Baby Love

After confirmation of our pregnancy Cousin Sarah and her family sent us our first baby gift.  Hooray for milestones! In the card Cousin Sarah proclaimed she loves us both to pieces and she can't wait to love and adore our precious children.  What a lovely thought!  It's going to be fun to raise our children within our circle of family and friends.  Hopefully, Cousin Sarah's crew can help make our children more worldly since Cousin Sarah's crew split their time between Texas and Eastern Europe.

Another token of wisdom Cousin Sarah, mother of three, said to us: relax while you can!  Now that type of advice concerns me a little bit, because I'm starting to see a trend.  This is the most common type of advice parents give us once they learn we're expecting.  For example, our friend Adam, father of two, said we should enjoy sleeping for the next 8 months.  My husband's sister, mother of two, told us to enjoy our freedom while it last.

Apparently kids wreck your relaxing, sleeping, and freeing (?) schedule!  

I'm assured the journey of fatherhood and the havoc to my schedule is worthwhile by my BFF Del, father of two,  because he told us there is a type of love that only parents can experience/understand.   He said childless individuals will never understand the powerful type of love mothers and fathers have for their children.  He is joyful that my husband and I will understand that type of love in 2016!

Fatima Ronquillo New Show

For those of you with disposable income,  one of the my favorite artists (she's a living master) Fatima Ronquillo recently posted her newest masterpieces from her current solo show at the Meyers East Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

I love these paintings!

Four Weeks

It's official.  We're 4 weeks and one day pregnant as of today.  My husband ended up with two boys and two girls, and I ended up with four boys and one girl; we transferred one of my husband's boys and one of my boys on Friday, July 24.  We are hoping for twins, but we won't know how many boys are in Morgan's belly until the end of August!

Our surrogate, Morgan, was texting us updates once we joyously found out we are officially (blood test verified; beta of 134) pregnant...

Me: I'm still a little scared to get too excited.  Is that normal?  I'm excited, but it's still so early.  Anything can happen.

Morgan: That sounds 100% normal.  Baby/babies and I will keep doing everything we need to do and other than that the rest isn't up to us.  Welcome to parenthood where worrying is your job.

Wait.  No one told me I would worry the rest of my life about my children.  Do you think our parents still worry about us?  Parenthood, here we come...

Life Begins

Does the power of positive thinking work?  Why not?  Everyone please focus on happy, healthy fertile thoughts.  We are transferring two embryos to our one incredible surrogate on Friday afternoon.  She has a nice fluffy uterus ready for embryos!

Here's the stats on  our embryos:

• 23 eggs were retrieved from our (generous, intelligent) anonymous egg donor
• After one day, 20 eggs fertilized (10 mine, 10 my husband's)
• On day 3, 16 embryos (8 mine, 8 my husband's) made it!
• Of the 16 total embryos our doctor expects ~ 8 to 10 to make it to day 5
• We will implant two embryos on Friday afternoon!

I continue to be excited, nervous, thrilled.  It's going to be a fun journey!

It's Time

Six months and six figures later I was clobbered with the sudden awareness today that we're a few days away from creating life!   After many months of trying not to think about July, in order to avoid the restlessness of anticipation, we are now living ten days into July.   The exact moment on the calendar I've been trying to avoid thinking about no longer can be avoided.  The question I have been asking myself this afternoon, can I ease into this moment without walls around my emotions?  Is it time to be giddy about baby making?  I'm scared.  I'm excited.  I'm nervous.  I'm impatient.  It's a complicated web of emotions covering my individual self at the moment.

I could hardly focus this afternoon after reading the email update from our agency coordinator;  the anonymous egg donor is flying to the clinic tomorrow.  Tomorrow.  The anonymous egg donor will be checked daily until our doctor finds the ideal time for him to perform the egg retrieval.   The moment the eggs are retrieved they will be fertilized.  Hopefully they'll all grow into healthy embryos that will be transferred into the loving womb of our surrogate as early as Tuesday, July 21.

That date, July 21, also happens to be the day in 1980 my 24 year old mother gave birth to her gayest son!  What a gift it will be to transfer embryos on my birthday or during my birthday week.

It's time.  This is starting to feel tangible.  And away we go!

Let Freedom Ring

America turned 239 (years old) while my husband was 103 (degrees Fahrenheit) and the 'sac was 100 (percent fun).

Yes, our neighbors rented the newest, best water slide bounce house thingy.  It was spectacular for the neighborhood kids (and a few non-sober adults).   We have lived in this area since we purchased our first house in 2005, however this is the first time we've stayed around for July 4 weekend.  Since the Lakewood Country Club puts on a thirty minute firework show our neighborhood is hub of activity.  There's lots of block parties, tailgating, and a parade.  I love a community that parties together.

QOTD

"Larry, when I was 14 I thought I was going to have to hide who I was for my entire life.  Three days ago my black President turned the White House rainbow."

- The Nightly Show, June 29, 2015