"Preparing the canvas"

My mother is an artist. She has painted on China, in Watercolor, drawn in pencil, in charcoal, and pastels. These are some of my favorite art pieces that she created, and that I own.

As a child, I grew up with her at home (which was a blessing) and she taught China Painting at our house in her art room through the City of Sunnyvale. I was raised with Children's books on Monet, and Renoir. I could look at a painting and say "That's Salvador Dahli." and could describe the technique with which Vincent Van Gough used for his paintings. There were certain phrases that as I child I heard often. "Preparing the canvas" was one of them. My mom was not a huge oil painter, her medium of choice moved with her interests. She enjoyed painting in Watercolor as I journeyed into my early teens. She spent a lot of time "preparing" various canvases, and this morning as I swallowed my Pre-natal vitamin in preparation for becoming pregnant I was reminded of that phrase.

I am, in a way, preparing the canvas for pregnancy. Now I don't mean to infer that as a Pregnant woman I will see myself as some sort of work of Art...that seems rather vain. I intend the phrase to be interpreted as my body will host something beautiful and must be cared for in preparation for that beauty to be at it's best. The beauty being a baby. I have upped my daily glasses of water to hydrate myself better, taking a prenatal vitamin and  have been eating healthier. Not much I can do about the amount of sleep I'm getting with a teething 10 month old, but I think I'll survive.

Next on my surrogacy schedule is wait for my next period. Once my period starts I call the Fertility Clinic and receive all of my medication and instructions. In the mean time, I am continuing to prepare my canvas for pregnancy. I am also very excited to attend the Retreat in Los Angeles coming up. :) It will be fun to meet all the other surrogate mothers and hear from them about their experiences so far.