Introducing...

one beautiful baby girl at 7 weeks, 1day gestation (lovingly referred to as Miss Thang #2). <3

My awesome IM flew in to Charlotte on Sunday.  We had a wonderful time catching up with each other.  Gosh, I wish we lived closer.  She is so cool and I swear that I could chat with her forever.  I am a very lucky gal to be matched with someone that I like so much. :)

We woke up bright and early yesterday to get ready for the ultrasound.  We made a quick pit stop at Starbucks and then headed over to the OB.  Our first appointment was for the ultrasound and that is where we learned that there is a perfect little gal growing inside me.  She has a heart rate of 145 and her measurements were exactly where they should be.  Yay!!  There was a second sac but it was empty.  I have to go back for a repeat ultrasound on 8/2 (my birthday) so that the OB can check on the empty sac.  They want to make sure that it doesn't affect the baby's development.  Hopefully, the sac will simply absorb and everything will be right on track.  Isn't she the cutest blob you have every seen? lol

BTW, we have an awesome OB practice.  They are so great about being thorough with everything that they do.  Their genuine interest in us and the way that they try to get to know us on a personal level is comforting. I know that they will provide the best care for us.  It's so amazing to find doctors/nurses that will spend a lot of time answering questions and not rush us through appointments.  Our sonographer spent a good amount of time doing the ultrasound and explaining everything on the screen.  She used to work in a high risk clinic and she is extremely versed on interpreting ultrasounds.  We saw a nice CNM for our first prenatal appointment and she spent 45 minutes chatting with us and checking me out.  I feel really good about this practice and I can't wait to meet all of the OBs.  They do not allow anyone to claim a particular doctor so we will eventually see and meet everyone there.  I expect that they will all be knowledgeable and nice to work with. 

Upcoming Ultrasound

I have been crazy busy over the past few weeks so I haven't had much time to update.  I tend to post on Facebook more than my blog, especially when I am away from my laptop.  Anyway, the ultrasound is set for Monday at 8am.  After that, I have my first OB appointment.  My wonderful IM is going to fly into Charlotte tomorrow and stay the night with us so that she can go to the appointments with me.  I can't wait!!  I will update you all as soon as I get back to my computer.  Hopefully, I will have a photo to post too.  What do you guess that we will see, one girl or two girlies??  My guess is one healthy baby girl.  I personally think that the overachiever embryo ate her sister for lunch, lol.

Here's a recap of the beta (hcg) tests:

296------10dp6dt (or 16dpo)

684------12dp6dt (or 18dpo)

5967-----19dp6dt (or 25dpo)

28,871---26dp6dt (or 32dpo)

Abbreviations:

dp=days past

dt=day transfer

dpo=days past ovulation (I did not ovulate since this was IVF and the babies were not created using my own eggs, but a dpo equivalent can be determined as if this were a natural pregnancy by adding the number of days past transfer to the age of the embryos)

Baseball Boys (6/9/12)

Emerson and Hayden with their CCYA trophies

Hayden's team won the championship for the 9-10 league

Hayden holding the championship trophy :)

The boys both made it to the championships.  Emerson's team lost.  He did great though and he didn't seem to care if he won or not.  He learned so much this past season and I can't wait to see him play again in fall.  Hayden's team won and the last game was exciting.  The other team put up a decent fight so it wasn't an easy win.  I am proud of Hayden for playing so well during the game.  He has improved so much over the season.    Both boys are excited to play again in fall and I can't wait to cheer them on again.  Bring on the ball games!

4th of July

I hope you all had a wonderful 4th of July this year. We sure did! We had a yummy lunch at home with grilled steaks, Maui scalloped potatoes, fresh corn on the cob, and a patriotic summer berry cake (recipe can be found here). The cake turned out to be really good, but the icing took forever to get onto the cake using the method shown.  It is really easy to do, just time consuming.  After lunch, Clayton went golfing and then we all headed out to a Kannapolis Intimidators baseball game that night.  The home team won against the Greensboro Grasshoppers (whoo hoo!) and then fireworks immediately followed after the game.

Positively

So, I have been getting faint positives since yesterday morning.  I waited until today to take a digital because my hcg was too low to see the beautiful word "pregnant" yesterday.  Awesome, huh?  My IPs are thrilled beyond words and I am so happy for them.  We have blood tests on 7/3 and 7/5 to determine my actual hcg numbers (beta tests) and then an ultrasound will be scheduled around 2 weeks after to determine if one or both girls hung around.  Please pray for one girl as twins is not really ideal.  They are really hoping for a singleton pregnancy and so am I.  

2 Beautiful Little Girls

These are the 2 embryos that I am currently carrying for my wonderful IPs.  #2 is a total over-achiever.  I know most of you don't know anything about IVF but let me tell you, this particular embryo is spectacular.  She looks a lot larger than her sister because she has advanced to the next stage of bursting out of her shell.  #1 is a great embryo too but she hadn't broken out yet as of transfer this past Saturday.  These girls are 6.5 day embryos which is fabulous.  Most IVFers pray for 5 dayers because that is what is known as blast stage.  If they can get to that point, they are usually very strong and healthy.  My IPs couldn't have asked for better odds as these girls exceeded the 5 day mark and grew exponentially before transfer.  Please pray for my IPs as I hope to be carrying at least one of these girls for the long haul.

BTW, these girls were created back in July 2008 so they have been frozen for almost 4 years.  It was amazing that they both survived the thaw and then continued to thrive afterward.  They are tough little cookies! :)

Waiting for Embryo Transfer in CA

Hey guys, here's a quick update on my latest surrogacy journey.  They are going to thaw the last 2 embryos that my IPs have today.  Both are little girls and we hope that they make the thaw.  It's all so nerve-wracking!  Our transfer is set at 10am Pacific time so that is 1pm to all my southern friends/family.  I would greatly appreciate it if you would please say a quick prayer for my IPs and the procedure.  They want nothing more than to have a sibling for their daughter.

I changed my ticker above to reflect a pregnancy because that is what I will be considered until a blood test could prove otherwise.  If you are wondering how I am 2 weeks and 6 days pregnant before I even have the embryos transferred into me, here is an explanation:


In a normal cycle, you don't ovulate until around day 14 (2 weeks after you start day 1 of your period) and that is when conception occurs. By the time that you know that you are pregnant, you most likely just missed day 1 of your next cycle (about 2 weeks after conception). That makes you 4 weeks and 1 day pregnant even though you really only conceived 2 weeks and a day before your missed period. Due to never knowing exactly when conception occured because everyone's period lengths are different, the due date is always calculated from the 1st day of your last period. With IVF, we know exactly when conception occured but it still has to be calculated with the addition of 14 days before the egg retrieval.  These embryos were frozen at 6 days old so you add the 6 days to the initial first 2 weeks.  Clear as mud, right? LOL 

Our Home

I never got around to posting a photo of our house after it was completed.  Our sod is coming in rather nicely.  The back is a different story.  It is seeded and taking forever to grow in.  I miss having underground irrigation like we had in CO.  I can't stand seeing the hoses and tripping over them is a pain.  Maybe we will sod the back and put in a sprinkler system?  I have no idea.

We live on a corner lot at one of our neighborhood's entrances.  Because of that, we have a rock wall and nice landscaping flanking our front corner and side of our house.  I love it!

My Boys

I love these two guys so much!  They are turning out to be such cool people.  When they aren't arguing, they are the neatest things since sliced bread.  They have totally different personalities and look nothing alike (H favors me and E looks like Clayton).  I often wonder how they can both be mine but I am sure glad that they are. <3

Hayden (9) & Emerson (7)

Proud Mom

I don't have any new pics to post but I do have some good news.  Both of my boys are going to the championship game this weekend!  Emerson's team will be playing the Red Sox (7-8 coach pitch league) in the morning and Hayden's team will be playing the Red Sox (9-10 kid pitch league) just before noon.  I think it is weird that both boys are playing teams with the same name but what's even weirder is that there is a kid who plays on both Red Sox teams (you can play up an age bracket if you are good enough).  Heck, now that I think about it, we have a kid on both of my boys' teams that does the same thing so he will be in both games also.  Crazy.  I hope we have a fun day of baseball on Saturday.  I am kind of bummed that the season is almost over.  My kids plan to play Fall ball so I guess we will return to the fields sometime after school starts.  I look forward to it!

Hayden sliding into home (unfortunately, he got tagged just before his feet touched the plate)

Hayden just before hitting the ball (that pitcher was striking out our best players and Hayden managed to hit it)

Big E at the bat

Emerson throwing the bat down to run (and yes, they were playing the Marlins but that isn't Hayden's team)

The Boys

Hayden (9) & Emerson (7)-I wish I had fixed their collars but oh well.

I hadn't taken a photo of the boys together in forever so I decided to yesterday.  They had just gotten haircuts.  They were impossible!  If one was looking at me, the other wasn't.  It was like dealing with toddlers.  Anyway, I managed to get a couple okay ones.  Notice how they are starting to look about the same age?  They are practically the same height now.  Emerson is a little wider than Hayden (who is skinny as a broom) and has a bigger head.  You would think that he was the older one just by looking at their physical appearances.  

Emerson just lost one of his top teeth last week.  We were at the dentist for a cleaning and the hygienist barely tugged on it.  It fell out without him even knowing, lol.  So far, he is yet to pull any of his own teeth.  The dentist has removed his first 3 for him.    

Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day

I have a serious love for baking breads.  It took me a long time to figure out how to be a decent baker.  Well, if I had started with this method, I would have been a master baker from the age of 14.  The amazing book is Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë François.  If you google it, you can find a ton of blogs out there referring to it because everyone is amazed at how easy the method is.  I made the above bread using the master boule recipe.  It yields a sourdough-like bread with a crispy crust.  It is so good! 

Here's the link to the tutorial that will blow your mind: Master Boule Recipe

Hot Cross Buns

For Easter, I decided to make traditional Hot Cross Buns.  I had never had one before.  I can't believe how good they are!!  They are spicy, orange-y goodness.  One thing I will do different next time is to add a thicker "cross" of icing across the top.  I didn't have the correct tip size so I used a smaller one than the one called for in the recipe.  Believe me, the more icing, the better!  Also, I didn't use currants because I couldn't find any at Super Target.  Try this awesome recipe. I promise that is great.  I will be making these every year for Easter from now on.

Recipe from Brown Eyed Baker: Hot Cross Buns

Monster High Cake

I made this cake for friend's daughter a few weeks ago.  I spent hours making the colorflow decoration on top. I thought it would be easy to make, but I was wrong, lol.  The image was transferred to a piece of wax paper, outlined with thick colorflow icing, and then filled in with thin colorflow icing.  Because I worried about the black background icing bleeding through the decoration, I used mini marshmallows to prop it up.  One big lesson I learned, you CANNOT use hot water to smooth colored icing for the background of a cake.  It streaks the color and gives it a marbleized look.  That's a good thing to know for future reference.

A Flour Tortilla Tip

I saw this idea on Pinterest so I cannot take credit for this tip of sheer genius.  It is so good that I thought it was worthy of posting on my blog.  

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Lay out 6 flour tortillas and brush a thin layer of oil (your choice) on both sides of each tortilla.  I have read that you can use spray oil to do this if you are particularly lazy.  Take tortillas and lay in between the wire racks in your oven.  Bake 7-10 minutes, or until crispy.

I used 2 different sizes of tortillas

Junior's Original Cheesecake

I added cherry pie filling on top.  Yum!

I haven't made a homemade cheesecake in forever.  I picked up a 6 pack of cream cheese from BJ's and decided to give it a go.  This endeavor meant that I had to go buy a spring-form pan so off to AC Moore I went.  I ended up with a 10" pan but most recipes are for 8" or 9" pans.  It took me a while, but I figured out how to convert the recipe for a larger pan.  My mom bought me the Junior's Cheesecake cookbook a while back so I figured it was time to try it out.  I made their original basic cheesecake.  What's different about Junior's cheesecake is that bottom layer of spongecake.  It has a lemony taste and is oh-so-good!  It was way better than graham crackers.  This cake was seriously to die for so try it if you feel inclined.  I found the recipe online for your guys.  It is labor intensive but well worth it!

Juniors Famous Cheesecake

Naked cheesecake, lol

Wilton Advanced Gumpaste Flowers-Class 4

Stargazer Lily

Sweet Pea 

I forgot to post these on here.  Better late than never, right?  The sweet pea was posted to my blog earlier but I didn't do the shading/coloring to it until the last class.  Aren't these flowers cool?  The flowers are completely edible but I would never recommend eating gumpaste.  It's rather blah.

Conflicted

My boys gave me a Wolfpack tag for the front of my car for Mother's Day.  In NC, we do not have license tags on the front so we can have vanity tags.  I don't want them to know it, but I am a bit distraught over their gift.  Yes, it was super sweet but I am not quite ready to remove my Colorado plate from the front of my car.  It's the only piece of my life that is still connected to our previous home and I am not ready to remove it just yet.  I am a sentimentalist, I can't help it.  It was sweet of my boys to think of me though.

Speaking of Mother's Day, I was thoroughly disappointed.  No plans were made.  I got a $200 gift card to an awesome spa (albeit it is 45 away) and a pricey dress that I made Clayton send back.  All I wanted was to be taken to breakfast/brunch and for us to do something fun together.  Was that too much to ask?  Gifts are great, but I choose experiences over gifts from him.  Sigh...  Sorry to sound like a complainer but dang.  I know I have addressed this before to my husband.  I treated him to an awesome Father's Day a couple of years ago with a surprise weekend that involved a hotel, golf at a prestigious course, great meals and beer.  It turned out that he enjoyed it but he would have preferred actual gifts.  Ugh...  After all that planning and fun we had, he would have been happier if I had bought him crap to open.  This past year, I bought him "stuff" instead.  We are totally different on this and we had acknowledged that, or so I had thought.  

I am getting ready to chop all this hair off.  It is so long now!

A Pain In My Butt (Literally!)

4 different types of syringes (from top to bottom):

1) Lupron-injected subcutaneously in the tummy area to shut down ovary production so that my body doesn't ovulate (my eggs are unneeded) 

2) Progesterone in oil-injected intramuscularly in the rear to make my body think it is pregnant as progesterone is the pregnancy hormone

3) Delestrogen-injected intramuscularly in the rear to boost estrogen, which makes the uterine lining nice and fluffy for the embryo

4) Lovenox-injected subcutaneously in the tummy to prevent blood clots by thinning the blood

In addition to all those injections, I have to take a bunch of other oral meds.  It's crazy how many meds it takes to trick my body into thinking that it pregnant.  Without these meds, my body would reject the embryo as a foreign object.  Regardless of what an ordeal all the medications are, it is well worth it to help bring a child into the world for my awesome IPs.  We are transferring their last two embryos (both are girls) on 6/23 in San Francisco.  They are frozen so this will be referred to as a FET which stands for "frozen embryo transfer".  Wish us luck!!

My meds arrived this past Saturday-5/19/12

My Marlin Man

Hayden's team is currently undefeated in the 9/10 kid-pitch league.  He is one of their least experienced players.  The other kids have been doing this forever and they are really good.  He has learned a lot over the past couple of the months and is finally getting over his fear of the ball.  I am thankful that he is on a team with several wonderful coaches.  Without them, I think he would have gave up after the first couple of practices.  We have had to keep telling him that it takes time to learn how to play.  When he would get frustrated, it was hard to build his confidence.  He is now getting better and loves the game.  I am going to be as sad as the kids are when baseball season ends in early June.

Hayden has hit a couple of balls over the past few games and scored some runs.  Due to his recent improvement, he has earned 2 game balls.  We couldn't be prouder!!    

Listening to one of his coaches

BTW, I didn't get good pics of Hayden on this day but I will try again.

My "Little" Giant

Emerson earned the game ball 5/12/12

Baseball season is in full swing here and I love being a baseball mama.  Emerson plays for the Giants in the 7-8 division (coach pitch) and Hayden plays for the Marlins in the 9-10 division (kid pitch).  Both teams are doing fabulous.  E's team is 7-1 and H's is 8-0.  This post is for Emerson but I will post one about Hayden next. 

E started off rather slow thanks to never having played real baseball.  He played tee ball 2 years ago in a joke of a league back in Colorado but he gained nothing from that experience.  Clayton has never thrown a ball at him so he was clueless when the practices started back in March.  It took him a while, but now he can hit the ball and catch it.  He made doubles in the past two games and helped bring in several runners.  He's scored a couple of runs himself too.  I am so proud!  Last weekend, he earned the game ball by helping lead his team to victory.  I fortunately had my camera with me (it was the first time I took it with me to the ball fields) so I was able to capture his sweet moment.

If you look closely, you can see his surprised face when he was presented with the game ball.  How cute is that?!

I know, I know...

Life has been moving so quickly lately.  I  haven't felt like blogging at all lately.  I have been working on tons of projects around the house.  Between that, Spring break, baseball practices and games x 2, and Easter, I just haven't been able to keep up with anything.  Thankfully, things are slowly getting more organized and I find myself being less stressed out.

Surrogate journey #3 is officially in full swing.  We signed the contracts last week and now the lawyer crap is over.  I fly out to San Francisco on 5/9 for my consult appointment with the RE (reproductive endocrinologist). I will leave early that morning and come back on a red eye flight.  My awesome IPs (intended parents) bought me a first class ticket for the return flight so hopefully I will be comfortable enough to sleep.  Aren't they great?!  As long as everything goes smoothly at the appt., we will likely schedule the tentative transfer date.  My guess is that it will be in late June, which happens to be around the same time we transferred their first baby (7/6/08). Their birthdays will be really close.  Anyway, I can't wait to start injections and get this party started!

Kitchen Backsplash

I have been going crazy trying to find the perfect tile for our kitchen.  So far, this is the closest that I have gotten.  I love how the colors blend with the granite.  The cracked glass tiles are really pretty too.  I would love to have a little more shine though.  I tend to lean toward iridescent tiles but I can't find anything that I love.  I may just be ordering these tiles soon and be done with this.  I am sick of getting grease and food spatters on my wall, lol.  

You can see how it ties the stainless appliances with the granite and the black cabinets in this photo.

Advanced Gumpaste Class with Wilton

Briar Rose

Over the past 3 weeks, I have been learning how to make numerous flowers out of gumpaste (sort of like fondant but dries quickly). I am glad that I have had this experience but I don't really see me doing these kinds of flowers all too often.  They are a little tedious and it would take a million to decorate an entire cake.  I prefer piping icing to molding fondant/gumpaste but I can at least do it for a client now if it is requested.  Next up is to finish a big Stargazer Lily in class.  It's going to be so pretty.  I will post it here when I finish it. :)

Gerbera Daisy

Sweet Pea

Gumpaste Flowers-Part 2

Stephanotis 

Ivy Leaves/Lily Leaf

Aunt Judy's Apple Pie

Apple pie doesn't get any better than this.  My Aunt Judy has been using this same recipe for as long as I can remember.  It is super easy and doesn't require a lot of spices.  If you make this, do yourself a favor and make your own pie crust.  Store-bought is not of the same caliber as homemade.  I have a really good recipe for pie crust that I posted on my blog a while back.  If you want simple step-by-step instruction on how to achieve this buttery, flaky, out-of-this-world pie crust, go check out Joy the Baker's blog post about it at: Pie Crust Tutorial

Recipe for the apple pie can be found here: Aunt Judy's Apple Pie

Chocolate Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Frosting

These cupcakes are ridiculously good.  Seriously, I kid you not.  The chocolate cake is perfect and the peanut butter frosting is oh-my-gosh.  It's the best stuff on the face of the planet.  I could eat a bowl of the frosting all by itself and be happy.  Trust me on this one.  Make these today.  You're welcome. ;)

Recipe can be found: http://allrecipes.com/personalrecipe/62417099/chocolate-peanut-butter-cupcakes/detail.aspx

Baked Doughnuts

These turned out pretty but they weren't the best recipe.  I am now going to scour the web to find a better way to make them.  The stupid thing is that I bought one of those special Wilton pans that shapes the doughnuts and yet I ended up cutting them out instead.  Oh well, live and learn.  

Valentine's Day-2/14/12

 

I was too lazy to do a fondue dinner this year so we opted for heart-shaped pizzas from Papa John's.

Hayden being silly (age 9)

Emerson being silly too (age 7)