3 Month Update

It has been 3ish months since Sophia was born...and we are having a great time! Sorry that I have not been more diligent about updating the blog. Anyway, here are things as they stand today:

1) Sophia is happy, healthy, growing like a (very cute) weed, and enjoying being the delight of her parents. Betty is an incredible mom who is having the time of her life while at the same time being put to the test by odd sleep patterns, cabin fever, and all of the other stuff that comes with being a new mom. I am also having the time of my life! I find myself sighing with a goofy smile on my face a lot these days...

2) Pablo, Sonia, and Gabriel are doing very well too. Sonia has recovered well and relatively quickly and is back in full-blown Pablo and Sonia-esque activities including but not limited to deciding as a family with to take in a foster child into their home. They keep on giving, and I suspect that they always will.

3) I will be building a new blog for Sophia soon and will transition activity away from this blog, although this one will continue to exist. Part of the reason that I built the blog to begin with was to offer information to anyone who might have questions about the process of surrogacy, so I'll leave it up for anyone's use. This will be my last post on this blog. I will be sending info to friends and family about the new blog as soon as I have it, so keep an eye out for it.

In the meantime, here are some pics taken by our friend and gifted photographer, Jennifer Phatiphong. If you are thinking to yourself "hey, I would like such pics of my own family/wedding/etc.", you can see examples of her work here: http://esperanzajennphotography.blogspot.com/
And here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/esperanzajenn/
For pricing info: http://esperanzajennphotography.blogspot.com/2009/10/pricing-info.html

Just a few pics for now (all courtesy of Jennifer Phatiphong):

Thanks be to God for His unending grace, mercy, and love. We are forever humbled and grateful.

Gloria in te domine
Gloria, exultate
Gloria, Gloria

-Alvaro

halloween '09

Gabriel with his new cousin Sophia

The Day Is Here

I assume that many of you following our blog already know what I am about to say from Facebook, but for those who do not frequent Facebook...

After all of the years of trying and planning and praying and working on bringing our Surrogacy Adventure to its desired end (or beginning, depending on how you look at it), the day has come.

Sonia Elena Tovar has given birth to Sophia Elena Grace Tovar today, August 28 at 2:11AM at the Kaiser Permanente Baldwin Park Medical Center.

Here's how it wentdown. I may leave stuff out...Betty, Sonia, or Pablo can fill in the holes:
I got a call yesterday from Betty telling me that Sonia's contractions were sufficiently close together to justify us going to the hospital and getting Sonia admitted. I rushed out of a meeting at work, drove home, and then Pablo, Sonia, Betty and I all drove down together. We spent a good amount of time waiting, talking to doctors and nurses, waiting for Sophia to move into the correct position for actual labor to begin. And by good amount I mean from roughly 4PM on August 27 to 2AM on August 28. That is really long time to endure a tremendous amount of pain and discomfort (those of you who have experienced giving birth can attest to this and understand all of the details that come with it), which is exactly what Sonia did. To say that Sonia is tough and tolerant is a gross understatement, and on closer inspection, perhaps masks the true driving force behind her actions, not only in the last 2 days but throughout the last year...Sonias' motivation was unselfish love. There is no conceivable reason that a person would show such an extent of grace to another person with nothing comparable to offer in return if it is not driven by love. I mentioned this at one of the baby showers. I believe that Pablo and Sonia believe that God calls us to show practical acts of love to those who it is not owed, who do not or cannot offer the same in reciprocity, or in some cases who clearly do not deserve such treatment. Pablo and Sonia believe that we are called to follow the example of God himself. Betty and I hold the same belief. Betty, Sophia, and I are the recipients of grace. Grace that has been extended through Pablo, Sonia, and Gabriel, who in turn have also been shown Grace by God. In the Bible in John 15:13, Jesus says "My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." I believe that Pablo, Sonia, and Gabriel have sacrificed and risked much to emulate this. I consciously include Gabriel (Pablo and Sonia's toddler-aged son) in this because even though it may seem like he would not sacrifice much, he has too. In fact today, I became acutely aware of an example of this. A while after Sonia had given birth, Gabriel turned to Sonia and said something to the effect of "now you can pick me up and carry me again, Mommy". I had forgotten that Gabriel had given up the basic comfort of being picked up and carried by his mom whenever he needed it (which is quite often, for little kids) so that she could be pregnant with Sophia. That may not strike you as deeply as it did me, but it is a simple yet humbling example of the pile of things that Pablo, Sonia, and Gabriel have laid down for the sake of showing grace.

Which brings me to a sub-topic. You have probably already put the pieces together in your head, but the reason that I picked Grace for Sophia's "secret" middle name is so that she will have a lifelong reminder both for her and for the rest of us that it is Pablo, Sonia, and Gabriel's act of grace that made her own existence possible, that ultimately God has shown all of humanity Grace, and that God calls us all to live lives marked by acts of grace towards each other.

By the way, both Sonia and Sophia came out from the birthing process tired, but very healthy without major complications, thank God. There were some tense moments when we were not sure that Sophia would come out easily (without a c-section), but through some fancy coaxing and a ton of work on Sonia's part, she made it through just fine...complete, perfectly healthy, and wonderful.

I would gush about Sophia, about how much we love her, how beautiful and amazing we think she is, (all true) etc., etc., etc., but you have the rest of our lives to hear about that from me and Betty! Brace yourselves...

I am really sorry about not posting many pics... I'm having technological issues ( I can't find a cable I need to get it done) and I need to coordinate with my brother who took the majority of the pics to get them all in one place. We'll post some in the next couple of days, I promise, once we've has some sleep and got our acts together. Here are a couple of low-res pics to get things started.

Just out of the canal:

Fixed up a bit a few minutes later:

With Mom:

Hopefully, we'll all be going home from the hospital together tomorrow, but we'll see. In any case, we can't wait for Sophia to get to know you!

More soon...

-Alvaro

Rounding Third Base, Headed for Home

I must, as usual, apologize for the delay in updating our little blog. Much has been happening...

Most importantly, we're at the end of the road. It should only be a matter of days until Sonia gives birth to Sophia. Sonia is actually seeing signs of things picking up speed. She is having contractions that are on and off at about 10 minutes apart, which could mean we could see Sophia showing up early (in the next few days). The next time I make a blog entry, I will likely be doing so from the hospital!

Also, lately Betty and I have been the grateful recipients of multiple displays of love and friendship in the form of baby showers. My coworkers at Kaiser had one for me, Betty's coworkers and the City of Pasadena had a couple for her, and friends/family had yet another for us as well. Thank you to all of you who have so generously given us tons of baby-related stuff. And I mean tons. Sophia's wardrobe is much nicer than Betty's and mine put together! Seriously, we have all that we need and more for Sophia when she finally decides to show up. I'm posting some pics from the showers...

Here's me coming in the door to the shower at my work from my team. I was told I was going to a work-related meeting. At this moment, I am realizing that this is no work meeting ("what are Betty and Sonia doing here?") and that I have been duped.

More (thanks for the pics, Roxanne and Mike, and thanks for the event and gifts Inpt. TrACs):







Here are some from Betty's surprise shower at her work the next day ("what are Alvaro and Sonia doing here?"). Thanks, City of Pasadena friends!:





Gotta point this out...those are tiny Apple Bottom Jeans! No joke!



Here are some from the friends/family shower hosted by Edith Lei and Clara Hayes (thanks again, ladies!):








We have more, less blurry, higher resolution pics, but as you can tell I have bigger fish to fry. I'll post all the pics to Flickr later on (if you have some on your camera, send them to me please), but I wanted to post a few quickly.

We will , of course, let you all know as soon as "the time" comes. Pray for the health and well-being of both Sonia and Sophia as they both get ready to do something amazing...

-Alvaro

Names and pics

Another little update...

Things are going quite well. Two new things:

1) Our kid has now been officially named...sort of. For those of you who know me and have followed along (and even participated) in the naming saga, you are well aware that I have been the hold up. Well, Betty and I have finally come to a consensus. It happened as we were walking down Lake Ave. in Pasadena today. All of a sudden. Our kid's name is...

Sophia Elena ??? Tovar

Here's how it breaks down:
Sophia is a name that Betty heard and we both liked, can be used easily by both English and Spanish speakers, of which we have both in our family, and because we hope that our daughter will pursue God's wisdom. We'll probably use Sophie for short when she's little. Cute, eh?
Elena is a thankful nod to and Clara Hayes and Sonia Tovar, the ladies who were our volunteer surrogates (for more on this, see earlier posts). It turns out both their middle names are Elena! We wanted to honor them both and five names would have been brutal (keep reading for more on this).
Tovar is...well, you know.
Now for the ???. It's a placeholder for another middle name. I hold the exclusive rights to this name position. I'm not even sure what that will be, but I'll let you know soon enough. Perhaps four names is a bit unusual, but this is an unusual birth (see previous posts for details) and why the heck should everyone be the same? So there you have it.

Sophia Elena Dad'sChoiceOfAnotherNameHere Tovar

The only kick in the pants would be if our kids ultrasounds were misread and it turns out to be a boy...

UPDATE TO THE UPDATE: Mad props to Terra Root! Thanks much for the name suggestion. Betty just reminded me that you did indeed win our little contest by suggesting the name Sophia (or something really close) and will be known from this point as the web-based inspiration for the name of our daughter! It pays to play!

2) I have some pics that I promised to post, so here they are:

Sonia at home, looking ready.

A closeup to give you an idea of how soon our bun will be coming out of the oven:

Speaking of which, our countdown timer tells me that we're about 20% from Sophia's birth day. In reality, I have a sneaking suspicion that we are actually a little closer. The nurse midwife we saw at the last visit said that although Sonia is 32 weeks along, the baby is measuring at the the equivalent of 34 weeks. So, either our kid will be coming along a tad early or we'll have a big kid coming (yeah, Olympics 2020, endorsement deals!)

My brother Pablo experiencing sympathy belly (we're both half-ham on our Dad's side):

Here are a few pics at the doc few days ago. Notice that the sign behind the says "leave your child unattended on table". Will do! (j/k, Mom)

-Alvaro

June Mini Update

Just wanted to give those of you who are following our journey a bit of an update in case the blog is how you are keeping up:

1) Sonia and the baby are both healthy (God is gracious) and rounding the metaphorical Third Base headed towards Home Plate. All of the medical visits have turned out well so we are, of course, truly grateful. Sonia has been incredible through pain, nausea, inconvenience, medical scares (all is well, don't worry), disturbed sleep, deprivation of things she really likes to eat and do, general pregnancy discomfort, being an active 3-year old's mom while being pregnant, lots of stuff Sonia has never mentioned but endured nonetheless, etc., etc., etc., but has come through all of it with a great attitude, in classic Sonia fashion. Pablo and Gabriel have also been through a lot and have shown us deep amounts of grace and support.

2) Betty is exploding into motherhood. I've never seen her like I've seen her in the last few months, steadily increasing in mommyness. She's super-protective of our kid (as she should be), gathering all of the nuts and twigs that her nesting instinct will allow, reading a ton of stuff about babies and such, and cooing at a lot of tiny mostly pastel-colored, uber-cute, girly baby clothes. Betty is already a spectacular mommy!

3) Our baby girl still does not have an official name (mostly because I can't make up my mind) but we've narrowed it down to a couple of choices. She is lovingly know as "Baby Cousin X" in Pablo and Sonia's household for now so that Gabriel can talk to "Tia Betty and Tio Alvaro's baby in Mommy's panza" (btw, Gabriel has pledged to take good care of the baby as her big boy cousin, you'll be glad to know). Betty is quite firm about her name preference...I'm the holdup. More on this coming soon.

4) We have a new baby countdown gadget on the right-hand side of the blog so you can see from time to time how close we are to the expected due date, Sept. 4. If you are viewing this via RSS feed, you'll have to go to the blog itself to see it. Right now it says:

Baby Launch Counter

The countdown to Sept. 4 (the predicted birth date of our daughter): is 74% complete. 200 days, 9 hrs, 18 mins, 7 secs completed, 70 days, 13 hrs, 41 mins, 53 secs remaining.

Yeah, we know that no kid comes right on time, but it's in the ballpark. 74%!


Thanks as always for journeying and praying for us. We believe that ultimately, God is in control of all, including both Sonia and our baby girl's well-being and safety, so we appreciate you praying for them both. We're right around the corner from our kid being ex-utero, being part of all of our (you being a part of our) lives, seeing you for the first time, playing peek-a-boo, growing like mad, running around with your kids, laughing at your best silly little-kid jokes, eating your popsicles, etc..

I'm getting ahead of myself, you say? Maybe, but time flies when you're having fun.

-Alvaro

Legal Stuff

Two new things...

1) Betty and I finally got to feel our little girl move! Sonia has been feeling her moving for some time, but it is just recently that the rest of us can feel her move. Cool!

2) Betty and I are now the legal guardians of our kid. Sound strange? It isn't really when you think about it. Imagine...Sonia shows up to the labor/delivery room, the baby is born, Betty and I say "so, even though the baby came out of that brave lady, we want to take the baby home and have our names on the birth certificate." Normally, the L&D staff would call security at this point, but since we went to court to sort all of this out ahead of time, all is well. That's what Pablo, Sonia, Betty and I went and did on 5/14. Two attorneys, a clerk, a legal reporter and a judge down at the Children's Court near Cal State LA. Thankfully, everything went very smoothly.

Some pics:

Here are the attorneys in the courtroom with Betty and I (Pablo and Sonia are just to the left of the pic out of the frame):



Here we all are with the judge.:



And finally, all of us outside the courthouse. Pablo and I did not coordinate out shirts on purpose... :

-Alvaro