October=Pumpkin Patch

Well it's almost Halloween, which means the girls are 11 months old!! Can you believe they will be celebrating their first birthday next month? I can't! Crazy! This also means it's been a year and I haven't lost all the baby weight . . . more accurately, since I HAVE lost the weight from my surro-girls , it's been 8 years on the 30th and I haven't lost the baby weight from Ruby! LOL!

October is a fun month for my family as we love Halloween, it's the month of my wedding anniversary and it's the month Ruby was born. Around here October means a lot, including our annual trip to the Bishop's Pumpkin Farm!

Here were the girls last October


and here they are this October



I talked with George today and he said the girls are going to be lemurs for halloween. I can't wait for the pictures!

Bumpaholic, No. Serial Surrogate, Possibly.

A surrogate I know, Let's call her Anita (wink, wink), mentioned in her Facebook Status that she may be on Good Morning America tomorrow. The Topic: Bumpaholics. When I first read it, I got to thinking about what the term "Bumpaholic" actually means.

I came up with two ideas:
1. Women addicted to Pregnancy
2. Porn (my guess? one with a very small budget)

Without reading the definition of Bumpaholic, I thought for a second I may fit into this category. I love being Pregnant. I love having babies. And after being a surrogate last year, I love being pregnant with other people's babies too. But when I started researching on the internet, I found out rather quickly that this term wasn't accurate for me.

Most of what I read talks about woman who keep having children because they are addicted to being pregnant. Basically, they say these "Bumpaholics" continue to have baby after baby for all the wrong reasons. One article stated Bumpaholics are " . . . driven to rapidly reproduce out of insecurity, a craving for attention, or feelings of abandonment by their own parents."

I guess you can say I'm addicted to pregnancy, if you use the term loosely . . . like "I'm Starving" when you're hungry or "I have a shoe fetish" if you like to buy shoes. You are not actually going to die from lack of food and, well, a true shoe fetish is far from just owning several pairs of Jimmy Choos.

Now, as far as being a Serial Surrogate, I guess I'm on my way. Like I've stated on here before, I knew back in high school I'd be a surrogate someday. However, I didn't think I'd do it more than once but because I had such a tremendous experience I'm in the process of starting my second surrogacy. I've had several people ask me if this will be my last time. I think so, but I said that during the first surrogacy, so I guess we'll have to wait and see. I doubt I'll be a surrogate as many times as some Serial Surrogates, but I have at least one more in me . . . so it looks as if I'll need to hold off on starting my 12 step program.

My Uterus is an ALLY not an ALLEY!!!

I just have to vent. I understand there are a lot of people who have no idea what my bumper sticker means . . . but HELLO! Why would I advertise that my uterus is a dirty, dark place where "tricks" are performed and drugs are shot up? There is an "e" in Alley . . . my sticker doesn't have an "e".

Again, for those of you who don't remember, CLICK HERE to learn about what my bumper sticker actually symbolizes.


ALLY vs. ALLEY


On a completely unrelated note- we took family pictures, so I thought I'd share. Amanda is an amazing photographer who happens to have studio space in Ruby Q's, my store. I think they turned out great, although I already look like I'm pregnant for my next surrogacy . . . I'll just stick to the excuse of birthing 5 kids will do that to you.

New ClusterMap- ahhhh man!

I am kind of bummed that it's been over a year since I added the mapping feature to my blog. I guess every year they will archive the old one and start over brand new with the red dots. I used to love to see the map with red dots of various sizes everywhere . . . now it's like we're back to square one.

They do still have the archived totals (Total since 24 Aug 2008: 11,196), but I'm a visual person and I want to see all of it, since August of 2008. I don't care if my map becomes one huge blob of red . . . to me, that would be perfect!

Now places like Uganda, Bahrain, and Peru are no longer showing any visitors *sniff, sniff*

Okay, enough self-pity . . . . the girls turned 9 months yesterday. Once I get the updated info from George and Sanj, I'll let you know how they're growing. I'm also very excited because we're going for a quick visit mid September while we're in the Bay Area for a family reunion picnic. Yeah!!!!

Giggles Galore!

Here are my surro-girlies!





How cute are they? I can't believe how much they change between our visits. Speaking of which, our next visit with George, Sanj and the girls is set for September 12th- YEAH!!! I'm very excited.

Do you know what's even harder to believe? A year ago I was HERE.

Only 3 months until their First Birthday . . . can you believe that?!

Over 10,000 Hits!

WOW!!! I can't believe my little blog has reached the 10,000th hit mark! Actually, I'm more shocked that someone from Uganda, Tunisia and Nepal have visited my blog!

Perhaps I should leak some naked photos of someone to get 10,000 more hits in less than a day.
Tangent- why do people, including famous people, send naked photos of themselves on camera phones? When will they learn? Does it ever seem like a good idea? At least crop out your face . . . HELLO! Luckily, when I was wild and crazy Girls Gone Wild, digital cameras and cell phones weren't mainstream yet. Something about getting "a page" back in 1995 that you were Naked doesn't have the same effect. That's also back when we spelled things, instead of "I'm N8KD- LOL."

Back on topic . . . so my posts have been here and there but not much on my new journey. I have been advised that I should keep my next surrogacy in a private journal, so that when I decide to write a book on Surrogacy, that all my experiences won't already be out there. I'm still debating on whether I want it to be Non-Fiction (like my blog currently) or if I should do a novel that is Fiction loosely based on my experiences . . . think of a sober, non-smoking Bridget Jones pregnant with another couples baby . . . it just might work.

I will continue to check in and keep you updated on my first surro-family and I'd love to continue to have new people read my blog. Even though my first journey is now in the past, I think it still sends a great message about Surrogacy and debunks some myths about surrogate mothers. It also is another great story of two beautiful souls becoming parents . . . that just happen to be men. Feel free to pass it on, then maybe I'll be writing a post one day about my 1,000,000th hit! Perhaps, more women will see that it may be a journey they can go on . . . and help create families in the process.

For those of you new readers who just happened upon this, here's my advice . . . Go back to the begining and read it in chronological order. The best way to do this is to click on 2008, then select by month (starting with March) . . . then you go to the bottom of the page and work your way up. Or you can click on the arrow by March and click on each post as you go. For those of you looking for pictures of the birth, that would be the end of November! :)

If you're thinking about using Surrogacy to help create your family or if you're an Amazing Woman who wants to help others, be it surrogacy or egg donation, check out the agency I chose to use both times, Growing Generations.

Playtime with Anjali and Natasha!

George and Sanj just sent me this, so of course I had to share. I'm still laughing over the Paddington Bear issue. It makes me wonder if Natasha was the same in utero . . . something leads me to believe she was. LOL!