So I seriously and naively thought that I would be pregnant by now. You know meet couple, we all like one another, then I would get pregnant. Well apparently I was wrong VERY wrong. Damn I hate being wrong. This process can take a long freaking time.
First the guys needed to get their "stuff" checked to see. Then the egg donor needs to have her vag checked (such fun) and get medically cleared. Then a few weeks for all of us to get our contracts, then all of us have to get our contracts back. THEN we actually get a calendar to start this whole thing. Yeah you heard me right, we haven't even started.
I have no idea what kind of timeline we are talking about. I feel like time is all sorts of suspended. I just wanted to update you all. I'm not pregnant, I haven't even started, but I promise to keep you all sorts of informed.
In other news Geaux Tigers. Yeah I live in PA, but I can still root for my team.
Monday, January 9, 2012
Friday, December 23, 2011
Holy Woowza
Man, talk about some serious traffic. I thought I'd address some comments made on here as well as on Facebook.
So first of all let me address the monetary stuff. Yeah I get paid, but I could die, the likelihood of that happening is slim, but it could happen, I could also loose my uterus, have a stroke, or a myriad of other pleasent things. Even if that doesn't happen, in a few months I won't be able to bend over to load the dishwasher, do laundry, or see my toes. Let's also take into account the physical toll this takes on my body as well as the emotional toll on my marriage, being pregnant has it's moments of greatness but it also has some seriously sucktastic stuff too. And then of course there is my $6 a day ice cream habit, that is still many months away, but it's coming. I also recognize that most of these are first world problems, so yeah I get compensated, but there is no way I could do it if it were for the money, it's not THAT much.
Now to the good stuff.
That is awesome - good for your friend! Is she planning on breastfeeding (well, pumping?) and donating that as well? Yes, I'm a saint, I know, I am hoping to be memorialized after this, whatevs, if you heard me cursing last night at my hen night you would definitely think differently. Back to the question at hand, the parents haven't made any ovation regarding breast milk. I nursed my son until he weaned himself, but for over half the time he was nursing I had to pump on one side, plus the parents live in another country, so I don't know if it would work.
Hmm this is Interesting...i am currently considering becoming a surrogate myself. Where did you get information about becoming one? Im looking at The Surrogacy Source right now. I am using the same company a friend of mine did when she donated her eggs. I will have to check with them to make sure it's OK for me to use the company's name, I'm sure it is, but it's Christmas and I don't want to get a lump of coal.
Do you plan to stay in touch with them after the baby is born? You should read the book THEN CAME YOU by Jennifer Weiner I just C&P'd weiner in my blog, I wonder how many great searches from 13 year old boys I'm going to get now. To the point, I don't know what will happen communication wise. It really depends on how our relationship develops. We may turn out to be great friends and I'm their new hag, and we're like BFF's 4 Life, or it may be that we exchange Christmas cards, school pictures and see each other during our travels. Who knows, but I can't wait to find out.
I'm SURE there is a musical somewhere featuring a mexican gay couple. There is not, I have checked.
So, not much is going to happen in the next 10-14 days, so please put this in your reader, but don't check every day with baited breath and be so disappointed when you don't see my lovely words typed perfectly with my amazingly painted grey nails. (Seriously though this nail polish is fabulous). If you choose to do so, have a Happy Christmas, if not have a great Sunday.
-Mary-Tyler
So first of all let me address the monetary stuff. Yeah I get paid, but I could die, the likelihood of that happening is slim, but it could happen, I could also loose my uterus, have a stroke, or a myriad of other pleasent things. Even if that doesn't happen, in a few months I won't be able to bend over to load the dishwasher, do laundry, or see my toes. Let's also take into account the physical toll this takes on my body as well as the emotional toll on my marriage, being pregnant has it's moments of greatness but it also has some seriously sucktastic stuff too. And then of course there is my $6 a day ice cream habit, that is still many months away, but it's coming. I also recognize that most of these are first world problems, so yeah I get compensated, but there is no way I could do it if it were for the money, it's not THAT much.
Now to the good stuff.
That is awesome - good for your friend! Is she planning on breastfeeding (well, pumping?) and donating that as well? Yes, I'm a saint, I know, I am hoping to be memorialized after this, whatevs, if you heard me cursing last night at my hen night you would definitely think differently. Back to the question at hand, the parents haven't made any ovation regarding breast milk. I nursed my son until he weaned himself, but for over half the time he was nursing I had to pump on one side, plus the parents live in another country, so I don't know if it would work.
Hmm this is Interesting...i am currently considering becoming a surrogate myself. Where did you get information about becoming one? Im looking at The Surrogacy Source right now. I am using the same company a friend of mine did when she donated her eggs. I will have to check with them to make sure it's OK for me to use the company's name, I'm sure it is, but it's Christmas and I don't want to get a lump of coal.
Do you plan to stay in touch with them after the baby is born? You should read the book THEN CAME YOU by Jennifer Weiner I just C&P'd weiner in my blog, I wonder how many great searches from 13 year old boys I'm going to get now. To the point, I don't know what will happen communication wise. It really depends on how our relationship develops. We may turn out to be great friends and I'm their new hag, and we're like BFF's 4 Life, or it may be that we exchange Christmas cards, school pictures and see each other during our travels. Who knows, but I can't wait to find out.
I'm SURE there is a musical somewhere featuring a mexican gay couple. There is not, I have checked.
So, not much is going to happen in the next 10-14 days, so please put this in your reader, but don't check every day with baited breath and be so disappointed when you don't see my lovely words typed perfectly with my amazingly painted grey nails. (Seriously though this nail polish is fabulous). If you choose to do so, have a Happy Christmas, if not have a great Sunday.
-Mary-Tyler
Monday, December 19, 2011
Some BIG NEWS!
So I've taken a break from blogging because this thing is about to go into a whole new direction. John and I are going to be gestational surrogates for a family that can't have their own kids. OK, so are your jaws on the floor? I'll give you a minute......ready to move on?
John and I talked about doing this before Brooks was even a thought, but you have to have given birth to be a surrogate. Duh, oh naive one. Once Brooks turned one year we opened the door and reached out to an agency. After 5 months, we are ready to get knocked up. Here's the process so far.
Contact agency and fill out paperwork akin to getting top secret federal security clearance. This is of course necessary to make sure you are not a total weirdo. Then send all of your medical records from kindergarten through birth. Since I'm fat, I also had to do a glucose test. Once you pass all of this, you go for a medical and psychiatric evaluation, I was concerned about the medical eval, but my friends were apparently more concerned with my psych eval, I don't know how good these friends are when I think about it. Once I found out that I passed all of these, we were sent the profile of a couple, on paper they seemed great, so our profile was passed along to them. Then we met.
I can't even begin to tell you how awkward the meeting was. It was like a blind date and job interview at the same time. Have to figure out in an hour all the nitty gritty of what we both expect during this journey, as well as legal stuff, and then of course are we even going to get along. Fortunately, we seemed to get along swimmingly. After the formal meeting we went to a coffee shop and talked about our family lives, careers, and other bullshit fill in the blank stuff.
Before chronicling any of this I wanted to make sure it was OK with the parents first, but I am going to give them pseudonyms, something cool like spy names like Boris and Sebastian, but maybe that's just pretentious, but we'll go with musical names since that's more true to my form, they will be referred to as Kander & Ebb (totally a musical theater geeky reference).
A few last things, this child will not be genetically mine or John's. They will be using an egg donor and one of their sperm will be used to fertilize. I'm just the oven, the vessel to grow the babe. I've been asked how am I going to be able to hand over the baby? That's easy, it's not my baby, again, I'm the vessel, the oven only. I'm excited to go through pregnancy again, and help out a family that can't conceive on their own.
OK back to convalescing, I have strep throat and Brooks has an ear and throat infection. I'll keep ya'll posted on details.
John and I talked about doing this before Brooks was even a thought, but you have to have given birth to be a surrogate. Duh, oh naive one. Once Brooks turned one year we opened the door and reached out to an agency. After 5 months, we are ready to get knocked up. Here's the process so far.
Contact agency and fill out paperwork akin to getting top secret federal security clearance. This is of course necessary to make sure you are not a total weirdo. Then send all of your medical records from kindergarten through birth. Since I'm fat, I also had to do a glucose test. Once you pass all of this, you go for a medical and psychiatric evaluation, I was concerned about the medical eval, but my friends were apparently more concerned with my psych eval, I don't know how good these friends are when I think about it. Once I found out that I passed all of these, we were sent the profile of a couple, on paper they seemed great, so our profile was passed along to them. Then we met.
I can't even begin to tell you how awkward the meeting was. It was like a blind date and job interview at the same time. Have to figure out in an hour all the nitty gritty of what we both expect during this journey, as well as legal stuff, and then of course are we even going to get along. Fortunately, we seemed to get along swimmingly. After the formal meeting we went to a coffee shop and talked about our family lives, careers, and other bullshit fill in the blank stuff.
Before chronicling any of this I wanted to make sure it was OK with the parents first, but I am going to give them pseudonyms, something cool like spy names like Boris and Sebastian, but maybe that's just pretentious, but we'll go with musical names since that's more true to my form, they will be referred to as Kander & Ebb (totally a musical theater geeky reference).
A few last things, this child will not be genetically mine or John's. They will be using an egg donor and one of their sperm will be used to fertilize. I'm just the oven, the vessel to grow the babe. I've been asked how am I going to be able to hand over the baby? That's easy, it's not my baby, again, I'm the vessel, the oven only. I'm excited to go through pregnancy again, and help out a family that can't conceive on their own.
OK back to convalescing, I have strep throat and Brooks has an ear and throat infection. I'll keep ya'll posted on details.
Monday, November 14, 2011
The Great Noonie Caper
First and foremost, a noonie (noon ee) is the name for Brooks' pacifier. So get your head out of the gutter this has nothing to do with boobs.
The caper was quick, well as quick as toddlers can move, and started so innocently with kids banging on the sliding glass door. Then the culprit swiped Brooks' noonie and ran as quick as her little legs would go. Upon reaching the precipitous of the step up into the dining room, the culprit had to actually crawl to the top. The victim was hot on her heels, fussing the whole way, that is until she required assistance, there was a pause of game until she regained her footing. Once she was up, the chase and fussing were back on. The culprit toddled all the way across the house and only slowed once she came up on the rocking house, she mounted her steed to make a speedy get away when the victim finally caught up to her, he was able to retrieve the stolen noonie. He promptly placed the noonie in his mouth and the fussing ceased. The culprit was last seen giggling her way into the sunset.
We miss Miss K and I think she enjoys teasing Brooks.
The caper was quick, well as quick as toddlers can move, and started so innocently with kids banging on the sliding glass door. Then the culprit swiped Brooks' noonie and ran as quick as her little legs would go. Upon reaching the precipitous of the step up into the dining room, the culprit had to actually crawl to the top. The victim was hot on her heels, fussing the whole way, that is until she required assistance, there was a pause of game until she regained her footing. Once she was up, the chase and fussing were back on. The culprit toddled all the way across the house and only slowed once she came up on the rocking house, she mounted her steed to make a speedy get away when the victim finally caught up to her, he was able to retrieve the stolen noonie. He promptly placed the noonie in his mouth and the fussing ceased. The culprit was last seen giggling her way into the sunset.
We miss Miss K and I think she enjoys teasing Brooks.
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Cleaning + toddler = not fun
We make almost all of our cleaning products except for the bathroom, I
use heavy duty stinky awful chemicals in there. So I like to clean it
while Brooks is downstairs or sleeping, this way I can have the fan on and
then let it air out before he is exposed to it. Today I did not have
this luxury since John wasn't home and The Dude decided that sleeping
was for babies. After trying unsuccessfully to put him down for a nap
twice I threw caution to the wind and decided to clean.
Thinking to myself, "OK, I can handle this", I'll open his room, we just brought a bouncy horse up this morning, he'll be SO enthralled by that thing that I'll be able to spray, scrub and aerate before he notices that I'm not in his room. Why oh why do I dream up such fantasies, I'm always disappointed. This is how it all went down.
Read a few books with Brooks in his room so he knows (yeah right) that this is play or quiet time not sleep time, because every 16 month old is this rational, right? As expected after reading he goes over and jumps on his horse and shows me how it bounces, makes noise and spins. Great, plan is working! I slip out and next door into the bathroom, grab spray, sponge and go to work. All of a sudden, *thud thud thud*, the sound of 21 pounds of toddler coming into the room. OK, not time to lose it, he's not interested in me and my toxins. Then I feel tiny hands beating on my back followed by hysterical laughter. Time to re appropriate toddler, back to his room, "look how pretty the zebra is, can you show me how to jump on it?" This works he goes to town bouncing like, well a toddler. I run back to the bathroom and no sooner do I kneel to start scrubbing then I feel his tiny little hands again. *sigh* So maybe if I scrub really fast it will be better, the fan is on, the door is open...oh until the toddler decides that an open door is not a good idea. Next 10 minutes was spent getting up and opening the door, running over and scrubbing some, getting back up and opening the door, all the while trying to distract the Dude from the poisons I'm using to clean. I'm throwing toys at him, not literally at him, but in his general direction, tossing them out into the hall so he'll run after them, all of this isn't working. Instead of taking my normal 15-30 minutes to clean the bathroom, today's clean clocked in at 1 hour and 20 minutes. I should be grateful that it's clean (ish) and he didn't inhale or eat too many chemicals. Small victories right?
Thinking to myself, "OK, I can handle this", I'll open his room, we just brought a bouncy horse up this morning, he'll be SO enthralled by that thing that I'll be able to spray, scrub and aerate before he notices that I'm not in his room. Why oh why do I dream up such fantasies, I'm always disappointed. This is how it all went down.
Read a few books with Brooks in his room so he knows (yeah right) that this is play or quiet time not sleep time, because every 16 month old is this rational, right? As expected after reading he goes over and jumps on his horse and shows me how it bounces, makes noise and spins. Great, plan is working! I slip out and next door into the bathroom, grab spray, sponge and go to work. All of a sudden, *thud thud thud*, the sound of 21 pounds of toddler coming into the room. OK, not time to lose it, he's not interested in me and my toxins. Then I feel tiny hands beating on my back followed by hysterical laughter. Time to re appropriate toddler, back to his room, "look how pretty the zebra is, can you show me how to jump on it?" This works he goes to town bouncing like, well a toddler. I run back to the bathroom and no sooner do I kneel to start scrubbing then I feel his tiny little hands again. *sigh* So maybe if I scrub really fast it will be better, the fan is on, the door is open...oh until the toddler decides that an open door is not a good idea. Next 10 minutes was spent getting up and opening the door, running over and scrubbing some, getting back up and opening the door, all the while trying to distract the Dude from the poisons I'm using to clean. I'm throwing toys at him, not literally at him, but in his general direction, tossing them out into the hall so he'll run after them, all of this isn't working. Instead of taking my normal 15-30 minutes to clean the bathroom, today's clean clocked in at 1 hour and 20 minutes. I should be grateful that it's clean (ish) and he didn't inhale or eat too many chemicals. Small victories right?
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
I want to hate her, but can't
Michelle Duggar, that is. I really want to not like the woman, but so far I just disagree with some of her decisions, BUT she seems like a really good mom. The kids seem to be as well adjusted, well as well adjusted as sheltered kids can be.
I don't understand why so many people are up in arms about how many kids the woman has. She's not even close to the Russian woman who had 69 kids and never a single birth. Talk about some stretch marks and lack of elasticity. Of course the Russian woman was a peasant and it was 1725, I bet they could share the same wardrobe.
Oh well, good luck Michelle, may the doctor's have steady small hands.
I don't understand why so many people are up in arms about how many kids the woman has. She's not even close to the Russian woman who had 69 kids and never a single birth. Talk about some stretch marks and lack of elasticity. Of course the Russian woman was a peasant and it was 1725, I bet they could share the same wardrobe.
Oh well, good luck Michelle, may the doctor's have steady small hands.
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Tasty Tuesday - Installment #5 - Gluten Free Edition
When I was breast feeding Brooks had a gluten intolerance, so I had to eat gluten and dairy free. I learned to cook and of course bake gluten free. It's really hard to find gluten free recipes that don't have 50 million ingredients so it makes everything cost 100 million dollars. This recipe is affordable, albeit more than "traditional" baking and EASY!!!!! There was no difference in texture or taste, and approved at a party this weekend, by glutenites and glutenless alike.
Gluten Free Fried Apple Cupcakes
1 1/4 cups gluten free baking flour (I used Bob's Red Mill)
3/4 cup + 1 teaspoon white sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder (notice this is NOT baking soda)
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 cup butter (room temperature NOT melted)
1/4 cup milk
3/4 cup + 1 tablespoon applesauce
1 egg
Mix all dry ingredients together. In a separate bowl mix sugar, milk and applesauce. Using a mixer slowly add dry ingredients, once incorporated add egg. Mix on medium speed for 1-2 minutes scraping sides once or twice.
If you look at the "regular" recipe, there is not a big difference, which also means there isn't a big difference in the taste. I served these again with the maple frosting and it was VERY well received.
Gluten Free Fried Apple Cupcakes
1 1/4 cups gluten free baking flour (I used Bob's Red Mill)
3/4 cup + 1 teaspoon white sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder (notice this is NOT baking soda)
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 cup butter (room temperature NOT melted)
1/4 cup milk
3/4 cup + 1 tablespoon applesauce
1 egg
Mix all dry ingredients together. In a separate bowl mix sugar, milk and applesauce. Using a mixer slowly add dry ingredients, once incorporated add egg. Mix on medium speed for 1-2 minutes scraping sides once or twice.
If you look at the "regular" recipe, there is not a big difference, which also means there isn't a big difference in the taste. I served these again with the maple frosting and it was VERY well received.
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