like me. We were looking totally for personality and stability. I know that it is pretty common to have a list of ideals for picking a surrogate. We didn't have that list. But I have to admit that I don't really feel like we picked J. I don't think she really picked us either. It just kind of worked out that we ended up doing this spectacular thing together. I don't think that I could have found anyone better to share this with. J has even been kind enough to share some of her pregnancy symptoms with me (I had another stinking leg cramp that woke me up last night- haven't had those since I was pregnant myself with LuLu but I've been getting them all the time since J got pregnant) and apparently I look pregnant according to some lady in town two days ago and the FedEx lady (thanks ladies!). Of course, J gets all the really fun pregnancy stuff (not). Yesterday she told me she is 'waddling' around. That makes me laugh. According to my baby update thing the baby weighs a full pound now and is about 10 inches long. No wonder she is waddling! He is getting to be a big guy. I am a little nervous for J about how big he will end up being at birth. Since both Joe and his brother were big babies (Joe was just under 10 pounds and his brother was just under 11 pounds) I have a slight fear that those big baby genes will take over and Baby will be HUGE. Unlikely, though. J has not had abnormally large babies.

Other things on my mind today...

Our house. The realtor came and took more photos last night after our new project completions. I am so impressed with how the listing looks on line and hope that the new pictures make it look even better. We thought we were having a showing yesterday but that didn't pan out. Realtor open house is next Wednesday. I don't really expect too much action on the house before that. And then maybe not even after. We are 19 miles east of the nearest real town. I wonder how many Realtors will even show up. We'll see. One thing kind of on our side is that there are no houses for sale in our little area. One thing against us is even though we live in the country we do not have acreage. We live on just over 1/3 of an acre. The land was originally part of a larger homestead but our 1/3 of an acre was donated to a church. So other than chickens and a small garden we are not any kind of 'farmers'. Hopefully there is someone out there looking for a house in the country with no land.

Tonight we go to the play. That should be fun. Bear is only staying a couple of more days. She is leaving Saturday. I have very much enjoyed having her here. Angel is getting ready to move out. She has an apartment in Portland with two roommates. She is looking for a job there and once she has something she will move. I'm happy for her that she is taking this step but sad at the same time. Watching my girls grow up has been wonderful but there are so many times when I want to slow it down. It doesn't seem possible that they are so old. I still see them in my mind as little girls. Now they are women developing their own lives. And KiKi and LuLu are right behind them. It won't be long until they are grown up too. Let's not even think about Baby growing up!

What's in a name?

2008-09-10T16:49:00.000-06:00

EVERYTHING!

We thought we had the perfect name picked out for the baby. But now we are wavering. We are sticking with the middle name that we had but rethinking the first name. Turns out that while both Joe and I like the name we each thought that the other one loved it when in fact neither of us love it we both just like it (got that?). So... we are back to the drawing board. We are sort at a holding point right now on the choice. We have a few we like but are totally open to new options. Suggestions are welcome!

Summer's Here!

2008-09-09T15:59:00.000-06:00

Finally, we have something resembling summer weather. Yes, it is September. But the last few days have been hot. Today is cooler but still very warm and dry. Looking at the weather forecast it is supposed to remain this way through the weekend.

Thursday night we are going to our local melodrama “Shanghaied” which should be a lot of fun. We have never gone before even though it has been playing for something like 20 years. With Bear visiting it seemed like a good time to go. Especially since she is a theatre major and very much enjoys plays and such.

The realtor is coming back tomorrow night to do some additional listing pictures. I have been looking at lots of decorating web sites and blogs and have some ideas for staging. This part seems like it should be fun but it scares me a bit. I'm not good at decorating. Things never seem to look right when I put them together. I love cottage style looks but can't figure out how to translate those into real life. That will be my task for tonight. Attempt to make my house look like a "Model Home". Model homes sport dog hair, right?

An Exciting Day!

2008-09-08T10:53:00.000-06:00

Our house goes on the market today. I would say it is about 95% ready to show. Tonight we will finish up a couple of things. I truly wonder how I will keep it looking good all the time. And of course, the dog has decided now would be a very good time to shed. Aren't they supposed to do that in the spring time? Shouldn't he be getting some heavy winter coat now instead of losing it? sigh.

We got some other great news a few days ago. We had been looking at a piece of land in Wyoming. We made an offer on it at the end of July which was rejected. We made a second offer last week and it was accepted! We are scheduled to close on it before the end of this month. Super fast deal. It is 2 acres with a well and a septic in place and power/phone to the lot line. Our plan is to either build or move on a modular. The catch. We will have to move to Wyoming before the house is completed. We will be 'roughing it' in our camp trailer. Should make for a fun time. The plan is not to move until spring so at least we won't have any weather issues to worry about. I have been studying lots of "Off Grid Living" type blogs for ideas on how to be more comfortable during the camp trailer time. I am amazed at how ingenious people can be. They have given me some very good ideas.

Our new property has an amazing view which makes it a little easier to give up the amazing view I have now. The picture above is the view. See that mountain? That is Casper Mountain. I thought we would only have prairie there so I was quite happy to find a piece of property that looked at a mountain. Okay, so it isn't as big as the mountains I'm used to. But it'll do! Lots of fun things to do on that mountain too. A nice little ski area, cross country ski trails, hiking, fishing, camping. All good things. A few miles from our new property is a river and a park with a boat launch. We are pretty sure hubby's boat is too big for that little river but a smaller boat would work. The same river has some great man made rapids for kayak's and tubes in the town of Casper plus we are told the fishing in the river is very good. And less than an hour east is a nice big lake perfect for more fishing or for water skiing. My goal once we get relocated is to convince Joe that he would much rather have a water skiing boat and a small fishing than a big fishing boat. Wish me luck on that one (here is where I need a winking smilie). But in my mind it is a good deal. Two boats in place of one! What's not to like about that idea?

Nothing Much

2008-09-07T11:06:00.000-06:00

My computer is still at the shop. I am on Bear's laptop. I don't know why it is so hard for me to work this mouse like item on this laptop but it sure is. I cause myself great frustration trying to navigate. I planned on getting me a laptop when we move but now I'm rethinking that idea. Bear tells me I can hook a regular mouse to it though so with that option maybe I'll be okay.

Here we are working on the house again. It goes on the market tomorrow. As I sit here typing the place is in a shambles. Hopefully we can get everything done today that needs to be done. It is all little stuff but those little things sure add up. I'm sure Bear was quite happy to come for a visit and discover how much there is to do here. She actually did seem happy when Joe told her that he would pay her to paint the kitchen! She'll finish it today. It looks wonderful. I do not enjoy painting but I have to do quite a bit of it myself today. ICK. I had best get to it.

Titles

2008-09-05T12:32:00.000-06:00

I don't usually get to hung up on titles. But in the surrogacy world titles are very common. Panties get in big wads due to titles.

I know that it is very common for a surrogate to be given the title of "Auntie" after the baby is born. For me though I have never been comfortable with the idea of J being called "Auntie J". It just sits wrong with me. In the first place she will not be the babes aunt. She is the biological mother. Not an aunt. As part of our 100% disclosure policy I don't feel that it is honest to call her Aunt J. I know that there are plenty of people that call family friends Aunt or Uncle so maybe thinking of it that way I could see calling her Aunt. Or if she was a gestational surrogate then maybe. But it is so important to us not to 'muddy the waters'. We have so many people involved in this, the baby, J's child, my children it seems to me that the clearer things are kept the better.

So that has been my thinking on it. However, to tell you the truth I have put off having the 'title conversation' with J. If she told me she wanted to be known as Auntie J then that is what we would do. I finally decided a few days ago that it was time for that chat. Turns out she is not too keen on being called Aunt J either. So what do we call her?

The reality is that because of our wanting to be honest she should probably be given a title of Mommy J or something like that. BUT I CAN'T. I just can't do that. I want to be the mommy. I want to be the only mommy. J knows this and agrees. So our plan is to just call her by her first name. In some ways I feel a little bad about that. I feel like I need to take this honesty thing all the way. That I should be the one called by my first name and J should be called mommy. But then I think that could make even more of a mess of things. I will be the one caring for him day in and day out. I will be the one there to kiss his owies, to take him to his first day of school, to give him the sex talk, it's all on me (with Joe's help, of course).

So I guess our 100% disclosure policy has a small flaw in it. Will our baby get confused by calling J's child his sister but that J isn't called his mom? I admit that I get confused thinking of all this a little bit. We have time though to work it all out. Considering that he isn't even born yet. This is unknown territory for us. I'm not sure that we can do everything exactly right. We can just do the best we can day in and day out.

First Day of School

2008-09-03T10:30:00.000-06:00

KiKi and LuLu have finally returned to school. The first day of school is always so exciting. But as LuLu put it in a week she will be ready for winter break. Such a realist! They are so old. KiKi is in 8th grade and LuLu is in 6th. They looked so beautiful and grown up this morning. Where did my little girls go? The young ladies that left my house this morning were barely recognizable. Sigh.

Bear (my oldest) is here and we are enjoying our visit. She is even doing some contract work here at my place of employment so I get her full time with me. Yeah!!

21 weeks!

2008-09-02T14:53:00.000-06:00

We are now 21 weeks 2 days. Time is flying by. I am sad that we won't be able to go down for the next OB appointment. Joe needs to have a root canal and has to take some time off for that instead of our baby appointment. Don't Joe's teeth know better than to give him trouble now? I could go down by myself but the idea of a 12+ hour drive on my own is not appealing. I'm still considering it but not sure I'll do it.

Now that we are more than half way we have started thinking about things like when to go down and wait for the baby to come. Baby is due January 10th so right now we are thinking of going down around New Years. Of course, we will change that plan if the doctor says come earlier. We are a little concerned about Joe's work giving him time off. He works for a small company and they do not have to follow the FMLA law (too few employees). So far they have been wonderful about giving a day off here and there when we need it but a few of weeks off may be an issue. There is the possibility that Joe will not be able to stay down with me while we wait for the baby. There is a chance that he will miss the birth. We know that and we don't like it but in the end it will be okay. My work is okay with me going especially since I am hiring a part timer to cover the phones for me and I can do all the computer stuff remotely.

I'm now on count down to pumping. As I have mentioned I am inducing lactation. I have been taking the medication (Domperidone) since June. And my intent is to begin pumping on October 10th. I'll also add a couple of herbs then (fenugreek and blessed thistle) and increase my oatmeal consumption. With the domp, the pumping, the herbs and the oatmeal my hope is that I'll be able to provide most of the milk that the baby will need. I breastfed successfully before so the rumor is that it may be easier for me to induce lactation then if I hadn't. I'm still going to order a Supplemental Nursing System or a Lactaid. Worse case scenario, Inducing Lactation is a bust and we switch over to bottles and formula.

We have been getting our baby gear together. We still need a car seat and more cloth diapers. I have been buying up baby clothes like there is no tomorrow. According to Joe our baby can wear a different outfit every day and instead of washing I can just throw them away. haha. Joe's a funny guy. And Cyn if you are reading we got one of those baby bouncer things you recommended. Thanks for that.

This Week

2008-08-29T10:59:00.001-06:00

This has been a very long week. My home computer has a virus so it is now with some smart guy who knows how to fix it. How in the world will I survive the weekend without a computer? I am almost breaking out in hives just thinking about it. I don't even know if I can cook without the computer since I get most of my recipes from there. My poor family might have to just eat cold sandwiches all weekend. haha.

Last night I did the most boring job ever. Joe and I climbed up on our roof and picked the moss out of the roof cracks. You have never lived until you have picked moss out of cracks. I am going to make a list of things that I will not miss about living in the Pacific Northwest. Top of the list will be 'picking moss out of the cracks'. The tips of my fingers are actually raw and bloody. And the bad part. We only were able to finish half of the roof last night and have to go back up tonight. Sob.

This weekend will be more house fixing up work. We only have a small list to complete before the house goes on the market. And it is mostly easy stuff.

Monday my oldest daughter is coming home for a couple of weeks. She went away to college last fall. Last year she lived on campus. After school ended she moved in with my folks (which is only about 20 minutes from college). She has been working and traveling over the summer but now has some time off so she is coming home. We are all excited. It is amazing to me to have two adult children. Bear is 19 and Angel is 18. I wonder how they got so old. I wonder how I got so old. They are both amazing. I look at them and think "WOW. How did I get these girls? How did they turn out so good?" Have I mentioned that Bear will turn 20 on January 3rd? Our baby is due January 10th. 20 years between the oldest and the youngest. Wowzers.

Whew!

2008-08-26T12:28:00.000-06:00

Realtor visit went well. The listing price she is suggesting is right in the range we are wanting to list at. Of course, listing price and price that it sells for may be two different things. At the moment we aren't in a big hurry to sell since we want to wait until spring to move but listing times here average 90+ days so it could work out good. Then again come spring I may be on here whining about how our house won't sell. We are going to finish up a few projects and official list date will be 9/8.

Once our projects are done and the listing is active the fun of living in a fish bowl begins. This part scares me. I am domestically challenged in the area of housework. I struggle to keep the house clean and tidy and fail often. I do have my Home Management Binder completed that I mentioned I was making. It has been helping me to stay on task and keep organized. And I made an entire section for my beloved weekly menus! I even use the binder to help with my youngest girls schedules. I wish I would have known about this binder thing years ago!

Alert, Alert!

2008-08-25T17:55:00.000-06:00

I have a realtor due here in 35 minutes to chat about listing our house. I do not like selling homes. I've done it before and it doesn't get any easier. And right now with a sluggish (that is the term the realtor used) market it is a super scary thing. I'll report back on how it went and hopefully the news will be that we are listed.

It's Saturday!

2008-08-23T11:28:00.000-06:00

I love Saturday's. I sleep in late, then I lounge around for a little bit on the 'puter, then I make us a little brunch and then I get to work. We spend most of our Saturday's (and often Sunday's) working on fixing up this 108 year old home.

Before we were fixing it up for us, now we are fixing it up to sell. The realtor is coming on Monday to see about listing it so this weekend will be full. In fact, I should be making our brunch right now instead of sitting here typing so I can get to work. Joe has already been painting for 2 hours and I'm still in my jammies.

We have done quite a bit of work to this place. We are hoping that the realtor will agree and not want us to do much more. I'm about burnt out. It is not nearly as fun to fix up a place that we are selling compared to one we are trying to make 'ours'. I do love this house though. And part of me wishes we were staying here.

We live in the country. 19 miles east of the nearest real town. That town isn't very big (population of about 10,000) but if we drive about 45 minutes east we can get to a bigger town (of about 40,000) or 2 hours east to Portland (really big town). It is beautiful here. Our house sits up on a little hill and overlooks a slough and a small valley. The picture above is the view that we have from our front deck. Usually it is very green but we are having a dry year. You can't see the slough very well in the pic but it is there. I'll miss that view when we move to Wyoming. We are going to be put an offer in on a piece of property this coming week that has a pretty nice view too. Different but still nice. I am very hopeful that we will get it. No house on the property just a septic and a well so we will build a house. Fun times.

Variety and Opposition

2008-08-22T10:45:00.000-06:00

It is said that variety is the spice of life. My life must be pretty spicy! I have so many interests. I was thinking of this today when I was looking at the different blogs that I enjoy. Some are surrogacy related, some are homemaking, some are Christian, some are focused on off-grid living, some on frugality, etc. Quite a variety. I do enjoy many things and I love trying new things. And then as I think about the blogs I read I think about which ones that I am comfortable commenting on. I have commented on a couple of surrogacy related blogs and others that are frugal living, Christian or a combination of many things (but not surrogacy). But the difference is on the surrogacy blogs I comment in known fashion with the ability for those reading it to find my blog. On the other blogs I comment in anonymous fashion. Why is that?

Why am I nervous about people that may not be involved in surrogacy reading my blog? It's not like I just blog about surrogacy. I do mention other things, I do have a full life in addition to being an Intended Mother. So why am I nervous to have people outside of the surrogacy world read this? Because I am (how is that for an answer?). I know that surrogacy is/can be controversial. Especially Traditional Surrogacy. Even in the surrogacy world Traditional Surrogacy is controversial. There are entire groups dedicated to ending Traditional Surrogacy. I would love to be able to just say "Here I am. This is me. Take me or leave me". But instead I hide. I don't like controversy. I don't like people to think ill of me. I want everyone to like me. Even in the online world where people don't even know me I want them to like me. I'm going to work on opening myself up. Maybe if more people could see what a beautiful thing that Traditional Surrogacy can be then there would be less controversy.

Thoughts, Feelings and Surrogacy

2008-08-21T13:33:00.000-06:00

Warning: My mind is a scattered mess today and this is a long post about way to many things.

One of the blogs that I frequent http://ivflandonsurrogacyworld.blogspot.com/ had a link on it today to another blog. http://babygiddings.blogspot.com/2008/08/blogging-on-surrogacy-rollercoaster.html (could someone teach me how to link to blogs a better way? My technical skills are lacking).
I very much enjoyed reading this blog ("Our Surrogacy Adventure"). She is so revealing in her posts. It is very good to find another Intended Mother (IM) out there in blog land.

Sometimes as an IM I feel a little alone. I have a good friend who is also an IM via Traditional Surrogacy (TS) and we share everything. The highs and the super lows. But besides for my husband and my friend this has been a lonely process. I can't just tell a regular old girlfriend about my thoughts or feelings because they don't really 'get it'. And to be quite honest I have often felt like an odd ball in the surrogacy world. I know that I am not the normal IM. I have four children that I gave birth to myself.

Sometimes I feel less deserving than the IM's who have never had a child. I feel like I don't really belong. I feel ashamed that I would even pursue surrogacy and want another child. I offset those feelings with reminding myself that my husband has never had a child and that I am doing this for him. But to be quite honest, I am not just doing this for him. I want another child. I want to raise a child with Joe. Sure we could have a fine life without adding a baby to it but I want more. I want it all. And with the help of our surrogate J we can have it all. For a price.

I'm not just talking about a monetary price. Yes, there is that, but there is more to it. We will forever be linked with J. We have invited a third person (and her husband and child) into our life. Our families are forever linked. Joe and I have an obligation to J and her daughter and even her husband to keep that link up forever. Most of the time I don't mind that obligation but sometimes it overwhelms me. I like J very much. I believe that she and I would be friends even if we were not doing this surrogacy thing (in fact, we were friends before we became IM/SM) but to know that no matter what happens that someone is going to be in your life forever it is a hard thing some days. And not for any reason in particular. In some ways I feel like my relationship with J is sort of like my marriage but maybe even more binding in a different way. J has offered me something that most people can't imagine. She has offered me the ability to have another child through her. This child will be her flesh and blood. Her daughter's brother. J and I will forever be connected by this. In a way she is my Sister-Mommy (if you have seen Big Love and heard of Sister-Wives you might get my meaning) we are on a mission together to make this baby.
I don't usually share my feelings on surrogacy with people because I am afraid that I will be viewed as a whack job (but I figure this is a safe place since I'm pretty sure that I only have one reader of my blog anyway and she met me live and in person so she already got a hint at my wackiness). I know that it is more popular to call J an Angel and say all the right things.

But I can't. I know that there will be times when I just want our baby all to myself. When I don't want to have to share him at all with J. When I don't want to think about how I couldn't do this without her. I know myself and I know that there will be times when J will do or say something that will piss me off. There may even be times when I want a 'divorce' from our relationship. But you know what? That is the way it is in relationships. My real life sisters piss me off sometimes but they are still my sisters. My husband he really pushes my buttons but I get over it. J will also irritate me at times (as I'm sure I will and probably do her). Put two strong willed women together and there are bound to be clashes occasionally (especially when both women speak their mind). Truthfully, we have yet to have any real clashes (yes, I did just knock on wood) and I would like to think that the rest of our relationship will also be sunshine and roses. But who are we kidding? lol. This is real life. There will be peaks and valleys. There will be ups and downs. There will be give and take. There will be... okay, you get the drift. I like to believe that the way we are doing this will pay off in the end. That our (and when I say our I mean the collective "our" of Joe, me and J) child will grow up to be happy, healthy and adjusted. That he will always know just how many people love him.

Menu week of 8/18

2008-08-19T08:01:00.000-06:00

Monday
We got home so late on Sunday night that I didn't have a plan for breakfast or lunch. So everyone was on their own with cold cereal and sandwiches.
Dinner: Salmon patty sandwiches, celery and carrot sticks and bread budding for dessert.

Tuesday
Breakfast: Butterscotch Oatmeal and a banana
Lunch: Deli meat and cheese sandwiches (Joe and I will pass on the bread part in all sandwiches for this week. We are hoping to lose a few pounds), carrot sticks, grapes
Snack: Yogurt
Dinner: Swedish Meatballs, Homemade egg noodles, salad

Wednesday
Breakfast: French Toast
Lunch: Egg Salad sandwich, celery and carrot sticks, plum
Snack: Yogurt
Dinner: Cheese Omelets and cinnamon rolls (okay, so the diet part and cinnamon rolls. KiKi has been asking for these and Joe loves them too. He says that he can eat just one.)

Thursday
Breakfast:Yogurt Parfait
Lunch: Tuna salad sandwiches, celery and carrot sticks, peaches
Snack: Deli meat and cheese cubes
Dinner: Pinto Beans, rice, Swiss chard

Friday
Breakfast: Oatmeal Pancakes, peaches
Lunch: PB & J sandwiches (I'm not sure what I will make for Joe and me yet), carrot and celery sticks and whatever fruit that I have left.
Snack: Yogurt
Dinner: Tacos made with taco hamburger meat, refried beans (leftover from last night), rice, cheese, sour cream and cabbage all put in homemade flour tortillas.

Saturday
Brunch: Baked Oatmeal
Snack: yogurt
Dinner: Enchilada Casserole, green salad

Sunday
Brunch: Crepes
Snack: Yogurt
Dinner: Roasted Chicken, mashed potatoes, broccoli

You will notice a lot of yogurt in my menu. Now that I have a good recipe for making it I plan to take advantage of it. Joe, LuLu and I have irritable stomachs. Yogurt helps, so adding a daily serving is something we are going to try for a few weeks.

I am also working on simplifying things a bit. I read on someones blog that they eat the same thing for breakfast each week. Every Monday they have eggs, every Tuesday pancakes, etc. I thought I would try that for a while and see how it goes. If anyone complains I can always switch it around. But chances are good no one will notice. We'll see. I think with school starting again in two weeks I will do the same for lunches. Sure would make it easier on me not having to come up with new stuff each week. And it would make the grocery shopping easier too. I'm liking the idea.

It's a...

2008-08-18T16:44:00.001-06:00

Boy!!

The doctor says he is 100% sure that we are having a boy. The baby looked amazing. Just a perfect little baby. He weighs 8 ounces. Can you tell from this blurry picture how cute he is?

Our surro is doing very good. She is feeling much better now that her all day sickness has mostly subsided. She looked beautiful. We had a very nice visit with her but it was too short.

After the doctors appointment Joe and I were able to take a slight detour and meet one of my online friends. We had a wonderful visit. Then back to my sisters place for dinner and sleep. We had only had about and hour and a half of sleep the night before so that bed felt very good! Saturday we got up early to go up in the mountains to camp overnight. We met up with Joe's parents up there. Joe has been going to this one camp ground every deer season since he was about 1 year old (yep, just toddlin' around in a camp ground). Joe's lifelong friends were up there that I had never met. They were so nice and they all knew about our baby on the way (they even all knew we are doing surrogacy) and were very excited for us. It was a great time. And then yesterday (Sunday) we drove home. How is that for an exciting weekend?

I'll follow up with my weekly menu post as soon as I finish it. I'm about half done right now. Nothing too exciting on the menu this week since we will be working hard to get the house ready for the realtor to come next Monday. It's exciting to think that we are going to list our house to sell so we can move next spring. But also a little overwhelming. Baby on the way, selling a house, buying land, building a new house, moving half way across the country. Nothing really to be overwhelmed about, right? haha.

Getting Ready

2008-08-14T17:34:00.000-06:00

Here I sit putting in a last blog while waiting for Joe to get home so we can get in the car and drive 500+ miles. I truthfully do not like the drive but I love that we get to do it. For many months we didn't love to go to CA. During the time we were insemming it was more of a chore than a pleasure. I barely remember those days now (okay, that is a little fib) but my husband has very vivid memories of it. Every time we are getting ready to go down for a doctor appointment or a visit Joe says "I sure am glad we are not going to insem". It was apparently very stressful for him. Probably more stressful than I know.
One nice thing about traditional surrogacy is when there is not a positive result than there was only a small wait until we could try again. While that is a nice thing it is also a not very nice thing. During our cycling time I had what I called the two- 2 week waits. The first 2 week wait (2ww) was the usual wait to see if the insem had worked. The second 2ww was the wait to insem again. The second 2ww was harder than the 1st 2ww in some ways. We already knew at that point that the insems didn't work so it would take me a day or two to get over that disappointment. Then it was the 'what do we do next question'. Do we do home insems? IUI's? or Medicated IUI's? Then the planning for going down. Will we fly? Will we drive? If we fly when is the right time to get the tickets for? If we are going to drive will the roads be good so we can drive or will it be a snowstorm? There were times during that planning time when I envied people doing GS.
With IVF everything is planned well in advance. There are protocols to follow and schedules and plans. You know I like plans. Plans made in advance and followed are my favorite. But then today I realized that there is a flip side to GS/IVF. A blog I read often put it in a totally different light. A more 'medical' light. http://ivflandonsurrogacyworld.blogspot.com/
After reading this I realize that the stress that we felt each month while cycling was a lot different than the stress that can be felt while doing IVF. Once we became pregnant most of my stress left. There were the small worries of miscarriage and such but for the most part my stress was gone. Joe's stress left a little slower (he is more of a worrier) but once he saw the baby with his own eyes at the ultrasound most of his stress left too. IVF Land points out the continuing stress that he felt.
Joe and I talk sometimes about doing a sibling project. We have talked about doing ED/GS next time but I have to admit that I love the less medical aspect of TS. And I love the relationship part of it. And sharing in a pregnancy is pretty wonderful.
Joe is home now. So off we go! Back on Monday unless I can sneak in computer time somewhere.

Soccer Player?

2008-08-14T11:22:00.001-06:00

J sent us a great text last night. She was letting us know that she felt the baby move on the outside. It is so exciting to think that the baby is big enough for her to feel move like that. According to a weekly update thing that I have emailed to me the baby is 7 ½ inches long and weighs about 7 ounces. It is amazing to me to think of where we started. The first weekly email that I received was from week six. Here is what that said about the baby's size.
How big is your baby?
Your baby is about a ½ inch in length.*

And now we are in the middle of week 18. What a difference! J says that from the kicking she has been feeling she is pretty sure we have a future soccer player. I wonder how much soccer is played in Wyoming...

Stuff

2008-08-13T11:15:00.000-06:00

Feeling much better today.

Tonight we are going to get packed and ready to go for the weekend. I am so excited to go down and see J and to go to the OB appointment. Of course, it is nice that J's OB does an ultrasound at every visit too. Almost like icing on the cake. We were not able to go down for last months appointment. It was scheduled at the same time as our trip to Wyoming. So it has been 2 months since we've seen J. I know that she is 'blooming' now from the belly pictures she has sent. I can't wait to see her live and in person.

I am working on a couple of projects right now. I got this 'great' idea to make a scrap book. Problem is that I have never made a scrap book before. I'm not sure it is going to be as easy as I thought. Oh and I not only want to make one scrap book but two. How nuts am I? So far I have these little photo album things that the lady at the craft store told me would work perfectly. I have fancy paper. I have tape and a silver pen and some stickers. Now I need to put it all together. Did I mention that I am not artsy or creative? Where do I start? Tips are welcome.

Project 2 is a Home Management Binder. I started one of these before and fizzled out before I got it made. I found this blog that talks about making them and decided to give it a try again. http://myblessedhome.blogspot.com/2006/04/home-management-binder-101.html#article
It will be nice to have one place to put all of my lists. I look forward to a little organization. It will be especially helpful for when the baby comes.

Project 3 is a journal for the baby. I thought it would be nice for him/her to have when older. Kind of goes along with my 100% disclosure plan. I'm excited to be working on this but a little nervous too. I wonder if there are things that I shouldn't put in a journal for the baby? And if there are then what are those things? I tend to be too honest at times.

I made another batch of yogurt. This one turned out even better than the first batch. Feeling pretty good about my yogurt success!

A bug?

2008-08-12T16:37:00.000-06:00

Woke up this morning with a headache. I thought that it would go away but instead it turned into something resembling a migraine. I ended up staying home from work and not doing much but sleeping. I'm thinking that Joe will be cooking dinner tonight with me assisting from afar. It is always interesting when Joe makes dinner. He does a pretty good job but has a limited amount of items he knows how to make. I'm thinking he can make fried rice. That should be easy. And green salad. That is super easy. I need to come up with a list of meals that he knows how to make and keep those ingredients on hand and ready for him. Now that would be a good plan!

Menu and homemade yogurt

2008-08-11T21:42:00.000-06:00

I only have a few days planned out for this week since we are leaving Thursday evening after work to go down for our surro's OB appointment. It will just be Joe and me since KiKi and LuLu are staying the weekend with their dad and Angel is staying here for work. Joe and I will leave here around 5:30 and get down to Northern CA about 3 AM. We will go to my sister's house and sleep for a few hours and then drive another 2 1/2 hours to meet up with J at the OB's office. It is a loooong drive but so worth it. We'll drive home on Sunday.

Monday: Well that was today.
For breakfast this morning everyone just had cold cereal except Joe who had nothing. He had a tummy ache.
Lunch: Leftovers from the weekend
Dinner: LuLu begged for pizza. So Joe and I gave in and that is what we had. One medium taco pizza and one medium olive and mushroom

Tuesday: Hopefully will be back on track.
Breakfast: Butterscotch oatmeal and banana's
Lunch: Deli sandwiches with carrot and celery sticks
Dinner: Egg Foo Yung with rice and salad

Wednesday
Breakfast: French toast and cantaloupe
Lunch: Deli sandwiches with carrot and celery sticks
Dinner: Pork tacos with rice, cabbage and cheese

Thursday:
Breakfast: Eggs and toast and cantaloupe
Lunch: Deli sandwiches with carrot and celery sticks
Dinner: We will be heading to CA! I'll pack a picnic dinner for Joe and I.

I made yogurt last night. I have tried to make yogurt before with okay results. Last night I tried a different recipe and technique and it turned out very good. I'll try it again tomorrow night. I was surprised how much it made. Just over 2 quarts. KiKi and LuLu love yogurt. Angel doesn't. Joe only eats it if I force him to.

Changing plans

2008-08-10T11:41:00.000-06:00

I am a planner. I like to have an idea of what is going to happen with things so I plan. And I plan. And I plan. Sometimes I plan so much that I don't get to the actual task that needs to be accomplished. It is a bad thing. Most of my planning though helps me. Like my menu plans. They give me a good guideline of what to do. It is so much easier for me to have an idea in place than to try to figure out something at the last minute. This weekend though my menu plans didn't come to fruition. It is turning out okay though. Here is what our menu plan for the weekend was supposed to be:
Saturday
Brunch: Oatmeal pancakes with fruit
Dinner: Pork Roast, barley pilaf and zucchini
Sunday
Brunch: Baked french toast
Dinner: Egg foo young and veggie rice

What we actually did was:
Saturday Brunch: Out. We tried a new restaurant that just opened up about 5 miles from here. We live in the country so a new restaurant out here is a BIG deal. It was okay. Sad to say nothing special.
Dinner: LuLu has been wanting salmon so I bought some today at our big shopping trip. Joe doesn't like salmon (he says he ate too much of it growing up). So dinner was;
Salmon for the girls and me. Shrimp for Joe
Mashed potatoes
Edamame

Sunday Brunch: I made scones. I only make this one a month or so. We consider them a treat. I'll post the recipe below it is super easy.
Dinner: Will be the pork roast, barley pilaf and green salad.

Another plan that we have had in place has been working on our house. Originally, we were going to fix it up to live here forever. But the weather and my husband don't mix very well. So now we are finishing it up to sell. Today we are working in the bathroom. We had already done almost all of it (new tub surround, new sink, new light fixtures, paint, new floor) today we are putting the trim up. Right now Joe is measuring it and then I will paint it. I can already tell that this is not going to be a fun job. He has had to cut the same board 3 times now. Do I hear cut number 4 gearing up? Yikes.
If we get the bathroom done today then we will work on our bedroom. Our bedroom will also be the nursery while we live here. I'm very excited to set it up. I have a plan, of course, for how cute it will look.

Oatmeal Whatever Scones

Preheat oven to 400 degrees

1 1/2 cup flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 cup uncooked oatmeal
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

Mix together above ingredients

1/4 cup softened margarine
Cut in margarine

1/2 cup whatever.
Here is where I put in whatever I have on hand. Craisins, raisins, grated cheddar cheese, frozen strawberries that I have cut in quarters, chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, blueberries, blackberries cut up, etc. Almost anything will work. Mix in.

3/4 cup buttermilk (or regular milk with 2 tsp vinegar added to it).
Add the milk a little at a time and stir it in just until moistened. Divide the dough in half. Flour hands and pat dough into two circles on a greased cookie sheet about 1/2 inch thick. Cut into quarters. Bake for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, beat one egg. After the 10 minutes cooking time brush egg on the scones and then bake until golden brown about 3-4 minutes longer.

I sometimes make a glaze for these out of lemon or orange juice (or just milk) and powered sugar. Or just serve with honey, butter or jam.

I found this basic recipe in the Tightwad Gazette. It is so easy to make and we love the variations. Usually, I make a double batch and then divide that in half and add one whatever addition to part and something else to the other part. This morning I did half with craisins and put a lemon glaze on them when done baking. The other half was cheddar cheese with no glaze just plain. The were delicious and very most.

BeeBeeGa is getting out!

2008-08-08T15:03:00.000-06:00

We just found out that Joe's grandma BeeBeeGa gets to go home. In a few weeks she will have surgery to remove the cancer but she is totally stable now. She told Joe she is sure glad she's going home because she was about ready to bust out of there. What a feisty lady!

Thinking

2008-08-08T10:12:00.000-06:00

Yesterday I found an online journal written by a boy who was conceived via traditional surrogacy. His story was very hard to read. It basically was a handbook of what not to do in my opinion. He said that he didn't know about his history until he was 13 and then was told not to tell anyone which left him feeling 'like a dirty little secret'.

We (Joe, myself and our surrogate J) have talked lots about how we will be honest about surrogacy. Our baby will grow up knowing that he has another sister in California in addition to my children. He will know about J as much as is age appropriate as time goes on. I know that some people do not believe that this is how traditional surrogacy should be. But for us this is the way we think it should be. Is it the right way to do traditional surrogacy? I don't know. I think that the families involved need to do what is best for them. That is why it is so important to go into this with the right person. Joe and I knew what we wanted. We wanted a 100% open relationship. No secrets, no surprises. We were very fortunate to find J who wanted the same thing.

Our hope and prayer is that by having this open relationship we can avoid some of the heartache that the boy in the online journal has experienced. I believe that surrogacy (both gestational and traditional) and egg donation is a wonderful thing. It should never be some dirty little secret that needs to be swept under the rug. We should be able to celebrate it and shout it from the roof tops.

A beautiful belly

2008-08-07T09:42:00.000-06:00

Isn't this about the most beautiful belly you have ever seen? To think that our little baby is in their kicking around is such a great thought.

Inducing lactation and BeeBeeGa update

2008-08-06T14:31:00.000-06:00

BeeBeeGa is doing pretty good today. They are still doing tests on her. We should have some better answers in the next few days.

I am inducing lactation. For those unfamiliar with this term it means that I intend to breast feed our baby. In order to do this it will take some prep. I am currently on a medication that builds breast tissue and actually has a side effect of lactation. I'll continue on this probably for the entire time that I breast feed. In October I will add an herb or two and start pumping. I think that I will rent a hospital grade pump until the baby comes. The plan is for me to pump every 3 hours and once during the night. Then when the baby arrives hopefully I will have enough milk that I can breastfeed exclusively. But just in case I plan on having a supplemental nursing system on hand. Something like this. http://www.selfexpressions.com/supnursys.html

So far I have been on the lactation producing med for about 5 weeks. My breasts have went from a B cup to a D cup and I have started having some leakage (drops) and they hurt something awful. Ideally, I should be taking birth control pills too as part of this prep time but I have a difficult time with those so I am doing it without and hoping that I get good results. My husband is pretty excited about my results so far from his manly point of view. Men.

Baby News!

2008-08-05T19:33:00.000-06:00

Our surro called. Well she actually left me a message since I didn't hear my phone ring. The message was one of the best messages I have ever received. She called to tell us that she can now feel the baby moving! WhooHoo!!

Menu for the week

2008-08-05T17:37:00.001-06:00

With going out of town for Joe's BeeBeeGa I got a little bit off on my menus. Happily I already had this weeks menu plan in place. It is not very exciting (simple food is my motto- think Little House on the Prairie simple) but it will be good to eat at home again. All of our meals for two days were eaten in restaurants. I love eating in restaurants but my tummy and my weight suffer from it. So here is the menu for the rest of the week.

Tuesday
Dinner: Lentils and rice with green salad

Wednesday
Breakfast: rice cereal, eggs and fruit
Lunch: Egg salad sandwiches, carrots and fruit
Dinner: lentil patties, green salad and pickled cucumbers

Thursday
Breakfast: oatmeal, eggs and fruit
Lunch: PB sandwiches, carrots and fruit
Dinner: Lentil loaf (think meatloaf with no meat), mashed potatoes and glazed carrots

Friday
Breakfast: Eggs, toast and fruit
Lunch: Leftovers
Dinner: Homemade pizza and salad

Saturday
Brunch: Oatmeal pancakes with fruit
Dinner: Pork Roast, barley pilaf and zucchini

Sunday
Brunch: Baked french toast
Dinner: Egg foo young and veggie rice

Other additions to the meals will be some kind of bread, muffin or roll. I never quite know what until that day. It just depends on what I made the day before and what is leftover. And we always have fresh fruit and veggies available for snacking on.

Joe's Grandma

2008-08-05T12:35:00.000-06:00

We got a call late Saturday night that Joe's Grandma was sick and going to the hospital. We went down there (about 4 hour drive from us) on Sunday. She is in pretty bad shape. We ended up staying down there Sunday night. Thankfully, my parents live about 30 minutes from the hospital that Joe's Grandma was in. Yesterday they transferred her to a big university hospital about an hour and half from us. We will probably go there tomorrow night.

Joe's Grandma (he grew up calling her BeeBeeGa so that is what we will call her too) was in alot of pain. At one point we were in seeing her and she was doing pretty well. She started talking about our baby and how excited that she is that we are having one. I was so amazed that in the condition she was in that she was so focused on us and our happiness and the excitement of having a new baby in the family. BeeBeeGa is an amazing woman. I can't wait for her to meet our baby. We are very prayerful that she will return to her usual good health.

Surrogacy and Us- A long post

2008-08-02T19:15:00.000-06:00

I'm thinking about our baby alot today. I wonder what he will be like (other than wonderful). How he will look, what he will smell like, how he will act. This baby is not biologically my child but I already love him so much that I can barely stand it.

In 1999 I had a hysterectomy. I didn't want to have one but was told it was my only chance at living a normal pain free life. I was told that since I had 4 children already that it wouldn't matter that I didn't have a uterus. At the time I agreed.

Fast forward to 2006. My marriage had ended a few years before (probably many years but it took a while for me to admit that) and I was a single girl NOT looking for love. But I found it, by accident. One of the first in-depth conversations that I had with Joe was me telling him that if he chose to be with me he would never be able to have children of his own. Joe had never been married and had not had any children at the ripe 'old age' of 37. You know what Joe said? He said 'it doesn't matter. I want to be with you.' He melted my heart that day. Within a span of about two minutes we knew that we would be living together in the very near future as husband and wife. Before our marriage we started talking about surrogacy. I had heard of it years before and then saw a movie on Lifetime about it recently which is what began our conversation. It seemed like it might be an option for us. We thought at that time that we would do GS using my eggs. As it turned out my eggs were about as good as sawdust so that wasn't an option. Then we started talking about adoption. But we discovered that adopting an infant would be unlikely since I already had 4 children. So we started looking into adopting older children. I discovered that I wouldn't be equipped to do that. We thought that having a child together was not an option after all. I'm not really sure when we decided to look at traditional surrogacy. But one day we did. And we knew that if we could find the right person to go thru it with that traditional surrogacy would be for us.

For those who don't know traditional surrogacy involves the surrogate using her own eggs. Usually this is done thru artificial insemination but occasionally thru IVF. The process of finding a person to go thru this with is not easy. I knew what I wanted. I wanted someone who I would be friends with 'in real life'. Someone who I could share things with and laugh with and cry with. Someone who I liked. We matched with a very sweet girl in SoCal. She and I got along well. We cycled for 5 months with her without a pregnancy. Then she met a man on the Internet and they wanted to get married and have kids of their own. She said that she would still have a baby for us first but Joe and I couldn't feel good about that. During most of the time that we were cycling with her (we will call her C) I was chatting with another person thru email. She (J) and I were friends. Joe and I had originally talked with her about being our surro but due to timing and other things we chose to just be friends. J was my source for questions and one of my sources for venting. She provided an experience view point for all things surrogacy. J was matched with another couple. Things didn't work out for that match. Eventually, we (J and I) decided maybe we should just think about matching. We already knew we got along well. We were already friends. We thought about traditional surrogacy in basically the same way (honesty was super important to both of us) so we decided to meet in person. The minute that we met I knew. She and I were like sisters. Joe liked her honesty and her calmness. We cycled 3 times with no pregnancy. The fourth time we did a medicated cycle.
Our medicated cycle was challenging. I hated J having to take the Clomid. She went in for an ultrasound on Wednesday, April 16. There was one perfect follicle (these are what the eggs are in) and one close to perfect follicle. The plan was for us to drive down on Thursday and she would have a trigger shot (this makes the egg(s) drop) and we would do IUI's on Friday. We left our home on Thursday night after working all day and drove for most of the night. Fortunately Joe's parents live about 2.5 hours from J. We stayed there a few hours and slept and then went on down to the town J lives in. Joe went to the doctor and 'did his thing' (translation: left a sperm sample) and then we went and checked into our hotel. The plan was for J to come over to our hotel and leave her dd to swim with my girls while she went to the doctor for the IUI. J showed up. She was on her cell phone. It was the doctor's office where she was supposed to have IUI's. The problem was that the 'sample' was not good enough to proceed. In a nutshell the sperm were dead. We were devastated. We had done IUI before and the sperm were perfect. We had a sperm analysis before and everything was perfect. But now- dead. The doctor said for Joe to drink extra fluids and to come in the next day to try again. That night was a very somber night. Thankfully we were very tired so sleeping was the main event for the evening.
The next morning Joe and I went to the doctor's office. We were on pins and needles waiting for the report of how everything looked. When the assistant came out and said everything looked good and we could proceed I started crying. J had me go back with her for the IUI. I actually had the privilege of being there for both the creation of the 'sample' and the actual IUI. The next day we did another IUI. The two week wait was llloooonnngggg. J had a trigger shot which produces hCG so she too pregnancy tests to watch the hCG go out of her system the problem was that it never really left. It faded but never went completely white. Then it started getting darker. At that point she and I suspected she was pregnant. Joe had a harder time believing. When J really thought she was pregnant I wanted her to tell Joe. The look on his face while talking to her on the phone was something I will never forget. I know a part of him was scared to think that it was real. He wanted it so bad that he was afraid to believe she really was pregnant for fear that it was a false alarm. I don't think that he truly 'believed' until we went down for an ultrasound and he saw the baby kicking and punching with his own eyes. The I could see on his face that he knew his baby was alive and well.
Now we are almost 17 weeks along. We believe that we are having a baby boy. We go down on August 15th for another OB appointment and ultrasound. Our relationship with J is amazing. Sometimes I think "how can it be this good". She and I get along great. I look at traditional surrogacy as a life long journey not just nine months together. Our baby will be her biological child. It will be her daughter's brother (or maybe sister). Our (that is the collective our- Joe, Me and J) child will grow up knowing that it took all of us to have him. I have some very strong opinions about traditional surrogacy but I will save those for another post since this one has already went on forever. I'll wrap it up by saying that without the collaboration of J and Joe and I this child would never be.

Purging and favorites

2008-08-02T13:55:00.000-06:00

Yesterday I purged some of my books. I now have 2 garbage bags full for our local 'library'. The library is a section at our feed store here in my small little area. I kept more books than I probably should have but for some reason it is hard for me to part with my favorites. I am the type of person who will re-read a book I love.

This morning I started on the movies. I didn't do as good with them. I only buy movies that I already love so it is hard for me to part with them. There are some movies on my shelf that I have watched a dozen or more times. It kind of drives my husband nuts when I want to watch one of my old favorites. I never tire of some of them.

My favorite movies in no particular order:
The Long Kiss Goodnight
The Matrix
Die Hard (1, 2 and 4)
Lethal Weapon (all 4 of them)
The Day After Tomorrow
Armageddon
G.I. Jane
The Transporter (1 and 2)
Legally Blonde (1 and 2)
Con Air (Nicolas Cage looks sooo good with long hair in a wife beater. yummy)

My favorite books:
The Red River Series
Return to Red River Series
The Love Comes Softly Series
The Little House Books

Do you have a book that you re-read or a movie that you watch over and over?

Baby stuff

2008-08-01T11:06:00.000-06:00

Our surro called me this morning and asked what we are still needing for the baby. It then occured to me that I don't really know what we need. I have bought baby clothes like onesies and sleepers and I am expecting a box of clothes that I bought online. I bought a cute little boy bassinette that our cats love as you can see in this blurry picture. But I don't really have an overall idea of what we still need. I know we need diapers. We will be using cloth (much to my husbands dismay) and I have picked up a few but still need lots more. I have a boppy thing, a couple of slings and a diaper bag but that is it. I know we need a car seat but besides that what else? What can we not live without? Any and all suggestions are welcome. I'm going off to start researching. It has been so long since I had a baby in the house that I feel like a novice.

Changes

2008-07-31T12:25:00.000-06:00

Out of the blue I discovered the need for a job change. Yesterday started as any other day. Then my employer (boss) and I had a disagreement which erupted into him yelling at me. Which was followed by me spending the day crying. In the end my husband and I decided that I needed to turn in my two week notice. I am scared by this decision. In some ways this was the perfect job. It is very close to home. I was able to put the younger girls on the bus in the mornings before coming to work and then home right after they were. If an emergency came up I could take off no problem. My younger girls have came into work with me before and my second to the oldest girl even works here part time for extra money. And once the baby arrives the plan was (at my bosses request) for me to just bring the baby to work. And to top it all off when we moved to Wyoming the plan was for me to still be the book keeper (got to love technology). But there were a few downsides to working here. The biggest, my bosses temper. I have spent the last year plus walking on egg shells. It has been challenging to say the least. So where do I go from here?
I'm working on my resume but know that I will probably end up just getting a 'fill in' job. I need to know that I can have time off when our baby is due. I do not want to risk missing the birth. And I have been inducing lactation (I'll have to do a post on that sometime, very interesting subject) so being able to breast feed is important. I'm not sure what will happen. Chances are good that once the baby arrives I will not work at all. Financially I don't know how we can handle that while living here. When we move to Wyoming our plan is for me to stay home but the mortgage we have here makes that difficult. I'm trusting that everything will be fine in the end. Just feeling a little nervous/scared today.

Update: Boss came in and apologized. I am still leaving here but I agreed to stay on until a suitable replacement can be found with the understanding that if anything like this ever happens again I am out the door at that moment. This choice does give me some relief. 99% of the time this is a good place to be. It is the 1% of the time that is hard to handle. Now I wonder how hard it is going to be to find a replacement for me. Apparently it took 3 months of looking for them to find me... Scary.

Budgeting and menus

2008-07-29T13:18:00.000-06:00

I am a planner. I like to plan anything and everything. Sometimes my plans work out and sometimes they don't.
One thing that we really needed to do to help us with our surrogacy journey was to get our finances in order. So I developed a plan for that. The first thing that we did was make a budget. I know that the word budget is a scary one and believe me I resisted having a budget for a VERY long time. But now that we do have a budget it has taken so much pressure off us. I love that I know what our money is doing. When we started budgeting we weren't sure how to go about it. I looked for info on the internet and found Dave Ramsey. His principals are what we loosely follow for our finances. We have a basic budget that we use each month and then tweak as needed. And one thing that I love doing is seeing how much under budget I can come in. My favorite budget category is food (okay so to be honest that is my favorite category for most things. I love food). We have a set amount of money each month for me to spend at the grocery store. I like to see if I can actually have money left over at the end of the month. Some months I do, some months I don't but it is a continuing challenge to myself.
I make menus to help me with my food budget and my time budget. I work 40 hours a week outside the home so I really need to have a plan in place for things like meals. We eat what I call simple foods and I make alot of 'rubber meals'. These aren't meals made out of rubber or tasting like rubber (not usually anyway) but meals where I start with one item and turn it into 2, 3 or even 4 more meals. Such as a Pot Roast. My Rubber Pot Roast might look like this:
Meal 1- Pot Roast cooked with potatoes, carrots, celery and onions.
Meal 2- Shredded beef and cheese enchiladas served with 'spanish' rice
Meal 3- Beef and veggie gravy (the leftover beef and veggies from meal 1 put in a homemade stroganoff like gravy) over egg noodles.

All of the meals would have a salad or a green veggie (or both) added to them and often times slices of fruit too and occasionally homemade bread or rolls.

I have been using rubber bean recipes alot lately too. This blog http://lentilsandrice.blogspot.com/ has been a huge source for me for her stretchy beans recipes. http://lentilsandrice.blogspot.com/search?q=stretchy+beans. This week we are using some of her garbanzo bean recipes. My family loves garbanzo beans (I grew up calling them chickpeas). Tonight we are having curried chickpeas with naan (fancy word for flatbread). I've made it once before and actually had to cut my husband off at his fourth serving! Tomorrow night is my version of falafels.

I post the weekly menu on the fridge. Hubby and the kids know what is for dinner and the younger girls even help me with cooking it. Tonight DD#3 will help me by rolling out the bread she does a great job at that task and it gives me some time alone with her.

Newbie Blogger

2008-07-29T10:33:00.000-06:00

I've thought about starting a blog for a while now. I'm the type of person who gets all excited about something and goes full steam ahead for a while and then... Nothing. I avoided starting a blog for that reason. I've entered a few post in the blog section in myspace (which I'll copy over below to catch you up) but for the most part my thoughts just float around in my head. One of the reasons I'm starting this now is to have a record of our life events. We have so many things going on right now.

Event #1: We are expecting a baby! Having a baby is a wonderful event. This will be my husbands first child and my fifth child. We are very fortunate to be able to have this baby. We are only able to have this child thru the help of a surrogate. Our surrogate is 16+ weeks pregnant and we believe that the baby is a boy. My other children are all girls and our surro has only had girls before (4 also) so having a boy is new territory for both of us! We'll hopefully know for sure at the next ultrasound on August 15th.

Event #2: We are planning a move. We currently live in the Pacific Northwest. Next spring we intend to move to Wyoming. Big switch! I'm looking forward to this as an adventure. We have an offer in on a piece of property. A beautiful 2 acres that we will either build a house on or put a new modular home on. It has a view of Casper Mountain and Casper the city. I love it and we hope to hear soon that our offer was accepted.

Event #3: My DD#2 is moving out. This is a bittersweet event for me. She turned 18 in June. I'm amazed at what an incredible young lady she has become and am very happy that she is taking this step. But I'll still miss my little girl! DD #1 will continue at college in the fall as a sophomore. Only change is this year instead of living on campus she will live with my parents. It is very good that they live close to the college. I am a little (okay alot) sad that when we move to Wyoming both of the older girls will be staying here. It is hard for me to realize sometimes that they are now adults and are building their own lives. I'll get better at accepting this as time goes on (I hope).

I guess that is it for big events. Many little things. Such as continuing to work on our 1900 era house to get it ready to sell.

What will I write about in this blog? Many things. I will probably tell you about surrogacy, my children, moving, my attempts at cooking, working on the house, plans for our new house. You name it. In my mind everything is fair game.

Here are copies of my previous blog posts.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Waiting...
We are currently in what is referred to as the 2 week wait. This is the time when we are waiting to see if the attempted conception has achieved a pregnancy. I would like to tell you that it is a fun time but I would be lying! Joe and I have been through quite a few 2 week waits (2ww) now. We have found that working on our house helps us pass the time. But it still drags on and on and on and on. You get the idea.
Ours is not a normal conception. In order to have a baby we need the help of a surrogate. Our surrogate is in this 2ww right along with us. I know for a fact that this 2ww is just as looong for her as us. And she has the added temptation of pregnancy tests. I am sure that as I am typing this she is thinking about pregnancy tests and using one (we will in the future refer to this as POAS). Stay strong girl- stay strong!
By this time next week we should know how this 2ww turned out. In the mean time, Joe and I are going to rip the icky tile ceiling down in the living room, dining room and kitchen. That should keep us busy!

Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Sunshine!
I love the sun coming in my window. Many of our days are dark and rainy here. So a sunny day is something to celebrate. Of course, my wimpy Oregon eyes can barely handle the brightness!
I've lived in Oregon for half my life. I never really noticed just how much it rained until I married my sun loving husband. Last winter he was getting very sad about all of the rain. I kept promising him 'wait until summer, honey, it will be beautiful'. Well, it was beautiful but it was also the wettest summer that our area had seen in years! I do understand better his loathing of the rain. He spent his life doing things outdoors. Here we go outdoors but it isn't the same. Going hiking in the rain is no fun, going boating in the rain is no fun, picnics in the rain- not happening.
There are things that I will totally miss about here. The rain makes everything very green. It is beautiful. There is alot of water here (duh). We live across the street from a slough, 1.5 miles from the Columbia River and just over a half hour from the Ocean. In the winter the Ocean is amazing. I love watching the waves hit. Of course, my favorite way to watch them is from a hotel room in front of a fire with a glass of wine!

Friday, February 22, 2008
Friday!!
I like Fridays! I'm sure that most people like Fridays. Thing is I have a pretty good job that I enjoy going to (most days). But there is something super wonderful about the weekend. Some weekends we plan something special but most of the time it is just home time working on our house.
One of my favorite things is Saturday morning. Joe gets up usually a half hour or so before me. By the time I get up the coffee is ready and he has cleaned up the kitchen including mopping the floor. I usually do the main kitchen cleaning each night before bed (flylady.net says to shine your sink every night- so I do) but I intensely dislike mopping. Joe knows that so he does it. He is for sure a 'keeper'!
This weekend we have demolition planned. We are taking down ceiling tiles, pulling up flooring, taking out an old wood stove and taking down fake brick. I only wish I could use a sledge hammer for one of those jobs. Weilding a sledge hammer sounds like fun. Maybe I can talk Joe into taking a wall down. hmmm....

Sunday, February 24, 2008
Pregnancy tests are evil!
I have come to the conclusion that pregnancy tests are only evil teases. They tease you into thinking positive thoughts only to crush you. I think I might start a campaign to have pregnancy tests removed from the store shelves. My thinking on this is as long as they are available for purchase the temptation to buy them and use them is very great and in some women has even been known to cause an addiction. Yep, it is true. It is an addiction known as Peestickitis. It is a horrible condition. The only known cure for it is pregnancy.
Our surrogate suffers from Peestickitis. I sure hope she can be cured of this condition in the near future.
This 2 week wait is almost over and it doesn't look like we have achieved a pregnancy. Sadly, we will not be able to try in March so our next attempt will be April. That would give us a baby due around New Year's. A New Year's baby would be just fine. Bear (my oldest) was born on the 3rd of January and she will be 20 next year. A 20 year age difference- WOW!

Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Done waiting
Yesterday afternoon our 2ww came to an official end. Our surrofriend was teased by faint positive pregnancy tests over the weekend only to have reality hit hard. Joe and I are sad but at the same time very hopeful. Faint positives is the closest we have come to having a baby on the way. Our way of thinking is that faint positives mean something was trying to start. This has been a long road for us and now to finally have this hope is such a good feeling. I don't think that I've posted that we had a surrogate before. We insemmed for 5 months with never a glimmer of a line on those evil pee sticks. This was our first real month with our surro J and to have so much hope was wonderful.
We had thought that we would have to miss trying in March. Joe and I had planned a ski weekend with my girls as part of their Christmas present. (Actually, it is more of a present for me since we are going to be moving soon and Bear and Angel won't be going with us I really wanted to do something special with everyone.) The weekend we have our trip planned is the time in March that would be the correct time for insems. As it turns out J was able to adjust her schedule so she and her daughter can join us. We are very happy about this. My girls are looking forward to it also since they haven't had a chance to meet J yet. WhooHoo!

Tuesday, April 15, 2008
About that time
We are close to time to try for a baby again. This time we are doing what is called medicated intrauterine inseminations commonly called IUI. Our surro took an oral medication for 5 days that caused her lovely side effects including hot flashes and moodiness and tomorrow she will go in to have her follicles looked at. Hopefully, after that we will know when the IUI's will occur. We live about 12 hours from her so will drive down when it is time. We are hoping for one or two nice looking follies which will end up being one little baby. Stay tuned!

Tuesday, May 06, 2008
It worked! Current mood: chipper
After 9 attempts we have a positive pregnancy test (okay, actually we have several tests since our surro loves to test)!! Joey is still in disbelief but it is true. He will come around soon. We have actually started talking about baby names. Joey wanted to name the baby Seven. What kind of a name is that? I'm putting my foot down on that not happening. lol

Friday, May 30, 2008
Looking Good!
Baby is looking good. J has had a couple of ultrasounds and everything seems right on track. Of course it is still very early and baby Bubba doesn't really look like anything more then baby Blob right now but soon he/she will look just like a tiny baby. Our due date is early January to mid January. We are very excited of course!
We drove 10 hours to go camping for Memorial Day Weekend. It rained most of the weekend. It was fun but I'm still exhausted.
DD11 and I have finally finished planting the garden. We have a little space left so I'm going to pick up something else to add in. Not quite sure what. We have tomatoes, peppers, swiss chard, spinach, radishes, zucchinni, ruffle squash and cucumbers. We are going to plant flowers in a the flower bed and on the hill behind the house this weekend. Hoping to have some very nice color by mid summer.

Thursday, July 24, 2008
Baby News
Baby is doing good. We are approaching 16 weeks. Our surro went to the doc on Monday and everything is right on target. Doc did an ultrasound and thought he might have saw a little something. A little something that indicated we may be expecting a boy. How wild would that be? Me mom to 4 girls getting a boy. WOW. That is something I am working on wrapping my mind around. Either way (boy or girl) would be perfect for us. Next appointment and ultrasound is August 15th. We plan on being in attendance for that one.