So, Gene and I have decided that we are going to out-stupid both Balloon Boy and the White House party crashers: we are going to have a kid parachute his way into the White House. I am pretty sure my nephew Hank will do it. He’s 3.
In other news, it feels like we are living in the movie Idiocracy. Truth isn’t stranger than fiction; instead, truth copies fiction.
So.
I was very good and did not spend ANY money on Black Friday (it helps that I was working from 9-5, so I didn’t even think of trying midnight shopping again).
(Not that I would have, actually, as Gene made it clear that he did midnight shopping once and would never do it again).
Black Saturday, however…
As a side bar, here are some things to note:
1) I am out of perfume.
2) Because I have so many rules about perfume, I have decided to stick to J’Adore Dior (the spray bottle of the eau de parfum costs about $80).
3) Which is awfully expensive, even as a gift
4) The Almighty D gave me an eBay gift card for my birthday, which has burned a hole in my purse now for 8 months
So, back to the stupidest story you’ll hear today. I got the idea to try eBay for my perfume. D has purchased different fragrances online and she’s always had good luck. I found a decent seller with good feedback, etc, and eventually won an auction for around $30. Used D’s gift card for this, only out $10 or so from my Paypal account. Feelin’ good.
But then, this evening, apparently I took leave of every good bit of sense I’ve developed in 32 29 years of living and for some reason, I went back to eBay and searched for zhu zhu pets. (Apparently Zhu Zhu pets are this year’s hot Xmas item. They are stuffed hamsters. That is all I know). I’m a girl who lives dangerously, so I bid on one of the hamsters in an auction that only had a few seconds to go. Bid too slowly and the auction ended. Tried again. Bid too slowly again. Looked for a nearly finished auction with 30 seconds or so to go. Tried again. Bid perfectly.
Crap.
OMFG, I bought a Zhu Zhu pet. Sometime this week, a white stuffed hamster is going to be delivered to my house. And yes, I am going to resell it. Not because I’m an asshole (well, not entirely), but because I do not want a white stuffed hamster.
(Seriously. If any of you would like a white Zhu Zhu pet hamster, let me know. I’m not going to give it away but I want it out of my house ASAP and I would like to not lose my ::cough:: investment).
Someone needs to take away my internet connection.
(Because I am a geek who loooves the search feature, here are previous Thankful posts 2008 2007 2006)
(Subtitled: It’s Thanksgiving, Bitches!)
So, what am I thankful for at the end of 2009?
…I am thankful to have Gene, a husband who loves me for reasons I cannot always fathom. He is giving, accepting, loving, a pain in the ass (sometimes) and a hard worker. I am proud of him and I am pretty damned lucky to have him.
…I am thankful we have excellent health insurance through Gene’s job. You truly do not want to know how much Blue Cr.oss has paid out this year.
…oh, and I’m thankful that Gene has a job with such good benefits.
…I’m thankful for a family who loves me
…I’m thankful for good friends, especially the Almighty D (who got an earful the other night before we left work. Poor D).
…I’m thankful that White Dog still lives, since I am really not ready to voyage back to Windowsville. (Remember: Gene’s employer rhymes with Schmulet Shmackard, so my Genius Bar days are limited if White Dog bites it).
…I am thankful that I do not have to clean a damned dish for tomorrow. 5:30 reservations across the street, hooray! (I know, leftovers, but I will miss them much less than I would rue having to clean the f*%^#ng roasting pan)
…I am thankful that I have been given the gift of time. (As far as I can tell, the lack of surprises is the big upside to infertility). (And you thought I could skip the “I” word? Really?)
So, I had my big doctor’s appointment on Tuesday. Everything went well with Dr. K and his nurse but the “financial counselor” (aka the Money Lady) actually thought we should pay for IVF. Paying for medical treatment! Of all the wacky concepts. The money bottom line is big but not impossible so we are going to go through this again in 2010, hopefully in the first quarter after W-2s go out. The difference will be that when the Money Lady says “Give me a sum of money roughly equal to a 55 inch TV, please” we can say “Do you accept debit cards?” instead of thinking “Hmmm, should I take a 401k loan or just beg for money on a street corner?”
(Ahem).
Sooo, yeah, it’s a pisser, this waiting nonsense, but what’s another 3 or 4 months? It wasn’t that I thought doing this would be cheap, per se, I just had my hopes up that an insurance miracle perfect storm event would happen and the Money Lady (who reminded me of Blanche) would say, “For you, sugar, we just want a $10 copay and a picture of you holding a baby in 10 or 11 months.”
(A girl can dream, and isn’t that what my life has been an exercise in?)
Please update your Amazon.com wishlists. (This means you, Mom and Michelle!)
1) I cannot stop using “Shitballs!” as an expletive. Missed some dirty dishes? Oh, shitballs! Can’t find a parking spot at the grocery store? Shitballs! (This replaces “mercy pie” as my new go-to phrase, which is OK, although a recipe called “Mercy Pie” sounds a lot yummier than a recipe called… eechhh, anyway…)
2) Another thing that makes D (my dear friend/spiritual advisor/personal Dear Abby) the Almighty D: she reminded me that while stealing a baby is in fact cheaper than IVF, it is illegal. Thanks, D!
3) Related to point 2 – on Tuesday I will talk to the financial advisor lady at the Million Dollar Baby Doctor’s office. Have now decided that the Money Lady is going to ask for vast sums of money that I do not have. (For Xmas, can I have cash? And lots of it?) I would say that the best part about waiting is funneling my anxiety into dreaming up new and creative ways things can go to hell.
4) Oh hey, good news! Remember the post about a week ago where where I got all navel-gazey and said I felt there were two doors in front of me, blah blah blah? Things are better and now there’s only the one door. Yay!
(or next Tuesday, 10 AM, for those of you who do not think of the time span of 1 week equalling 168 hours…)
Visiting Dr. K’s office next Tuesday. I don’t know if this means I don’t get to start drugs until next month, but technically next Tuesday is before day 21 so we shall see. And in good news, all the stuff the bloodwork was for came back totally normally. Hooray for having eggs!
Soooo… blood draw was on Wednesday at 8:30 AM. I still haven’t heard anything. I’m not nervous, just excited to hear something. If this is the month to start Lupron and other injectables, I’d like a little time to weigh my pharmacy options and find the lowest cost provider.
In the meantime, here are some interesting resources that I have used to gather info:
IVF Packet from an IVF clinic in Indianapolis. This is literally the most interesting thing I’ve read this year. I have copies of it on White Dog and my computer at work. I swear I didn’t just pick this one because it’s from Indiana, although it doesn’t hurt. And why oh why doesn’t Dr. K’s group have such interesting reading on THEIR site??
IVF Calculator – from an IVF site from Canada. Just type in November 1, 2009 at the top (next to “menstrual date”) and it will tell you WTF might happen in a perfect world… in 2006. (I blame that on it being a Canadian site, what with their square wheels and all).
Something else interesting: in my perfect world a 5 day transfer would be scheduled for the day before the absolutely positively busiest day of the year for me. As in, “I don’t care how many cells you had transferred, you get your ass in this office at 4 am and do payroll for the next 11 hours.” And the day after that is the day we’d leave for Indiana or Ohio so I’d be in a car for 12-ish hours on Xmas eve.
(Boy oh boy, there is no good time to knock up a test tube, is there?)
(How do people get pregnant by accident, again?)
Confidential to Macauley/Bill: Yes, little brother, I planned ALL OF THIS so I could find out if we succeeded on your birthday. How did you know? 😉 (By the way, give me a call – I want to make you an offer you’d be stupid to refuse. Get my work # from Mom).
seems to officially be on the road.
Went to LabCorp today for my first IVF related bloodwork. Hopefully I’ll hear about the results early next week and Dr. K will give me an official game plan. I did not know this until recently, but it appears that IVF is generally a two month endeavor.
Here is what I think is going to happen:
Unless Dr. K wants me to take a month of birth control pills (does he not understand the point of all of this???), I think I’ll start injections in about 15 days. This goes on until my next menstru… peri… umm, until the next time my Aunt visits (I hate dumb euphemisms).
Then I start other injections and then a few days after that I have to get bloodwork every day (I hope I can do this at LabCorp near the house – Dr. K’s office is SO far away!) and then a few days after that they start ultrasounds to check out my “follicles.” “Follicle” is a fancy word for “egg” and the whole point of all those shots is to try and mature as many as possible. (And don’t worry, I won’t become Octomom – just because one has 12 or more awesome follicles does not mean one will have 12 or more babies 9 months later).
If all goes well to that point (and there are so many ways things can go to hell, so this is a big “if”), I will get a “trigger shot” and a day or two after that, Dr. K will retrieve the best and the brightest of my follicles. This is called “egg retrieval” and is performed while I am sedated. (Why no, I will not be going to work that day.)
After that, Dr. K and his minions will be working feverishly to get my eggs and Gene’s contribution to join. This may require the use of a procedure called ICSI (pronounced “ICK-SEE”). ICSI is more money (of course) but, to be honest, I’d rather spend more and end up pregnant than go through this crap twice.
Anyway! Assuming that Dr. K et al were successful: Either 3 or 5 days later, Dr. K will perform what is either a 3 day embryo transfer or a 5 day blastocyst transfer wherein they move the best and the brightest from their freezer home to the Happiest Place on Earth. (I won’t tell you where that is, but here’s a clue: It’s where babies are made. Sometimes). A 5 day transfer would take place approximately on December 22 and would make Christmas travel questionable, to be honest. A 3 day transfer would be more convenient but I am seriously counting my eggs before they hatch (HA!) so I am not going to worry about that now.
More on “higher order multiples”: I don’t think that Dr. K would transfer more than 3 embryos or blastocysts (at my age, it doesn’t make sense). He would transfer just one if that’s what we want. (Oh, and even if he does transfer 3 that does not mean I’d necessarily end up with 3 babies). Two is my limit, I think.
If I have more transferable embryos/blastocysts than I am able/willing to transfer, Dr. K’s office will freeze the extras for what is called an future FET – Frozen Embryo Transfer – if IVF #1 is unsuccessful. If we are successful with IVF #1 (what is called a “fresh” cycle) and end up with a child, I plan to donate the frozen embryos. It works like donor sperm or donor eggs.
If all of this works out (HA HA HA), the internet tells me that New Year’s Day 2010 is the first day a home pregnancy test would give me a reliable answer. The internet says that my first “beta” (pregnancy confirmation via blood test) would be January 2, 2010.
Anyway, that’s what I know or at least THINK I know. My mileage may vary and when I know more, I’ll tell more.
