Moving on up....

A few updates because things are starting to happen!

I talked to E today via skype to chat about some upcoming changes with our family.  He told me that L has her first scan on Monday, January 26.  This is what they consider a baseline scan to make sure ovaries are currently quiet.  From there they start the stimulating drugs to get the ovaries to mature many eggs at one time and many scans will be done between now and the time of retrieval.  More about this after I get a med schedule to share with you from the RE that L will be following! 

The next big news is that our family is on the move this summer.  It was expected and yet unexpected at the same time.  This summer was our planned rotation as we have been here for nearly 3 years.  With my husband in the military, we have been blessed with 5 moves in 6 years!  It has been exciting I guess you could say!  We hoped to stay in place until the end of the surrogacy but we had discussed the potential to move before officially matching!  We will be moving to Northern Virginia (Just over the river from Maryland)

What does this mean for surrogacy? 

• The baby will be born in a different state. (yeah that was obvious!) 
• We will have our contract done in North Carolina before pregnancy is attempted.
• Once we move, we will have an amendment done for the contract for the state in which I plan to deliver in.
• A much easier travel itinerary for E&L when they are coming from the UK because we will be within 15 minutes of Reagan Airport, 40 minutes from Dulles and an hour to Baltimore Airport.  The first two have metros that come within 10 minutes of base.
• Where we currently are would require the flights from the UK, then another flight or two to get to us here which could potentially be several additional hours or a 6 hour drive.  
• Insurance will likely need to change once I move but it could stay in place-- Depends on how far 'out of range' we are for the current plan.
• Maryland is a very surrogacy friendly state which could allow for a much easier legal process for the Intended Parents to get their baby back home and onto the process of seeking a English Citizenship (This tyke will be born with American citizenship and have dual citizenship within a few months of being born!)
• They will get to tour DC and all of the fun things around DC with us in that region! 

Really us moving doesn't change too much except a few small logistical things with legal and medical insurance but today we worked it out via skype and we have a plan and we are just ready to get this egg retrieval done so they can make some beautiful embryos and Kurt can start stabbing me with these HUGE needles.  It really is a positive goal to look forward to!

Kurt will be taking a position that he is very excited about.  He will be teaching Marines that are coming into his MOS (MOS is the term Marines use for what job they do in the Corps).  Basically it is the trade that they do within the Marine Corps.  In this position, Kurt will be the chief instructor and help to tweak the syllabus to make it more pertinent to the future of this MOS.  He already has his bachelors and masters in this field and teaches at an online university so this is totally up his alley.  Not to mention he will have good hours and won't deploy.  This will be a win-win for our family.

But we have to move!  We love our house and how established we are in this neighborhood and within this battalion. I am very active in volunteerism and some of my best friends are also volunteers.  I also host a bunco group monthly and my children are very vested in their lives here. 

But, such is the life of a military wife!  We move, we dig through our linen closet to find curtains to fit the windows in the new house, we figure out how to make 3,200 sq ft of furniture and stuff fit into your new 1,800 sq ft base house.  We figure out how to make 4 walls of shelter into a home, time and time again.  We leave behind best friends and struggle to find new ones in new cities that we don't even like. 

Why would we sign up for this?  Why would we marry a man in uniform?  Why would I put my own dreams on hold to follow him and his dreams around from state to state to state?  Because I love him fiercely.  Because he provides for us a life that I could not provide myself.  Because he is a wonderful father.  Because even though I may not have a career, he agrees to allow me to pursue crazy dreams like surrogacy even though it is not the easiest situation to deal with inside a marriage.  Because even though I may have left a career I loved, he constantly encourages me to become a better person, mother, and wife (Which is why I volunteer and I am close to getting my Bachelors)  And because those dress blues-- what girl wouldn't sign up for that?

Kurt & I at the 2013 Marine Corps Birthday Ball

Let go and let God!

I am not a preachy person at all but my religion is never a question.  I believe in God. I believe that he is the reason for all glory and he deserves all the glory.  I posted this on my FB after going to a service tonight.  This is what I posted and quickly, it was 'liked' by a lot of my friends so I thought it was worth a repost here for my followers that are not on FB.  It is a message that believers should read and adhere to.  HE will take care of us!

For our journey, we will Let go and Let God.  He will receive all of the Glory for the beauty in the journey!

I went to church tonight and they are doing a series about having your best year ever and how 2015 will be amazing. One of the topics was about the Eeyore Syndrome-- We all know someone like that. Someone who has the worst life ever because of other people's decisions but it is never their fault. "The boss has a target on my back" "It was the electric company's fault that our power was cut off" You know that type of person? I certainly know a few. I have chosen to distance myself from most of those people because I don't need to be brought down by your "woe is me!" mentality. But I have kept some around... Maybe for THIS exact moment. Learn something. Listen up.

The message essentially was: What He brings you to, He will bring you through... as long as you let him. It is either that He is with you or you are against Him. There is no way around this.
Some other things that the pastor said:

You will only hit in life what you are aiming at. If you aim at nothing, you will get nothing. If you aim at God, his glories will rain on you. If you aim at bad stuff, that is what you get in return. What ever you aim at, you will hit. Last year sucked? What you aimed at last year, you hit.
Pain and suffering is not the plan God has for your life. God's plan is hope and future. The pain is a consequence for aiming at something other than Him.

God sees you for who you will become through him, not who you have been so now is a good time to make that change.

We blame God for our circumstances rather than taking blame for our own actions. Perspective can easily be manipulated by circumstance>

If your life sucks--- you have two options. Dwell on it and blame others or find a church, sit your butt in a pew and let all of your problems go to God. He will take care of them. Instead of complaining, complain to God. He will adjust your attitude.

I have posted recently that attitude is 95% of how you approach a problem. Seriously-- if you find yourself complaining about life (and more than wanting to swap wine for whine), please find God-- he will help you through it and help you find the positive even in negative situations!!

An Update on Our Update!!

After posting the last update I got an update from E with some slightly different dates-- everything is dependent on a timely period so if it shows up just one day late, everything shifts to the right by one day!  So our new dates that Dr. Levy has given us is that L's retrieval will be February 7/8/9 now.  They fly to the US on February 3 and stay until the 10th.  This means that we get to go visit them while they are here!  (As long as L is feeling well with all of the hormones and the stims).  They may not (probably won't?) come back for transfer-- we haven't actually talked about that detail so I want to see them while they are here for the week! 

That sets my date back about a week too.  I imagine as long as all testing goes well, that we should be transferring sometime around the end of the first week of March.  I haven't actually seen a timeline for me yet, but when we were there for the clinical testing, Dr. Levy said that we would be able to transfer about 5 wks post retrieval. 

Just as another note-- over there on the right side of the screen, if you scroll all the way up to the top, there is a box to enter your email address so you can get up to the minute updates!  You will get an email when I post an update so you won't miss a post!  So go ahead and subscribe to our blog! 

An Update!! Of the SURROGACY TYPE!

What everyone has been waiting for-- What is next?  When is it coming?  And you know what, this time, I kind of have an answer!!

I emailed the Nurse Coordinator yesterday to let her know that CD 1 had arrived just to keep her in the loop and so that she could record it in the chart (I have been doing this since my screening).  Also it happens to be L's cycle time too so IF we were doing a fresh cycle, we would already be synced!  But we are not so our cycles being synced actually doesn't mean anything!

So here is the current plan- L will be starting her medication protocol and we are looking at a February 3 egg retrieval.  We have a date!  Not just a month-- but a date now!  Of course this can change because there will be many ultrasounds that L will have to have to check out the status of her ovaries and to make sure the follicles are maturing.

During the preparation for an egg retrieval, many medications are used to help stimulate the ovaries to produce many eggs.  During this preparation, usually birth control pills are used to quiet the ovaries to help prevent cysts on the ovaries.  Unfortunately, there is progesterone in the birth control pills and L is allergic to the BCPs.  They are usually only used for 14-28 days before beginning the medications and Dr. Levvy feels that it is more advantageous for L to take that medication for the cycle than the risks of her allergies.  When she takes BCP, she has hives on her legs, a dry cracked tongue that swells.  It is no fun but it is worth it to her to have a chance to have a biological baby.  And when you consider the low dose of this medication, it makes it easier to see the eventual decision made to go to surrogacy.

Next, the medication added is a synthetic FSH (follicle stimulating hormone) and LH (luteinizing hormone).  Both of these hormones are present in a normal fertility cycle but when tinkering with a woman's cycle, they are injected usually in the fatty tissue in the abdomen.  These are usually used for 10-13 days and are used to stimulate the development of many eggs.

From there, as the eggs mature, the doctors want to make sure the body does not signal early release of the eggs or ovulation.  Then the doctor would miss the opportunity to retrieve them and that would be bad!!  This is not always needed in retrieval cycles, but it is available if necessary.

Then is a one time shot that matures the eggs and then it helps to release them all at the same time.  Sometimes the medication used is hCG which is the same hormone that the body releases during pregnancy.  These are usually given IM (or in a large muscle like the thigh or the upper buttocks)


Then of course the retrieval. I am unsure about how that process works but from what I hear, the IM or Egg Donor gets really bloated and uncomfortable in the week leading up to retrieval.  For the retrieval, a needle is put through the vaginal wall and the fluid around the egg is removed.  This is uncomfortable so usually an IV medication is used to help make the patient more comfortable.

From there, the eggs will be introduced to the sperm in a petri dish or in some cases, a single sperm will be injected into the egg (ICSI) to fertilize the egg.  It is then known as an embryo and it will grow for 3-5 days before it is either transferred into a patient or it is frozen.  Before the embryos are frozen for our cycle, Shady Grove will do a genetic screening on the embryos.  What that means is they will take one single cell and take it from the embryo and test it for genetic abnormalities and to make sure the appropriate amount of chromosones are present in the embryo.

It takes about 2 weeks for the genetic screening to come back then we will see how many quality embryos we are working with.  At that time, I will start medications to plan for a frozen embryo transfer and the transfer should take place around 5 weeks from the egg retrieval.


I will say that PGS (or the genetic screening) does come with a risk.  They are taking a single cell away from a 3 day embryo that is only 8 cells.  Now we are talking about 10.25% of the embryo away during the biopsy and it can actually damage the outcome of the growth during thawing.  Usually if an embryo is damaged, it will just arrest during thaw.  It does not increase the chances of miscarriage or disability/deformity in the baby.  Now this is good and bad news because they will be transferring a genetically sound embryo when it is time for transfer but sometimes some moms/donors don't have a lot of decent embryos to start with and the biopsy could destroy an otherwise perfect embryo.  One of my FB friends (also an IM and agency owner) said "When PGS is done on a 3 day embryo, they take aaway a single cell which is 1 of 8 cells.  When it is done on a blastocyst, they biopsy multiple cells in order to get more accurate pictures of the genetic health as the cells of a 3 day embryo are mosaic."  I know for certain our clinic did say PGS because I had never heard of this when in reference to genetic testing in the past. 

That is our update! I know it is long-winded (as usual!) but the take away from this is

Egg retrieval will be at the beginning of February
Transfer should be around the beginning - middle of March! 

Send your GROW EGGIE vibes to L-- if you have chickens, talk to your hen girls and tell them to lay more eggs, caress the eggs they give you, rub your pregnant bellies, kiss your husband's bald head, find a 4 leaf clover, break your wishbone, wish on a shooting star, find the end of the rainbow, rub the lamp with the genie in it--

WHATEVER IT TAKES-- Let's have some good feeling vibes because we are over here (across the giant pond from each other!) giddy and excited to get this cycle started!! 

Should have added another New Year's Resolution!

So one of the things I have neglected in my house is true organization. I have been flying by the seat of my pants.  You have 3 kids and suddenly you are outnumbered.  Add 21 credits of college per semester and also all of the traveling I have done this year (both for leisure and surrogacy last year) and my house has gotten totally out of hand.  There is stuff crammed in every nook and cranny and there just comes to a point and you think "I need to take care of this!"

That moment has come in my life and no time better than the new year to start with organization projects.  On December 29, I began looking at Pinterest dreaming of my forever home that we will have whenever Kurt decides that he is done playing Marine (after he hits 20 years-- just a couple years away!)  So I was dreaming of a Laundry room that was to die for-- a cabinet that you can keep cleaners in with a folding counter and even a sorting station for clothes.  You know, the things women dream of!

I even organized my spice and medicine cabinets with the Christmas gift my Godmother got me-- the Spicy Rack.  Now I can get in and out of my cabinet without knocking stuff out and I can see things.  Its a beautiful thing now pulling the dollar store bin out that was crammed full of spices and digging through it (I am so short, I have to pull a stool over even to see on the back of the bottom shelf so a bin was much easier to see all of them at one time).

So project number one got me on my way to being motivated to clean the junk out of my life! And my Pinterest Laundry Room searches got me on my way to my next project-  A family command center.  You are probably scratching your head wondering what in the world a family command center is but maybe these photos will look familiar to you.  Maybe your kitchen looks like this.  Maybe you have paperwork on the side of your fridge because you know you will need it later and it is safest there where little hands cannot reach it but it looks sloppy and leaves me feeling overwhelmed.

This pile of papers on the counter grows and grows until it becomes a leaning tower then crashes to the floor with me muttering obscenities about how I am going to get organized.

Most of the papers on this side of the fridge are related to the kids schools-- their lovely 'wave' schedule that I still don't have down... the school schedule for the county... etc.  But it looks like a gigantic mess. 

This was the most organized I could be before now.... But as the calendar says, New Year, New You.  This was a terrible organizational tool because the trash cans are right below it and it is in my pantry.  The pantry is ill shaped anyway so this board was hard to reach and things fell behind the trash can but it was not working anymore...

So as I was searching, I came across this beauty.  This is what my plan started as:

I had never really heard of a concept like this except in an office and still I had never seen something like this that was actually effective and efficient.  And I thought about what I would need for a board like this for me. I went on a pinning spree.  I decided I needed one of these, and I needed one right away!!!

This is the wall I decided I needed the project should go on.  This wall is in the drop zone of our house-- you know that area where you walk in and drop whatever is in your arms into that area?  Mine happens to be at the backdoor where I have hooks for jackets and keys and there is a small shelf above that for every thing we can possibly fit on there-- wallets, gift cards, stuff we don't want to touch and the island.  The island is NEVER ever clear of stuff.  That is where the mail goes or when we clean off the table, all of that junk comes from the table goes there, of course that is where we prep our food... And the door in the photo is the pantry where the board used to hang.

so this is our drop zone so naturally the command center should go there-- Where it is convenient for us to organize things to.  For a family command center to be functional, it definitely needs to be somewhere that you frequent because if it is in an obscure place, you won't use it.... Kitchens are where family and friend congregate so this wall is the prime place for this new focal wall-- but because it was a focal wall, it had to be pretty!  I had to make it look decorative and functional at the same time-- was this possible?

So there... it set this project in motion.  I wrote down what I needed to make this wall work. I called my babysitter and begged her to come over so that my husband and I could go to Hobby Lobby kid free.  By the way, Hobby Lobby opened up just the day before this project started!  So we go and 45 minutes into the trip, I have one $3 product in my cart.  Who knew it would be so hard to find what I needed in a huge store of beautiful things!?  Kurt began playing Words with Friends while I went here, there and asked for help.  Finally we walked out of there with a 2 file folder hanger, some fabric that didn't match and one other little piece but I was not happy with this purchase.  The item was beautiful, but I needed 3-4 slots to make this wall functional.

So then we decided to run to Staples for the black metal hanging file holders.  No dice.  Walmart. Nope.  I needed to go to Lowes to get some other stuff for the project.  They had nothing. I was desperate and even ready to use a metal basket for under the sink but repurpose it.  Went to Target.  They didnt have the file hangers or the cabinet basket.  Bed Bath & Beyond.  Nope.  We went home at this point.  I felt defeated and Kurt felt annoyed that I took him to every single store in the town that might have carried it.

The next morning I took Leah with me back to Hobby Lobby to return the file hanger.  And I took my time looking through everything and came home with a bunch of new stuff that I felt great about.  I walked here and there and allowed her to help me pick out colors or shapes or just different things so she felt involved in this big project.  I came home ready to get this project started. 

First I outlined all of the things I was putting on the wall onto wax paper after I measured out how wide it could be. I sat it on the counter which was about as wide as the wall.  I taped the items to the wall to make sure it would fit and to make sure I got things up in the right order.

I also had to paint many of the items I purchased and glued items down.  Remember the board earlier?  I covered it with some thick fabric to make it look nicer and to match the motif and basically look like a decorative item.

Here is my finished product -- the entire wall with a description of how each item will help my family function a little more fluidly!

A calendar is a must.  An awesome calendar like this is a gift! My husband personalized one for me for Christmas and I knew I had to highlight it. I live by my calendar.  The file system is one slot for him, one for me, one to file.  The folders in each slot depend on who it is for. I have a folder for kids papers and I keep the box tops and receipts in my slot as well.  We clothes pin something on the outside that needs attention ASAP like a check that needs deposited or a bill that needs to be paid.

These mason jars were in my cabinet.  With a $1 hose clamp, I now had Shabby Chic pen holders.  $3 for 30 chalkboard labels and we could add personalization.  The Bucket under it has coupons, gift cards and other little pieces of papers that we needed a place to keep organized. 

I replaced our love notes wall. Before we had frames with 'I love you...' and we would use a dry erase marker and leave notes for each other.  I knew I had to continue it.  This curtain rod and curtain hanger will hold little love notes that I will keep and one day put in a scrap book.  The kids can draw on the cards or write notes and I will date them.  It was important that this little ritual continue because we all like to feel loved.

My Meal Planner!  One little cup for the recipes that I already have ingredients for, one cup for recipes we have tried before, and one cup for new recipes.  I will plan 6 meals a week, but in no specific order.  One meal will either be a wild card, left overs or dining out.

Each card has the name of the recipe on the front and some have a star in the corner representing an ingredient in the recipe that is quickly perishable such as fresh tomatoes.  On the back it has the name of the cookbook as well as the page and if there is a perishable item in the recipe, it has what that item is so I know to cook these recipes first.

Working on meal planning and making a grocery list

SO there you have it-- Hopefully my sanity saver and it cost just $60 for the whole wall to be completed!  We did use a few pieces we already had but this $60 included some new wall hangings, paints, decorative items as well as the cards for the menu board and 100 cards for the i love you board.  I am very excited about how this turned out!

The next day, I cleaned our bathroom, all cabinets and closets.  This took 6 hours to get completely organized.   I let it go since we had traveled for 7 weekends out of the last 8.  Life has been insane.  When we came home from the cruise, stuff sat in the bag in our room because the next week, it was Christmas.

BEFORE

I know it was awful!  But I did organize and I found so much stuff that I didn't want to take the time to find, so i just bought new stuff-- So I organized all of our toiletries and I think I am ready for a Zombie Apocalypse now!

AFTER -- The bath rugs were in the wash.

I threw away a WHOLE bag of trash!!!  Yes that is ridiculous I know.  But it is organized and I feel better going in there!

So there you have it!  I am working on organizing this house before I go back to school in February.  What are you doing to get your life organized?  Every day I am doing my routine 5 things that I have been challenged to do by a FB group for organization and one of them is a 15 minute clean up. Tonight I got my family involved.  We cranked up some music and set a timer on the phone and we were able to clean up the whole downstairs including the kitchen and swept the floor and vacuumed the carpets.  15 minutes can get a lot done even though it seems like a short period of time!  Power in numbers!  

If you are interested in joining a positive encouragement group to get things organized, please request to join this group!  Join the Christian Ladies Planning/Organization Group Here!   It is a wonderful group and we are being challenged daily to get through those tasks that seem daunting-- just a little at a time makes it so much more attainable! 

Next up-- Starting the process for losing a few pounds before starting hormones in a few months... Monday I am climbing back on the wagon, starting to run after a 3 month hiatus, doing the 21 day fix and clean eating!!   This year is going to ROCK!