26 weeks

 I've been a total slacker this summer with blogging!  I have been incredibly busy with a lot of aspects of my life and swear I am going to sit down and write a blog daily and it just doesn't happen.  I have been nose deep in school work for a few weeks.  Compound that with the kids starting back at school as well and going toe to toe with our maintenance company for not getting our issues corrected with the house we moved into 4 months ago.  Today, we are having the HVAC system cleaned finally too.  I actually had to go to the neighbors house because the dust they were cleaning out was making me have coughing fits and watery eyes and a headache!  That was not a lot of fun!

Here are my weekly bump photos I have missed posting!  Next week, we will be in the third trimester!  The first one goes by so slow because of the sickness and the fatigue.  The second trimester FLIES by.  The third trimester creeps by with the hurry up and wait and I feel like a whale feelings!

Next up is the photos from what is going on with this sweet girl and also what is going on with my body.

Baby is definitely looking more like a sweet chubby bay now!

It was too bad that Mom & Dad didn't get to feel their little girl moving while they were here.  Leah & Weston have both been able to feel her moving -- Leah loves watching and feeling her move and groove.  Now it is coming full circle for them and it is much easier for them to understand. 

If we had a 3D scan right now, this is similar to how she would look on the screen!

Finally a few more updates of surrogacy types-- First -- Of course E&L were here for an egg retrieval to make embryos to make this little girl a big sister in the future!  So with that being said, they retrieved 20 eggs on Thursday.  Out of those 20 eggs, 16 eggs were mature and were fertilized.  9 of them became embryos. And 5 of them were frozen with two of them being of exceptional quality. Before they were frozen, they were biopsied and the cells were sent to Florida so the genetic testing could be done!  So wish us/them luck that we have several wonderful embryos to work with in the future!

Also, last Thursday, I was contracting a lot.  I had told my doctor about it the week before but I wasn't necessarily worried about it.  But on Thursday, I was having contractions every 5 minutes all day.  They did not get stronger so again I was not overly worried.  But it is also not my baby! E&L were heading on a plane back to the UK and I wasn't able to ask them what I should do, so I gathered myself up and just ran over to triage.  If it was my own baby, I would have likely just stayed home.  When you add the element of someone else's baby to the mix, suddenly you second guess everything!  The contractions continued when I was laying down or standing.  It continued when I drank a lot of water and when I ate so just to be safe, I went to get checked out.  The gals in triage were great.  They put the monitors on me and low and behold -- I was contracting sometimes every 2-3 minutes.  At least I didn't feel crazy! They checked my urine and also did a speculum exam to visualize the cervical opening.  Everything was closed and I had no infections anywhere which is great.  Essentially what the verdict is, my body is saying 'Hey, lets start training for this marathon we are about to do!' So there it is -- contracting frequently is my new normal!

I still need to post about my daughter's 8th birthday and also my husband's reenlistment ceremony.  It happened on September 11 but I am 2 weeks behind.  9/11 is a big day to Americans -- military families especially but it is an even more special day to our family with it being Leah's birthday too!  Maybe soon, I will remember to post the photos and write about that day!!