the oneliner

The mind of a tech freak. Aka *my birth story*

I had such an amazing experience yesterday, that I have to share. If you aren’t interested (and um, who really would be!?!?!?) skip to the bottom because there is very much an infertility related UPDATE.

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So, I decided to go to Lenox, the Apple capital of

Georgia

. I could have gone to over 165 locations, but I figured if I was going to do it…I’d want the full experience. I have only waited in line for anything like this to see Toni Morrison, one of favorite all time authors. (Author of Sula, Beloved…etc.) speak shortly after she won the Nobel Peace Prize for literature.

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Which is a little more to be proud of than this. But I LOVE ALL GADGETS. I get so excited as exhibited by my climbing into bed the night I get it, with hot tea, the manual, and highlighters with tabs at hand. (no, I am NOT kidding.) If you own a Saa.b 93 Turbo, Inf.initi G35, Tre.o, Cano.n SLR, Ado.be Pho.toshop, Sony Va.io, Most navigation systems, Vikin.g Embroiderery Machine., I’m your girl. To quote Rev Run, “it’s who I am, it’s what I do.”

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I went took my assistant to lunch at 11:00 a.m. when there was already about 50-75 people in line. I started to stay but my assistant can’t drive a manual (so she couldn’t drive my car back) and drew her line at walking the 5 miles back to the office.

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So, I got back at one and the line had almost doubled. I walked up to the end of the line and as soon as I got there, so did this lady. We kept joking that we were “friends for life.” She would shortly give me some of the best infertility advice.

At a little before one o’clock I became #135 in line. After I calmed down a bit and the nice lady’s husband gave me a lawn chair I sat and actually started reading a 500 hundred page transcript for an appeal.

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At two when they closed the store to prepare to sell the phones at 6:00 p.m. they completely covered the front of the store with large sheets of black opaque paper.

AT.&T execs in suits actually came to talk to us to thank us for buying these phones and asked us why we were purchasing them. You could tell they were very happy to own stock!

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Then, my ‘friend for life’ went home to breast feed her baby! While her husband held her place. Too funny, eh?

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At five, an hour before they opened the doors, you could feel the growing excitement. I honestly would have left had there not been adequate crowd control…but there were security guards and police officers every so many feet.

At five thirty they took down the black shields that revealed dozens of young hip-looking employees in black. Then they revealed a huge iphone with a count down! We all packed up our belongings and got ready to get phone. It was AWESOME. Apple people kept coming out and yelling…are you excited!!?!? And of course we yelled back. This is too funny, too silly, too much.

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I was standing on the safe edge of the railing to see the phone count down…and I would yell back at the crowd…FOUR minutes, TWO minutes. It was hilarious. Then, 10!, 9!, 8!, 7!, 6!, 5!, 4!, 3!, 2!, 1!!!!!!! I swear we started hugging and high-fiving like mad.

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A couple of people tried to break in line and we were peacefully NOT having it.

I was in the store and out in under twenty minutes. I made friends with everyone around me (that’s part two of what I do(!!). And this is the best part….

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FERTILITY RELATED…..Get this(!) when “my friend for life” showed her baby pictures, I just sensed a overwhelming sense of achievement. I swear I could tell..that there was something in her journey to motherhood…something… by her looking at and talking about the pictures of her babies. So, I tested the waters by telling her that we were starting the adoption process.

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She then said “we tried for what felt like forever, did two rounds of IVF for fifty thousand dollars. That didn’t work.” I then told her that we were afraid of the $$ and were foregoing IVF. I then just happened to mention that I still had a prescription for letrozole that we were supposed to use with an IUI that I had almost thrown away twice because I was afraid to use it without a doctor’s supervision.

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She stopped…looked at me and said, that they too had an old prescription for letrozole and decided to use it for the heck of it. They got pregnant the first month! And then used for their second, too. So, um, how fast do you think I got that prescription filled????

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And the ultimate question…was that five hour wait, $$$ (it’s a biz expense!) worth it…oh he.ll yeah! I love it. I’ve called 2x…and spoke to a human who instantly solved one glitch that was my fault.

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I’ve got pictures and will post soon.

Ip.hone SCHMI-phone

Dude, what is up with the crazy lines for the ip.hone? I mean, you have to be insane to wait 5 hours in line for a freaking phone. For the privilege of paying half of a thousand dollars? I mean really! And who has the time?? Who would be that insane?

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Hope disappears but comes back

I used to watch Days of Our Lives in highschool. And then stopped only to begin watching six years later. Hope, Bo’s love interest, would always be taken, shot, buried alive, and would miraculously reappear in some jungle setting.

That’s what pretty much happened to me yesterday sans the jungle (unless the 3 foot high pile of clothes to be dry cleaned counts).

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When I said that we would move forward with adoption and IVF, I sort of forgot the math. I keep doing this, eh? First I forget to check in gas in a jeep, and now I forget the most important part of our decision.

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I think I assumed that k would get the job with the insurance that would cover the IVF, but that didn’t pan out for a lot of reasons.

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So, I talked to the RE’s office and a finance company. There’s shared risk for two cycles but even that is 15,000. plus some unknown "shared risk fee"  and we wouldn’t get the $3,000-$5,000.00 back from the drugs if it didn’t work, and there’s a 50/50 shot at it working. I can’t imagine walking around with a $15,000-$20,000. embryo in my body that has failed me so often. And, I cannot imagine the bitterness in paying off the loan, we’d have to take, if it didn’t work.

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We are comfortable, and really outright blessed, but we have grad school loans and I, at 32, have no retirement..

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Adopting is significantly less expensive with at least a 70/30 shot.

And we’re relatively young. We could always try in the future, right?

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So, yesterday, the reality of NOT having our biological child hit me.

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And then I read a book about adoption and “how we have to decide what child we are willing to accept," where the mother smoked (no biggie to me), or was born with cocaine in its system….(a different story for me).

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Tell me this, and please, please, please be honest. No judgment I swear. And feel free to email me your response or post anonymously….Why did you (if you did) choose IVF over adoption? (if IVF is covered by your insurance that’s a different story.) Is it because,

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-adoption is emotionally messy. How do you explain to a child that their parents didn’t want them. Which, of course, you and I get, but to a kid, that’s what it feels like.

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          -Do you feel that you’ll feel threatened by the biological mother (I do!).

hope is the best medicine

 

I haven’t felt this much at peace since as long as I can remember. Since before infertility. Since before doctors, laps, IUI's, pre-seed, blood tests, fight, bbts, the forced fertility window sex.

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Our agreement to move forward with adoption and IVF has convinced me that we will have a baby in our arms in 18 months. That’s all I’ve ever wanted. I don’t mind the wait. I mind the unending struggle.

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I bought my soon to be niece a beautiful summer dress. I haven’t touched baby clothes in months.

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I’m back to sewing. (I created a new sewing room, and not to sound cheesy but I have always wanted a room to sew since I was a teenager. No more sewing on the dining room table, or in the kitchen, or on the coffee table).

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I talked to my pregnant SIL (with 2^nd) about her pregnancy with genuine joy for her. I’ve started making baby clothes for my cousin on pregnancy three.

I’ve gone for a swift run/walk every day this week.

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K rolled over and kissed me this morning and said I am so happy to have my wife back.

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I may even start creating a nursery.

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This feeling is amazing. I don’t know how long hope plans to stay but I plan to relish every second.

fuck, fuck, fuck.

Sure, flaunt your R ratings. Fine. Listen, I say FUCK a lot. I’m no goody two shoes, and at the moment I’m not even wearing underwear. (ok, so that has a lot to do with my seeming inability to do laundry. But still.)

I got this idea from Niobe, whose blog I read often (and you should too). Although, only if you can take a dose of sometimes painful honesty.

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I forgot to tell you, that what was so amazing about our conversation yesterday was, that k started dropping words like cleavage, FET, etc. This, undoubtedly, as a response to my refusal to tell him what FET stood for ONE MORE TIME. Maybe late, but I appreciate the sudden involvement.

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We’ve changed RE’s, again. I’m over the last place. I’m sure they are the same as the others, but the actual RE we talked to was condescending, professorish, and wholly unable to read her audience. Which that day included a thirty something, PG (does not mean PG. wait, cue, Alanis Morisette’s “Isn’t it Ironic”) blogger, who did not appreciate a two hour lecture on my “not real pregnancies” (cue the ugly cry), unnecessary laparoscopy and all too apparent to her “my bad eggs.” I all but rolled my eyes, and I hate people who don’t know how to read their audience. Maybe that’s because that’s what I essentially do for a living (juror rolling eyes=bad)…but good grief lady, keep the “the last year and a half of painful treatments and surgeries have been a waste of time” thoughts to your fuckin’ self and quit bagging on other RE’s…it makes you look silly. 

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You know what? I just realized that what bugged me so much about her was the "waste of time" deal...was that she worried NOT about how upsetting it would be for us to be told that...but only thought of trying to get us to do IVF with that clinic.

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So, we’ve got an appointment on the 5^th of July at the ‘best” IVF clinic in A.t.l.a.n.t.a that has the first “IVF Baby in Georgia” bragging rights.

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he might as well have pulled out a malboro

Me:    you know it really bugs me that you are so uninvolved in this whole process.

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K:      what do mean? We talk about it all the f’ing time.

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Me:    I talk, you half listen, and do NOTHING. You don’t call the adoption agencies, make the appointments, get the prescriptions. You won’t even tell me what YOU want to do. I mean, do you want to adopt, IUI, WHAT!

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K:

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the very next night………. (the young maiden finds out that she is with child…oh wait that’s someone else’s story!)

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K:      (as I walk into the living room, stage right, in suit, with mail in left hand)

So, I talked to a few clinics today. I found the one with the best statistics. They are also closest to your work. I think we should forget doing another IUI and move straight onto IVF. IUI’s don’t work the vast majority of the time and after two we will have paid for ½ of an IVF. I am going to call them tomorrow to set up an initial consultation.

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Me:

Watson stole it from this blogger and I’m stealing it back

So here are some non sequitur updates punctuated by + signs, that Watson smart-ass-like (wait, Watson…smart-ass-like, redundant, no?) ;   )  called “oneliner style” Which would be more appropriately called lazy, noncreative, busy style?

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Adoption:

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In my marriage there is an “I” in team. teIam. When I said we were moving forward ..I should have said “I” want to move forward with adoption. K isn’t there. As is typical when we disagree, I am very much acting like a petulant child enough that he will be there soon. There is only so much pouting, stomping, rolling around on the kitchen floor that he can take. I got him to quit smoking by denying him all sexual relations, but after infertility who wants to have sex?

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I have been referred to a religious social service agency where a good friend of mine works and who knows me as the “easily talked into doing pro bono work for immigrants” lawyer. Which will, hopefully, and for once, get me somewhere.

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So far I feel good about this agency. I know that there are a lot of good agencies out there, but there are definitely some who view adoption as a way to poach desperate couples and to sell a service. Not all agencies or even most... but some. That we’d, of course, like to avoid. This agency is in

Atlanta

which makes me feel better as far as accountability.

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IUI/IVF

I suppose we’ll do an IUI this month. I’m in the 2ww. Which I now call the 2 week wait for the expected negative. It’s weird to pay and go through the motions for an IUI when I have very little hope that it will work and my RE has a 5-15% expectation.

But it gets us closer to IVF and that’s my ultimate goal for us at the moment.

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Peace my good people.

silverware in the road; the road too often traveled.

Long time no blog, eh? I keep getting more and more work. Which is a blessing and a curse.

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I’ve not known what to say really. K and I are trying to make some pretty hefty decisions. Namely, whether or not to forgo more IUI’s and go straight to IVF and whether or not to try to adopt at the same time.

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I researched adoption options all last weekend. International vs. Domestic, Multicultural adoption.

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My head hurts. It’s not fair that I have to make these decisions. You know what I’d like to do? Have a baby. Conceived in our bed. But, obviously that’s just not going to happen.

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The decisions.

On adoption before/during IVF. While there is a vocal group that insists we all mourn our inability to conceive before moving onto adoption, I don’t think that is necessary for me/us. I’ve mourned our inability to conceive and the realization that it may never happen. A lot. Believe me I’m sad about it. I don’t mean to be so flippant about it, but if you haven’t noticed, that’s how I roll. And, there’s something to say, or to feel, in the idea that adoption wasn’t our last option at parenting. And practically, the likely two-year waiting period for an adopted baby is too much to fathom after how ever many failed IVF cycles.

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On inter-racial adoption. I’m bound to step on toes, because this is an intense issue that touches many sensitive spots. And this really should be a much longer post. K and I always thought that’d we’d adopt a baby of any race. We’re that liberal couple that has many black friends, colleagues and acquaintances. I talked to my neighbors, who are black, for a long time on the subject, and they kept insisting that if anyone could, we could. I read excerpts from “Outside from Within,” a book about cross race adoption. Then I tried to put myself in an adopted-into-a-white-upper middle class family-black-kid’s shoes. And I thought about family gatherings, like the 4^th of july, Christmas. I imagined myself being the only young black person in the room, always. And I didn’t like what I felt. Everyone would know that they were adopted. And to a higher class family than gave birth to them. That they had been 'saved.' That coupled with the fact that a.t.l.a.n.t.a. has the largest Upper Middle Class African-American community, who certainly suffer from infertility and some of whom will consider adoption tips the scales. So, we’ve decided against it. At least for now.

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On International v. Domestic. We decided against International. One, for the reasons above. I love the idea of adopting a young baby girl from C.h.i.n.a. …but we simply cannot do that. We have zero Asian friends. I have no idea why, but that’s just the way our lives are. Also, the travel requirements are just too much. I simply cannot shut down my firm for months at a time just to go hang out in a foreign country. Of course I plan to take a lot of time off once the baby is here, but that is so different.

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Although, Domestic Adoption scares me. What should we make of all the couples who have web-sties, and seemingly have had them for years, showcasing their family and reiterating that they would make a great family for an adopted child? Is domestic even possible? What do you think potential couples would think of my continuing to work after baby?

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So, the plan is to pursue domestic adoption.

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On IVF v. IUI. We’ve decided to do one more IUI for fun (!) and then move directly onto IVF.

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What are your thoughts? Be honest. I can take it. I need advice and am happy for different opinions.

unfinished beginning

A while back, I told you how I met this guy with big, ruddy-colored hair ten years ago. And then I volunteered for a play and failed to finish the story.

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For months he always sat at the table outside of the engineering firm where I worked, and I would continue sitting with him and smoking and talking about how much we loved but had to, after high school, leave the A.merican South.

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Once, big ruddy hair guy asked me to go out with him; an invitation I declined. After I did so, I suggested that we could go study together. He answered, sternly “I study alone.”

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I saw him outside of the corner cafe a few times. Once, he says but I do not remember, he watched me from inside do a tequila body shot with the much older and arrogant guy I had been dating. At a late night grad student party at a house with a huge deck that stretched out under the t.u.c.s.o.n. night. He said, later, that I looked uncomfortable and it was obvious that I didn’t really like that much older arrogant guy.

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He was right. I broke up with/or he broke up with me, I don’t really remember.

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And the day after my friend from the engineering firm where I worked let me borrow her jeep. She was going out of town and felt bad for me since I did not own a car.

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I didn’t want to take a jeep ride by myself and found a match book with big ruddy hair guy’s number written in it. I called him (little did I know, and he didn’t tell me, that he was having people over for the Final Four that he quickly cancelled). Before long we were riding through the desert in a brown, borrowed Jeep.

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Because I didn’t own a car, and hadn’t for years, I forgot the importance of fuel. Which occurred to me when we puttered to a stop on the side of the street about twenty miles outside of civilization.

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When you’re twenty something, or maybe when I was twenty something, it’s not like I had check-list of things that I thought would make a good life partner. You want to be attracted to them. Period.

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So, (k swears this is the only time in his life he’s done anything with any flair) there we are on the side of the road. Out in the middle of the desert, with my dog in the back, and us in a jeep, with 100 degree weather, no water and no gas station within miles and no cars going by…completely out.of.fuel.

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me: um, well, errr, you’re not going to believe this, but, um, yeah, ahem, I think we, uh, um, may be out of fuel.

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K: without even uttering a sound, reaches into his shirt pocket, pulls out a malboro red cigarette and says simply “damn” as he lights it with his head to the side.

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Me: thought to self, OMG I love this man.

You know you’re infertile when….

You think “hell, at this point what’s another $1,500.00?”

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However, I am thinking about skipping another IUI because, if I do “have bad eggs,” what’s the point?

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My RE’s opinion is that my eggs suck and IVF is our only hope. Although, for all we know she is currently house hunting in the *hamptons* for house #2.

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But its been two years, at least 22 eggs and no baby. Even if my ovaries gear up to release another 3 eggs…the chances of those being sucky eggs is high.

I buy that my eggs suck, (i think?) and with that, shouldn’t we just move on up to IVF?

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What would you do? (which is, of course, different that what you would think you *should* do).

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edited to add:

My RE thinks I have “potentially poor egg quality” because she believes that you need “eggs, sperm, anatomy” to get PG. And everything about my anatomy and his sperm checks out. She doesn’t believe that ALL unexplained infertility=bad eggs. Which I’ve implied and for that I am sorry and admit to you that sometimes, I suck. But, she doesn’t believe in unexplained infertility and she thinks that my unexplained infertility=bad eggs. And that is true in a lot of case