Oops!

It's been brought to my attention that it's been quite some time since I've posted an update so here you go :)

Fat Kid I spent two weeks at the end of October with my in-laws in Seattle. It was a much-needed trip but I got super sick in the last week. Initially, they suspected my gallbladder and I underwent a battery of tests. Ultrasounds, HIDA scan, blood tests and stool samples all came back normal or negative for what they were testing for. At this point I was losing two pounds a day and scared to death.

In the middle of November, we moved out of our old house and into a house on post. Three days after signing the lease, pre-deployment block leave started and the three of us headed back to Seattle. The week flew by quickly and was ended with an appointment to my gastroenterologist. After finding a tender mass in my abdomen, I was scheduled for a CT scan. The mass remains undiagnosed and the scan picked up on a few kidney stones.

As it stands right now, my surrogacy contract is complete and ready to be signed but at the direction of my gastroenterologist, I am not to proceed with anything until I have a definitive diagnosis. I am on two medications that are both pregnancy/breastfeeding safe but I have an upper endoscopy and colonoscopy scheduled on the 12th of January and I'm hoping the biopsies can shed some light on my situation.


In other news, N is getting settled in Afghanistan. Fat Kid and I spent the first week making sure our friends were getting along okay and getting out of the house. I'm still debating between living with my in-laws for the next year and staying with a friend on post. Our household goods are half in storage and half at my parents' house.

I'll get things figured out more after my next procedure. Until then, enjoy our latest family picture (and the one on our Christmas cards)!

Busy, busy, busy!

There's a lot that's been happening so forgive my absence.

In the surrogate world, things have been progressing. Our contract has been drafted, we've gone over the initial walk through on both ends and we're just waiting for the revisions to be finished so we can approve it and sign. We're cutting this cycle kind of close, but if all else fails, there's always next cycle. All of the minute details appear to have been worked through and I think we're set to go. On my to do list still: life insurance policy, finish my living will...and I hope that's it.


I remember saying that I wasn't going to make this about my personal life, but it's inevitably going to intertwine so I'll just recant my prior statement and continue on. Things are utter chaos around here. In addition to Fat Kid getting more molars and eye teeth, N alternates between working and having long weekends so we've been trying to make the best of that. To top it all off, it seems that everything changes daily and requires starting our plans over from square one. Talk about frustrating!

More recently, our neighbor lady has become intolerable. I have a high tolerance level for a lot of things, but after 18 months, my patience is just about up. The highlight of most of it involves passive aggressive notes left taped to my front door and the climax of it all came in the form of a note last night from her 13 year old granddaughter. It was addressed to N and stated that his "girlfriend or wife is rude" and she "don't like your wife so she better stay away from [name omitted]." I love empty threats from young adults, don't you?
Long story short, N's command has advised us to move out ASAP. We submitted our 30 day notice earlier this week with a move out date of 15 NOV, but now we're reworking our plans to be out sooner.

The last few weeks have been a blur of options and I've attempted to make heads or tails of all of them. In addition to figuring out where Fat Kid and I are going to live during deployment, there's the logistical part of moving our things out (when to move them, where to move them, how to move them). Winter is quickly approaching and in addition to vacating our current home, we needed to find a place to live as a family until D-Day (first day of deployment) came.

Originally, I planned to take Fat Kid to Kansas at the end of this month to move our furniture that's currently there into storage. From there, we'd come home and pack our house to have all of that moved into storage before our final walk through with the landlord on the 15th of November. We'd then have to stay with friends from the 15th to the 18th, when block leave started. Block leave is from the 18th of November to 2nd of December and we had planned to spend it in Seattle with N's family. After block leave, we'd stay with friends until D-Day.

The plan now? God only knows :) We'll just play it by ear and see how things work out!

The Excitement Continues!

Tuesday should have been an extremely exciting day. Instead, my poor IFs were stressed over a snag in the plans with our California lawyer. As it turns out, she's not nearly as experienced as she made herself out to be and wasn't able to get the PBO like we'd asked. Better to find out now than later, I suppose. The good news is that there's already a new lawyer in place and the contract is being drawn up as we speak. The absolute latest it will be signed is 15 OCT. Awesome!

We spoke more about logistics, including the move to California. The original plan was to move around 34 weeks, but the lawyer is concerned about the possibility of unstoppable pre-term labor and all of the hard work and planning going out the window in the event of a pre-term birth in Missouri. With the new lawyer, however, came a new area of comfortable jurisdiction. Much of my afternoon yesterday was spent researching hospitals and the new area Fat Kid and I will be living. I will admit that I had a terribly productive evening after Fat Kid went to sleep (as accomplishing much of anything is impossible while he's awake) and not only do we have a new hospital chosen, but I've bookmarked a number of possible living arrangements.

N comes home today. We've got quite a bit to discuss once he's home with the new information that's been brought up. One of the biggest decisions now is whether or not to continue with the plans to move on post. All of the original reasons are there, but because there's a minimum 1 year lease, we would be moving in with friends instead of into our own home. It's frustrating to say the least, but it definitely gives me a lot to think about until N gets here.

I've got lots of errands to run before his bus is due back so I'll keep you all updated as things progress :)

Random Thought for the Day

I had a dream last night that I gave birth to the surrobaby. It was a baby girl named Katie and N was a sneaky pete and wanted to keep her because he's always wanted a girl. I still remember the look of disappointment (not to be outdone by my look of sheer joy) when we were told Fat Kid was a boy. A bit of foreshadowing maybe?



Also, Don't Ask, Don't Tell was repealed today. Super excited about that! Fat Kid and I will be celebrating with cupcakes later :)

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.

More Progress

Alas, life continues. In the two and a half weeks since my last update, there's been lots of chaos but minimal progress. The lawyer in California requires a psych eval prior to even drafting the contract. Finding someone locally to do said evaluation was another thing entirely. The closest for me is over two and a half hours away and with a toddler and a busy husband, traveling that far only to be there for two hours and then traveling back isn't an easy feat. The psychologist who will be doing my eval is fabulous. She was the only person willing to work with me and my schedule and even offered to meet me at our home. With that said, Friday I'll be dropping Fat Kid off with the sitter bright and early and driving 2 hours to ensure that I'm stable enough to endure the challenges that come with carrying and delivering a baby but going home alone.

I'm also finishing my will/living will. Such a humbling experience.
Otherwise we're just waiting on the psych eval and we can move forward from there.


In other news, we're likely to be moving on post for deployment. I'm still waiting on N to get me his orders from 18 months ago so we can get on the housing list, but I think it'll be better for Fat Kid and I in the long run. I'm toying with the idea of going back to school to finish my bachelor's degree as well. Lots of new and exciting changes coming! Stay posted.

OMFG excited!

Honestly, I could not have asked for a better day or a more amazing couple. I am so excited right now, it just seems surreal. Yesterday was a fun, yet incredibly productive day. Along with reviewing medical records and sharing baby photos of both Fat Kid and myself, we have a game plan to work from, woot! I still need a psych eval and I'll be mailing a copy of my medical records to them this coming week. I need to work on my living will as well, but we're hoping to have a contract ready to sign by 12 SEP. Once the contract is signed, we're set to move forward. They'll be coming to visit every month until a pregnancy sticks and we discussed maybe going to see their home before N deploys.

I honestly don't think I could've been matched with a better couple. They understand the military lifestyle which is more than I could ask of anyone, but even more than that, they're such an incredible couple. I can't even begin to describe how amazing they are, but the love between them just radiates and you can see how much they desire a child. Watching them interact with Fat Kid, I almost wanted to cry because they were just SO attentive. He took to them incredibly well and C and W are his favorite people now. Only when he got tired did he come snuggle with his mama. Not only that, but N loves them and that's saying something because N is one of those people who doesn't have a high tolerance for new people, especially those he doesn't like. He and C were happily watching YouTube videos while W and I worked out the details.

I have to say that I am actually really sad they had to leave last night. Time just flew past us and before I realized what time it was, midnight was upon us. I felt horrible because their flight out this morning was incredibly early, but I'm so thankful for the time we were able to spend together. They've thanked me multiple times for making this dream come true for them, but what they don't understand is that they're doing the same for me. It's a partnership for both of us and to have such a truly astounding couple in our lives, I feel so incredibly blessed.

My latest cycle started last week. I'm not sure what to expect of this month with the pill screwing with me, but we won't have a contract signed in time to catch this month. I'm hoping it doesn't screw things up too much because I have a chance at another June baby and I'm definitely partial to June babies :P No, but in all reality, being majorly pregnant in California in the heat of summer...not my favorite idea, but I'll do whatever for them.

Bottom line: They're amazing. Our meeting was fabulous. Our game plan is set and there are only a few things left before the fun can begin.