Julia

IVF.5 (In Which I Use Lots of $ Signs)

Just for reference, I AM posting every day. It's just that Minnesota is a lot further from the sun than most people realize. Sort of like Pluto, and you know how long the days are out there.

Three quick questions before I bore you with IVF stuff:

1. For almost twenty years I lived a care-free existence, safe in the knowledge that my Maybelline Ultra-Lash (waterproof sable brown) eyelashes would not smear, smudge or flake. Then, quite suddenly, they discontinued it and for the past six months I have been literally awash in mascaras that suck. So... I need a good waterproof mascara that can stand up to the steam from a teacup BUT will not make me look like Liza Minelli in "Cabaret". Recommendations, please.

2. How do you get dried rubber cement off of a microfiber chair? The follow up to this question is: why I am such a jackchump that I thought it was a good idea to try to re-use an uncancelled stamp?

3. Is 20 UI really the same thing as 0.2 ml? And is that the same as 0.2 cc? It is almost moot at this point because we decided yesterday that 20 IU of Lupron (Olé!) did indeed equal 0.2 ml on the insulin syringe and shot up accordingly. Of course, there is always tomorrow. And the day after that. And the day after that...

This is less of a quiz than a questionnaire but if you have any thoughts on the above I will be embarrassingly grateful. 

So... the Lupron injections started Sunday morning and they are no big deal. Really. I had my eyes screwed shut and my fingers dug into the mattress waiting for the painful part and it never happened. They actually hurt less than those damn acupuncture needles. Whether this is a ringing endorsement for high gauge needles or a scathing assessment of acupuncture depends on your perspective, I suppose.

Speaking of perspective, I am beginning to discover that there are some serious drawbacks to doing an IVF cycle from a remote location.

Now I know a lady never discusses money in public (of course, a lady doesn't talk about the fact that she and her husband went at it like minks last night either, does she?) but I feel like a little word problem is in order here:

Drugs - $2100

PGD for reciprocal translocation - $3000

Embryo biopsy in order to do PGD - $1500

IVF - $9000

If I was already in DC that $9000 would cover the early cycle monitoring such as ultrasounds and bloodwork. However, I am not there yet so I have to pay the Minnesota clinic to do it for a week. So....

Monitoring (5 visits) - $1900

I asked the nice folks at Rancho IVF DC if they would do itemized billing so that I was not actually paying for monitoring at two locations. They said they could, but that it would wind up being significantly more expensive in the long run. Considering they would use non-insurance negotiated pricing I believe them. It still irks me, though, to pay for anything twice.

Adding it all up, the grand total for our one IVF cycle is $17500. If you may recall, we were also being re-submitted for a program that would let us do up to 6 IVF cycles for $24000. Sounds like a deal, right? Well consider the fact that the drugs, local monitoring and the PGD (except biopsy) costs are not included. So the first cycle actually costs $31000 and if that fails then the total cost for two cycles would be $38000. Therefore we would have to do three cycles before it cost us less to do their sh*red risk program. And you know? I am not convinced that we are willing to do three IVF cycles with them if the first two fail. Not convinced at all.

Hmmm. Really makes you think.

Anyway, gushing money out the bunghole aside, I am supposed to go for my baseline ultrasound and bloodwork on cycle day two or three. This is what the DC clinic told me to do and it sounded perfectly reasonable at the time. The problem is that it seems likely that cycle days 2 and 3 will fall this Saturday and Sunday respectively and, unlike the DC clinic, my local clinic does not do baseline ultrasounds over the weekend. I left my DC nurse a message this afternoon asking what I should do but I have not heard back yet. Day 4? Seems strange. It's a pickle.

Finally, I have to buy airline tickets for the three of us but I cannot because I have no idea when we need to fly. I am hoping that once I start stims I can at least fake some travel dates but at that point I am pretty sure it will be less than seven days notice. Airlines always try to encourage you to just buy your own damn plane under those circumstances.

I gave all of my airline miles to Holly and Kevin last year, which is absolutely fine and I would do it again if I could, but the remaining family miles are distributed in such a way as to render it necessary for us to pay the airline $0.01 a mile plus a $25 handling fee in order to use them. It will be worth it if Patrick has enough miles to cover me plus some from Steve but still... irksome to pay for our own accumulated miles.

Sorry. I just read this over and it sounds like I am bitching a lot. I don't feel as annoyed as all this sounds, I swear it. If anything I am relieved that the whole Lupron thing is a non-event and I am hopeful that the addition of more drugs will be equally boring. I still have zero expectations for this cycle, other than the certainty that living with my in-laws for any period of time will cause my freckles to melt.

Lemme know about the mascara et al and I will come back tomorrow (real time) with riddles. Or juggling maybe.   

Shazam!

During my last pregnancy (throughout which I wore an onion on my belt, as was the style at the time, yep) I would have horrible, seemingly never-ending dreams in which I desperately needed to use the bathroom but I could not. Either I was going around and around in a department store with no exits or I was in a subway train that never stopped or I actually found a public restroom but there was an inch of sewage on the floor and I just couldn't bear it... Once I dreamed I was in a restaurant and I had to pee so badly I thought I would DIE but when I went into the ladies room I discovered that it had a glass wall that looked right out over the dining area. My natural modesty, of course, prevented me from using those facilities. I mean, YOU might be able to pee while a bunch of Sunday diners stare up at you from their plates of duck ravioli but not me, ladies.

So the dreams continued and one morning, the black smudges around my eyes having developed black smudges, I told Steve about them (thereby breaking the cardinal rule of life: Don't EVER Tell Anyone What You Dreamed; It Is Boring To Everyone But You.) He was surprisingly sympathetic and told me I needed a "safe word". Then I could teach the word to my subconscious and when I found myself desperately needing to urinate in my sleep, my Id or Ego or whatever would shriek my safe word at me and I would know to wake up.

So I laughed at him (in a healthy, self-esteem building way of course) and said, "What? Like 'Shazam'?"

And Steve said, "Exactly! Exactly like 'Shazam'. Just say 'Shazam!' to yourself when you have to pee and you'll wake up."

So we went along our merry way for a few days and then one night, in the deep dark dead of the night, Steve leaned over me while I was sleeping and whispered, "Shazam!"

I did what any normal person would do. I SCREAMED. Then I opened my eyes and looked at him and SCREAMED again. Then I sat up, clutching the blankets around me, and SCREAMED for a third time. Steve scrambled to his side of the bed and I panted for a while until I fell back asleep.

This past week I have been having my usual anxiety dream. It is an old standby dream and the simple plot is that I have a Calculus test in the morning and I have just realized that I neglected to go to Calculus class for the entire semester. And it is high school so things like attendance matter. Funnily enough, I actually lived this dream my junior year of high school when I missed a spectacular 83 recorded days of school. I know what you are thinking. You are thinking, damn, Julia, didn't all those absences go down on your permanent record? YES, I say impressively, yes they did and THAT is why I went to Hopkins {*SOB*}

Where was I? Oh right, so, while I was not in analysis for almost a decade and therefore am psychologically unhealthy and ignorant in these matters, I think the anxiety is stemming from our upcoming IVF cycle- just a guess.

But, whatever, I always translate my stress into a nocturnal need to craft a lie so IMMENSE, so MASTERFUL that a high school Calculus teacher will say, "OK, I'll give you a C for now, but you'll have to make up those missed assignments."

After a solid week of these dreams I was sort of pissed last night when I found myself, yet again, striding through the nasty halls of a DC public school thinking, "FUCK! How did I manage to miss the entire semester? I am SO SCREWED. Fuck!"

Then there was that crackling noise I had forgotten until that moment followed by a whine, and a disembodied voice floated over the PA system. A voice that said, "Shazam."

"Shazam?" I thought in my dream.

"Shazam," repeated the voice.

"Shazam!" I screamed. And sure enough, I woke up. And I had to pee. Go figure.

I am temporarily lifting the worldwide ban on dream telling because Steve is the only other person I can ask and apparently HE is so psychologically whole he barely dreams at all. And the only ones he can ever remember involve monsters. And when I ask him what kind of monsters he says scary monsters. 37 years old, ladies and gentlemen, and Freud's pride and joy. Take a bow, Steve.

So do you have the same anxiety dream over and over or I am a freak? You can tell me. This is a safe place.

This Started As Q&A But It Escaped Me

But first a few questions from the ol' email bag:

Why are you a Fertility/Adoption finalist? Um, I got this question (in different forms) no fewer than eight times today. I think these people came over from the blog awards page and couldn't figure out what my problem is. I mean, the problem with my girl bits (if any). I don't think they were asking why ME and not Julie from a little pregnant although that is a DAMN FINE QUESTION. I interpreted this more as a request for my stirrup cred, which is understandable. The Clif version is: my husband has a balanced translocation of chromosomes which causes horrible abnormalities in embryos that in turn has led to six miscarriages and one second-trimester abortion, all of which have led to an unpleasant few years. We do have a son, though, and we are terribly terribly greedy so we are trying to have another one (child that is, sex optional. I mean, the future child's sex is strictly optional although I suppose the hot and nasty sex is optional, too, because we are starting an IVF cycle on Sunday.) In all fairness I probably talk about laundry as often if not more often than I discuss sperm but in the absence of a Housewife Blog category (which I would DOMINATE) I tend to get the honor of being grouped with the smartest, funniest, edgiest women on the Internet. I bow.

Do you have control issues? Yes. Of course. What tipped you off? My pathological need to have EVERYTHING organized or the fact that I brag about it as if I am unaware that being pathological is a bad thing?

When are you actually starting your IVF cycle? Sunday! Pay attention! Actually, Steve asked this question too, tonight. He wanted to know when we are supposed to start injections and then he wanted to know when in the day they had to be done and then he worried about Patrick seeing him give me shots. This is more forethought than Steve has shown since I met him, so I was touched. And yes, I know it is pathetic that I was touched that Steve remembered, sort of, that I am going to start putting big needles full of unkind drugs into my soft parts this weekend. Steve, as you may recall, has some "limitations" when it comes to "compassion" for my "suffering" during this "difficult time."

Aren't you ashamed of yourself for perpetuating an outdated stereotype of marriage and motherhood in which the female partner's role is akin to that of domestic servitude? Actually, the real email said something like, "Bitch, you need to get a J-O-B" and was in response to my great big food post. I was amused. What? Organizing my pantry isn't a job?

Actually, let's talk about this one, shall we?

If I tell you I do not like sushi and I particularly do not like uni, would you get offended and start arguing with me? Would you try to tell me that, in fact, that vile orange glop is NOT the consistency of regurgitated baby tongue? Well, maybe if you are an assholio, but for the most part people accept that sort of thing as personal preference.

There are a few givens in every domestic economy. Money (or I suppose some product that can be bartered, but let's keep this simple shall we?) needs to be earned; food needs to be provided; and clothes and toilets need to be cleansed with a regularity that is acceptable to all parties. You can add a zillion things to this list, but it all roughly breaks down into cash and services. If you are alone, you do it all or you pay someone to help you. If you are in a partnership, then you do it or your partner does it or you pay someone. It is that simple and, really, all that matters is that everyone involved is in agreement over how the work gets divided.

I know someone for whom this has been an issue since their first date. He met a woman who was vehemently opposed to the roles that women have traditionally assumed in the home. She found the idea of cleaning a bathroom sexist and offensive. So she worked in an office and he worked in an office and they paid someone to take care of the housework. They divided food preparation equally or ate out. And this was fine until she quit her job, but still felt that taking care of the house was not her responsibility. So this friend of mine would get up early and go out to earn the money that supported their comfortable life, part of which includes paying the salary of a cleaning person. Inevitably, he began to feel like he was being taken advantage of because he felt he was contributing more than she was. And this argument is still being played out, almost daily. I don't think he is really saying, "Woman! Get in the kitchen and make me a pie!" so much as he is saying, "I am doing X here and you are doing x-1."

For what it is worth, I do not think this argument will be resolved for them anytime soon, but I will keep you posted. 

In our house I am responsible for everything related to food. I also do the laundry and put it away. I clean the bathrooms and the kitchen and the floors. I pick up toys CONSTANTLY. I handle the social obligations, including buying gifts, writing thank you notes and making sure that Patrick leaves the occasional adorable but incomprehensible voicemail for Steve's parents. I call his sisters when it has been too long since we have heard from them. I pay our personal bills and do the bookkeeping for Steve's business (his partner handles the billing, so my part is just tracking our share of expenses and profits.) I deal with our accountant and banker and broker and planner and I make the decisions concerning the portfolios. I run the Target errands and the clothes shopping errands and the post office errands and the Patrick appointment errands.    

Steve gets up with Patrick every morning and feeds him breakfast. Anywhere between 8 and 9 they wake me up, usually with a cup of tea. I then have Patrick until 5 or 6 when Steve comes out of his office for dinner. After dinner Steve gives Patrick a bath, plays with him for an hour or so and then puts him to bed.   

Steve, obviously, also earns the money that pays the bills and does car stuff and yard stuff and home improvement stuff.

We then pay someone who works anywhere from 10 to 30 hours a week doing random big things around the house and yard.

So that is our distribution of labor and it makes us shimmy. Does it follow some bold 1950s pattern? Yep, pretty much. Was it derived from that pattern? Hell no. We have just gravitated towards the tasks that best suit us.

I went off on a tangent, but I really wanted to ask you how your house is run and whether you think it is equitable or if you fight about it. The only time Steve and I fight over housework is when company is expected and I say, "I need help doing such-and-such." Inevitably, Steve will choose this moment to start some MASSIVE home improvement project that involves tearing down a wall or digging up the front walk. And when I say, "Fuck, Steve, how hard is it to just make the goddamned guest bed?" he says, "Well, you know I have been meaning to re-trench the septic system for some time..." And I am obligated to stab him with a fork, which leaves me with another fork to clean.

So long answer, but no, I do not feel bad about my blatant housewifery. In fact, it makes me giggle. Of course, in ten years I am blowing this popsicle stand and going on a book tour, just watch me.

Is it different for you?   

So Relaxed I Am Practically Unconscious

Not ten minutes after I posted that self-congratulatory assessment of the state of my union I was hysterically telling Steve to fuck the fuck off. Ten minutes after THAT we were fine again, but I thought I should mention it in the interests of truth in adverblogging. Because although Steve and I are usually holding hands in wildflower meadows while gentle breezes waft our attractive hair, this is not always the case.

In fact, sometimes one of us asks the other one if he has called Bob the Reliable Minion yet to see about housesitting in January (yes, THIS January, thank you) and the other one says, "No" just like that, "No."

So then one of us is forced to get a little shrill and say, "WHAT? What are you waiting for? Do you think the cats are going to feed themselves while we are gone? Are they going to start cleaning their own litter boxes and bringing in the mail? What about my orchids? Do you know how delicate my orchids are, even in dormancy? Do you even care about my orchids? Do you? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh Huh HUH HUH HUH HUH HUH HUH HUH?" while jabbing a finger at him and following him from room to room.

Actually, I am surprisingly laid-back (well, for me, but I should acknowledge that I have all of our 2004 receipts and financial documents organized, totaled, sticky-noted and binder-clipped; ready to go in the mail to our accountant for tax preparation because I am that kind of pococurante) about the whole IVF-in-DC-this-month thing. For starters, I am not convinced it will even get so far as to involve travel, so why worry? Better women than me have had cycles canceled, that's for damn sure. And even supposing the twin gods Gonal and Repronex (suckled by a she-wolf and therefore sympathetic to the myriad approaches one may take towards family building) smile upon me and I am blessed with follicles that grow and gurgle, it will still take a bloody miracle for Steve's creepy-assed sperm to make a normal embryo. Let alone the two we need to nudge our odds above 50%. So... again I say, why worry about it?   

I saw my brand-new acupuncturist today and I liked him. Not only did he have a good grasp of the essentials (pincushionitis inspired by looming IVF cycle) I left without any perforations in my major organs. Two thumbs up, says I, an act of approval that I am able to perform because (unlike my last acupuncturist) this guy did not cripple my right thumb with the blunt trauma of teeny-tiny needles in a very big vein.

And just to show you that I am not making up my blithe insouciance, I would like to point out that even the total stranger who poked me with needles was hip to my mellow. As he was putting them in, the acupuncturist said, "I am getting a strong sense that you are in a good place."

I widened my eyes at him and experimentally shimmied my rump on the table, "I think so," I replied, "although we could shift the knee bolster down a bit."

"No, no," he replied, "I mean I sense that you are in a good place within your self. Your serenity is admirable."

So, there you have it. Unsolicited confirmation that I am easybreezybeautiful and cool as a clutch of cucumbers. Thus, to my mother who clucks "You need to not be so crazy" and my husband who hisses "Relax!" and my brother who worries "Maybe if you made an effort to get at least 45 minutes of aerobic exercise every day..." I say: Ha! MY serenity is admirable. So bite me.

Happy Etc.

Well, I meant every day that wasn't a federal holiday. Or practically a federal holiday. Or a Sunday. Other than THOSE days I am going to try to write every day. Yes. Verily. Verdad.

New Year's Eve was our anniversary and, yes, I did get snookered at our wedding (I mean I got snookered and I got snookered - nudge nudge, wink poke wink.) This year I made a kick-ass dinner (if I do modestly say so myself,) which we ate with Patrick at 6pm. Then we watched an incredibly bad Sci-Fi movie that Steve had his little heart set upon while I started to organize our tax documents (2005... tick tick tick!) and at 10:00 we went to bed with our books. I woke Steve up at midnight to kiss me and... thus beginneth a new year.

I wish I could tell you the funny thing that Steve said. The thing that was SO VERY FUNNY it made me laugh until I had to sneeze. Actually, I could tell you (he said, "Jew-LEE-uh, I am warm and wet!") but it would not be funny to you. That is the whole point. Even if I were to explain each of the three inside jokes it harmoniously referenced you would still not find it as rip-roarilous as I do. You had to be there. You had to be there for the past eight and a half years, laughing during sex and sharing my exact taste in chairs and standing shoulder-to-ear as horrible and wonderful things alternated in our life like a layer-cake. Shared experience, of course, being the very glue that holds the gears of this marriage together.

Champagne and carriage-rides and dinner at La Belle Vie are nice, but above all things we like being home with Finky and our cats and each other. So, it was a very lovely anniversary indeed.

May the new year bring you all of the good things you so richly deserve.

Tomorrow: More! On something!