Wrap up from last week or so

The good:

To top off my previous birthday week, my hubby also planned a surprise birthday party for me on Saturday night. It was awesome. I'm guessing around 50 friends and family showed up. Brings tears to my eyes because sometimes often I think I'm very socially awkward and it meant a lot to have so many people show up for little old me. 

On the funny side of it, my hubby spilled the beans the night before. While cooking dinner he announces "don't go planning anything for tomorrow night," (I hadn't) "you have a surprise party." LOL. If you know me and my husband, you would appreciate how humorous I found this. The next evening we had to plan me acting surprise walking in. It was doubly and triply humorous because a.) my friends stink at being quiet during surprise parties and I heard the "shhhhh shhhhhh, here she comes!" from ACROSS THE PARKING LOT and b.) my friend's mom stopped us in the restaurant and said in her thick Greek accent, "happy birthday! So many people here for you!"  Truthfully I really was surprised though because I had no idea that many people would be there and the tears that came to my eyes were honest and sincere. 

The bad: 

I am getting frustrated with the communication issue with our clinic. Have done enough research to know that our doctor is super-duper busy, but that begs the question: why doesn't she hire additional staff? A case manager would be fantastic. Actually this deserves an entire separate post: so shall it be.

In other semi-bad news: remember how I was all "acupuncture doesn't hurt at all" the other week? Last week it did. Only in a few places, but YOW! I do not like needles. Which is pretty unfortunate when you think about what I will be going through next month. 

The other: 

I finished my book: All The Fishes Come Home to Roost: An American Misfit in India.  For those of you wondering, it has nothing to do with surrogacy, IVF, or even traveling in India. Basically it is a memoir from a woman whose parents worshiped a deceased Indian cult leader, and decided to move India to live with other followers. Tragedy written with wit, off-color humor ensues in the same style of Augusten Burroughs's Running with Scissors. I won't go into a long review here, but if you liked Scissors (or other tragedy/humor type memoirs), then you will probably enjoy this. I'd give it 4 out of 5 stars. 3.5 on a grumpy day. I look forward to more from this author as this was her first book. 

The other part deux:

Watched Google Baby today. I had seen clips of it before, but had not gone as far as to watch it yet. Mostly because a lot of the comments on youtube and news sites were pretty hurtful. I don't know why I let that affect me as I generally despise the comment section of news articles and such, regardless of the topic. (Makes me depressed that there so many misinformed or hateful people.) Any way, the movie was good. I thought it may make me second guess my decision (based on the trailer), but it actually had the opposite effect. Made me reaffirm that our decision is the right one for us. 

I'm putting the trailer below, but I don't think it's good representation of the movie. There are other clips on youTube you can watch as well to get slightly more. I'm guessing the trailer was designed more for people that aren't going through surrogacy and have prejudgments. The movie isn't judgmental at all. The movie is informative from a practical, medical, and emotional standpoint. If you can get a copy, I would say go for it. 

Birthday surprises

Pic I took with iPhone of the Golden Gate Bridge
in San Francisco while we were tandem bike riding 

My husband is awesome. I mean seriously, are-you-kidding-me, all kinds of awesome. Tuesday evening (the 24th) he told me he was going to work from home on Wednesday. Thought to myself, "that's nice. I'll need to try and make sure I don't distract him." Late Wednesday morning he hands me a sheet of paper with a 5 day forecast. He then tells me to go pack because we are GOING ON A TRIP FOR MY BIRTHDAY!!!

I had no idea where we were going, but I was excited! Asked a few questions to give me somewhat of an idea of how to pack, but I still had no idea if it was local or what. Later I finally ask him if we are going on a plane. He confirms we are and then I immediately start worrying about our animals. (Normally I make the arrangements and we have 3 dogs/2 cats.) Fortunately he had everything covered and had been planning it since January. Yes January!!!

We rushed to the airport, groaned to find the parking lots full, and then cheered when we found a spot in the secret parking lot that I had heard about, but never purposely used. I still had no idea where we were going, but after our tickets were picked up my husband informed me we were going to San Francisco. I was already excited when I thought we were going to Houston (we had a lay over and that's what my ticket said.)

I'm not sure how we packed so much into 4 days - but we did! My husband did an incredible job of pre-planning and even with the few obstacles we encountered (eg., Big Sur Marathon closing the highway to Big Sur) we still had a great adventure.

Here's a quick list of some of the things we did:
Thursday (my birthday!): Napa Valley! I only had a tiny bit of wine, but the views and restaurants were breath taking! That evening he took me to a fantastic French restaurant, as is tradition on my birthday (Italian for his!) (We've done the French/Italian thing since we first started dating.)
Friday: Pier 39 + Fisherman's Warf to visit the sea lions and attractions, followed by a tandem bike ride along the coast and across the golden gate bridge. In the evening, he took me to the San Francisco symphony.
Saturday - some shopping in China Town, grabbing lunch with a friend that lives out there, and walking around visiting shops, festivals, cafes, and some restaurants. We had Jim Gaffigan tickets for the evening.
Sunday - We got up early and drove to Big Sur. We were stopped for a few hours as CA-1 was closed due to the Big Sur Marathon (I don't know how people run that!), but that was enjoyable as well. We drove back to San Francisco and then took the red-eye home.

Can you believe all that? Holy cow! A week ago I was dreading my 40th birthday and this week I can easily say it was the best one yet.

If you ever hear me complaining about my husband for any stupid reason (as spouses sometimes are known to do), you have full permission to cyber slap me. I am, indeed, a very lucky girl.