Sperm donor, anyone?

As if it's not enough that I cannot carry or create a biological child, my dh cannot either, unless we do IVF with ICSI. It's an option that we've seriously considered. It's so tempting to create a little baby with my husband's gorgeous red hair or attractive 6'7" frame. We want to create something together, not individually. We also are in love with M and cannot imagine doing a journey without her. I feel so confident that our journey will be filled with love, trust, and mutual compassion. I want her to create a baby for us, and no one else. So, we move forward. Dh doesn't want to have anything to do with the donor selection process. I hope that changes, but if not, we've agreed that are requirements include a solid educational background, tall (just for fun), and willing to be located by our child if our child chooses to one day.

This is tough. It's tough to absorb, I really can't believe we're both so broken.

We met

Saturday we had our big get-together with M and her family. We met at her local zoo and spent most of the day and then headed to Red Robin afterwards. It was very emotional meeting her, although I tried my best not to show my emotions. I found myself constantly watching her children, wondering which characteristics were genetic and which were the creation of their upbringing and environment. Of the genetic ones, I wondered which came from M and which came from her dh, R. The children were understandably excited and full of energy and the visit during the zoo didn't give us a lot of time to just chat as the kids were always saying "look at that", "look here", "did you see that?". We were able to talk a bit at dinner, but again, a lot of kids demanding attention leaves little time for adult talk. I'm glad that M and I have had so much opportunity to talk one-on-one before our meeting. Her dh is truly awesome. I really couldn't have imagined a better support system for our TS. He is not afraid to talk about surrogacy and apparently very open about it as he mentioned he was discussing the topic with the guys at work. Although he acts like a kid himself at times, he doesn't hesitate to take care of the kids and certainly doesn't leave all the hard work to her. I'm refreshed in knowing that she'll have him around during our pregnancy. Of course, I intend to be as involved as possible and I will be there to help during the final trimester when she's too exhausted and pregnant to handle the household responsibilities.

I truly anticipated that meeting her would make our 1 year wait until we start TTC so much easier. I had expected that I would feel a calm that everything was in place and now we just focus on spending the next year becoming closer friends until we are ready to TTC. Instead, I feel like everything is aligned exactly where it's supposed to be (except for the number of 0's in our bank account that are needed to fund this journey) and now that I know her, I want to start now.

This weekend has been an emotional rollercoaster. I've had many moments of breaking down in tears at the reality of everything. I seriously can't believe that we just drove 4 hours to meet someone who is going to make us a baby. I'm torn between the stark reality that we can't make our own baby and the fairytale that someone on earth is so loving and kind that she is willing to give all of her love to us so that we can experience parenthood. They are both equally emotional, equally humbling, and they challenge my mind to think far outside of its already liberal frame of reference.

I wonder how much of my intense emotions this weekend is that I am living a secret life. No one, except for 1 friend, knows about our plans for surrogacy. At this point we are far beyond just having a general plan to become parents through surrogacy, we have a real person with a real family who will become a part of our family in the near future. I can't believe I'm planning all of this without anyone in our family knowing. I'm so glad for the secret though, because on weekends like this when I'm full of emotion, I just can't imagine having to talk about our visit until I'm ready. I'm thankful I have this private knowledge that I don't have to justify to anyone. I also dream a lot about the moment that I get to introduce my mom to M, tell her that she is going to be a grandma, and explain to her that I've known M for well over a year and I trust her, adore her, and she's now a part of our family. I'm very blessed that our journey to parenthood will be bringing not only a baby into our lives but also another family that otherwise I would have never known. God is good.

The cold tub

My little brother moved out of my mom's house and purchased his first home last month. She hardly ever uses her hot tub and she asked dh & I if we wanted it. We had the electrical installed today and the hot tub is currently "heating up", the problem is that it can't really become a hot tub until we know if we're using dh's sperm or not. If our appointment in July is a success and dh's sperm has improved on the clomid, it will be another year of clomid treatment and life sans hot tub, which puts us in the interesting predicament to explain to everyone why our hot tub is actually a cold tub. For now, I've told my mom that due to my hot flashes we just want to keep the tub cooler during the summer months. This is very true, I cannot go in a hot tub during the hot months. I suppose we'll have to formulate another response when snow starts to fall, but we'll approach that when we can. It's amazing the little things in life that infertility screws up. We can't use our damn hot tub, what the hell?

In the meantime, I've fallen in love with a crib that we must have if we have a baby girl. It's $3,849.00. Yes, the decimals and commas are in the right place. It's gorgeous though. I have to find a way to have this crib, or something very similar. I'm actually wondering if I could have my guys at work make it for me. Here's the pic to drool over.

Special Delivery

M got the package I shipped to her and her kids. She said we won the kids over without even meeting them. And she followed that up with "You won me over a long time ago". I'm so glad we're so in love! She let each kid look at their travel bags but then everything was put away until their "mystery trip" next weekend. She has told them they are going somewhere but they don't know where yet. After the zoo we're going to Red Robin and the kid's have never been there before! I can't wait to take them, it's one of my favorite kid-friendly places to go! One week and 1 day!

Laid off

I work for a small business that is owned by my mom and her business partner. Business is slow, which is no surprise, and after several attempts to cut wages and reduce benefits it is still not enough. Myself, my mom, and her partner have all laid ourselves off. We will be able to collect unemployment and the company will save the cost of our salaries. We can pay our bills without my salary but we certainly cannot afford to save for our surrogacy journey which officially begins in 423 days, give or take a day or two.

The solution seems to be to begin looking for a job that I actually will get paid to go to work for. The problem is I can't seem to get myself to do so. I'm sick about the thought of leaving here. It was the plan (which was the first mistake) that I would work here and once the baby arrived I could work from home. I cannot contemplate the thought of leaving my child everyday. The job offers me the most amazing flexibility. Generally, I don't like my job and I'm overqualified for it, but I love what it offers to my future family which is the only reason I'm here. There is a great possibility that the salary reduction will not be enough and we will not have enough business to keep our doors open. That frightens me. This business has been going strong since 1925, we are well established and well known but so is Chrysler, and GM, and thousands of other businesses in the metro Detroit area that have closed their doors. For now, we're trying to adjust our budget to accommodate our new salaries and remain as optimistic as possible. I need this job, my sanity and future needs this job. So much of my ability to drag myself up from the floor of depression has been knowing what a wonderful lifestyle we have established for a baby. The salary loss came on the same day that we turned in our lease and purchased a brand new "family" car. My dh is 6'7" so any vehicle we buy has to be "big", but our new Ford Expedition is exceptionally big, it's the kind of big you only buy if you are pregnant, are planning to be soon, or have already been a dozen times before. We're planning a pregnancy soon and we bought the car to show it. I will pray for strength, peace, and understanding as I do believe that every roadblock is God's way to direct us to follow the path He intends for us. I believe that today, I hope I can continue that tomorrow.