Three Kinds of Success:

A few things that made me happy this week:

1. I am not an Unfit Mother! J and I are approved to adopt the kitten! It definitely took a web of lies (mad props to my very best friend S, the most devious person I know, who came up with the best cover story and approach to presenting it), but as long as I send in my vet report for my kitty from this Saturday, the shelter lady will be satisfied that we care for our pets. As she put it, J and I “seem like good people.”

2. Insurance preauthorization for my IVF cycle came through in the nick of time! As predicted, my request for authorization was received by my HMO five days later than it should have been submitted. No idea whether this was a fuckup by the billing person at my RE’s office (likely) or on the HMO’s end (also possible). I was freaking last week when the cramping was coming and I knew AF was almost here and I learned insurance was not going to get back to me until Friday. AF came with a vengeance on Thursday, about an hour after the RE’s office closed. So I called Friday morning, expecting to have to beg to pay out-of-pocket for just the sono and bloodwork (usually the RE makes you pay the full flat rate for the cycle of you just can’t start). But the billing person was ridiculously nice and told me that, as the insurance likely would come through that day, I should just come on in and not worry about payment yet. Of course, this leads me to believe that she knows it was her fuckup that delayed my insurance. Then Friday afternoon the insurance came through, without the HMO’s usual “we need to see more medical records” bullshit. So I’m approved! Nice. (This cuts the cost of the cycle from about $13,000 to under $4,000.)

3. AF only lasted 2 days—almost exactly 48 hours. I have had long and evil periods ever since I went off the pill 10 years ago, and now I’m thinking I had the fibroids all that time. Maybe even since I was a teenager. There was some heavy bleeding during those 2 days, but not THAT heavy—certainly nothing like my I-should-buy-stock-in-Tamapax periods of the past. And I had some bad cramps, yeah, but they were pretty easily treated with Alleve. I really hadn’t dared hope that having surgery would improve my quality of life. It was a pregnancy thing, not a period thing. But goddamn! If this is for real, and this is what my periods are going to be like from now on, what a difference it will make! No more losing ¼ of my life to crippling pain, paranoia about bleeding through whatever I’m wearing, and complete exhaustion. Hurray!

All in all, it’s a good place to be when going into IVF. Feeling fairly calm, happy about a few things in my life, and overall hopeful. We’ll see how long it lasts.



Oh, and here's a pic of the kitten, taken by the sweet old couple who's fostering him right now. There are 5 in the litter, and I'm thinking they did one of these "portraits" for each kitten. So sweet.