New sofa, stem cells, and check-ups

Today I managed to get out of the house, but only because I had to. Such is life with two young children and a severe deficit of sleep. We started the morning by packing up the family and driving down to the good ol' REI clinic. No, we weren't looking for sporting gear. (Unfortunately, I don't see myself sporting anytime soon.) Rather, we were taking care of unfinished business at Stanford's Reproductive Endocrinology Infertility Clinic. As most of you know, Levi is our little test tube wonder. After going through IVF to get pregnant with him, we had just one embryo remaining that they froze for us at the nifty price of $1 per day. Highway robbery if you ask me, but couples struggling with infertility will pay a premium for the possiblity of babies. We've paid Stanford $1 a day since Summer 2004 to freeze our little blastocyst, and it made sense until Ruby was born of a more conventional (and cheaper!) method. So with a couple signatures in front of a witnessing REI staff member, we donated our little blastocyst to the good of medical science and stem cell research. I hope it survives the thaw and that those very smart people at Stanford can put it to good use. No thanks to Bush of course, but who needs federal funding when you've got Larry Page and Sergey Brin for alumni?

Anyway, back to my abnormally productive day. After Stanford, I took the kids to the doctor for Ruby's 2-month check-up. She's a trooper and took her 4 vaccinations as well as any baby could. The doc says she looks great (she's up to 11 lbs and is at the 75th percentile in weight and height). He especially liked her haircut. Just kidding. He didn't say anything about her shorn dome. Then we came home to anxiously await the arrival of our Eugene Sofa from Room & Board. It's taken 6 weeks for this baby to arrive. It always mystifies me why it takes so long to build and deliver "custom" furniture like this, but it's finally in our living room and apparently has Levi's approval.