Independence Day :)

As a 5th grade teacher, part of the curriculum I teach each year is American history.  My favorite unit to teach is the Revolutionary War and the Declaration of Independence.  The bravery of these men and women is astonishing to me.  The determination they showed in standing up for what they believed in is inspiring.  I adore teaching my kids about the history of our country and the battles that were fought and won so that each and every single one of them will have the right to have a voice and further, the right to use their voice - whether they use that voice in small ways like a blog, a vote, or even a conversation; or in big ways - it doesn't matter.  There are millions of people around the world who would give anything for the freedoms we enjoy here in America and I will spend today being thankful for the men & women who originally fought for our Independence and for the men & women who continue to fight to defend those freedoms today.

God Bless America.

So What! Wednesday

I'm linking up with Shannon at Life After "I Dew" today to say So What if...

• I have an obsession with Jeff Lewis on Bravo.  He is absolutely hilarious.  And his housekeeper, Zoila, is my favorite. {new season starting in a few weeks, yesssss!}
• I checked out all of the Iowa Children's Choice Award books to read this summer and have yet to read a single one.
• I absolutely wrote things on my To-Do list today for the sole purpose of checking them off.
• the only thing I can think of today is that Julie, Dan & their kids will be here tonight!!
• I have put off every ounce of school work I intended to do this summer.  I am going to regret that in August.
• While I am excited that tomorrow is the 4th of July, I am secretly dreading it because that is always my invisible marker that summer is almost over.  School starts 6 weeks from today. 
• I became irrationally excited about the new "Welcome" mat I purchased on sale last week.  It's adorbs.
• I have found myself pretending to be a stay-at-home mom this summer.  I have started enjoying making dinner for my family and having some sense of normalcy to our home.
• I can't remember the last day that I actually did something with my hair.  Not good, friends.  Not good at all.

What are you saying So What! to this week?

Up to You

Hi Friends.  I am still quite frankly astonished that real people are actually reading this blog.  Really, it's crazy to me.

I know many of you - ok, pretty much all of you - have gotten here out of interest of our surrogacy journey.  I am so thankful for all of the support we have received and even thankful for the curiosity that has come out of all of this.  The reality is that we are on a journey that is extremely uncommon.  And with that journey comes obvious curiosity.  I love the platform of this blog to be able to share the journey and answer the questions.  As I have mentioned before - this blog was never intended to solely be about infertility or surrogacy.  It is one aspect of who I am.  I'm also a Christian, wife, step-mom, teacher, sister, friend, daughter, etc.

With all of that being said, I wanted to open the blog up to YOU.  It's sort of an in between timeframe for this little blog.  The exciting announcement of surrogacy plans and getting everyone caught up with us is over.  Yet, we're not pregnant so we don't have that exciting stuff to chat about.  Soooooo, what should we talk about?!  I'd like to pretend you're sitting across from me at a little table and we're just getting to know each other - what would you like to know?  What would you like to read about?

It's audience participation time, people.  Leave me a comment (or shoot me an email at katie.rokusek@gmail.com) with a question (surrogacy, or otherwise) or a topic I could blog about.  I'll work my way thru them.  I need ideas, people - come on!

Have a Terrific Tuesday!

Monday Morning Musings

How is it possible that it is already July?!  Honestly, weren't we just getting out of school?!  The weather this summer has been so strange!  I feel like I'm just now getting into the real summer spirit because Mother Nature has finally figured out it's supposed to be warm and sunny outside.  I'd like to say I'm not mad.  But I am.

As mentioned on Friday, I spent all day on Saturday scrapbooking.  I got lots done - but it took me forever to get into the spirit of creativity.  Most of the time I can crank out lots of layouts during an all day scrap.  This weekend...not so much.  I did get caught up on Kaitlyn's book.  I just have one layout to do for the book we started for the baby.  That's still a little surreal to me...but I'm just going with it.  :)

After I complained that Mother Nature and I were fighting during my Finally Friday post, she decided to offer a peace agreement and allow Kaitlyn, Kevin & I some time to swim on both Thursday night and Friday afternoon.  Friday afternoon was so much fun - we had some friends come swim with us and I was able to catch lots of good shots of them going down the slide and jumping off the side.  What a riot.

I really need to spend some time this week cleaning our house.  We have accumulated SO.MUCH.JUNK since moving in here one short year ago.  I see a haul to Goodwill in our near future.

My nails are a hot mess.  I have tried really hard this summer to keep polishing them and taking care of them weekly.  Yep, not so much.  They need some major attention.  Maybe this week!

It's been really fun to watch the "followers" grow on the right side of the blog.  I love to see who's all reading.  Some days I see a huge number when I check page views, other days not - but that's not really the ultimate purpose of this blog.  Although I really love that other people are looking at this little online home of mine.  It makes me happy.

Summertime in our home is a bit chaotic because Kaitlyn is with us 5 days a week {she's with her mom 5 days a week during the school year} and I'm off, but Kevin is still working.  In an effort to keep my OCD brain somewhat calm, we have created a few organizational tools this summer to keep things running smoothly.  I will share more in a later post - but here is one of my most favorite of the summer! On the inside of our pantry door: a lunch menu.  Kaitlyn is required to choose one thing from the first two columns and if she wants she can choose one thing from the third column.  It's helped with making healthier choices and she is still able to be self-sufficient.  Welcome to my happy place.  :)

Alright, that's all for this Monday morning.  Enjoy your week.  :)

Silent Weekend

In order for all of us to be able to spend our weekends relaxing and spending time with our families, I will be doing "Silent Weekends" on the Blog.  I will post a picture or two from my week just to have something on the blog.  See you Monday, Friends.  Have a wonderful, blessed weekend!  :)

Finally Friday

<-------- is that not the coolest picture?! Ok, maybe not the coolest.  But really, it's pretty darn awesome.  And I did it completely on purpose.  I could do it again tomorrow if I wanted.  Or something like that.  :)

So, I'm popping in on the blog today to try to regain a bit of normalcy to my life...and this blog.  It has sort of become Baby Central - and while that is very exciting and has brought lots of readers to this blog - I think 365 posts on nothing but infertility, surrogacy, or babies *might* send us all to the crazy basement.  "Finally Friday" it is.  A little brain dump.  It's good stuff people.

• So happy work friends are getting together this morning.  While I ADORE summer vacation - I miss my work family like crazy.  We spend everyday together keeping each other sane and over the summer we never see each other.  I'm not complaining about summer break though, just to be clear.  I'll just go to Panera to meet them - no need to rush summer to be over.  
• Today it was finalized that Julie, Dan and their family are going to be staying with us for a few days over the 4th while they are in town visiting family - SO excited!
• Mother Nature is not my friend this week.  Every day that I purposely scheduled nothing it has been cloudy, raining, or tornado-ing.  The days I've been busy - nothing but sun.  I'm not sure if she is finding this trick to be funny, but I'd like for her to get her act together.  Now.
• I'm spending all.day. Saturday scrapbooking with friends.  I can't really describe how exciting this is.  Cutting paper, gluing, using my Cricut to cut letters, matting pictures - we know how to par-tay I tell ya.
• I'm having a love/hate relationship with the fact that next week is the 4th of July.  I love the 4th.  I love what it stands for and I love the traditions my family has made of parading, swimming, eating, laughing, and firework-ing.  But the 4th of July also marks 1/2 way thru summer.  I'm not really ready for that.  Not even a little.
• Kevin & Kaitlyn had a ball at the pool tonight after dinner.  I enjoyed annoying them snapping some pictures to preserve memories.

My 2 favorite people in this world.

Look at those eyes.  She is 12 going on 22.  

this *may or may not* have taken me 987 tries to get.  Well worth it, I'd say.  :)

Everyone LOVES the water slide.  The outtakes of this photo shoot are HIGHlarious.

My Heart

That's it for "Finally Friday".  Random much?

Have a great weekend!

1st Appointment Update

I intended to have this up earlier today - but things just didn't really go my way about that!  So, apologies for those of you anxious for an update.

As I mentioned, we spent yesterday driving to the St. Louis area to our first appointment with our fertility specialist.  Yes, I was very excited to meet with the doctor - but even more excited because it meant that Julie, Dan, Kevin & I would have a bit of time together - in person!  :)

The drive from home wasn't too bad actually - only about 4 1/2 hours and pretty easy!  My husband joked that even I could do it myself - which is saying a lot really because I am irrationally terrified slightly nervous about traveling long distances on the interstate by myself.

We got to St. Louis about an hour early, so we stopped at the Arch and looked around to pass the time because let's face it, who wants to sit in a doctor's office any longer than necessary?!

After passing the time by the river, we got in the car to head to the doctor's office.  I immediately began getting butterflies.  I hadn't been nervous all day, but all of a sudden I was terrified.  What if Julie didn't like us?  What if the doctor changed his mind?  What if it didn't feel right?  *looking back on it today, I have no idea what I was so scared about - but in that moment, the weight of this ONE appointment was not lost on me.  

When we pulled in the parking lot, I spotted Julie immediately.  We hugged and I had a small emotional breakdown on her.  It felt so amazing to finally have this angel in my arms - this woman whom I barely know yet feel like I've known my entire life.  Again, the weight of the moment was just more than I was prepared for I think. 

As we walked in, things got a little shaky - they didn't have our paperwork, the doctor was at the hospital and running late, the office was small, smelly and had zero air movement - it was just not a storybook few hours of our lives - but it was a necessary step to our desired outcome.  :)  The doctor finally arrived and saw Kevin & I first, and then Julie.  We went thru his requirements and our questions and everything is going to move forward at this point.  Julie has a few physical tests she will have to endure in the next few weeks and if she passes all of those, we will be moving forward with this clinic!  

I know it seems a bit anti-climactic...but that's really all I know at this point.  We are *hoping* to have a pregnancy or baby within the next year.  That's kind of where we're going to leave the specifics because that's really all we know.  {{One year.}}  It's just unbelievable to be honest.  

After the appointment came my most favorite part of the entire day.  Dinner with Julie, Dan and their beautiful children!  We were finally able to all be in the same room at the same time!  It felt like we had known each other for years, guys.  I'm not kidding.  Conversation flowed freely.  Laughs were abundant.  Tears flowed.  It was blissful.  

Two adorable things that happened during dinner {there were so many - I'm just picking these two for this post because you all have got to be just about bored reading by this point}: 

1. Shane (their oldest son who is going into 3rd Grade) says to us when asked how he feels about his mom carrying a baby for us in her tummy, "I would do anything to help you guys have a family." 

2. Gianna (one of their 17 month old twins) who is extremely shy and sensitive let me hold her after dinner.  Not just hold her - she played with me, she snuggled with me, she stole my heart.   

**heart melted**

She let Kevin hold her too.  But she told me she definitely liked me better.  Not even a competition.

Actually, I wasn't really interested in going home.  Ever.  And Gianna told me she didn't want me to go home either.  I informed Kevin that Gianna whispered to me that she wanted to have a sleep over - but he wasn't buying it.  At all.  

We didn't want to leave, but knowing they will be here next week made "good bye" a bit easier.  Their family has a piece of my heart, for sure.  Things were meant to be.  And again, confirmation that God's plan is far more perfect than anything I could've done myself.

“Motherhood is near to divinity. It is the highest, holiest service to be assumed by mankind.” 
                                                                                                                           ― Howard W. Hunter

So, friends - that's that.  Our families work together.  Everything feels natural.  All is right in my world today.

Thanks for your continued prayers, emails, texts and calls.  We couldn't do this without you.