November 2017- Baby Dust

 Believe it or not, I have not been keeping up to date on my posts on purpose. As information slowly gets. . .released, I am more obliged to share our journey and all the events surrounding it along the way. November started out with a precisely timed road trip to California for more infertility doctor visits. This time, we brought Otto and Nana (my mom) to tag along and stay a few extra days at my Aunt Gaylene and Uncle Jim's house in Santa Rosa. Along the way, we stopped to have some fun with pictures and get snacks.
This visit was following our Lining Check in October (see last post) that confirmed my lining was optimal for implantation of embryos. We had waited for a call to start progesterone shots and that the egg donor was ready for retrieval. This happened Halloween. 5 days later, the embryos are ready for transfer.
On Nov. 5th, Matt and I woke up early and waited (with FULL bladder) most of the morning for our transfer appointment to begin. I wore lucky socks and a lucky celtic tree necklace charm, and the embryologist gave us an update on the state of our embryos developing in a petri dish for 5 days, and a quick overall of the profile we had picked: The egg and sperm donors give a 20 page questionnaire with family history, medical and physical overview, and hobbies and interests kind-of-thing. 
Our lovely 2 embryos were now legally ours. This adoption felt less personal than our traditional adoption of Otto, but special in its own way. We are adopting at a much earlier stage this time ;)
 I will spare you the details, but the transfer went very well and everything seemed hopeful. We knew that there was a chance that 2 or 1 or 0 of the embryos implanting in the uterine lining and ultimately growing into our babies. We chose this clinic because of their high success rates and 3 transfer tries. There was a chance we'd be back to try again, and possibly again.
Now, it was time to relax and wait. It would be weeks before we'd know anything more.

Gaylene and Jim and our California cousins showed us a wonderful time. Otto was especially thrilled to play songs on Uncle Jim's vintage jukebox. He played Roly Poly until we couldn't stand it anymore. No worries, Jim burned us a CD for the ride home with about 5 different versions of the song. Thanks!
Nana and Gaylene were so wonderful to spend special time with Otto and give Matt and I a map of the best places to explore near Santa Rosa and the coast. So, we got some adult time visiting vintage stores, organic bakeries, best clam chowder in Bodega Bay, vineyards, tea shops, and homemade stores all over the county.
We ate, we drank, we shopped, we spent, we relaxed, we stopped to watch the waves on the ocean, and we had a very nice time.

 We took Gaylene, Nana, and Otto with us another day to see the giant redwood trees. We caught a glimpse at some deer on the way in.
It is such a beautiful, peaceful, and quiet place to walk around.
This, the only picture we could capture of the elusive Nana.

 We stopped in Reno on the drive home. This gave us a chance to use up the arcade cards we had gotten in the same place last time. Otto had his first arcade game experience. He played putt-putt golf, raced cars, played mario kart, and watched as I slaughtered everyone on the Jurassic Park game.



Once our California trip ended, there was not much else to do but get back to our daily lives.
We had the pleasure, always a pleasure, to see BEHS production of Hunchback of Notre Dame. I didn't know if Otto would be able to handle the entire show, but he was a champ. He not only watched the entire thing, but understood the plot!
He was very concerned for Esmeralda and wondered if the bad guy was going to be pushed into the fire. He understood that the bad guy was Frollo and not Quasimodo (who pushed Frollo into the fire). The cast and directors did an amazing job.


 Thanksgiving at our house this year!
Matt cooked the turkey with a little assistance from me. I made the mashed potatoes. Megan and Coltan made an amazingly delicious stuffing. I usually hate stuffing.
My mom, as you can guess, made almost everything else! I might be a grown up hosting at my house, but it is still great to have Mom!

The weather was so nice and warm that we spent most of the time outside on the back porch with a gas fire going.

We started a tradition stolen from the Rosaschi family and got a Lego set to build after dinner. Coltan did a lot of the work on it. It was a beach house theme to help us boost excitement for our upcoming family Hawaii trip in January.

 Last, we had the pleasure of seeing the SLC Temple lights (a big deal here in Utah), a holiday must-do. We don't much care for crowds and cold, so we got this activity done early in the season.
To much regret, I don't have a picture of us with our companions, the Barbers! Why don't we ever think to get group shots when we can?

We had a lovely dinner and walked around Temple Square with some fun glasses that made the lights look like little Santas. Thanks, Jordis, for sharing those and making this holiday outing more fun!