Almost nine months and shopping already

Can't believe Brynn is approaching nine months old already. July has just flown by and we've been spending some time in up north Michigan at my parent's cottage. I'll try to upload some photos over the next few days of us at their place. But perhaps even more enjoyable than that is the time that Brynn and I have spent doing some mom and daughter shopping. With the cruddy economy shopping takes a bit more skill these days and you really have to look for a good deal. But Brynn and I did pretty well last week. At Nordstoms we found a fall coat for her at half price since it's July and technically the off season. When I asked Brynn if she liked it - she grabbed it and nestled it right up to her face. We had an instant winner! Then when we got home she modeled it for her dad. Needless to say she was pretty wiped out after all that shopping and crashed in the pack and play at my parent's later that day :-)

Brynn had another check up yesterday at the doctor's and it was a good one. Things with her heart are holding status quo and they're still just monitoring things. That is the best news we can hear right now. No news is good news if you know what I mean. She also weighed in at a whooping 14lbs! Not bad for almost 9 months!

More to update soon - but Brynn is crying and I have a feeling it's because Big Brother is about to come on and we have on the wrong channel. Hope everyone is having a good week and looking forward to catching up :-)

Planning our next move - " Operation Give Brynn a Sibling"

Well, we're full steam ahead with the plans for our friend M and our gestational carrier cycle. I'm thinking we'll call it "Give Brynn a sibling Operation 101 - Top Secret Ops!" Well, okay not so top secret since I'm detailing it here, LOL! M got all of the paperwork from our RE over the last few days and some areas are a bit fuzzy. Since the whole surrogacy thing here in MI is not possible I think we're going to bypass the few things that are covered by insurance such as HIV and STD testing and just pay out of pocket as not to raise any flags. I just got off the phone with my OB's office and set up an appointment the first week of August in a few weeks to go over things with him as to our plans. Basically my OB delivered M's kids but she has since transfered to an OB closer to her house. After discussing things it seems like we would deliver numero two (aka operation 101 Top secret Ops) through my OB once again for several reasons. My OB knows of our plan to do a gestational carrier pregnancy - but I just want to solidify plans with him and make sure we're all on the same page. That will be dealt with at the appointment in a couple of weeks. If M would rather deliver through her current OB I'm totally cool with that. Anything to make things easier for her since she is already doing so much for us. But at the moment delivering through mine is the plan. There are a lot of positives and negatives to this plan - but I definitely think the positives outweigh the negatives at the moment. More thoughts on that later. Basically - my OB works where I work and delivers with the people I work with. Enough said - privacy can only be kept to a certain extent when that is the case. However - on a positive note....the care I got while on bedrest and in the hospital those last few months was phenominal. It's like being taken care of by friends...enough said once again, LOL!

Normally our insurances would cover some of the testing such as the HIV screen and STD testing of all partners as said. The rest is all out of pocket such as the meds, ultrasouds, mock transfer and transfer itself. That being said - I believe we'll just do all out of pocket to make things easier as far as the hopefully once we get pregnant part. Aug 4th is my appointment to discuss things in further depth with my OB (if I don't get a chance to at work first). Then two days later on Aug 6th M and possibly her husband also will do their lab work and screening as well as meeing with my beloved RE. At that time I'm hoping he'll go through all the med cycle and mock transfer with M - all of which I've told her already. But to hear it from the doc is always nice. Hubby and I will get our lab work drawn also at that time. Then it's full steam ahead. I'm thinking maybe sometime this fall? All will depend on M and what she wants to do of course.

Part of me is so excited to begin this next process. But part of me is so worried all at the same time. We are thawing three embryos. What if we do the meds and cycle and put M through all the ultrasounds and none of the embryos survive? What if all survive - should we transfer all three? What if we even transfer two and both take in M's great uterus? What if she ends up on bedrest? What if they take and M has a miscarriage and has to undergo a D & C just because of us? She is so wonderful and says this is all do-able....but I feel like she is being such an amazing person. I just want everything to go so smoothly for her and her family. She is a God send literally. I just want nothing but the best for her and worry if anything goes anyway but picture perfect. I know most pregnancies are just fine. But because ours was anything but, I worry for her...you know? She has a great record with three perfect pregnancies so things should be good...but you never know. She is like a sister to me and I just worry because that's in my nature....worry wart Sara.

Birthday parties

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This past weekend was birthday party central weekend. On Friday night my husband and I went out for my birthday since it was one of the only nights that we would have a sitter. My friend's younger sister came over to sit and we had dinner and did some shopping. I found a good deal at Banana Republic on a sweater for only 12 dollars! Neela our doggie spent the evening relaxing with our sitter in her normal nonstress doggy style evening.
On Saturday morning we woke up and took Neela to the doggie groomer for a haircut because as you can tell in the photos she had gotten very long and scruffy. It's a little drive away, about 40 minutes. But it's well worth it because it's hard to get a groomer who is used to cutting a Bolognese dog like her. All other groomers cut her like a poodle instead of more similar to a Bichon so we do the drive every so many weeks. Plus she seems to like them, so it's worth it for our furbaby. Saturday afternoon we went to the birthday party for my friend's son who turned four. Her aunt and uncle made some great Mexican food (most of the family is from Mexico) and so my tummy went home happy. It was pretty warm out and so we gave Brynn a few extra bottles since she was looking a little sunned out if you know what I mean. At night we put Brynn in the normal bathtub for her first big girl bath in the beach bath chair we had gotten for one of our showers months ago. I think she really likes it. We all ended up really wet, but we got a lot of good smiles out of the deal!

Sunday my husband brought up Brynn's Mustang car which she seems to absolutely love. I swear this child has more toys than we have room for. She honks the horn and it "Beep, beep beeps!" She squeals in delight and it cracks me up. Later that morning we went house shopping and although finding a few that caught our eye, I still don't think we're quite ready yet to make that next jump. That is a whole another post for a different day. Then Sunday afternoon we went down to my mom's for a birthday party for my day and myself with my side of the family. We had pizza, cake and ice cream and my sister's kid's ran around like wild horses. It's so funny that just a year ago this weekend we were 19 weeks pregnant with Brynn and had just found out she was a little girl. Now we're marching towards number two and it's making my head spin. I have so many worries, but most of all I'm just excited and have been happier than I have in the months past.

Tonight I'm planning on getting caught up with the first two episodes of Big Brother. I don't think I have a favorite character yet. How about you? Candy...come on now...spill the beans!

At the moment I'm drying the cover to my Graco high chair that Brynn decided to projectile vomit on this morning. It's the first time I've had to washing machine wash it so we'll see how it goes. For dinner I think I'll do some Spicy Thai peanut bake pork chops and some rice. Hopefully in the evening we'll be able to squeeze in a walk or so. The weather has been gorgeous here lately and with Michigan I know you have to soak up every last minute of it. Only 3 more weeks to our appointment with M and the RE to begin our frozen embryo cycle. YIKES!

Appointment results, so sorry so late!

I am so sorry for the late update - computer problems have been the name of the game at our house this past week. Our laptop that was broken and then fixed by my husband is now again on the fritz. So it's taken a few days for the update - I'm so sorry. Monday came and went and we had our appointment with our RE. I dropped off Brynn at my mom's in the afternoon and met my husband at the office. Basically it was an informational meeting but it was so nice again to see the wonderful staff how helped us achieve our dream of becoming parents to our little girl Brynn. We brought pictures and the staff was so happy to see some updated versions of the little one that they had known as a three celled "aggressive embryo" as they had called her. She had been the slowest growing and at the end grew the fastest which is why we transfered her versus the other embryos. Funny how things work out. We discussed our wishes with my favorite RE and he completely supports us in our choice to use a gestational carrier. He had already talked with my OB and peri and they are on the same page. Basically we have an appointment the first week of August with my friend M and possibly her husband along with the RE to discuss the process. At that time we might do some mandatory blood work screening, or if not we'll do it sometime around that date. They basically treat the transfer of embryos like the transfer of any other foreign tissue so all four of us have to do the screening for HIV, STD's etc that my husband and I had to do for our IVF cycle with Brynn. After that it would basically take 2 months to do the transfer. After coordinating with M's cycle, she would start on a downregulation phase of Lupron shots for a few days and then medication to thicken her lining. At the time of the transfer all three of embryos would be thawed.

Of the three embryos thawed each stand around a 50% chance of surviving thaw. Depending on how many survive and how many we transfer each based on our history have about a 50% chance of implanting post transfer. M would take progesterone - probably Endome.trin like I have used with our cycle with Brynn as supplemental support post transfer. So where do we go from here? Well....we have an appointment for August 6th in the afternoon with at least M and myself and the RE. To say I'm excited would be the understatment of the century. We went shopping today and had a great time and firmed up some dates for appointments. Did I forget to mention I bought a cute pair of shoes also? Yup I do, LOL!

This all seems so surreal. I just can't believe that in a few short months we might be in the middle of a frozen embryo transfer. We have been blessed beyond our wildest dreams to have this opprotunity at our fingertips, and it is not one I will ever take for granted.

Exciting week for us all, eight months

This week had me so excited that I could barely sleep last night. We had a great fourth of July and I hope you all had the same. Today at 2:00ish we meet with my RE for our surrogacy consult appointment with my good friend M. I can't but help feel that we're opening a whole new door towards the next step in our lives as our family. It's almost like we're starting the next step to complete the dream I've held towards completing our family that I've envisioned since I was a little girl. There is nothing I want more than to give our little girl Brynn a brother or sister to call her own. And since I know that this is not possible with us by ourselves, I can't wait to start the journey with my best friend. Then Wednesday Brynn has another EKG and pediatrician appointment. She turns 8 months this week and I'm proud to say she was 13lbs 4 oz. Beefcake! Gaining slowly, but gaining is key. No blueness over the last few days and she's eaten like a champ. So proud of our girl and I'll update later after our appointment!