Week 24: Viability...

A lot has happened in the last month...seriously A LOT.

"So why did you wait so long to post, Ryan?? "  Because I was busy!  Schedule changes at work, pushing hard to get our renovations finished, baby showers, renovations, traveling...so much happening.

Let's start with travel....I don't want to bury the lead story here. We went up to Wisconsin for our 21 week anatomy scan.  Dustin flew up on a Wednesday for the Thursday morning appointment. Unfortunately July is a big vacation month for my department, and save for asking co-workers to change their vacation plans with their families...I stayed behind. It was going to be hard, but I kept telling myself that its just pictures. I will have the REST of my life to spend with Beastie.  This is a cool appointment, but its just an internal photo shoot.  What really sucked was that they wouldn't be able to shoot any pictures or video in the ultrasound room.
      Fast forward to the morning of the appointment.  I text Dustin and our surrogate to see how they feel before the appointment and I get a text back a bit later with Dustin asking me if I can Skype! Dustin gave the sonogram tech his puppy-dog eyes and asked her if he could video chat with me. She said,
     "Sure, just don't tell the doctor."

Seeing my screen shot later, the look of joy on my
face is clearly evident.

I'm hoping the doctor doesn't read this, and if she does.  Thank you in advance.  It made my day.  It was so fascinating! We saw all the chambers of the heart fluttering with each beat, the kidneys, bladder, arms, hands, legs, feet, stomach, the lenses in its eyes! It was when they were looking for the cleft lip/palette that I caught tears coming from my eyes. There were the lips and nose of our little Beastie. The detail when the tech put the sonogram into 3d was INCREDIBLE. I mean Beastie looked like a human. A baby. I mean a tiny one, but still.
      It made my week to see and experience all that I have resigned myself to not being a part of.

Waiting on my flight to Wisconsin. I ran through
the airport hoping to MAYBE get on an earlier
flight, but I wasn't early enough.

       I flew up to Wisconsin Friday night and we spent the weekend with our surrogate and her children. We went to the farmers market on Saturday morning. Early. Way early. To her credit she did give us the option of sleeping in, but I honestly didn't want to miss any time with her, her kids, Dustin and Beastie. 
That afternoon she took us to the lake, rented a boat and I got to drive us around and we went swimming. Was it cold? Dustin would say, it was ice water, I would say, brisk.  They thought the water was nice. Though I have my doubts on how 'nice' they thought it was or if they were trying to pull one over on us from living in the South...but I digress.

Dinner. Cheese curds, good beer, great company. Table for 4!

     She got a baby sitter that night and the three of us (her husband would have been there, but he had obligations with his National Guard unit that weekend) went out to a restaurant had cheese curds because, well, Wisconsin; and I had a really good New Glarus Belgin Red.

Northern latitude thunderstorms are spectacular.

 A Thunderstorm cropped up on the horizon too. We moved on to another brewery in town after that with a nice rooftop patio.  And I was MOSTLY engaged in conversation, I was also engaged in the lightning in the thunderstorms. **DISCLAIMER** She did not drink, AND she chose the places. So...yeah. 10 points Gryffindor.

We ended the night at a nice rooftop patio bar and Dustin and I drank while our surrogate kept us good company.

      Sunday morning was another early morning, we went to Church with our Surrogate and her children and met her parents. Easy to see why she's so cool. Typical welcoming Midwestern/Western Great Lakes family.  Heartwarming.  Though they drive like an HOUR to church.  That's dedication to faith. I have trouble getting to church when its not a short bike ride away like it was growing up. If I can't leave the house at 9:55a and MOSTLY get to the 10a service on time...its far.

Saying goodbye to our surrogate and 2 of her 3 children after breakfast. Adorable all around.

       We had breakfast after church and took a selfie with Beastie. Her bump was starting to become much more prominent.  Considering its likely the last time we get to see her, it was our only chance to get a bump selfie.

Selfie with Beastie. Wild to think that this was just about a month ago. Beastie is getting bigger!

The flight back was nice, evening flight, saw more storms. Our seats were adjacent to each other and we didn't buy our tickets together. Weird.

      Since the trip we've gotten the jolt we've needed.  We put our Amazon and Target registries into overdrive, trying to think of the things that our wonderful friends Trey and Whit didn't give us in the slough of items from their baby. I think we've got most of it nailed down.

       Our surrogate sent us a video of Beastie's heart beat...with the qualifier that Beastie DOESN'T like it. There's an audible thud as Beastie kicks away from the doppler.

Getting the kitchen ceiling finished and ready for sanding.

Nests. Nests in the walls. No. No. NO. NO!

New insulation and drywall.

       I finished the last little bits of spackling in the kitchen and in the upstairs hallway and we started tearing apart the nursery.  We found some surprises, like that there actually WAS insulation in the walls.  We also found that there were previous tenants living in the walls and attic (we evicted them and sealed the attic up when we moved into the house).






    So we tore out all the insulation anyway, because who knows what 'stuff' is in there...<<insert disgusted face here>>.   We gutted the room and re-drywalled it in a weekend. Then spackle. So. Much. Spackle. Dustin took on the bulk of the spackling in the nursery.  Its a good learning experience. We're now down to the last bits of prep for the room before painting.  But sanding spackle is the worst. The worst.  I hope to be done with all of it this weekend and that we can start painting by next weekend at the latest.









      We saw our first massive movement this past week too!  Our surrogate sent us a video of her belly. I couldn't see anything at first, but then, at the last second, BAM! Her belly, I want to say twitches, but it was much more than that. Maybe lurch is a good word.  But she's doing well and eating well and staying active. She's pretty awesome in that she can just do her thing and babysit 24/7.
  

       Heading into week 25 we're finishing up the big pieces of the nursery and the rest of the house. There's spackle dust everywhere. And soon it will be EVERYWHERE. Moving on to sanding the kitchen this week.  At the same time I'm exhausted and my eyes are itchy from spackle dust, I'm getting more and more relieved that our home is coming back together.  More progress coming soon.

Before we started sanding the nursery

After sanding PART of the nursery

Picking out paint colors.  Which one will make the cut?