We've taken on a lot, and somehow managed to stay in tact. Living life now as a family of 4!

I got WAY ahead of myself. Once we had found our new surrogate, S, and we managed to line up all the pieces and cross all the T's and dot all the I's, I started thinking of baby names. I started scouring kijiji and facebook for the babystuff we didn't have with Rudi that would really have been handy. I started plotting about how we would fit another kid into our upstairs, which has only 2 bedrooms. Our car was giving us all kinds of grief and it was clear we needed something more reliable so we bought a larger car in the hopes that there would be 2 carseats in it sooner rather than later. We've had 2 failed transfers. After the first one, I was pretty ok. It is not to be expected that EVERY embryo will turn into a baby - that's just not how the math works. We tried again right away. When second one didn't take, I was thrown for more of a loop. I didn't spiral into deep darkness but there was definitely more chocolate and ice cream consumed in the wee

My relationship with God has changed over the years, as is true for most people, I expect. Life's twists and turns and experiences have given me more nuance, more skepticism, more desire for simplicity and goodness without worrying about the how's and why's. Basically where I've ended up is that I believe in God as Creator. Nothing makes me feel better than being in Creation and I truly believe that all life and the Earth and everything we can see and observe is just too amazing to not have have a Divine aspect. And that's pretty much all I need, in addition to the Golden Rule. I'm distinctly uncomfortable with the idea of a God that intervenes in individual lives. Working with highly vulnerable people does that to you, I think. Why should I expect that if I pray, God will intervene in my life, whereas I KNOW that my little 12,13,14 years olds, who are desperately praying in all the ways they know how for better situations, are stuck dealing with garbage n

There is a predictable pattern, around this time in the school year, where the adreneline of the beginning of the year has worn off, kids are comfortable and showing their true colours, and the to-do list grows and grows and grows, and teachers get tired. Or at least, this teacher does. I honestly forgot so much about teaching. I forgot how much OTHER stuff there is. Things like: flagging and assessing kids who have fallen through cracks, finding and reading files, keeping the people who are in charge informed of how kids need support, emailing and setting up meetings with parents, finding and building new resources and units and tweaking old ones, talking to other teachers about kids, talking to kids to find out why they are mad/sad/unproductive/anxious and what we are going to do about it. Notice how none of that is actually teaching or marking or even cajoling. I forgot how intense and how much energy CAJOLING takes. Really, teaching is mostly cajoling, I think. Cajoling to get

I'm back at work and I have thoughts about it. I don't have a lot of time to think and write so this is pretty 'off the cusp', but it's better than nothing. I love re-reading about my life after the fact (except when I was so depressed, those posts are hard to read), so when there are huge holes that I haven't written something, I am sad. Some thoughts about working: 1. I am SO GRATEFUL Jake is taking this year off. SO GRATEFUL! It is stressful financially but it is AWESOME in every other way. He does the grocery shopping and dishes and cooking AND I leave him and Rudi having breakfast in the morning and come home to them in the park in the afternoon. It's wonderful. Rudi doesn't miss me, per se, as far as I can tell, and loves his dad. We are much more equal parents and it's wonderful. 2. I forgot how much OTHER stuff there is when you're a teacher that doesn't actually have anything to do with teaching: photocopying, arranging your ro

It's not over yet, but summer is quickly drawing to a close and I have been in my classroom the last two days setting up and getting ready for the coming year. Friends and family keep asking how I feel about it, returning to work. Sometimes feelings aren't particularly helpful, is the thing. I have lots of thoughts I allow to flit through my brain about going back to work, and they do not all get along. Here's a smattering: 1. It's good for Rudi to hear 'Mom's going to work and you're going to stay with dad' 2. I'm SO GRATEFUL that Jake has taken the year off to be home with Rudi. It's MUCH easier to be going to work when Rudi gets to be at home with a parent, even though this is a bit financially stressful. I keep repeating to myself: you can always make more money, you never get more time. I'm very excited for the bond that Rudi and Jake will develop this year 3. Teaching is a bit like riding a bike - sitting at my desk and planni

My time alone with Rudi is coming to an end. Jake will be done work in 2 weeks and then the three of us will be hanging out having adventures together for the summer before I head back to work in September and Jake and Rudi get to have their time alone together. I tried to explain to Jake how I was feeling about the upcoming transitions in our world. I'm excited for our summer of fun together (and also so grateful that we will always have 2 months off as a family!), and I'm VERY happy that Jake is staying home with Rudi next year - they will have so much fun. I'm also sad about my time alone with Rudi ending. I have loved this year, SO MUCH. It's not that there weren't hard days: there were. But overall, by far and away, when I think back to our fall and winter and spring together, the overwhelming image that pops out to me is the afternoon light streaming through the windows of the sunroom, Rudi asleep on my chest, my head back, basking in the sun. This year

I try hard not to swear on this blog, but sometimes, there just isn't a way to express yourself otherwise. The judge rejected our declaration of parentage for Rudi DESPITE THE FACT that we submitted ALL of the following: - our legal agreement (40 pages of legalese that says that Rudi was created for us with the help of Jay and Tara) - An affadavit from Jacob stating that he is the father of Rudi - An affadavit from me saying that I am the mother of Rudi - An affadavit from Jay saying he is not the father of Rudi, that Jake and I are the parents - An affadavit from Tara saying she is not the mother of Rudi, that Jake and I are the parents - the actual declaration of parentage itself - a letter from the fertility clinic stating that the embryo implanted in Tara is the biological material of Jake and I - Rudi's original birth certificate In addition to ALL OF THAT (which represents $1000s in legal fees, by the way) the judge wants to see a copy of the registration of b

Ok, what I really want to write about is my very complicated feelings about my first Mother's day as a mother but I feel like I can't dive into that topic without first acknowledging the response to my previous post. It went VIRAL! I've decided that is the most accurate term for what happened. As of today there have been 38,351 page views of that post, all due to people sharing on Facebook. Most of the views happened in the first 48 hours. That is AMAZING. I certainly did not expect it to travel like that. I thought maybe a few 100 people would see it and that would be that. Instead, the conversation about surrogacy continues :) Lots of people reached out, including a former surrogate who wanted to help, people who knew surrogates, and a few women who wanted more information. Incredible! And that's all I'm going to say about that for now :) So, Mother's day was last weekend. I had feelings about it. Not necessarily the ones I expected to have. All day Jake a

There's no delicate way to start this, so I'm just going to jump right in. We are looking for someone who is interested in being a gestational carrier to help us add one more baby to complete our family. Yes, that's right - I'm writing a blog post and putting it out into the world in the hopes that someone will email me or message me saying they would be excited and happy to get pregnant with our baby. Long shot? Absolutely. But this is the thing about infertility: Long shots are all we have. Watching Rudi grow and learn and develop has been the greatest joy of our lives these past 9 months. There are no words to describe just how fun it is when he tries something new or smiles and leans in for a hug. Parenthood so far hasn't been without its challenges, but for the most part it's been a gratifying and joyful experience. For me in particular, it has filled an aching hole and made me feel wholly myself again. I unabashedly love it. Before we knew tha

Well, we've been home for a month so I guess it's time to finally write about our amazing trip. Our trip was 5 weeks, with roughly one week to travel from Winnipeg to Vancouver Island, 3 weeks on Vancouver Island, and then a little less than a week to get back home. Things We Saw: 1. So many great people! We very conveniently have friends and family approximately every 400-700kms between here and Vancouver Island and seeing them all was wonderful. Everyone loved on Rudi hard and for the most part he handled all the new people really well. My Uncle Rob in Kelowna did scare him pretty good, but we'll blame that outsized reaction on a lack of sleep :) Visiting Uncle Rob, Aunt Cheryl and cousin Elan in Kelowna! We visited lots of other people too, but I cna't put pictures of them all - it's too many! 2. Salt Spring Island was our first stop. I'm sure this place would be a madhouse with tourists in the summer but in the off-season it was just a deli

On Saturday we leave on our longest road trip ever! We will be gone over 5 weeks. We are taking about a week to drive to Vancouver Island, we'll have 3 weeks there in various locations, and then another week to come home. Jake and I both love a road trip and we've done some really good ones together. We've driven to Nova Scotia twice, once through Canada and the Gaspe peninsula and once through the States and spent some time in Maine. We have driven to Oregon and then back up through Waterton and Alberta. We have driven to the Muskoka region of Ontario with our niece and nephew. We are not strangers to this kind of trip. We know some good tricks (bring your contigo travel mug for water in the car - keeps it cold! Re-fill it when you stop for gas at their soda fountain, which always has water.) and tips (on long driving days get up really early and get a few hours on the road under your belt before you are awake enough for breakfast; staying downtown in a city can often

I know I've written about this before, but I'm just so in love with my sunroom nap time that I have to write about it more. Today the sun is blazing in and if I lean forward just a little I can see two sundogs on either side of it. It's cold outside, but warm in here. Basically, sitting under a sleeping baby is the best excuse to sit in the sun I have ever had. I can't clean, cook, do chores or anything else while he's napping. I just have to sit here and enjoy it. This is why it's hard to give up these cuddly naps - then I'd feel like I had to be DOING something during this 2 hour chunk of time! There are closets that need to be rearranged! Dishes to wash! Supper to prep! Laundry to do! But instead of all of that, I am sitting here in -30 weather, basking in sunlight, snuggling my baby. This is why the word bliss was invented. I know we won't be able to do this forever - eventually he'll be too big - but I'm sure soaking it up now, while it

***I wrote this post about a year ago. I was in the midst of trying to reconnect with 7 women who were very good friends who had babies and who I needed to step back from while I was dealing with my own terrible time. Reconnecting has been hard, necessary work and I have learned a lot. The biggest revelation for me was that they felt excluded from my life, whereas from my end of things it felt like my world just got smaller and smaller until there was almost nothing left. It didn't feel like there was anything going on in my world that someone could be excluded from, I was such a depressed mess. So I wrote this, thinking maybe it would explain that a bit more. I never actually sent this to any of them, or published it before now, but I've been re-reading it and I think it's still good and still says what I was trying to say. A few weeks ago I said I thought I was stuck because this is hard stuff to think about and write about. There is more to it as well, but this is a star

It has been grey here for the past week. This is not my favorite weather. I would way rather -25 and sunny than -10 and grey, but the bonus to cloudy skies is warmer weather, which means it has been perfect for skating! Even more perfect, for the first time in almost 10 years, the annual skating trail on the rivers of Winnipeg stretches almost to our house! The end of the trail is about 3 blocks away, so Rudi and I have been skating daily. Yesterday, we did the whole trail! That's a grand total of 15kms on skates! I was so sweaty by the end that I had to change all of my clothes. I worked as hard as if I had run the distance, but bonus, skating is non-impact and so doesn't hurt my knees. I love skating, but it is a bit of production with the stroller. First, we walk down to the river access point at Arlington St. Then we have to tackle the stairs. Going down isn't so bad, but hauling the stroller back up those steps after skating 15kms is not just a little worko

I thought my insomnia was related to stress about infertility, but this week has put a huge hole in that theory. We have had a rough couple of days over here. My insomnia manifests itself in 2 main ways - trouble falling asleep and staying asleep. Staying asleep is a non-issue these days because I do actually wake up to feed Rudi, which I don't mind at all. What I do mind is not being able to go back to sleep afterwards. A few nights ago it was really bad. It took FOREVER to get to sleep. My hearing was super-sonic. I could hear every twitch in the entire neighborhood, it seemed, even through my earplugs. My brain was on hyper-drive with all kinds of nonsense: what kind of rags to put in the downstairs bathroom, what kind of solid food to give Rudi next, if we should give hostess gifts to all the people we're going to be staying with on our trip to Vancouver Island (have I mentioned that we're going on a trip? For over a month?), what I need to pack for said trip and so