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

I'm off work now, pumping like a maniac and eagerly and stressfully awaiting our girl's birth. A few thoughts about that: At the beginning of the year, it felt cruel to send Rudi to daycare for the whole day, no matter that the daycare he goes to is very loving and he has a great time. He cried about going every morning and our hearts broke. Now, though, I've been home from work for a week and Rudi has gone to daycare every day. I have feelings about it. They are contradictory. First, I feel guilty - I like spending time with Rudi and he prefers to be home. He doesn't cry any more but he does says 'Don't want to go to Ana's today'. Of course, he has a blast when he's there. Second, the pumping schedule for inducing lactation is INTENSE. I'm pumping 9x a day: 3am, 7am, 9am, 11am, 1pm, 3pm, 5pm, 8pm, 10:30pm. And for me, pumping is not a relaxing/do-nothing activity. It is quite literally 'hands on'. Also, one of those I do is 'po

I've really been bad at this, so some random thoughts: **** I've never been into 'doing' things. I like doing NOTHING. When I was single and living alone a big day was when I did the dishes. I procrastinated EVERYTHING: chores, work, shopping, EVERYTHING. It all felt like so much effort. Maybe I had low-grade depression.....? My life now could not be further from that, and strangely, it gives me a sense of accomplishment when the kitchen is clean, the laundry is folded AND put away, and there is food in the fridge for my family. (lest you think I'm the only one who does those chores, Jake does them at least half the time. It's a collective win :)) I feel tremendous satisfaction from making healthy homemade treats for Rudi and Jake. WHO AM I!? A normal day includes doing the dishes, folding some laundry and cleaning the toilet IN ADDITION to making supper, playing with Rudi, and working! I do more things in one day now than I used to do in a WEEK. But d

I didn't write about what it was like to be an Intended Mother last time; I think I was afraid of jinxing it. But this time I want to write about how it feels to have your baby being grown by someone who isn't you, because it is a very unique experience. I don't know when/if I'll publish this as I want to be free to write how I'm feeling, but I definitely don't want Sara to feel like she isn't doing a good enough job of growing and taking care of our baby! She's doing FANTASTIC! I should start out by saying this is different for everyone, but there seem to be some commonalities for all intended mothers going through this process. You have NO CONTROL. You might think you do, but you don't. It doesn't matter what your agreement states; your surrogate is in the driver's seat - they have your baby and they can do whatever they want. In our province, Sara and her husband are legally the baby's parents, even. Some Intended parents seem to

There was a moment at the end of our spring break vacation, which was AMAZING, where I surveyed the scene around me with a mixture of revulsion, amusement, worry, frustration, and helplessness, but overall, calm. Rudi had just puked for the 4th time in about 100kms. He puked with such force that I didn't catch it with the bib he was wearing as a preventative measure; it went down his front and pooled in his crotch, soaking into the already-fouled carseat. Thankfully, we were on a straighter and wider stretch of highway than we had been for the previous 3 pukes, where pulling over immediately was impossible due to low visibility and the very real possibility of being hit while we tried to clean up our child and the car seat. Jake pulled over and we sprung into action as best we could. Bib off (spilled most of the puke it did catch) and out the door in the grass. Rudi unclipped and muscled out of the car without letting him come in for a snuggle, which he desperately wanted as

It is astounding to me that here I am again, writing again that we are going to be parents again due to the extremely selfless act of another woman. If all continues to go well, we'll be welcoming a baby into our family in late fall. To review, in case you haven't been reading my blog (not that there have been a lot of posts - I'll never be a person who will make money from their online presence ;): At the end of last April, I wrote a post about searching for a surrogate to carry a sibling for Rudi. People shared it and much to our total shock, several women replied with interest in being a surrogate. Sara was one of those people. We connected over many commonalities and after sending LOTS of emails back and forth for May, June, and July, and meeting in person, we started the long and arduous legal and medical process to enable her to try to carry our baby. We transferred 1 embryo in September and 1 in October of 2018, neither of which 'stuck', and then this one