Obsessions

Husband and I are obsessed. I am obsessed with baby bedding; he is obsessed with the floors. I have not been able to find bedding I like, and Husband is that rare male (at least in my world) who has an opinion on furnishings, beddings, china, clothes, etc. He has disliked every bedding set I've sent him. He found a set that he really likes. I like it ok. It's cute and isn't too stereotypically boyish. I was not completely sold on it because I was hoping to do a room that was meaningful to us and couldn't figure out how baby forest creatures were meaningful to us. However, I've accepted that neither the bedding nor the fabric I want exists right now, so we've compromised on the set he likes and we will personalize the room with pictures from some of our travels.

He has decided that he wants to make his own baseboards now. No white baseboards for him! He told me yesterday that he wanted to get some wood and mill it himself for the baseboards. OMG. Are you KIDDING me? We compromised on that as well and now he will use floorboards, which will look great with a little tweaking. And all it costs me is a visit from my mother and stepfather to help out LOL. He's made a lot of progress on the first room and hopes to have it finished next week. I'm just a tad concerned because we have two more rooms to do, one of which is the baby's room. I'm really proud of him for tackling this job but I'm trying to find that sweet spot between his perfectionism and my desire for the project to be done :-)

We're 22 weeks today. F felt the baby move for the first time on the outside, which was exciting to hear. She says he has hiccups quite a bit too. I had been thinking that we have 18 weeks to go, but she told me last week that since she never goes to 40 weeks, it's more like 16-17 weeks. Gulp! That's not far at all.

I have come out to work about the baby. It's been a little weird for me b/c my instinct is to run and hide, but I keep reminding myself that I need to make plans. I can't just disappear for 12 weeks with no notice. Everyone's reactions have been great, though. I was really worried about it b/c I know my coworkers and how weird they can be at times. So far, all the reactions have been overwhelmingly positive. A coworker explained it to me this way: "we love you and therefore we are simply just excited and happy for you." It's a good reminder for me to try to think better of people. Maybe they go home and say, "OMG. That is SO weird" but they haven't said it to me.

I also talked to HR yesterday and was happy to discover that they will allow me to use 6 weeks of sick leave, and I have enough vacation and bonus leave to make up the other 6 weeks, so I can take 12 weeks paid. I feel a bit guilty because almost none of my friends and family have been able to take more than 8 weeks paid or unpaid. It's a shameful commentary on the maternity leave policy is in this country. When I start feeling guilty, though, I remind myself that I've made a lot of sacrifices for this baby and that being able to have 12 paid weeks off is nice.

We've called the lawyer to start the PBO process, so hopefully that ball is rolling. I can't believe that it's time to start thinking about that. F told me that the pregnancy would fly by, but I didn't really believe her. It has though.

I've noticed that I've turned a corner in my thinking about the baby. I'm excited. I'm researching. I'm making plans. But I'm still knocking on wood and feeling panicky when I talk about it too much (I actually just deleted a sentence that I had written b/c I felt I might be jinxing things). But it's nice to finally be able to enjoy it a bit.

Signing and Notarizing

Today is a big day. First of all, it's Friday! Woo-hoo! And it's hot as hell here. It's supposed to be 99 degrees today. Yuck.

It's a big day because Husband and I are signing and notarizing the surrogacy contracts today. Then we will mail them to our GS for her and her husband to sign and notarize, and then we will be official! It's been around 9 months (isn't that auspicious) since we met her and definitely 9 months since we seriously started considering surrogacy, and it's great finally to be at this point. Now our next big hurdle will be making sure her uterus is as perfect as it was declared to be last year before she became pg with surro baby #1.

I finally got the results of my CD3 labs. Turns out I could have called the patient system for it. Too bad I didn't know that since I wasn't given a card with instructions! Oh well. Anyway, the results were pretty good. E2 was 19 and FSH was 7.3. My FSH is a bit higher than I would like, but I bet that the endo-covered right ovary has something to do with that since I've read that cutting away some of the ovary can reduce that ovary's functionality. But now I'm wondering what those 7 other cysts are. They clearly aren't estrogen-producing. Are they brand new endo cysts? Are they cysts that are in the process of resolving? Guess I shouldn't worry about it too much.

My friend K with the newborn returns to work on June 16 after only a 6-week maternity leave. She works for a small company and is ineligible for FMLA. She has 3 weeks of paid leave via sick/vacation days and 3 weeks of unpaid leave. I feel bad for her. I had diligently saved my sick leave in order to have my 12 weeks of FMLA paid, but that was before I knew about our IF. I suspect that surrogacy will be treated like adoption here, so I'm eligible for 6 weeks of paid leave via my sick leave and the other 6 weeks will be either unpaid or paid via vacation days. It sucks because here I am with all this sick leave I won't be able to use for my own maternity leave, and many of my friends barely get any maternity leave and have to return to work after so little time. I hate how maternity leave is handled in this country.

I'm starting to worry about jinxing myself. Ladies, I'm a worrier, and I often worry about silly things. I'm so excited that we are making progress finally, and I've updated friends and family who are in the know about the latest developments. Now, however, I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. I'm waiting for her uterus to be declared unsuitable. I'm waiting for the cycle not to work or for me to have a horrible cycle and not produce decent (or any) embryos. I'm trying to tell myself that 1) it's ok to have hope (really? me? hope?) and 2) it will be a relief just to be actively doing something because even if surrogacy doesn't work, we are journeying down our path.