Sunday

Went to a baseball game yesterday which was fun-- but chilly. It doesn't help that we were so high up that I'm pretty sure our seats were somewhere in Iowa. And the wind was pretty brisk.

It was fab, though, except for the group of women sitting behind us until about the seventh inning. Apparently, they thought it was a good idea to pay $50 per ticket and then sit there and let one woman talk the entire time about every detail of her gynecological life. Seriously, I know more about her girlyparts than I know about mine. I suspect, based on the age of the group, that she's the first one of the girlfriends to have had a baby.

News flash: not only are you not the first woman in history to have had a child, you could have all gone out for a lovely lunch for $50 apiece OR LESS and had the very same monologue converstion over some bruschetta and a nice glass of wine.

Plus, no one wants to know about your c-section, or other things I won't mention here that you discussed in great detail. NO ONE! Based on some of your friends' actions during the game, I am pretty sure they didn't want to know either! Shut up!

I love baseball, especially live. I like watching the game. Watching the fans. Criticizing the pitcher who, even when he sucks, is a zillion times better than I could possibly ever be. Cheering when things go well, and commiserating with fellow fans when they don't. I think the smooth green expanse of the outfield is mesmerizingly beautiful. Plus, they sell soft pretzels.

Why would you go and not only not watch the game, but talk to people about your girlyparts in great detail while surrounded by strangers?

I don't get it. But it was a great game regardless.

Attitude adjustment

Good Lord, being around me this week is like being around one of those cartoon characters that has a black cloud floating over her head. I am grumpy and crabby and snappy and eyebrow-raising and just plain not my usual self.

The culprit, mostly, is hormones. Work has also been one of those weeks where, if I was Queen of the Forest, I'd be throwing a bunch of people over the cliff and shouting "Have a nice trip!" at them on their way down. Of course, I don't get to do that. I have to stay at least polite to people, even those people at the top of the Over the Cliff List.

I don't have to like them. I just have to work with them professionally. (I think maybe that's my next tattoo.)

Anyway. On days/weeks of grumpy, sometimes the YouTube is my savior and my happy place. Don't judge me.

Interspecies lurrrrve (this makes me cry every time, but it's a happy crying):



Puppies!



Kittens!



And last but not least, one of my favorite Bollywood numbers: "Maahi Ve" from Kal Ho Naa Ho. (Hey, don't knock the Bollywood until you've really tried it. It's awesome and happy-making. If you want recs, let me know.) FYI, the main dancing guy in the burgundy salwar kameez is Shahrukh Khan, who's the uber-superstar of Bollywood.



My work here is done.

Back in town

Had a nice long weekend visiting friends. Of course, the weekend I'm there is the weekend that the east coast is drenched in humidity-- it was like taking a bath every time you walked outside. In NYC, I was hopping in and out of stores periodically just to keep my body temp below spontaneous combustion levels. (Seriously. But if I'd spontaneously combusted, my own sweat would have put out the fire. Such a pretty image, I know.)

I didn't care about the heat, though, because I love NYC. If I ever won the lottery (which would be tough, as I'd need to actually buy a ticket to win a dime) I'd buy a little place there; maybe with a view of Central Park. I'm not sure I could ever actually live in NYC permanently, but I'd love to be able to visit far more often for so many reasons-- not the least of which is that FC is there.

We met for lunch, took over a table and talked and talked; it was so good to catch up with her. (It was also good that we didn't go to lunch until later, so that no one kicked us out, given how long we hogged that table!) One of the nicest things about good friends is that no matter how long it is between good conversations, it feels like only a few minutes have gone by.

The rest of the weekend sadly didn't involve either FC or NYC, but did involve many other good friends and good things. This is likely to be my last long weekend/vacation for a while. It was a good one.

** **

Tonight after work I went and helped friends paint their new house. It's adorable, and of course makes me want to move. RIGHT NOW.

My real estate lady, though, thinks I should wait until late winter/early spring to list. Given everything else I have going on, this is probably a good idea.

I guess.

Update, and travel, and needles. Oh my.

I leave tomorrow for a long weekend in NYC, NJ, and PA. There will be lunch with Frequent Citations, and sightseeing in Philly, and much catching up with people I love. It may be my last vacation for a while, and I'm planning to enjoy it.

I'm even taking the good camera. Be afraid.

** **
All has been pronounced clear after the hysteroscopy. What now?

If I'd already selected a donor, I could actually have done an unmedicated IUI cycle either tomorrow or Thursday. Sigh. I haaate missing even a month at this point, so I'm smacking myself. Of course, since I go out of town tomorrow night, even with a donor safely in place I might still be out of luck.

(Travel is apparently off the table for the next little while, it looks like. I am a slave to my girlyparts right now. Whee!)

Given my upcoming loss of IVF coverage, my doctor's office is put in for approval of IVF today. AND GOT IT. I can't tell you how surprised I am-- there's no demonstrated history of IUI/other fertility treatment; the biggest issues are my age and my blocked fallopian tube, and I didn't think those would fly to justify IVF.

I asked the nurse "Did they get a confirmation number?" Seriously. I deal with insurance companies all the time, and am SHOCKED. (I hope they don't come at me after the fact.)

So at this point... IVF in, probably, early October. Meds start next month.

Ack. Yay! Ack.

** **

I had my first acupuncture session today, and am surprised at how straightforward it was. E, the practitioner, was straightforward and approachable, and I liked her very much. The space was open and inviting. The needles didn't hurt.

She had said to rest with the needles in for at least 20 minutes; I rested nearly half an hour and time just flew by-- rare for me, since I'm a wiggly person. When I finished, E said I'd done well for a first-timer-- most first-timers she's seen can barely last 20 minutes, but the average for returning clients is 45 minutes to an hour. Heh. It was somehow far more soothing than just resting in a chair would normally be.

E said a good chunk of her clientele, currently, is coming for fertility reasons, so I'm not alone in having found the data and pursuing it. Beginning in September, when I am officially on the track for IVF, I'll start going twice a week.

Despite the fact that the needles were placed related to fertility areas, I feel surprisingly clear and rested now. Very, very cool.

** **

OK. I'm going out of town for five days and have packed nothing. NOTHING. I need to get offline and, if nothing else, decide what shoes I'm taking...

Quick thoughts on a Friday morning...

...before I head out for the weekend.

- It's a good thing I hadn't planned to sleep late on this particular vacation day. Hello, tree-branch-grinding-up machines! How loud you are! And I hadn't realized there were quite that many branches needing grinding up. Who knew?

- I'm fascinated that the majority of people I see on the news freaking out over healthcare at those town hall meetings appear to be individuals who are probably covered by Medicare due to their age. They do realize that they're already on a single-payer system, right? Do any of them plan to give that coverage up? Just checking.

- I went to our local animal shelter last night and signed up to be a volunteer. I can't go to training for several weeks, but once I do, I can go and help out. This seems to be a positive way to help a good organization, keep myself busy, and get some dog back into my life. It won't be the same as having my Vertigo Dog back-- it couldn't possibly be, ever-- but dogs are always good for the soul.

After I filled out the application last night, I went in and visited with the dogs that are up for adoption. Such a wonderful variety of personalities, not to mention shapes and sizes, but all had absolutely one thing in common: all they want in the whole world is to be loved. Food, play, walkies-- absolutely. But love is number one.

As it should be.

A long week

Spent a lovely evening with a friend, playing with her adorable baby, eating Thai food, and catching up on gossip. It was a nice end to a long day.

The day started with saline ultrasound #2, to follow up on the hysteroscopy. FYI, the second SU was no more fun than the first. ::sigh::

On the plus side, they're going to document exactly what they did that finally worked. If they need to do one again, they can go straight to a working solution rather than having me legs-up for 25 minutes.

And that's all I'll say on that, much to everyone's relief.

My doctor's out until next week. I go out of town next Wednesday night, so I'm a little antsy; at my age, every cycle I miss is a problem. If I am going to go straight to IVF, though, I should be able to at least start the medication protocol fairly soon and could potentially have an IVF cycle as soon as September. Hey, if I'm going to lose my coverage, start now-- I will probably only be able to get 1, possibly 2 cycles in before I lose my coverage, so I should do it while I can.

A couple of other things I've made decisions on:

• Timeline. I'm going to be as aggressive as I can on IVF this calendar year, while it's still covered. As of 1/1, I can still do IUI (assuming my new insurance company isn't a bunch of arseholes about me being single, which is entirely possible), so given that the IVF probably won't work, I'll start right up with the IUI when 1/1 rolls around.
  
  If nothing's caught-- so to speak-- by spring, I'm done and move to adoption. My odds decrease enormously each and every month. If it hasn't worked by then, the odds are overwhelmingly that it isn't going to work at all, and it's time to move on. I'll have given this a good shot, I will know I did my best, and I will move on before I am physically and financially in a bad position.
  
  
• Donor: I've decided to go with a donor who's willing to be identifiable, and contacted after the child reaches a certain age. Of course, this all will probably be moot when I don't get pregnant. But if I do, I've decided this is the right route for me.
  
  I can't possibly judge anyone else for their decision on this-- it's incredibly personal. For me, though, I feel strongly that this is a choice I can give my child. He or she may never have any interest in contact with their donor; after all, the donor will be just that; they won't be a dad, just a donor. But if my theoretical child does want contact, and I've chosen an anonymous donor, then I've taken that choice away from him/her, leaving them no recourse. I can't do that.
  
  I feel so passionately about choice. This is a choice I have absolute power over, and I choose to leave things as open as I can.

I swear I'm not being whiny. OK, yes I am.

You know, if (when, probably) I stop trying to get pregnant, the first thing I'm going to do is have an enormous diet Coke. ENORMOUS.

Fizzy water + juice is much healthier, but oh, oh, OH so boring.

Laaaaazy

When you think "awesome willpower," my name does not come to mind. I am lazy. Laaaaaazy. I'm talking Olympic gold medal-level lazy. I'm a perfectly good cook, yet I eat frozen dinners rather than wait a few more minutes for the pasta to cook or the chicken to broil. I always have clean bathrooms, but dust can be seven layers deep on my tables and I barely raise an eyebrow. Sometimes (more often than I will admit, even here) my outfit for the day is decided not by what I want to wear, but by what requires the least amount of ironing. I can waste hours-- days, even-- on the internet rather than doing anything remotely productive. (How long have I needed to sand/paint my bathroom ceiling? Don't ask.)

Laaaaaazy.

I beat myself up about this, sometimes. One of the ways I've been doing this lately is wondering about just how I'll be as a single mom. Lazy is not an easy thing to overcome. Lazy trumps a lot of things. Will my child get the short end of my lazy stick?

If I think about it, though, maybe it's that I'm lazy about things I have (apparently) decided just don't matter as much. To me, anyway. For instance, despite the amount of work it takes as a single person in the city to have a dog, I had an awesome dog for over 14 years. And while sometimes I grumbled about the time it took to keep her cared for in the style she was happily accustomed to, I never really minded; as lazy as I am, she was worth every second, every dollar, every worried night, every walk in subzero weather. I carried her up and down stairs for the last month of her life, and I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

I'm lazy, but it didn't matter one bit when it came to her.

Since I found out about IVF going away as of 1/1 (see a couple of posts ago), it's like a switch has gone off. I've given up artificial sweeteners, I'm scheduled for acupuncture, I'm bringing my lunch rather than eating processed foods, I have a yoga DVD arriving in the next few days, I've been to the gym a number of times...

Maybe I'm just someone who needs a really good reason not to be lazy. Maybe my "really good reason" bar is set high.

And maybe, just maybe, that's OK.

I do need to get motivated on the bathroom ceiling, though.

Big earrings

From ...plus one

Worn last Friday, in honor of the friend who moved south. She always rocks the big earrings.

I liked them, and liked how swishy and clinky they felt. By midday, though, the right one kept getting caught in my hair. Note to self: wear these earrings when the hair is up.

I can't think of a catchy title

I hate to bump my previous link from the top of the page... if you haven't visited the link, page down to the YouTube screen featuring the cat, and watch. It's amazing.

On to much more mundane topics.

We've finally hit summer here in the great midwest, and after weeks of people complaining that it was cold, now they're complaining it's too hot. I love the midwest, and I love midwesterners: we are entirely predictable.

This morning before all hell broke loose at work, I logged in to my health insurance's website. The preliminary bill for the hysteroscopy was up: almost 11K. Seriously! I was in for less than six hours. With my deductible and copay, this is going to cost me a few thousand bucks. And I have decent insurance and some savings. Sheesh.

Speaking of insurance (which no one really likes doing), my insurance changes as of 1/1, and my coverage for fertility (specifically IVF) ends. Argh. This means I probably need to go straight to IVF now, while it's still covered. It's 12-15K a pop, and given that the odds even for IVF are terrible at my age, I won't be able to do it once insurance runs out. For that kind of money, I will move straight to adoption.

Fortunately, IUI will still be covered (assuming they don't give me a hard time with whether I'm qualified or not). So I can give IVF a shot (so to speak) and then move to IUI for a few tries.

I'm a little blue over this right now. Not only are my odds, overall, wretched-- I've got less than 10% chance of this working at all-- now one of the methods is now off the table after December.

It's clear that if something hasn't happened by next spring, I move back to looking at adoption. Which is absolutely fine, although adopting as a single person isn't a cakewalk either.

Either way, I'll be a mom. It's just hard losing any of the few options I do have.

For your listening pleasure

This made my morning.



Link found at BitchPhD.