Can you get all you want?

Can we get what we want one more time?

2012-01-29T19:54:00.000+01:00

That is the big question these days. Nora Wilhelmine has grown up so fast and we see that she is a bit spoiled. We also want a sibling for other reasons, then she will always have a person that hopefully will be there for her in good and in difficult times. My husband and i have siblings and we want her to have that to.

So.... the big question is: CAN WE GET WHAT WE WANT ONCE MORE?

We have already checked out a few things and started the process the summer of 2011, we wanted our surrogate to help us again if she wanted to, but she was not ready at that time. So we started the search for a new surrogate as we though that that our dear S did not want to do it again at all.

We had a few embryos in the freezer and we decided that if we did not make it with those, we would stop.

We started up again with a really sweet surrogate, but we had a missed abortion in week 9. I was devastated, my husband to, but we wanted to start again and this time we got the best news ever from India and that was that our wonderful S was ready and she wanted to help us again.

We were so happy, we know her and her family, we know that she is healthy, relaxed and "experienced". She have two wonderful kids on her own and she carried Nora Wilhelmine and all three pregnancies were without problems. The reason for why she was not available at first was that she wanted to wait until after a festival that she and her family was attending.

So now we are officially pregnant again, our first HCG test came back with these numbers: 323,61 and the second one: 664,81 :-D I can't do anything else, but to smile a big smile... If we are going to be lucky again, it will be exactly two years between them. Perfect if you ask me. The HCG numbers are much higher then the first time so we are really keeping our fingers crossed and hoping for a new miracle this time.

Wish us all the luck in the world, because we will need it!

Thumbs up, have a wonderful christmas everyone and enjoy your holidays. We are spending 5 weeks in Thailand enjoying the holidays here.

Will be continued

Mary

17 months now!

2012-01-26T22:51:00.000+01:00

We spent christmas in Thailand and she changed a lot during those 5 weeks. Here you can see a few pictures of our princess

14 months today!

2011-10-23T21:12:00.000+02:00

Our little baby is growing so fast. She is in daycare everyday and loves it!
Here is a few pictures of her

On our way to the first day in daycare

At the zoo

she loves to play in her castle

hi mom

curly head

Have a wonderful day and take care folks!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PRINCESS!

2011-08-23T20:18:00.001+02:00

WE LOVE YOU SO MUCH!

Thank you for giving your mum and dad the most wonderful year in their lives, we can't wait for all the next ones to come...

My birthday party was a fun day :-D I ate a lot of cake!

My friends

I went with my mum to our cabin!

My very good friends, Julia and Maria

I am (trying to) standing up for the first time

Norwegian constitution day, may 17th.

Christmas eve

Still a little baby in the hotel in Mumbai

One of my first baths

Napping

I am tired, so please.......

This year has down by so fast that it is hard to believe that it has been one year already! Thank you Nora Wilhelmine for all the great memories, laughter and happiness you have given us so far,
we love you!

She is walking!

2011-07-19T19:43:00.001+02:00

Today our little princess is walking! She is now 10 months 3 weeks and 5 days old. We are so proud of her <3

Playing outside

2011-06-01T20:33:00.000+02:00

There is a small park nearby and we went there the other evening. Here are some photos

Nora enjoyed it, but we had to go back home and continue playing inside, because it was to windy outside and really cold.

Take care folks!

The Norwegian constitution day

2011-05-19T20:51:00.000+02:00

May 17th. Norway stopps for a day, we are all out celebrating, dressed up in our national costumes and best suits. The children walks in parades and bands are playing. Here are a few pictures of us celebrating for the first time with Nora :-D

Watching a "russe" ceremony . "Russ" are the ones sitting on top of the bus

Our dog

My brother and I

Nora in her brand new costume

A very proud daddy

Our beautiful princess

Enough is enough!

We were so proud and walked around with to big smiles on our faces all day. We had a lovely lunch in a hotel downtown Oslo, and a barbecue with my parents in the evening. The day was perfect!

Congratulations Kari Ann Volden!

2011-04-15T13:13:00.000+02:00

Finally she is coming home! After 15 months stuck in India she got the fabulous news today! We are so happy for her.
You can read about it in the papers in Norway today

CONGRATULATIONS DEAR KARI ANN,

MICHAEL ANDRE & ANDRIAN RENE!

Hurray hurray, 7 months today!

2011-03-23T17:57:00.000+01:00

Our little baby is not so small anymore

The cutest girl in the world!

Hi mum, can you see me?

Yes we are expecting teeth´s any day now, she chews on everything all day long :-)

On a winter holiday one week ago

Pictures taken for a thank you card

Here is a short update from us in Oslo, Norway. Nora is almost crawling around now, at the moment she looks more like a seal on land but she has a great technique and moves around at great speed. We have to watch her every second now. ;-) She is a happy girl that laughs a lot and loves to be thrown up in the air and played with. She eats dinner everyday and porridge for lunch, the other meals are fruit pure and milk. She weighs 8kg and she is 70cm long. She wakes up at 07.00-7.30 and goes to sleep at 8pm. During the days she takes naps, the first one is about 1 hour, then 2-3hours, then 1hour and then bedtime. She loves being out in her stroller everyday for a hours. That is normally when she takes her long daytime nap.

I hope you all are enjoying spring, we certainly are. The birds are out singing and the snow is melting, it´s simply perfect!

Take care folks :-)

5months 2 weeks

2011-02-08T11:15:00.001+01:00

Time flies and we enjoy every day together with Nora Wilhelmine. She is growing up so fast, already she is 7kg and 67,5cm long...
She is happy, sleeps through the nights, eats fruits, vegetables and porridge. She turns around from her back to her stomach and wants to stand up as much as possible. Yep, no quiet time here anymore ;-)
Here are a few pictures of her taken recently

Happy birthday Michael Andre og Adrian Rene

2011-01-24T17:34:00.001+01:00

Kari Ann Volden's twins are 1 year old today!
That means that they have been one year stuck in India. I feel sorry for them and think about them every day wishing there was something we could do to help them home. But it is up to the norwegian government to let them come home and let her raise her boys in the beautiful north of Norway like she planned it from the start. It is not humane to keep her stuck like she is now.
Kari Ann is a fantastic person who has been punished enough! Please let them come home now.

Michael Andre, Kari Ann, Håkon & me

Happy birthday boys, wish and hope that you can come home very soon!

Hugs from Nora Wilhelmine, Håkon and Marianne

Baptism and Christmas

2010-12-28T13:54:00.000+01:00

We celebrated Nora Wilhelmine´s baptism on December 12th. It was a perfect day, she slept trough almost 1.5 hours in the church. When the priest held her up her head fell down because she was so tired. The whole church laughed at her because it looked kind of silly :-)
All in all we had a lovely day together with our family and friends. Nora Wilhelmine woke up a few times but i guess she got tired of all the attention she got from everyone and decided to sleep trough the whole day.

Christmas
We celebrated Christmas eve at Nora Wilhelmines grandmother and grandfather. She got about 1000 presents :-) and was a happy girl trough the whole evening. The result is that we dont have to buy her clothes for the next year or so... but we probably will if I know us right :-)
She has been struggling with a bad diarrhea and and not been her normal self for a week. Thank god that is getting better now. I know it would not have made any difference about her understanding what all the presents was, but she would have been her normal self enjoying everybody and not hated being held by someone else than us.

But we had happy moments to

Christmas day

We spent christmas day at home in our PJ´s and had a nice and quiet day, just the three of us. We wanted to calm down after christmas eve and clean up and look at all our presents. Nora was getting better and we took a few pics.

Yes i think she is having teeth very soon, i cant see them yet but her fingers our whatever else she can find will go straight into the mouth to be chewed on.

That all for now folks, take care

and we wish you all a happy New Year

3 months already!

2010-11-29T14:22:00.002+01:00

If i cold get a penny every time i write or say time flies fast, i would be rich. But it is how it is, it has been to long since i last wrote some words here there is just not enough time to do everything i want to do. Luckily i am feeling much better, so i dont have to go to bed at 8-9 in the evening. I am even out walking all though it has been snowing a lot the last days. Temperature has dropped and it is windy and cold, but we dress up and go out.

Anyway, here are some recent pictures that we have taken. We love her to death. she is so amazing, every morning when i pick her up, she greats me with a big smile. It makes my day!

A few pictures we tried to do on our own, they turned out ok

On sunday we all went to a small town about 45 minutes from home and wived the christmas tree lightning. It was so cold that even our dog complained. Here we are outside the christmas house, They have christmas all year round and you can buy all sorts of christmas decorations.

Here we are on another walk in Arendal, Hove. It was a lovely day

Our little angel

In my winter dress, still a little bit big

<3<3<3

Take care all of you enjoy the days before christmas!

Happy halloween!

2010-10-31T21:58:00.000+01:00

Hope you all had a great day with lots of trick´s and treats

Take care all of you

Still here

2010-10-29T14:49:00.000+02:00

Time goes by fast as i have said about 100 times before.
I have been in and out of the hospital having 3 operations after we came home, and Nora Wilhelmine has passed 2 months of age.
Today she tried to laugh for the first time, it is amazing to have her in our lives. She gives us so much happiness and joy everyday, i could never imagine that is was possible to feel this way about another person.
Anyway here are some pictures of our bundle of joy

Some need rest for all three of us!

Busy busy

2010-10-14T22:10:00.000+02:00

Wow time flies fast now. We have been home a couple of weeks and the first time we had some time on our own (with Nora off course) was 4 days ago. We have had lots of friends and family dropping by and it has been a lovely time. But it was good to be alone for a few days to.

The flight back home was uneventful and good all the way to Amsterdam. On the plane from Amsterdam to Oslo there were some delays and the temperature inside the plane got very high and Nora told everyone how much she disliked that... She stopped crying after 10-15 minutes with the loudest screaming she could make and they turned on the aircon. That was a very little relaxing experience, two parents doing everything to make her shut up. I can actually understand her protesting, i wanted to do it to, it was very uncomfortable. After that it went smooth...

When we came out from the arrival zone at the airport was our family and a few friends waiting for us. Yes i cried a few tears, it was unbelievable good to be home on norwegian ground again.
But looking back on it all now, we really miss India a lot. We want to go back one day and show Nora were she was born. We want to meet our doctors and our surrogate to. We have spoken to her about it and she wants to meet her one day too.

We are enjoying every day, my husband is back to work, but when he gets home he picks her up, and they are both happy to see each other. Its great to watch.

Nora is having a lot of stomach pain, does anyone have a good trick that might help? We are on Nan Sensitive (Ha) and she drinks from Dr. Browns bottles.

Here was a short update on our days and new and super great life as parents!

We love it <3

Take care folks

We are going home tonight!

2010-09-27T10:22:00.000+02:00

Finally we are going home tonight, we have the exit visa and passport, now we just have to finish packing!

Lots to do!

Take care!

We are getting closer to takeoff!

2010-09-21T10:07:00.000+02:00

If everything works out today back home today, we have four different people helping us plus an airline, our papers will be on its way to New Delhi tonight. And they promised to have them here by thursday. Then it´s starting to look a lot brighter for our return back home.
We are happy and will definitely celebrate a bit today. We are one step closer to home, and we can start a normal life... It will be tough having to clean, cook and do the laundry ourselves. YES we are spoiled, but it has been good to get to know Nora without having to worry about those things.

Kari Ann Volden got a new rejection on her appeal to adopt her twins. What happens next is unknown, but if it was up to me, Norway should make an exception and let her come home. I cant imagine that anyone else wants to copy her surrogacy story and get stuck like she is. Her boys is turning 8 months soon and they are treated like they are not worth anything. Our government thinks she should leave them in a orphanage in India. They are crazy!!!

Well that was some good news from our journey.

Take care friends

Still in Mumbai

2010-09-19T16:14:00.000+02:00

We are still in India, but it seems like we are getting closer to our departure. Tomorrow we have been here for 5 weeks, Nora is 4 weeks and we are pretty tired of being here. But it is so definitely worth it! We spent our day at the JW Marriott today and had a good sunday brunch at the Spices restaurant. They have great sushi there!

We are hoping to be able to go home by the end of this week, but i am afraid it will be ti little time. There are still some paperwork that has to be sent back to Delhi but before that they have to stop by another office in Norway. Keep your fingers crossed. The weekends are long and we are not getting any further in the process so we look forward to the weekdays.

Take care all of you out there!

Just hanging around...

2010-09-08T11:05:00.006+02:00

and waiting! We have been at the consulate and the DNA test has been shipped off to Norway. The papers will probably leave tomorrow, if we are lucky we can go home in 3 weeks. We are afraid to get our hopes up, but we cant lose hope either so we are just hanging around waiting.
We have been here for 3 weeks and two days now and we are ready to go back home. Some of our friends are leaving today and some on saturday. We envy them, but at the same time they deserve it, they have been here much to long.

Nora Wilhelmine is in waiting mode as well

At the Leela for sunday brunch

Nora Wilhelmine is also dressed up for brunch in her first dress

Poolside in the Courtyard hotel

Feeding time

She loves being bathed

The days are long and we are a little bit afraid to take her out to much, there are lots of scary fevers going now during the monsoon season so we stick to hotels and occasionally big malls.

We are all doing great, we just want to go home and we miss all our family and friends and our normal every-day life's. We cant wait to get home and start it together with Nora.

Take care all of you.

PS: I cannot answer questions on how to get home for people who lives outside of Norway. The lavs are not the same and you should check with forums or other information canals regarding this. We are not even 100% sure on the norwegian way, we have to learn while we walk this journey. All I can say is that i am pretty sure that we have to stay here for at least 6 weeks.

So can you get all you want?

2010-08-27T20:08:00.001+02:00

We, my husband and i have concluded with YES YOU CAN! Dont ever give up. We have been trying for 6 years and the wait has been worth it.

Thank you Jon for asking and remind us to answer my question.

The journey we have started is amazing, we learn something new everyday, and it helps us to understand her. We dont even mind getting up in the middle of the night. It´s a part of it all, and it gives us a chance to stare at her a little bit more. It feels like we are the most happy couple on earth, we have huge smiles on our face´s at all time and it´s impossible to stop. We are in love!

We have to get some sleep now, it´s up in a few hours again.

Take care all of you out there!

Thank you all of you!

2010-08-24T14:13:00.000+02:00

Day two and a few more pictures of Nora Wilhelmine. Now all we need to do is figure out how she works and we will all be fine.
Honestly, she is a good girl that sleeps, eats and requires diaper changes regularly, we love her <3

She need her pacifier for a while last night because
she was super hungry and only allowed to
eat 20ml every 2,5 hours. Now she eats on demand

Our princess

50cm long

The only set of clothes that fits her

Taking a nap

Thank you all of you for your comments, its so wonderful to read thru all of them, we feel special to have friends all over the world. We have cried a few tears of joy while reading, we are very emotional these days and it will probably not get any better as the days go by. We cant stop looking at her and every time we get reminded on how lucky we have been, we have been trying to conceive for almost 6 years and this was worth the whole wait.

To all of you out there who´s still trying and hoping, dont give up, it will happen to you in the end. When it does, you will forget everything about what happened before you met with you baby. I am so happy that we did not give up.

Take care all of you and thanks again for all the love and support!

Drumroll please.... ladies and gentlemen

2010-08-23T17:48:00.001+02:00

It´s a girl!

Please welcome Nora Wilhelmine into the world!

She is a healthy baby at 3,270 kg and was born at 5.27 pm indian time.

No words can describe this feeling that we are feeling right now!

Monday, August 23rd.

2010-08-23T10:52:00.001+02:00

No news yet, we are sending all our thoughts to our surro who is in labor and probably a lot of pain at the moment.

Be strong!

Tomorrow...

2010-08-22T17:37:00.000+02:00

is THE day!
We are checking in the hospital tomorrow in the morning, and Trille will be delivered by a c-section. If nothing happens during the night.

We are both calm and relaxed now, but i guess it would be a whole different story when we arrive at the Hiranandani hospital tomorrow.
We met another couple that said it was not possible to connect a mac to the internet there, but we will definitely try.
We will try to get some sleep now and finish packing everything we have to bring with us. We are probably bringing to much, but its just to be sure ;-D

Have a great night all of you out there, and thanks for all the love and support you guys are giving us. We love it!

Take care and stay tuned for updates and pics...