Priceless

• Bookshelves: original Krisana Park kitchen cabinents from a neighbor's house, painted by Adam and added legs: $54
• Books and toys in bookshelf, gifts and hand-me-downs from our wonderful Denver family
• Curtains lovingly sewn by Grandma Judy: $48
• Artwork: Embroidery alphabet sampler made by Stephanie in 1978 and 2008 Indian Hamsa print by Mike & Mike: $60 for print, $130 for framing
• Batik print that Adam designed and had made in Malaysia, used as our chuppah, $75
• Rocking chair from Adam's house in Providence, repainted by Stephanie with 3 coats of spray paint, $32
• Armoire bought unfinished in Providence, repainted by Stephanie with 4 coats of white paint, $24
• Crib: wonderful hand-me-down from Cousin Beth, free
• Changing table: purchased on Craigslist, $20
• High-traffic rug from Home Depot, $48
• Pale peach and roasted squash paint for room, $50
• Pale green sheets, crib bumper, and changing table pad: gifts from friends

Having a gorgous room to bring our baby home to: PRICELESS!

Some interesting numbers

July average monthly rainfall in Mumbai: 868 cm (that's 347 inches!)
Average temperature range: 24 c (75 degrees F) low; 29 c (85 degrees F) high

Our surrogate's CURRENT weight (at nearly 9 months pregnant): 49 kg (that's 107 lbs!). I wish I knew what she was at the start -- probably about 87 lbs.....

Nothing to worry about

Here's the latest little tidbit of news we've received from our clinic:

Great to hear from you. As mentioned eariler, we are in touch with Dr Soni
and she has confirmed that Rajshree is doing absolutely great and nothign to
worry about. So we havent shifted her to clinic yet. We are hoping to shift
her
on sunday.
We will then go for another visit on tuesday to Dr Soni,
and you
can join for the same (scan and consultation).
She visited dr
soni today n
these are the details.Pulse: 78/min35-36 weeks by
gestation.Cephalic
flexion.
We will repeat the scan next week. Hope to see you soon.

Of course, I'm doing nothing but worrying. Will she be able to get to the right hospital quickly if something does happen? Does this mean that the baby is now in the right direction for a normal delivery? If so, will we sit around in Mumbai with nothing to do for 2 weeks? Have I packed everything that I need for the baby. Should I repack to have a bag-within-a-bag to take to the hospital so I don't have to arrive at the hospital with 3 huge suitcases? How many bottles should I bring. Is my laptop that isn't working very well fixable, or should I run out and buy a new laptop before we go?

Postscript: laptop is being looked at by my new favorite neighbor, Mark of Myth Systems (he's awesome!), and as it turns out, my worries over imprisoning our surrogate were for naught since she isn't even at the clinic yet. I asked our doctors if she'd be OK in the event of heavy flooding that Mumbai could potentially receive this weekend, and they said that our surrogate lives near one of the clinic's OBs, so she should be OK.

Monsoon Baby

OK, I'm not feeling at all guilty about moving our surrogate to the clinic after reading about the monsoon rains. This photo is from some hotel lobby earlier this month. There are many many warnings online (why didn't I look before I booked tickets) about the potential for the most serious flooding Mumbai has ever experienced for July 24 and 25, two days before we arrive. Sounds like fun, no?

Monsoon
Warning: Avoid Travel to Mumbai Around July 24
Thursday May 21,
2009

Mumbai received its first pre-monsoon shower last night. According
to the Meteorological Department, the monsoon is due to arrive in the city
around June 8, 2009. It's very difficult to give an accurate prediction
though.
As usual, Mumbai is hopelessly unprepared for the monsoon rains.
What's even more concerning is that the Department has predicted that city will
have the highest tide in 100 years -- 5.05 meters -- on July 24.
Mumbai's municipal council has admitted that it isn't equipped to handle more than 25 millimeters of rain per hour, coupled with a high tide of more than 4.5 meters.
The consequences could be disastrous. In the case of high rainfall,
widespread flooding will result and the city could be brought to a standstill
for days. A similar thing happened on July 26, 2005 - and the tide was only 4.48
meters high!
The municipal council has advised visitors to stay away from
Mumbai on or around July 24, 2009. There's no guarantee that the adverse weather
conditions will eventuate. However, with the monsoon being so unpredictable, it
sounds like a good idea.

Although it is purely a coincidence, the girl's name we've chosen, Maya, is related in Hebrew to the word for water. Our original choice for a middle name for a boy was River, but we recently decided to switch to the more conventional, less water-related middle name "Gabriel." Giving a boy the middle name River would have made his initials MRS, which we decided was cruel (yes, hold your comments on whether River would have been cruel in and of itself.....)

Flashback

Believe it or not, I just got around to downloading the photo from our last trip to India (yes, that was 8 months ago, for those of you keeping track.) One reason it took so long is that the photos weren't very good -- we spent most of our time in Mumbai in cars, and what we saw from the car wasn't always pretty. But here are photos from some of the key players in our surrogacy journey.

We had help....

Those of you following our surrogacy journey might enjoy this very timely article in the NY Times about parents talking to their children about egg donation and surrogacy. I'm not sure if the cupcake metaphor quite captures it, so if anyone has any suggestions, I'd love to hear them!

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/12/us/12surrogate.html?_r=1&hp

All is quiet on the surrogacy front today, and I hope it remains so. We're leaving town two weeks from today, so hoping our little one continues to enjoy the last few weeks quietly swimming and doesn't feel the need to come up for air before we get there.

Feeling Feudal

Throughout this pregnancy, I've never felt like I was taking advantage of our surrogate, or exploiting her in any way. She signed up to do this brave thing that involves quite a bit of inconvenience for her, but that will allow her to dramatically improve her family's life. In just a year, she'll earn money that may be as much as her husband could earn in 4 or 5 years, and it will enable her to keep her children in school longer, buy a better house for them, or start a business. I hope I get a chance to ask her how she'll be spending the money.

But today I agreed to have her housed in the clinic for the remainder of the pregnancy, and I'm feeling guilty. She's actually been there before, resting for about 2 weeks after the implantation until we had a confirmed pregnancy. For some reason now, though, I feel like I'm imprisoning her. This is definitely the best place for her as far as we are concerned -- if there's any emergency, she can be taking to the very best hospital in Mumbai right away. In addition this hospital is "surrogate friendly"; not every hospital is so amenable to putting our names on the birth certificate. Maybe she'll even welcome the respite from her daily chores during these last two or three weeks before the baby arrives (since it will be a C-section, I hope she'll have lots of help at home after the delivery, too.) If only I could ask her some of these things, and not feel like I'm arranging her fate like some feudal lady of the manor....