Back from Oklahoma

I'm back from Oklahoma now. I don't know much more about my grandfather's condition than when I went there. But, I'm really, really glad I went. We really can't tell if he knows whats going on around him or not. He definitely reacts to some people when they come in. He can also wave someone over and hold their hand. He just can't communicate beyond that. We also don't know if he really knows the person or just knows that he somehow knows the person (if that makes sense). The largest reaction thus far was with Oksana. He was really happy to see her. She spent alot of her time in the hospital room sitting by his bed, holding his hand, and talking softly to him. I think she was soothing to him because as soon as we left yesterday he started causing problems again (like trying to pull out his feeding tube). I just love that my grandparents just love her so.

I had a good talk with my mom this weekend. This is a big deal because my family doesn't talk. They verbalize but it's always chit chat and on safe subjects. Among other things we discussed Oksana and I having children. She admitted she doesn't know if she'll ever accept the children. However, my brother and I both feel that once the child is here, she will accept him/her. My parents still really struggle with this all, but they are very nice to Oksana.

We are thinking of getting married in Canada in October. Even though I'm not in a traditional relationship, I still want to be married before having kids. I know this does not make much sense at all. But, trying to figure out where in Canada and details on how to do it have not been worked out, however, October is looking like the likely time frame. I love the month of September and had thought I'd get married in it, but for a myriad of reasons, thats very unlikely. October is the current guess.

It's been crazy

Well, it's been crazy since I last posted. The donor came into town on Sunday afternoon so that he could go to the doctor early Monday morning. The doctor ran all sorts of tests on him to make sure he's healthy and a viable donor. However, unlike we had been told, he was not allowed to make the initial deposit. So, he'll have to visit a clinic close to where he lives.

We went to the lawyer yesterday. We both really liked her. She's expensive but she really knew her stuff and is to the point. Oksana and I feel much better about our legal options after talking to her. So, the first agreement, the donor agreement, will be drafted in the next week for us to review. Once we are happy with that agreement it will go to the donor to sign. The good thing about this agreement is that its very effective at protecting us from him wanting paternal rights later and us from trying to get child support. This document is upheld in the courts and is pretty airtight. This is in contrast to all the documents that we'll file to try to get me parental rights. Those will be up to the feelings of the individual judge. Luckily, the lawyer knows which counties in Texas we can file in to maximize my chances of getting the second-parent adoption granted.

I am leaving for Oklahoma tomorrow to visit my grandparents. There's been very little progress with my grandfather. He will not go home and will probably have to go to a nursing home. He is partially paralyzed and unable to eat without a feeding tube or communicate. My grandma doesn't think he recognizes anyone. We don't know what we are going to do with her once he leaves the hospital. She is too healthy to go into a nursing home and can't afford an assisted living center.

I really like the new Dixie Chicks song "I'm not ready to make nice". I love that they refuse to apologize for giving their opinion. That is one of their constitutional rights. I am bothered that giving their opinion caused radio stations to refuse to play them. Plus, it is really disturbing that they received death threats because of stating their opinion. With all of the terrorism and much greater threats some wacko American is threatening three women who had a negative opinion about the president. I have a negative opinion about the president. Sadly, the death threat came from Texas. It is a screwed up world.

Thunderstorm needed

I am so ready for fall or at least one good thunderstorm that will knock the temperatures down for awhile. It has been outrageously hot this past week. This would not be a problem if the air conditioning worked properly in our house, but it doesn't. We have a combination of a old/underpowered A/C unit and really crappy windows. So, if the temperature gets above 90 degrees the AC can't keep up. This week it has been 84 degrees in the house. My office (in the house) is 3 degrees warmer, so it has been 87 degrees in here. Since I work from home, it's been very difficult to work in the afternoons. I am just not as productive when I'm hot.

My grandfather is not doing too well. He is completely unable to communicate and he's paralyzed on the right side. It is unlikely that he'll ever be allowed to go home again. This really upsets me. I really can't imagine going to Oklahoma and him not being at his house for me to go visit. I'll probably go up there towards the end of next week.

The real estate agent that I had in Ann Arbor emailed me suggesting that I find another realtor. He's had the house for 2 years and been unable to sell it. I've been told by a friend for about a year now to fire him, but I didn't ever find the time to find another agent. Plus, he's been positive he could sell it. Well, he finally reached the point that he doesn't think he can sell it. So, I have to figure out if I want to sell it or rent it out. One of the clients of the startup company I work for is a realtor. Not only is she a realtor, she's a top 10 Re/Max realtor. So, I told her my sob story and she's found out the best Re/Max agent for the Ann Arbor area and has called her and interviewed her to see if she was any good. Well, this agent is taking a few days to run some analysis on the house. Then she'll let me know if the house is really unsellable in the Michigan housing market or if she'll take it on. So, I wait. If she doesn't think it can sell, I need to find a property manager willing to rent it out.

Well, I must go do a rain dance...oh, and get back to work :-P

The train has left the station

It is feeling like the whole baby thing has taken on a life of its own. We met with the fertility doctor on Monday. He had Oksana come back yesterday to run all the tests to make sure she's okay. She emailed the known donor that the doctor would like to examine him. So, he's now coming this weekend and going to the doctor on Monday. The full battery of tests will be run on him as well as he'll be making a "deposit". In addition, on Monday we are going to see the lawyer. Now that the donor will be with us, that might also go faster. Aye yie yie.

My grandfather, who is 90 years old, had a stroke yesterday. It has affected his ability to swallow and therefore to eat. So, now we wait for the doctors to determine whether this is permanent or if he can be rehabilitated. It is all very scary. I really, really want him to be okay. I just lost my other grandfather 6 months ago. I want this set of grandparents to be here when I have a child. This is the set that would be okay with Oksana and I and would love us having a child. I have so few family members that feel that way. I can't imagine life without this set of grandparents.

This is going to be expensive

It's been a busy day today. We went to see the fertility doctor today. I really liked him and his approach to getting women pregnant the unnatural way. He is very focused on statistics/probabilities so he makes choices based upon what will give us the greater chance of becoming pregnant instead of just looking at the cost. In the long run, it's probably cheaper or at least less nerve-wracking to pay more per cycle and have fewer of them than paying less per cycle (month) but taking longer to get pregnant. Of course, there are some who get pregnant on the first try the cheaper way, but from the stories I've seen on the internet, it's rare. He is having Oksana do all these tests upfront to make sure there's no fertility problems (instead of testing her if she doesn't get pregnant after several unsuccessful attempts). He prescribed her prenatal vitamins and plans on doing two inseminations per cycle to increase the chances even further. On top of that, he is also going to have her take a fertility drug (not the type/strength that you read about multiple births with, though it does increase her chance to 9%). I would actually prefer to have twins given the legal/medical hurdles and costs involved with having kids. It would also keep us from having to pay to keep the donor's sperm frozen for the next 3 - 4 years.

Next week we meet with the lawyer to find out about the legal documents we will need. I've already been quoted the retainer amount for getting the initial donor agreement in place and it is much higher than I anticipated. Add the other agreements we will need and it may surpass all the costs for the medical aspects of getting pregnant. Aye yie yie! The doctor asked us if we had a lawyer yet and we told him that we had an appointment with one next week but didn't know them yet. It was reassuring about choice in lawyer when he recommended the same one we already had an appointment with.

Well, thats enough for this post. There are so many thoughts/details swirling in my head following today's appointment. I'm sure it will be worse next week after we meet with the lawyer. However, I need to get back to work so that I can help pay for this expensive choice we made ;-)

The Weekend

Friday night we had friends over for a casual dinner and a game. It was so much fun. Oksana made Swedish meatballs. I got some french bread and warmed it up and our friends brought over crackers/cheese and wine. After dinner we played a game called "The Settlers of Catan". It is such a fun game. However, it's from an independent game maker so its not found in regular retail stores. Thats too bad because it is very fun.

Yesterday Oksana was having an ADD day so I took her to Traders Village for some retail therapy. Traders Village is basically like the open air markets in Mexico. Oksana found herself some jewelry so she's all happy with the place. We'll probably go back in the Fall when it's cooler. It was really random on what stuff was there, maybe in the Fall there will be more traders there and more stuff.

My grandparents wrote to each other during World War II. After they died, their siblings did not want to split the letters up so my mom is in the process of scanning them into the computer. After she completes this task, I will merge the scans into an Adobe document. My mom has scanned up to 2 weeks before my grandparents had gotten married, about 600 letters. I am working with this first batch of letters now. The scans themselves are about 18 GB. I am going scan by scan and making the letters lighter (they had yellowed with age) so that if any one wants to print a letter, the printer won't use all that tonor reproducing yellow. In about an hour and a half last night I fixed 30 letters. So, this is going to take some time!

My parents are supposed to drive from my sister's today to visit. However, my nephew woke up with a cold yesterday so I don't know yet whether they are coming or not.

TGIF

Woo hoo, it's Friday. I didn't work yesterday because I kept my nephew for the day. His mom, dad, and new baby sister are still at the hospital. So, I kept him so that my parents would have a break and could go up to the hospital as well. He is so much fun (almost 2.5 years old), but I don't know where he gets his energy. I slept very well last night.

Oksana had a friend over last night for drinking while I was at my sisters. When I got home I had to drive him back to his car in downtown. I'd rather do this than having him drive under the influence. Plus, it allowed for Oksana to get an evening alone to talk to him. He's going through some things and it seems to be better to get people to talk when they've had a bit of alcohol.

The dinner Wednesday night was great. The restaurant, Boccado's, turned out to have very good food and a great ambiance. We had a quiet table in the corner and were able to talk for 2.5 hours. She and her partner had a child 10 years ago. The child is happy and well-adjusted. Overall, she made us feel like it is totally doable for Oksana and I to have a child together and that alot of the horror stories we read on the internet were the exceptions and not the rule. It was also nice that we could have this conversation (including details of artificial insemination) over dinner and it not be out of place. The restaurant had a mixed hetero-homo crowd, but because of its openness you didn't have to worry about some white protestant family next to you getting all uptight and huffy about the 'improper' conversation.

We have friends coming over tonight for dinner and games. Oksana is cooking which is almost a cause of celebration :-) She cooks so rarely, but she does have one or two dishes that she does very well. Tonight is one of my favorites. Yummy. However, the house is not really ready for company so it needs to be vacuumed etc before they get here. So, I need to get back to work so that I can finish early today and do some chores....

Hello Lydia

Lydia and her family

The first picture is me holding Lydia. Even though Oksana held her most of the evening, I did not get a good picture of her doing so. She was a much better photographer last night and got several pretty good ones with me and her. The second photo is of Lydia's family. Joshua was being very busy and noisy last night. Lydia doesn't know what she's in for with an older brother.

Tonight we are going out to dinner with a woman who had a child with her partner many years ago. We are meeting her to get the scoop on what to expect and how they dealt with various things. We are meeting at a restaurant that is known to be an trendy lesbian bar/restaurant. We are not pleased with that choice. We try to avoid that scene as much as possible. Oh well, we'll see how it goes.

It's a Girl!

I'm an aunt again. My sister gave birth to a healthy baby girl this afternoon. Her name is Lydia Hope and she weighed 7 pounds and 3 ounces. She came out screaming. Oksana and I will be going up there this evening to see her (and the rest of the family of course). My dad said that she has black hair and has a round face. If I can get a picture of her tonight, I'll post it tomorrow.

I am progressing on the Russian. Progress is slow, but steady. I started Unit 2 on the software I'm using. The first unit had 11 lessons. Today's lesson was all about verbs. I am getting where I can understand the spoken words that I've learned. I can sometimes recognize them by their spelling. However, I really suck at speaking Russian. The sounds just don't seem normal. Oh well. As long as I progress.

A friend of mine's brother is getting a divorce. I know him and like him, so I feel really bad for him. There are too many people with "I told you so" with regards to this marriage so I feel bad for him in that way as well. He met and dated a woman online. They only met a few times in person before getting married. So, while they knew all about each other from the phone and letters, they really didn't know how each other was 24/7. So, the little habits that your significant other does weren't known before marriage. Needless to say, once they got to know each other at that level, neither was happy. But, he's still depressed, even though he's better off.

Not much else to report today. I hope to have a few pictures for tomorrow's post.

The Weekend

Had a pretty good weekend this weekend. Of course, I always know the weekend will be good when Oksana wakes up on a Saturday morning and cleans the house! We were going shopping with friends to Katy Mills mall and they were picking us up. Oksana knows that I don't like people to come over when the house is a wreck so she cleaned it up before they got here. The house can be a little disorganized, but piles of dishes in the kitchen and fur-laden floors is embarrassing to me. So, by 1pm on Saturday, all the cleaning chores had been done. Plus, Oksana had done most of the laundry.

So, we went to Katy Mills mall. Katy Mills is a relatively new and very large mall. So, my expectations were that we'd find some interesting stuff there. Wrong. It didn't have any of the usual anchor stores in it. It seemed to be a large conglomeration of small stores. The mall was incredibly crowded (it was tax-free weekend) and overall not worth the drive. However, I really enjoyed going out with the friends that we did.

On Sunday we went and checked out some vintage clothing stores. They are basically thrift stores that richer people sell back their clothing to and that are picky about what they buy back. Evidently, only skinny people are allowed to shop in these higher end thrift stores. They largest size they carry is a size 10. Oh well. So, I got to help Oksana find a really awesome leather skirt and some cute shoes. Given that the shoes were high heeled, it's strange that I thought the shoes were cute. I like my shoes flat and comfortable. After shopping for a few hours we went to the original Ninfa's mexican restaurant in an older part of Houston. I had been wanting to go since we moved back here in Novemer 2004 and had never made it. It was pretty good. Though, I probably wouldn't drive there from where we live for it. There are some really good Mexican food places out here. But I'm glad that we took our little adventure.

Another friend of mine got two chocolate lab puppies this weekend. She's nuts because she already has a 1 year old lab and two sons (one 6 and one 3). The puppies are adorable though. Unfortunately, one of the puppies was having trouble walking last night making my friend worried about its legs. Her husband said that if the dog is crippled, they will return it. He'll have fun explaining that to his sons. So, the puppy is at the vet.

My sister is having her 2nd child tomorrow. The C-Section is scheduled for noon tomorrow so sometime in the afternoon I should be an aunt again. It's so exciting :-)

Bored at work

At work today I need to go through all of the transactions done last year using the business Visa card and the bank statements and categorize them for the tax accountant. It is very boring and tedious. Fortunately, next year I'll only have to do this for the first 6 months of 2006 because when I took over June 1, I started using an accounting software package. So, for the 2nd half of this year, I'll only have to run a report. Oh well.

I'm making good progress on my picture labeling/album creation project. I have everything labeled and in albums for the years 1990 - December 1999. I am currently labeling the pictures I took in San Diego in December 1999. Looking back at the photo's is really fun. It also makes me very aware of how much I used to travel compared to now. Of course, most of that travel was for work (I just tacked on a weekend to see the sights). It was a good job to have right out of college, but I'm glad I'm not traveling for work like I used to. I just need to find a way to get more vacation time and of course money in which to enjoy that time.

It's been awhile

Well, somebody who shall remain nameless told Oksana to kick me for not updating my blog in the last few days. So, here I am....

Oksana has been working some really weird hours lately because of her job. Her hours are totally throwing me off schedule. I am used to doing certain things at certain times of the day (such as updating my blog). I seem to be snatching whatever time I can get with her regardless of what other plans/tasks it upsets. I'll really be glad when that project is over and she is back to working normal and a reasonable number of hours.

We went to see "The Devil Wears Prada" this weekend. I never read the book so I enjoyed the movie. I found it very entertaining. I wouldn't say its one of the best movies I've seen, but my expectation was to be entertained and I was. Evidently, the movie is only slightly like the book. The Meryl Streep character in the movie is harsh, but human, where evidently in the book she is just heartless. I bet Meryl had a ton of fun with that role. I think I would. Though, I don't see how anyone could be happy making so many other people miserable.

I am continuing to learn Russian. It is really a hard language or maybe I struggle learning new languages. However, I think Spanish or French would be easier because at least they use the same characters. The sounds may be different, but at least the letters look normal. Russian uses all these weird characters. I'm just glad I'm not dating someone Chinese. I'd hate to have to learn that alphabet!

My parents will be at my sisters from this coming Saturday until August 21. My sister is having her 2nd child on Tuesday so my parents are here to help out. Somehow I doubt they'll do this when we have our child. They don't think we should have children. Oh well, I guess we'll see. They handled Oksana and I being together better than I thought they would so maybe they'll surprise me again.