I can't seem to come up with a neat title for this blog.

I thought I'd take a break from reading about politics and health care reform to write a new blog. So, in a matter of days (21 to be exact), Dylan and I will officially start our surrogacy journey. I am actually going to the cardiologist (Dr. Lemon) tomorrow for a check up. I already know what he's going to say: "You know, you could just adopt. I think that's the smart choice". He's told Dylan and me that at least twice now. I know he's nervous. He took care of my mom almost 30 years ago and saw what she went through and how it affected my dad.

(Awkward Story: My dad told me the story of how Dr. Lemon came out of my mom's hospital room crying after my mom had said that she knew she was really sick. The first time I met Dr. Lemon, I said 'hey, I think you took care of mom. Her name was Judy Hockett.' His reaction? A blank stare and silence. And that was it. AWKWARD!!!!!)

Either way, once I get the green light from the doctor, Dylan and I can get things started. We have to set up an appointment with a lawyer and find a time to meet with a psychologist. And then....in six months...our surrogate will *fingers crossed* be pregnant!

So, that's the update for now. My next plan for tonight is to start my political career. No joke. I sort of want to run for public office sometime in the next few years. I smell another blog a'brewin!

Be Aggressive! Be, Be Aggressive!

I WAS AGGRESSIVE TODAY! Waking up and seeing your bank account negative $1,051.17 can do that to a person. Now, before you get all worried and start thinking, "Holy crap! What is Heidi doing with her finances?"...relax. Actually, sit back and relax while I tell you the horrifying [and only slightly funny, I guess] story.

Being the responsible person that I am, I called my credit union to make my monthly car payment on Friday. Every month I pay $225.17. Sometimes more, no less. When I called to make my payment, I assumed everything was fine.

-----dun, dun, duuuun-------

Then my phone rang. The teller who took my payment over the phone told me (and I quote), "You're going to kill me". Never a good way to start a conversation. She told me that she charged my card $885.17! Of course I was upset and told her that I didn't even have that much to begin with! She apologized and said she'd reverse it and all would be splendid.

---I believed her------------

On Monday I woke up to my account being negative $448.00. I called the credit union to see what happened and sure enough, they charged me the $885.17! To make it even worse, by the end of the day I had (are you still relaxed?) 11 $35 overdraft fees (that's a lot of dough). And then...THEY CHARGED ME ANOTHER $225.17 THIS MORNING!!!!

So, I called my credit union and my other banking institution to get things straightened out. I was not pleasant toward the end of the day after talking to them. And just to prove it, here are some highlights of various conversations:

"I don't see why you're laughing; this is not funny".

"Let's try to get this figured out now because I literally have 30 bucks to my name".

"I am not paying for one damn overdraft fee!"

(Mike, I think the books you bought me for Christmas are doing me some good!)

YEAH!!!! So as of 5:00 this afternoon, I was no longer negative in my account! I'm starting to like the aggressive side of me--I get things accomplished!!!!

The start of our journey

There have been so many things that have happened in the past month that I am quite disappointed in myself for not writing blogs about them. Dylan had a blood clot (luckily he's doing much better--and I'm much better at giving him his shots), we're busy planning our California vacation, and oh yeah...we're trying to start a family!!!!

We found a very nice and responsible young woman (I just found out she's my age) to be our surrogate. I am not going to share her name yet, but once things get moving along I will talk more about her. I can tell you that she has a nine-year old daughter, a job, and a home. I work with her and she has told me time and time again that she wouldn't do this for anybody but Dylan and me.

We have all met with the fertility doctor and have a good grasp on what's going to be involved: money, lawyers, psychological testing, and a little bit of luck. I should be getting a phone call tomorrow or sometime this week from the nurse at the clinic. She's going to tell us where to go to find a good family lawyer and ask when we'd like to get started. If we could, we'd do it tomorrow. But, there's not rush and we'll be happy with whatever the outcome.

We have told our surrogate that if nothing comes from this, it's okay. No pressure. The doctor has told us that the odds of having multiples are pretty high. He seems to think that twins could be a pretty good possibility!

Until then, Dylan and I will just sit back and relax. Well, at least Dylan will be...and that's because I am making sure he's keeping his leg elevated. KEEP THAT LEG UP, DYL! AND TAKE YOUR MEDICINE!!!!

More to come...soon!

Hello! I can't believe it's been so long since our last blog. I hate using the excuse of "oh, we've been busy"...but sure. I'll go with that.

There are lots of topics to discuss in future blogs. Surrogacy, football,...and of course, work stories. I really wanted to write a blog about me accidentally flushing my work badge down the toilet at work the other day...but "I've been busy".

I can't wait to write more soon. As always, thanks for reading!!!!

Tomorrow will make 3 weeks. 3 weeks of itching...3 weeks of scratching...3 weeks of oozing and bleeding...3 weeks of hearing "oh my god that looks disgusting"....3 weeks of pain...3 weeks of poison ivy.

It started at our company picnic where in I managed to walk through what everyone, after I had been in it, immediately identified as poison ivy. The first week wasn't bad, a little itching and redness. Of course, since it wasn't too bad yet, I first wasn't even sure I had poison ivy and certainly wasn't aware that I was periodically spreading it to every corner of my body.

The first weekend was when it started getting bad. We were in Fort Dodge for our friends' wedding, which I was officiating. It was a great time and I think I did an alright job not ruining their wedding. I had one unfortunately loud POP at the beginning when I asked People to "Please rise" and the Puff of air Profusely Pounded the mic Past its Positive Pressure Point. After this, however, I actually remembered to tell everyone to be seated...a minor detail I forgot at my last wedding. The only tough part, other than trying not to squirm and itch my leg, was when the unity candle ceremony began. The way it was set up had me holding the candle while it was lit - which sounded like a good idea until I saw those drops of hot wax beginning to fall. I managed to brace myself and not even react as the droplets landed and solidified across my fingers.

After this weekend, it all got worse. It spread and deepened...and got infected. I don't know where the infection came from, but I'm tempted to blame the America's Best Value Inn in Fort Dodge (which is a "best value" for a reason) - but that's just because I'm prejudiced about exterminators and pest controllers roaming the halls of my hotel looking for entry points. Not that our house couldn't use an exterminator also.

I wound up having to make two separate trips to the doctor - luckily only the second was bad enough to involve two shots, one in each "hip." So two shots, steroids, steroid cream, three different antibiotics, and endless gauze wraps - if that doesn't do the trick, I don't know what will.

The hideous boils and rashes have led to a few interesting experiences however....people keep their distance, for one. This weekend when I was home visiting, Aaron was worried what swimming might do to my leg....while my dad was worried what my leg might do to his pool. I've never seen him actively suggest someone not go swimming. Also bad, was when I wore shorts through the airport the other day, but kept my leg bandaged with gauze. However, one bandage kept coming un-taped and falling down. I've never seen such looks of horror on people faces as when they saw my exposed sore...the dressing dragging across the ground. I'm sure I would have been nervous too. However, the one person who didn't see it...or didn't care...was the woman sitting next to me on my flight to Florida. She asked for several drinks before the flight, but couldn't get them until we were airborne. Instead of being calmed by her vodka/orange juice, she was calmed by repeatedly grabbing my shoulder...asking what that noise was...and begging me to tell her everything was okay. I tried to do this, telling her the noise was just us leveling off and making up a bit about altitude and flight trajectories when she was worried we leveled off too soon - unfortunately, she was a lawyer and immediately saw through it and called me out accusing me of making it all up and "pulling it out of my ass." I considered just putting on my headphones and letting her panic at that point, but decided to talk her through it. She made it through the flight, and was appreciative...and in a strange coincidence, I actually ran into her and her son at a Jacksonville Baskin Robbins the next night. (I hear Oreo shakes were good for soothing poison ivy...is that not true?)

While this whole poison ivy thing still sucks, I think it is actually starting to get better the last two days - it hurts less, but there is still an awful lot of itching....and....wait... what are those red dots on my chest?

Float Fun for No One!

I am back in sixth grade. I am at the skating ring and the super popular girls ask me to skate with them. I agree,...and they proceed to give me a wedgie and skate off. This memory came to mind as I sat in a meeting room at my current place of business (I am not allowed to discuss where I work. lame) with a handful of grown woman arguing over float ideas. None of these woman with their place-of-business-badges glistening under the lamp lights ever paid me any mind. Every idea I gave went unnoticed. You could almost hear their ridiculous silent judging ("she wants to what with what??"). I had to keep reminding myself that this float committee--which I was nominated to be on while I was out sick from work one day--was not a sixth grade party at a skating rink. And these woman, who took this float committee thing way too seriously, were not the tween bullies from my past.

The theme of this year's contest is 'Small town, big heart'. My group decided on using Parkersburg as the prime example of this. I was gone during this discussion, so when I came back and was told that we'd be recreating the tornado ravaged town, I was...ambivalent, but I had a lot of ideas.

All of my ideas during these meetings (I've had three of them so far) have been ignored and frowned upon. Seriously,...it's a freakin' chair float contest and the winning department gets a pizza party. You'd think this contest was for a shot at eternal life or a large cash prize. Nope. Casey's pizza.

The thing that gets me the most is that some of my ideas that have been shot down out of thin air during the meetings have been created. And someone else has taken the credit! I used to read stories about office behavior like that in my Cosmo magazines, but thought I'd never experience that...at least while being a part of a committee that cuts out construction paper people and pop bottle tornadoes.

Float judging is this Friday. Just to be a good sport, I've still volunteered my time to make our team's float something worth looking at (the rubber band roads actually look cute. Too bad the cardboard people are all white teenagers. Not much diversity--a crucial rule of float building)

As long as no one gets wedgies by the end of this committee experience, it won't be too bad. Right?

Putting the "WHY?!?!" in Wyoming

So...our vacation is over and we're back in West Des Moines. After a week of camping, hiking, deserts and forests, what did we learn? One thing....do not ever end your vacation, when you just want to get home, with a drive through the never ending abyss that is Wyoming. Before we get to the joy of the trip, let's begin with the end. We left Yellowstone at 5:00 in the late afternoon yesterday knowing we had, according to Google Maps, a 15 hour drive ahead of us. As we set off, the signs said 100 miles to Cody, Wyoming followed by 90 miles to Sheridan (after which time we figured we'd be free and clear of Wyoming, on the Interstate, and maybe grab a hotel for the night). To make a long story short: 6 hours, 1 1/2 tanks of gas, 15 miles of unpaved mountain roads, 9 deer and 1 moose crossing later....we were still 30 miles shy of getting out of Wyoming. I still don't know how you can have to drive down out of a mountain 5 different times...without ever driving back up one - but that's the mystery of Wyoming. In the end, with all of that lost time, we had to just power through, drive the night, and get back home at 1:00 this afternoon...weak!

However, overall this was a great trip. Building on the last blog, here are some more highlights:

Food: We tried a lot of different foods on the grill. The ribs were great...the grilled onion, pineapple and cantaloupe were wonderful...the bacon and pancakes worked - except for the day we had no syrup...and the best may have been Noah's hand made snickers stuffed bananas. What didn't work was a little recipe I found on-line for cinnamon rolls. Take an orange, cut it in half, dig out the orange, put in the cinnamon roll dough, put the orange back together and cook in the coals. What the recipe didn't say was - wait 30 minutes, remove from the coals, and pour out the melted raw cinnamon dough. I don't like oranges or salmonella enough for this recipe.

Heidi's near death experiences: Roughing it in the wilderness leaves you open to the elements and it is best to be cautious. Heidi lived by this mantra and narrowly diverted disaster several times. We went lounging in the boiling river, where hot springs poor into the Gardiner river. This was beautiful and relaxing...until the moment Heidi, blind without her glasses, started drifting away, caught in the current, nearly swept away eventually to the pacific ocean.

Heidi managed to avoid most of the other dangers by refusing to get out of the car. While I ran with my camera along with dozens of other spectators to get pictures of bears, elk and big horned sheep...Heidi quickly locked the door to avoid the chipmunks. To be fair - she did eventually come out to see a young Grizzly and held control of the car when a moose darted out within 10 yards of her.

Noah and Desi: Unfortunately, we only got to spend one day with them, but they came along at just the right time when our supplies had run out. Without them we wouldn't have had forks, plates, pillows, bug spray, or bear spray (which both relieved and terrified Heidi). It was so much fun to get to know Desi more and we had a great time with them both.

Great Salt Lake: For our outdoor, camping and hiking adventure, we decided to spend Wednesday at one of America's great features - watching Harry Potter at an air conditioned theatre with a pizza hut inside it. Afterwards, however, we went to the Great Salt Lake. It has several rivers running into it and then bakes in the Utah sun with no natural outlet and leading to an incredibly high salt content. All of this results in two things - a beautiful natural scene and a god awful putrid smell. We drove out, holding our breath, and then hiked out to swim in the lake. The island we were on was called Antelope Island and so we were excited to see what we assumed would be herds of hundreds of antelope...instead, we saw thousands and thousands........of spiders. I don't know where the antelope were, but I can tell you were the spiders were. Their webs covered every bush and rock and they glistened in the sun as if from the most horrifying nightmare ever.

Arches National Park: It appears that we are not quite conditioned enough for hiking in the 100 degree desert sun. When we saw children and the elderly walking back from Delicate Arch we figured we'd give it a go. We scaled the hill - about 250 feet - and then, after catching our breath, dripping with sweat, having finished all of our water we looked out for the arch. All we saw, however, was a mountain, which apparently had to be scaled in order to get to the arch. We decided to power through and started off toward the mountain....for about 30 seconds....then we looked back....looked down at our empty water bottles....looked up at the scorching sun....and turned around. After all, there's a perfectly good look out spot a mile drive away - there's air conditioning there.

All in all...this was a wonderful trip. We got to go explore the West, like adventures of old, and after 60 hours in the car driving and being together 24-7 all week in a tent...we ....uh...we.....still.......stop it.... don't tell me what to type.....why don't you take a shower already......go sit on the other couch....I'm out of here....finish this yourself................love each other.

Don't forget to check out dylandbaker.shutterfly.com to see a selection of photos from the trip (tomorrow - we're going to bed now).