I’m not even sure where to start……this last weekend was
AMAZING!
Perhaps I should start with the week BEFORE last week as
a good set up. The middle of November tends
to be a super busy week for our family.
My husband is in charge of a special event at our church and is gone
most of the week which isn’t too rough but being 29 weeks pregnant at the time AND
since Southern California decided that it STILL wanted to keep some remnants of
Summer with warmer temps, the week was pretty rough for me. My wonderful hubby did make sure to ask for Thursday
Nov 16 off since it was my 31st birthday. I got to sleep in, the boys and Daniel cleaned
the house while I napped and then Daniel took me out to Dinner and a movie, it
was a great day!
On a side note: I love number patterns! I like to say I have
Prime children because they were born on the 1st, 3rd and
5th of their months. A few
years ago, I started looking at my ages of big life events in the last decade
or so and found an awesome pattern, which will continue with the birth of sweet
baby girl in January….
Age 19 – Met Daniel
21- Married
23- Birth of my first son
25- Birth of my second son
27- Birth of my third son
29- Moved our family back from South Africa to the US and
arrived on my birthday
31- Birth of our sweet surrogate baby girl
Needless to say, it’s been a BUSY 12 years and I’ve loved
it all!
Ok back to my update.
By the time Tuesday Nov 21st arrived I almost begged Daniel
not to go and leave me alone again with the boys but I knew he just had to go
finish a few last items at work and then would be off for an entire week. And boy oh boy has it been an AMAZING,
restful week for our family!
On Thursday (Thanksgiving) we got to go visit our
wonderful family that only lives about 20 minutes away! They did all the
cooking and prep and all I had to do was bring the Hawaiian Rolls! I was SO grateful I didn’t have to turn on my
own oven that day because warm temps wasn’t enough for Southern California, they
decided they needed to really shine and have record high temps in the 90’s on
Thanksgiving Day! Seriously, SoCal? Seriously! The seven-month Prego would
REALLY appreciate it if you stopped showing off and just PRETENDED we were in
Fall! Anyway, we had a wonderful day with family, eating and chatting and
relaxing!
The next day began our AMAZING weekend away with Chad,
Stephanie (baby girl’s parents) and their 2 adorable boys. We packed up what seemed like enough stuff to
last us a week and headed 2 hours north to Oxnard. (anyone else notice how you
have to pack exponentially more stuff with the addition of each new child?) We were debating taking the inland freeways
or braving the coastal highway with lots of street lights. We finally decided that if we were going to
be stuck anywhere, we’d rather have the beautiful scenery of the coast to
watch. I haven’t driven much of the 1 Hwy.
but it was SO beautiful!
We didn’t hit too much traffic at all and made it to
the Channel Islands about 30 mins after Chad and Stephanie. We actually stayed at Stephine’s parent’s
home right on the water with its own dock and everything. It was BEAUTIFUL! I found myself incredibly
grateful that Chad and Stephanie also had two young boys and had placed a few
strategic sheets and blankets over some couches and benches. I always find I’m more relaxed when
vacationing with other young families cause we all just understand a little
more about kids and keeping them entertained and safe!
The first day there, Stephanie’s good friend from
childhood (who lived nearby) came by to visit with her 2 kids. Her little boy was right around the age of
all the others and we had 6 boys ranging from 20 months-age 7 running around
and playing so nicely together! She also brought her 4 month of baby girl who
mainly sat with us three mommies while we chatted and got to know each other
better!
It was such a nice relaxing afternoon! Around 4:30 we
loaded everyone into the cars and headed to the “Pirate Park” (as Luke named
it) around the corner and let the kiddos run out some energy. Then we headed over to Toppers Pizza for a delectable
dinner with 5 types of pizza! We said
goodbye to Stephanie’s friend after dinner and headed back to the house.
The boys were a little riled up from a day of travel and
settling in but once they all seemed happy in their beds, Daniel, Chad,
Stephanie and I sat down to what we all had been looking forward to the most….
Strategy Games! They taught us Qwirkle the first night and I must say I picked
it up pretty fast with a double Qwirkle and an eventual win…. I’m only SLIGHTLY
competitive!
The next day after breakfast, Gabriel was begging to try
out the kayaks on the dock. We got all
the boys fitted with life jackets and daniel took turns taking each of our boys
out for a little paddle. I walked inside
for a few minutes simply because it was SO hot on the dock I felt like I was
overheating. Next thing I know, Ethan
comes running up saying “Mom, Gabriel is in his own kayak, come see!”
I walked outside to see my 7-year-old out in his own kayak
after a 5-minute lesson with daddy. And
he was doing pretty well! Daniel was out in the other kayak close by and it was
just a little private harbor so not too much trouble to get into but I still had
to tell myself to stay calm! Ha-ha!\
After the kayaks, Chad brought out a toy racing boat his
boys had received from their uncle! All five boys and both daddies spent a good
hour outside playing with the boat on the water. It seems the biggest lesson for the boys to
learn was to watch the boat not the remote control when driving the boat!
All this time, Stephanie and I chatted and relaxed on the
couch! It was so calming! After the battery died on the race boat they
all came inside and we popped a Christmas movie on while we chatted about what
to do next. It was about 10:30 am and we
began chatting about a trek back to the park down the street and heading over
the sand dunes for some beach time. As
we talked we all kinda folded more and more into the comfy huge L-shaped couch
and eventually decided we should just plan something after the boys’ nap. Chad got quiet first at the end of the couch
followed by daniel and soon they were both snoozing. I scooted closer to Stephanie cause baby girl
started kicking and she got to feel her rolling around.
I had taken my next sewing project with me and enjoyed
just quilting while the beach house became a napping house. Later that afternoon we took the kids back to
the Pirate Park and got more wiggles out.
Then we came home when we all started shivering! Yes, you heard me right….
the fog blew in enough to even make the Prego lady shiver which felt SO nice after
months of sweating! We came home and Stephanie made us a spaghetti and meatball
dinner complete with hidden shredded vegetables which all the kids ate! We separated
to get all 5 boys through baths and showers and cleaned up for bed. We relaxed with a movie and then marched all
the boys up to bed!
Again, like little elves, the adults snuck downstairs to
try out more strategy games! This night we all learned Ticket to Ride for the
first time and LOVED it! Took us awhile to learn all the rules but once we got
the hang of it, we had a blast! Did I mention that the 5 lb. bag of peanut MnM’s
and 3 different types of Klondike bars only seemed to materialize after the
tiny humans were in bed? Coincidence? I think not!
We played another round of Qwirkle and then all headed to
bed a little earlier after a long day! We were laughing and joking all night
long and I found I was SO grateful again that the Lord had brought our families
together for this surrogacy adventure!
The next morning, we packed up and headed to Chad and
Stephanie’s church about an hour back towards home in Pacific Palisades. We so enjoyed worshipping with them and
meeting their friends! We all went to lunch afterwards with some frozen yogurt
to follow it all up! After all the tiny
humans were officially sugared up, we said our goodbyes, shared multiple hugs
and headed home.
It was a VERY quiet car ride home and luckily there wasn’t
any LA traffic and it was a pretty quick drive.
I fell asleep about 20 min before home but still felt exhausted when we
got there. I trudged up the stairs
telling Daniel “I don’t know if I will be able to fall back asleep.” He chuckled and said “I think you will be
fine falling back asleep.” Fast forward
2 hours later and Luke is standing by our bed asking “mommy when are you
getting up?” It took me a good 30 min to
fully wake up and roll (yes I ‘ve hit that point where the easiest way out of
bed is rolling) out of bed! Ha-ha!
Today (Monday) is Daniel’s normal day off and it has been
so necessary! We have been able to get all our ducks in a row and settle back
into normal life before work starts tomorrow! I also took the whole week of
Thanksgiving off from Homeschooling since we started Aug 1 and haven’t taken a
prolonged break yet. So tomorrow its
back to life! But we are SO grateful for the week we’ve had!
It was funny all weekend to see these five rambunctious boys
playing together and then we all would remember that baby girl will be here
before we know it! Which by chance is exactly 2 months from yesterday!
My last appointment went well and was very uneventful
(which is exactly the type of appointments you want at this point). The doctor checks my belly size and baby’s
heartbeat. We discuss any questions I might
have and that’s it! We’re now down to an
appointment every two weeks and will soon move to a weekly appointment as we
get closer!
Daniel’s mom has officially bought her plane ticket and
will be crossing the Atlantic from South Africa to help us in the last 3 weeks
and I couldn’t be more thrilled for her coming!
Other than that, I continue to hear about other surrogacy
journeys and I realize how much we HAVEN’T had to deal with and find I am
again, shocked not shocked as God has soaked every detail of this journey and
we have all trusted Him with each step and we continue to trust His Will no matter
what happens.
Thanks for following along!
