LuLu's Birthday!!

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!!

Been Awhile

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 Or I start posts and then get too busy to finish them and by the time I go back in the info is out of date.

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

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

Planning

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

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

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.

21 weeks!

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.

Changing plans

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.

Baby News!

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!!

Surrogacy and Us- A long post

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.

Baby stuff

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.