Progress on Two Fronts

Although my weight has been fluctuating, it looks like I have succeeded in getting halfway to my goal—3.5 lbs. down, 3.5 to go. I had a minor setback over the weekend, which included Zach's birthday and a number of diet-unfriendly dishes eaten in celebration thereof, but I think I am back on track.

Besides focusing on the calories I take in, I'm also working on the ones I expend. Last week, for the first time since a short-lived stint on the track team back in middle school, I started running. Well, not running exactly—run/walking, an approach designed to minimize injury and eventually improve efficiency.

I'm still getting the hang of it all—timing myself so that I run 10 seconds out of every minute, figuring out which headphones are comfortable yet sufficiently sweat-resistant to use for my iPod, getting up early enough to beat the sun and the heat—but so far, so good. (Although I did manage to wear my new running bra inside out one day last week. I'm still not sure how that happened. Just talented, I guess.)

Meanwhile, back at the surrogacy ranch, we have made at least one decision. Preliminarily. Tentatively. We think.

As of now (one more qualifier, for good measure), we're planning to use an agency (as opposed to a lawyer or a fertility clinic or the Internet) to help us find a surrogate and guide us through the process.

Our next step is to figure out which agency, of the hundreds out there, including dozens just in Southern California.

That's going to take some time.

And then it's going to take some money.

And coming up with that money is going to take some more time.

But we are inching forward.

At last.