May 13, 2008 10:42 A.M. Weight: 161.0 lbs.

The past few days I have had ample opportunity to consume copious amounts of not-so-healthy foods. I have not particularly avoided much. The motivation to do so has been lacking since I'm not too terribly out of sorts with my 160 weight. Not that I'm a waif or anything but I do have to admit from time to time that you can see my clavicle and my legs look dang good in their bike shorts. Hey - I could be a plus-size model! You know, it has always bugged me that plus sized models wear size 12s which are not, in fact, plus sized. Anyway, it started with Friday night's cookies and bars, went to Saturday's homemade pizza, granola bars, and chips, proceeded to Sunday's Mother's Day lunch at IHOP (blueberry stuffed french toast anyone?), and ended at yesterday's Old Country Buffet dinner with my Mother In Law. Now, really, yesterday I had salad with no dressing and sliced roast turkey and I was pretty well behaved when you don't consider the two desserts I grabbed to share with the kids. I was a little excited about our trip to OCB. It has a reputation for being the gathering place for the local plus-sized people. It makes sense, all you can eat buffet all the time. We like it because the buffet style suits impatient kids well and it also allows them to pick and choose crazy meals like Jessie last night. She had fish sticks, black olives, mushrooms, Jell-O, corn and carrots. No restaurant would put a meal like that on their menu. I was interested in noting that the clientele that particular night was not dominated by severely overweight people. It was also nice to be able to go to the buffet to get plate after plate of stuff for the kids without worrying that people are thinking disgusting thoughts about me and my own weight issues while I bring more and more food back to my table. All the same, by last night I was pretty sure I had overdone it enough. Still, I wouldn't have cared if I hadn't gotten that 161 today at the gym. THAT, friends, means it is time to stop celebrating… whatever… and eat right. Especially because for the run this weekend I'd like to get a good time (IE - anything at all under 50:20 if I just run the 5 miles) so I'm not going to be pushing it hard at the gym this week. I ran 3 miles yesterday, ellipted 30 minutes today, and I will be hitting the elliptical again tomorrow for the final workout before the run.

I hope that you all enjoyed and/or lived through Mother's Day. Back in 2003, the Mother's Day after Anily had died, I recall driving into work and they were talking about it being Mother's Day on the radio. I was still not pregnant again - in fact - I was not even having cycles to TRY to get pregnant yet at that time. There was this contest for who had the worst Mother's Day. Women were calling in describing how their terribly misled husbands were not only failing to plan anything special, but forcing them to interact with their children during what should've been their one day off. It turned into a whine fest of women about how much time they had to spend all day long with their wretched children. I wanted to vomit. I wanted to cry and scream and vomit. I figured though, that I was a shoe-in for the damn contest. *I* spent Mother's Day that year curled up on my bed hugging the teddy bear that was wearing the little outfit Anily had worn in the hospital to my chest sobbing pitifully for my little girl that was buried in a coffin the size of a bassinet - just wishing that my husband would've had the chance to be so unthoughtfull as to force me to actually spend time in the loving presence of my daughter. So I called up and entered myself into the contest and finished it off by saying I cannot believe the radio station would be so crass as to have a "Worst Mother's Day Ever" contest and even consider women who have all their children alive and healthy in the running. Oddly enough, they never aired my phone call. In fact, they stopped airing anything related to the contest at all. They didn't say who won they didn't talk about it they didn't apologize for being dumb or anything. It just vanished right off the airways. I was pissed off. I'm pretty sure I had deserved that spa day package they were giving away. (That was sarcasm, BTW, I don't even remember what the prize was.) Actually, I was a little irritated they didn't publicly apologize but all in all, at least they stopped it.

That was a long time ago. Now I have my hands full, that's for sure! I'll tell you though, I could have 20 kids (just call me Duggar) and I'd still miss Anily. Having other children doesn't change that grief. It does change the part where I worried about ever having more, or ever having a daughter. That's not the same. For my Mother's Day this year, the kids jumped into my bed in the morning and presented me with a necklace. It is a heart with a little opal (Oct birthstone - mine) at the top and 4 little hanging birthstones on the bottom. Ruby for Gavin, Amethyst for Anily, Opal for Jessie, and Emerald for Ash. Then my husband went downstairs to play on the computer and made me take care of the kids all day long. Actually, we all went out to Menards to visit with my Mother In Law who had to work that day and look at the different swing set options. We've been planning on using our tax refund to get a big swing set thing for our backyard. Then we went to IHOP and I ate what I'm pretty sure was a giant frosting and blueberry pie filling stuffed doughnut under the guise of "Stuffed French Toast". Then we went home for an extremely late nap for Asher. At this point I should've gone to the gym but I didn't. Instead, working under the self-righteous concept of it being Mother's Day and I don't have to go to the gym, I pretty much just loitered around the house doing laundry. Hey, what did YOU do this weekend?

About a month or so ago, my husband got me a Magellan GPS for my car. He did this on a whim because he was at Costco and it was on sale and he is like that. This, folks, is why we have separate checking accounts, but I digress. Anyway, this little purchase hardly rates as one of his more… um… exciting ones, and truth be told, if there is anyone on the planet that needs one of these suckers, it is me. I have no sense of direction. I once walked to a park a few blocks away from our house with Gavin when he was about 2 years old. We had just moved here but still - we walked to the park. I was being brave. On the way home, Gavin wanted to make a left turn around the block instead of a right turn and we had plenty of time so I figured, sure, we’ll check the neighborhood out. Um, well, fast forward a few hours and you will find a tired and frustrated me hailing down the nicest looking mommy in a mini-van to give my lost child and I a lift back to our house. I’m pretty sure she thought I was ‘special’ in some way and I’d have to agree. That is precisely how bad my sense of direction is. Honestly, it is a wonder that I manage to get anywhere in a car where the pure speed allows you to get so much MORE lost so much more quickly.

This GPS device talks to me. I talk back. It says things like ‘Make a left turn in 4.5 miles.’ or ‘Stay on the current road in 2.4 miles.’ (Apparently it doesn’t trust me to not spontaneously turn when it hasn’t told me to.) I say things like ‘You better be right this time.’ or ‘Sure, I’ll drive over the invisible bridge.’ See, the problem is that it doesn’t seem to know that the 35W bridge is gone. It also seems to think there is a Wells Fargo bank in the middle of nowhere. There is not. I’ve checked. I’ve checked because when I needed a bank it was ever so handy to have the points of interest button that I could use to ask it where the closest bank is. It routed my drive and told me how long it would take and I followed the instructions. Right into the middle of a run down area with absolutely no bank of any kind. At exactly the time I’m sitting in my car on the street wondering what I’m going to do now my GPS tells me, “You have arrived.” Yes, clearly, I have. Stupid little GPS woman.

Annoying errors aside, I have to admit that I have become dependent on this device. I will tell it when I am going anywhere - even places I know very well how to get to. I do this because it estimates my arrival time which I love. When I’m out biking or running, I find that I miss my robotic GPS companion. I think what I really need is a GPS watch. Then I could use it to set my running routes and it would tell me how far they are and I’d never have to get lost. Mostly though, when I get to the end of a long run, GPS woman would always be there to tell me, “You have arrived.” Now if only I could get a watch for my husband that says “What would your wife say about buying that?”

Weight:158

I have to admit, I was way too self absorbed in the gym this morning. Granted, that is really my time so I don't feel too badly about it but still. A woman that I see frequently in the gym was at the sinks drying her hair when I went up to finish getting ready. We said hi and she said "You've really lost a lot of weight recently, you've been doing a great job." This was very awesome to hear. Especially now when I really have NOT seen a lot of loss and I don't really hear that often. I thanked her and, always the MN woman well trained in proper compliment etiquette, I promptly told her how very wrong she was. "Oh no, recently it seems I have just not gone down at all!" She countered with a brilliant rebuttal "Still, even just maintaining for so long is great." I conceded this point to her and thanked her again. It wasn't until she had left that I realized that I should've returned the compliment to her. She is in GREAT shape. She always has been since I've seen her there but I know that she is very conscious of what she looks like. She said once that she just stopped eating for 3 days to lose weight because her doctor told her it would work. (I know, it sounded bad to me too, but the way she said it didn't sound like she was anorexic although what the hell do I know?) I should've TOLD her that I've always thought she was in great shape. A simple "Oh, I'd return the compliment but you've ALWAYS looked so amazing and slim so I don't think you have anything to lose." would've been nice. But no, like I said, too self absorbed apparently, to think of it while talking to her.

I have completed my 15 miles! Actually, I've run 16 miles on the treadmill this week and yesterday after work I came home early, got the double kid jogging/bike stroller, and jogged/walked to daycare to pick them up and then, of course, back home with them. I don't know how much real running I got in with that. It is SO HARD to run with a stroller! You've got to keep one arm holding onto it and you need to keep it going straight and well anyway, between the extra effort to just push it and the coordination involved in not falling over or running into the curb or potholes or other people while they gape at you for running with an empty giant stroller, it is more work. It was even more work when there were actually children in the stroller after I had gotten to the daycare house to get them. I doubt I had much running under my belt with that one but it DID take me about 30-35 minutes to get to the daycare house vs the 50ish minutes to get back with the kids in tow. Part of that was because I couldn't run on the way back because Gavin had no desire to run and he couldn't ride in the stroller. By the time we got home I was pulling him along. For how fit he seems, that kid needs more endurance! For this next week, I really have to decide if I am going to sign up for that 7 mile run on Sat. I have an appointment at 11, but there is still time to hit the run if I want to. If I do, I don't want to kill myself with 5 mile runs on Monday and Wednesday again. I know I'm all uber and everything, but today my run was hard and I could really feel that I'm ending out a high mile week. There was gasping and heavy breathing and quiet swearing involved (although that was more because the stupid "Team Weight Loss" group was counting out loud while they did jumping jacks and I HATE it when they do that and mess with my breathing rhythm. 1-2-1-2-1-14-2-15-1-2-16-FUCK, SHUT UP!) I'm leaning towards signing up and going ahead and doing it so chances are my runs next week will be minor. I'm thinking a 3 mile on Monday, a 1 mile on Tuesday and a 3 mile on Wednesday. That will give me Thursday and Friday to rest up. That will also still give me a 14 mile week with the 7 on Sat (assuming I don't, in fact DIE on Sat.) so that is decent I think. I don't expect my time to be very amazing or anything on Sat though if I do 7 miles because… 7 miles. In one run. Holy nipple band aids batman.

I have been noticing a problem now that the weather is getting nicer. My clothes don't fit. Almost all of my summer clothes are size 14-1X. I am still trying to build up my savings again after zapping through them very quickly purchasing new wardrobes from last summer and winter. The clothes that don't fit me are really pretty new themselves. I figured that I could just wear them anyway but I've been noticing that when I look at my reflection in the baggy clothes it is easier for me to visualize the bigger me. I know, I know, more whining about this post-traumatic-obesity disorder and all. I've already decided I'm going to have to suck it up and deal with it because I do not have the savings in place to get tons of new stuff now. Eventually, just not now. Hey, as long as they keep my office air conditioned to arctic regulations, I can still just wear my winter stuff anyway.

Weight: 160.0 lbs.

Well, it looks like we are in search of a new egg donor. When I say "we" I really just mean the guys because that's not something I get any say on. (Although, guys, if you want my advice, look for the ones with SMALL head circumferences!!) Oh, and preferably one that has eggs. We have now rounded 70 days with no period for the previous donor and rather than wait it out and wonder what this might mean for a successful harvest quantity/quality, we are looking for a new one. Don't ever let it be said that for two gay guys "all" they have to do for a family is surrogacy, that's for sure! They've had one disappointment/loss after another through this whole thing. I can't wait for them to have a family and to finally be parents after all of this.

With that news coming in last night, AND a production down issue on the floor around 9PM, it turned into a kinda late night. When I say "late" I mean, I went to sleep after the sun went down so it wasn't really that bad. I just was hoping to get to sleep by 9 because I've been so tired with the 10-5 routine lately. Then, this morning I wake up at 4 to hear a child calling me. I figure out it is Jessie because she's had a bad dream. I get her (and change her sheets and pjs because I'm blessed with a houseful of nighttime bladder control rebels) and bring her up to my bed in the hopes of getting about 30 minutes of sleep before the alarm goes off. Jessie keeps m-o-v-i-n-g in the bed and I keep saying "Jessica, for the love of Captain Feather Sword PUH-LEASE just go to sleep." Finally it is about 5 minutes before my alarm will go off and I'm dropping into sleep and my cell phone rings. I run to answer it before it sets off the other child in the crib and it is work again saying that they are still down. (Last night it had turned out that the server people were doing scheduled maintenance only they had neglected to tell our site that it was scheduled.) I'm pissy and tired and up for the day so I jump to with a HUGE case of "What in the hell are you trying to do to my production site" on my shoulder and call the support person in Arizona. Yes, it is 2 hours BEFORE 5AM there. Now, it might be good to point out that what I SHOULD have done was log into my work computer first and VERIFY that the production people were not just making things up. They do that, you know. They come to me and say "We can't work" and when I walk over there and WATCH them do what they say they can't do, they do it just fine. "Well, it didn't work before." riiiiight. But I was pissy and tired and evidently feeling vindictive so I called and woke up the very nice Arizona support person to pass along the news that they were down. She said that she would check on things and while she was doing that, I was logging in to verify that they were, in fact, as down as they said. Low and behold, the app came right up and was working just fine. Hehe, hehe, heh, um, oops. I called the production people and asked them to try it again and "Hey, it's working now, what did you do?!" Um, nothing. The Arizona support person calls me to inform me that everything on her end looks just fine and it all should've been up and running since about sometime last night. Yes, thank you very much everything seems fine sorry to have woken you up. Ah, today is gonna be AWESOME!

Jessie is, of course, totally awake after all of this and I get ready while she says she doesn't want me to go to work. I finally convince her to settle down when I offer to turn on Caillou or Peep for her so I can get, by now LATE, out the door to the gym. I have 5 miles to run this morning before work. At the gym, I try to get my stretching in while sitting on the bench in the locker room before the run. Someone has got her gym bag the size of Texas sitting on the bench. PEOPLE - your BAG can sit on the FLOOR. Please remember this. Your bag LIKES the floor. So after I deliver a precise and powerful ninja kick to send the bag flying over the lockers and land wedged ever so gracefully atop the bathroom stall door, I use the tiny unoccupied corner of the bench to get some stretches in. My run actually goes rather well. Slower than the other times at 51 minutes for the 5 miles but I also didn't feel all drained from it. Then I do an abbreviated stretching routine while walking back to the locker room. Where I weigh in at 160 again. But hey, look, the sun is up and it is a beautiful day for me to drive into work now.

Ah-choo! Oh, sorry, I don't think the fancy drug samples I got from the allergist are working. I'll give them a little while - maybe they need to build up in your system. You know... like nicotine or crack. I've got a giant bag full of little packets with one pill in each packet. You are supposed to take one each night just before going to sleep and they last all day. I woke up this morning sneezy and itchy and yuck. Before I get too far into this, I'd like to point out that I was actually kinda impressed with my visit. It didn't help me much, but it told me what I wanted to know and the allergist seemed very eager to help me out. A little too eager, actually. Have you ever noticed that often, your doctor has a different goal out of your appointment than you do? I have three examples to share.

1) I went to a dermatologist to find out if there was anything I could do (ie laser skin treatments covered by my insurance) to get rid of the red rosacea on my face. It isn't bad but it can be if I get warm or, ya know, drunk. There is nothing better than having a 'This one is sloshed' signal right there on my face. He answered my question right away about the laser treatments - not gonna happen under insurance. He also told me it was probably not going to get a whole lot worse which was my other question. At that point, I was done. Ready to go home and get drunk and read about interesting new ways to serve kid-friendly tofu. My doctor, however, was just getting started. He was handing out sample skin creams and talking about ways to reduce the chances of my face getting redder (something about not drinking) and making a regular set of appointments for me to come in and chat about how well the lotions were working. He was ready to find ways to fix the problem while I was just interested in more information - I was managing to deal with the issue on my own otherwise, thank you very much.

2) I saw a sports medicine doc about my knees hurting from running. I wanted to know if I was permanently damaging them or not. Would they get better if I kept training or would they get worse? He answered that right away. From the X-rays, he could tell me I was not permanently damaging them and that I just needed to build up the muscles around there. Ok, awesome. Thanks doc! But alas, he was just getting started. Braces, taping, lining up therapy sessions... everything. I have to admit, some of it did help. Ultimately though, he was interested in FIXING the problem while I just wanted to know more about it. I could deal with the pain as long as I knew it would get better and not worse.

3) These allergies. I've been living with them for 20 years. Since I was born Since I was in high school. (Fine, I'm not 20.) I was interested in finding out if there was a simple thing that I could do that did not involve taking pills all day long or eye drops. Maybe in those 20 years medical science has found a miracle allergy shot that you take once and are done with allergies for the season. Granted, some quality time with Google would've told me that, but I was going to go through the old fashioned way of talking to the allergist. Turns out, there is no such thing as a one-time shot for the season. Instead, people that are not in the process of becoming surrogates or going through IVF can sign up for a series of weekly, then monthly, then.. I don't know I stopped listening.. shots. I asked if I could give myself the shots because, ya know, I'm now qualified to shoot up with the best of them. She said no because of the risk of anaphylaxis shock. She also said that if you get pregnant, they stop the treatments and the weekly ones have to go for about 6-8 weeks so I'm pretty much SOL for starting that now anyway. That was pretty much it. I was ready to go home. She was ready to have me lay on the exam table and put all sorts of questionable solutions on my back and make little pin pricks to let it seep into my skin. SHE wanted to FIX it. Find the right drug, keep trying different ones, etc. From my perspective, she has done what I went there for. From her perspective, I'm an ongoing client that she will see back some day. Unfortunately, I'm shockingly meek when it comes to making a stand at the spur of the moment so when they had me lay on the bed thing for the allergy tests, I did it. (Also, just so you know, I did NOT hide my very attractive periwinkle blue bra under my shirt on the chair. I hung it on the lamp.)

After the test, I got the sheet of all the things they tested me for. Turns out, I'm allergic to willow, oak, birch, all kinds of grass, ragweed, and all dust of any variety. This is fine - but the things I'm NOT allergic to were quite alarming. Not because I'm not allergic to them, but because WHAT, exactly, did they just expose me to to find out that I'm not allergic to them??? The list of molds included cockroach. Cockroach mold. Let's imagine, for a moment, what one might do to get a solution that you could put on someone's skin and scratch the skin to find out if they are allergic to cockroaches. Hmm. I just have to say, I didn't sign any waivers for this test and I seriously think I should've been asked before they did this. I mean, gross. Oh, and after the test on my back didn't produce any results for a certain small list of things they figured I was actually allergic to, they took a more concentrated solution of that and used very small needles to actually inject it under the skin on my arm. Three of those are now basically very small bug bites and the other 4 did nothing other than make little blood blisters from the needle. They evidently thought my little bug bite ones were nothing and crossed off those items from my allergy list. It was cute when the girl asked me if needles bothered me. I looked at the little things she was using and laughed. Those are needles? LOL!

As of this morning, I am 6 miles into my 15 mile week for running. Not much more to say about it - pretty boring, typical workout. I'm a little irked that I'm still at 160 after a decent day yesterday but oh well.

I found out today finally some more surrogacy information. Since the egg donor is still not cycling, we have at least 7 weeks out before any transfer. That 7 weeks moves out for each day she doesn't get her period. We're now looking at June 24th at the earliest. I have a lot of feelings about how long this has been taking but since I don't believe MY frustrations and irritations can compare to Paul and James's - I'm not going to blog in length about them. It is what it is and I will just keep waiting. This news does mean that I can finally plan the end of May and the birthdays for Asher and Jessie. It also means Gavin won't be in school anymore when I go for the transfer so that might make childcare easier. Oh, one more thing... when I asked the allergist about the shots and doing IVF, well, in the course of the conversation she said a number of stupid things to me. Well, probably stupid is the wrong word. I just didn't appreciate them although I know she was just trying to be nice. Because I knew that, I just smiled politely. She commented on how darn many kids I have and that always makes me want to say that I REALLY have 4 kids. She said something about how I have 3 kids so I must just be such a star at pregnancy and never had a problem to go and do it for someone else. Um, where do I start? She also asked if I knew the people I was being a surrogate for or if it was a 'womb for rent' (yes, she ACTUALLY said that.) Being more offended than I've been in a long time I just said I knew the people. She said 'Oh, that's good.' Ha, small talk... isn't it fun? Had I been feeling snarkier I'd have said "No, I don't know them but I've always had a fantasy of getting knocked up by two gay guys." Alas, I was too busy trying to unhook my bra off the drop ceiling frame where I had tossed it after the allergy test.

5 miles down, 10 miles to go this week for my goal. I was thinking as I was running, 3 miles a day every day this week would get me 15 miles. So for every mile over 3 that I go in a day, that is a mile UNDER 3 that I can go another day. I know it is silly since I'm pretty much planning to go 5 miles on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and 1 mile on Tuesday and Thursday (thus BEATING my goal) but for some reason it always appeals to my mind to think that I'm getting ahead and doing my work early. I was feeling quite proud of myself during my run today because while I was running I was watching people come up to the machines, start their workouts, finish their workouts and leave and I was still there. Yes folks, I'm that amazing. I know! This morning was 'interval' training kinda like Sara had mentioned. I would run a little at 5.5 MPH and then sprint sections at 7.0 MPH. At least, I did that until it got hard and I wussed out and stopped going up to 7.0. I think that was somewhere between the first quarter of a mile and about 2 miles in. I've decided, Sara, that the difference here being that you could've probably outrun me while you were 9 months pregnant. Plus, I highly suspect that you enjoy running while I just enjoy being able to say that I ran. I still finished the 5 miles somewhere in the 50:20 range still.

This weekend was every bit as exciting as I had hoped. I almost forgot the carnival on Friday but thankfully I remembered while driving home from picking the kids up at daycare. It was a madhouse and while I know Gavin is glad that we went, I'd be hard pressed to say that the effort was worth it. The one highlight was that Jessie and Asher and Gavin all got to go in the jumping castle there and you should've SEEN the little one's faces!! Gavin also enjoyed the giant blow up obstacle course. The lowlight was walking blocks because there is never enough parking for all the parents on nights like this and it was raining and windy and freezing and I had Ash in a stroller and was trying to hurry Jessie along. Yuck.

Sat we all went out during the day to get the kid's hair cut. Yes, I cut Ash's mullet off. I've been resisting because he hasn't had that first haircut and those little curls in the back just made him seem like such a baby to me. I don't know why his hair refuses to grow in the front but either way, we did give him a typical little boy cut. He looks so totally different now. Jessie was very into going to get her hair cut but then when we got there she did the shy thing. I just needed her bangs trimmed anyway so it wasn't a big deal. She finally has normal hair now that doesn't look like she cut half of it off herself. (Because, ya know, she DID.)

After dinner when Kris was home I left to do my upgrade at work. Have you seen that horror movie where the woman is working all alone in a dark medical building and people start attacking her with the surgical scissors? No? Well, apparently it is terrifying because I nearly died while working in the dark cleanroom all by myself. This is the place where we put the sewing rings onto the heart valves and it is a sterile room. You have to gown up and put these booties on your feet and everything. Each station has all sorts of sharp objects for sewing purposes along with the computers that I had to upgrade. It was dark, quiet, and totally creepy as hell. I finally finished everything around 2AM. *Shiver* I think I'm scarred for life really. Thankfully though, there never actually was a large figure dressed all in darkness - or - at least - he never attacked if he was there.

Sunday went well with very few problems reported from work. Gavin has finally gotten to the age where he has neighborhood friends that are in and out of the house all day long. This is great in that I've really wanted him to have more friends and all that. It is annoying because the house is full of ~8 year old boys and, naps get difficult. I ended up kicking them all (Gavin included) out of the house for Ash's nap. Now, here's the other issue - Jessie. My 3 year old is infatuated with her big brother's friends. She follows them everywhere and participates in everything they play. On one hand, my heart melts watching these older boys and Gavin not only including Jessie in their play but encouraging it. They were dressing up in costumes and they were helping Jessie put on her snow princess costume (which along with all the fighter boys made me think very much of star wars) and giving her a very large nerf dart shooter. (We lost the darts precisely .054 seconds after we got the guns and always do. They were just for imagination, not actually shooting.) Yes, it is sweet that they include her. Um - but - I foresee trouble in the future. A 5 year age gap - plenty of boys 5 years older than her in and out of the house all day.... and OH MY do the boys seem drawn to her even now. Hopefully Gavin and Jessie don't have issues with all that as she gets older.

You may have noticed I'm back at 160. I think my body seems to just settle there. This weekend I know I was too busy to really eat the way I should've. I tried a little bit but mostly I just ate whatever was easy. Turns out, ice cream is REALLY easy. It is even easier if you put chocolate syrup over it. Hopefully my 15 miles this week will put a dent in that but even if it does, how long before I'm back to 160? If I'm here forever though, I'm happy enough with that. We'll see how it goes.

One last thing.  Please feel free to leave a comment!  Even if I don't know you and you just happened to find this blog mildly amusing... I'd LOVE to read a comment from you! 

May 1, 2008 9:21 A.M. Weight: 159.0 lbs.

I missed my 1 year anniversary for starting all of this. I'd have to look back but it was about last Friday. I've had 70 pounds off since then - about 60 of those pounds I've had off and kept off for 5 months now. (Yes, I've only lost 10 pounds in the last 5 months - BUT - I've maintained under my goal weight for 5 months.) See, it's all in how you look at it. I've also gone since that date with exercising very nearly a minimum of 20 minutes 5 days every week. (I've missed that a week or two, I believe.) I'm trying to find some way to infuse some humor to this, however I'm just too dang busy being honest and happy about myself to do so.

A couple days ago I got an e-mail from our surrogacy agency asking me if I had gotten BCPs and started them. Yes, thank you ever so much for giving me your credit card number to use without your knowledge as I have not only purchased and received a month supply of BCPs, but I've been distributing Lupron and PIO and several other fun street drugs out of my home for the past week. Don't worry, I've kept receipts for everything. Or, um, no - I have not spontaneously found and started taking any BCPs. They made the choice that since I'm pretty regular anyway (at least I was before they shot up my system with all sorts of drugs - hopefully that is still the case) they will just forgo the BCPs for me and trust that my system will behave as needed once the egg donor gets on track. I believe that the egg donor was supposed to get her period about the same time that I did with last cycle, so around the end of March. We were baffled at the beginning of April as to what was happening. At this point, now May, one does start to wonder what is going on. We were hoping before the holidays for a Feb transfer. Then all the legal stuff took so long that we were hoping to capture the March/April timeframe. Now I'm basically thinking we're at least into June. The delay is frustrating, to say the least. At least now we're getting to a spring birthday so Paul should be happy about a lower RSV risk for the early days.

Well, I'm happy to announce that there will be no porn spam mail for me!! I DID get in my 5 miles today! The machine even told me I averaged 6 MPH for those 5 miles, however the time was 50 minutes 20 seconds so I know I didn't average 6 MPH. That's OK though because I was aiming for a nice long 5 mile run, not a kill-yourself pushed fast as possible 5 mile run. Now I get to keep running the 5 miles instead of continuing to add .25 miles on each time. I will not lie to you - I do not TOTALLY hate running. There are some moments while I'm going that I feel like I'm flying. Like I'm totally free and grooving to my own montage. (I'm such a dork that it was a Billy Joel song that came on today that had me really moving!) At those times, I feel like I could go forever. The trouble is that as soon as I think "Oh WOW I've hit runvanna." it ends and I'm pushing and struggling to keep going again. I wish that I could spend more time in that state. I wonder - for you runners out there - as you train and get better at it, does that state get easier to attain?

I biked yesterday - real biking - not at the gym. I went from my house, down past where my kids go for daycare, and up around the business area by my house. I was out for about an hour. It is so frustrating to bike around my home because there is nothing for bikes. There isn't even a shoulder on a lot of the places. I even rode past the high school and there was no bike path, shoulder, sidewalk, ANYTHING. That is such a sad statement. It makes me want to go to arms and start a campaign to get more bike friendly streets. I would if I ever had spare time in my life, which I don't. Thus, I'll spend my time whining about it and hope it has the same effect.

April 29, 2008 11:02 A.M.   Weight: 160.0 lbs. 

Two gay guys and a Wiccan walk into a theatre together... OK, I'm not actually Wiccan. Sorry Gerrald Gardner. I think the term 'witch' still applies to us plain old ordinary pagans though. While that line sounds like the start of a joke, it was based on real life events as Paul, James, and I went to see Baby Mama. I have to say, it was actually a really cute movie. Not so much a surrogate movie, as it turns out, but cute none-the-less. The one thing that really irritated me was the points of error or factual impossibility. Paul shocked me by insisting that film incongruities deserve artistic leeway because, dang Paul, YOU saying THAT? I won't ruin the movie for anyone that hasn't seen it by pointing out the things that were wrong. It was interesting that they totally glossed over ALL the humor potential in all the work that is involved in actually getting a gestational carrier pregnant. They did have one scene where the intended parents and the carriers were all in this group therapy thing together. They had one couple that was two gay guys and they had another group where the intended parents were a man and a woman, but the carrier was this goth-looking Wiccan. The guy in that group said that at first he was not so sure about a witch carrying his child, but then he was totally OK with it... unless she cast a spell on him. We had a good old laugh at that one. Haha! Heh..heh... um... moving on.

Speaking of gestational carrier stuff - there's not much news to report. I'm still waiting to know what the heck they want me to do. They had said on CD1 they wanted me to start birth control pills again. They neglected to get me those pills, however, so I'm taking my imaginary ones each morning quite dutifully. I don't know if imaginary ones work the same or not, but I'm totally blaming my weight on them anyway. I can only conclude that our egg donor is still waiting for her period at this point which makes me think that instead of halving her dose of Lupron next time they should, um, not get the Lupron anywhere near her. I'm thinking they should invent a code word for Lupron so she doesn't even hear the word should they happen to bring it up around her. I'm partial to "Holy Monkey Balls This Shit Will Knock Out Your Ovaries" or perhaps "Do You Smell What The Pron Is Cooking?" I asked how long they'd wait before getting a different donor and the agency told me it was up to the clinic and one donor went 4 months without getting a period. Originally when I said "they" I had meant the guys - the dads to be. Wouldn't you'd think it was up to THEM if they didn't want to wait it out with this donor? I'm not sure I'd want too much control sitting in the hands of this particular medical group if it was my family on the line. For that matter, I'm still totally in the dark as to why we are dealing with a fertility clinic in Toronto in the first place. In reading fertility blogs, it appears that some people actually travel HERE, as in, from OTHER places in the world to get TO Minnesota, for our high quality fertility specialists. Cost had been mentioned... but with all the costs of travel, especially with a canceled cycle under our belts, I really don't buy that. I guess anything is possible though. I don't care much because I am excited about the trip, even if it is proving out to be a pain in the ass to have to deal with all the timing things. I'm having a hard time believing that they are going to pull an actual cycle and transfer out of the current state of things by the end of May.

I have to report that while my weight is doing OK - my youngest son has become the baby that ate NY. He is 26 pounds, 10 ounces. That is almost at the 50% mark for his age! He is growing more this year than he did his first year, it seems. While most parents would be celebrating this spurt of biggerness in their almost 2 year old, it is messing with my head. I'll tell you, no matter how many kids you have and how much you think you have it figured out, it really is true, they are all different. Asher and Jessie are probably less than 5 pounds apart at this time. Jessie had a melt down at the table because I didn't sit next to her last night. I finally convinced her that if we sat across from each other we could make faces at each other. This worked out OK but now I'm going to have to convince her that sticking your tongue out at the person across the table from you is not good manners if the queen ever comes to tea. For that matter, neither is all forms of bodily gas noises nor picking your nose.

After two days of utter laziness and down right no good lounging, I finally put in a run today. Stopping just shy of a full 8K, I ran 4.75 miles. According to the display after I walked for probably another minute or so to cool down, my average time was 5.9 MPH. Tomorrow will be a 1 mile day and then Thursday I will (or you will have my permission to send my e-mail address to three(3) known porn sites) run the full 5 miles. If that declaration is not enough to make me do it, I don't know what will. It is funny, while I'm running I alternate between thinking "This isn't so bad, I can make 7 miles." to "OMG I've only just gone 0.03 of a mile, this sucks, my legs are going to buckle under me, I'm dying, is that my right or left arm that shouldn't be hurting like that...?" I do little celebrations at the 1.5, 1.75, 2, 2.25, and 2.5 mile marks ALL saying "Now I'm halfway done!" Hey, if you can't play mind games with yourself, how will you practice? The 160 today was OK. It isn't in the 150s like the week before, but it is also not over what I had on Friday and after this weekend, well, I'll take it and be happy. Besides, those imaginary BCPs are really screwing with my system!