Another Successful Day

More progress on the surrogacy front! :)

Friday I met with an amazing woman for my psych eval. Tracy Birkinbine is a licensed professional counselor at Counseling with TLC, LLC in Des Peres, MO. She is certified to do evaluations not just for surrogacy (both IPs and surrogates), but also for egg/sperm donation, IVF and just infertility-related counseling in general. [/end plug]
Anyway, the first thing I have to say about Tracy is WOW! What an awesome businesslady. Not only was she extremely professional, but she was also understanding of my situation as the mom of a toddler and was more than willing to help me when it came to bridging the distance between my home and her office. Second, she made the evaluation feel more like casual chatter than anything clinical...which is always appreciated. We met at a bustling Panera bread. It had enough business people in it that we didn't feel awkward, but wasn't quiet enough that sharing things, like how I thought our sex life would be affected by the surrogacy, would be awkward if overheard. Definitely a successful meeting and I hope to keep in contact with her.

One of my biggest worries about the meeting with Tracy was leaving Fat Kid. I was slowly getting him acclimated to a babysitter setting over the summer, but he only lasted a few hours max before naptime hit or he'd want boobies and the meltdown would ensue :( When his sitter went back to work at the end of the summer, he stopped going once a week and was once again a 24/7 mama's boy.
In the last few weeks, I've had a number of random appointments that were a little more complicated with a toddler running rampant so I asked the wife of another soldier in N's company to watch Fat Kid for me. The first day, I was a nervous wreck. I left him for 5 hours and I knew it was probably going to be a disaster for her. Sure enough, she couldn't figure out how to get him to take a nap so she called another mom for reinforcements. Thankfully things got better after that and as I called on my way home to check on him, she told me that he'd happily climbed into her lap, closed his eyes and just passed out. Awesome! It's such a relief having a sitter that he loves and that can get him to nap.




In family, non-surrogacy related news, we're on the housing list to move onto post. N is in the field for the rest of the next week and Fat Kid and I are enjoying the quiet at home and the company of amazing friends who are our families :) Our lives have been harried and disorganized, less than desirable at times and chaotic, but right now, they're perfect and I wouldn't want to be anywhere else.