Twenty-One Thousand, Seven Hundred Fifty and 00/100 Dollars

"Twenty-One Thousand, Seven Hundred Fifty and 00/100 Dollars." You try writing that out on the not-so-long line of a check.

That’s right, today Operation Shared Risk began. Coincidentally, Operation Second Mortgage kicked in at almost exactly the same time.

I’m finding myself surprisingly calm about laying out this kind of money. Probably because it’s too much to wrap my head around. It’s like Monopoly money—not really real, you know?

Then I went to work and finished writing an emergency motion that has had my nose to the grindstone for the past week.

And then, at 3:00 in the afternoon, I had a complete meltdown. You know what it was that set me off? Shoes. You heard me. Shoes.

Here’s the deal. I have a crap-ass lower back that’s been hurting since I was 20, and hurting like hell since I was 30 or so. I’m a pretty active girl, and like to think of myself as even more active than I really am, so having back problems at such a young age has been incredibly frustrating. I am convinced that nothing makes you feel prematurely old quite so much as having a bad back.

Except, of course, having a bad back in ugly shoes. In the past few years, through various visits to chiropractors and podiatrists, I have figured out that a lot of my back problems can be traced to my feet. I pronate, and I have to wear orthotics––all the time––to keep my back from freaking out. Mind you, this is not a complete cure. I still have pain, but it’s much, much, much better.

So for the past 3 years I’ve pretty much been stuck in sneakers or low-heeled boots while I try to figure this out. In the past year, even the boots make my back hurt, so I just wear running shoes all the time. And I mean ALL THE TIME. In my dress pants, in my pretty skirt, in the office, going out with my husband. Unless I’m in court, I’m in sneakers. Last summer I mail-ordered some sandals with orthotics built in, but because I didn’t go through a doctor, the orthotics didn’t work well enough and I can only wear the sandals for an hour or so before my knee and lower back give out. Then it hurts for a week.

Since November, my podiatrist and I have finally worked out the best orthotic for me, and I am ready to lay out cash for sandals. And I mean SERIOUS cash. I spent $500 fucking dollars on a pair of Naot sandals with built-in custom orthotics. That’s right, five hundred dollars. And they’re not even all that cute, because they can’t be high heeled and they have to have a wide enough footbed to support my saggy arches. But they’re a fuckload better than sneakers, and every day I have eagerly awaited their arrival. Seriously, I think about them every day.

The sandals were supposed to be in last week. So this afternoon, when I come up for air after filing my motion, I call the podiatrist to see what the holdup is. She calls the lab, then calls me back and tells me the lab didn’t get the order. Meaning it’s going to take another three weeks to a month for the sandals to come in. It’s already JULY, for fuck sake, and I’m so fucking tired of wearing ugly-ass sneakers with my attempt-to-be-stylish clothes. In the meantime, our office is crawling with 20-year-old interns in their skinny skinny outfits and their high high heels. And I’ll never even wear medium-high heels again. I’m only 36, and I’m already limited to frumpy orthotic-supporting shoes, and now even those aren’t here.

And in two weeks I’m going to New York do to a law training and J and I are going to go to dinner and a show and I am desperate to be able to look pretty, just one night, on a date with my man. We’ll be on foot, and I can’t afford to throw my back out in the middle of IVF. So if they can’t expedite the sandals I’m screwed.

Yup, I started crying. Right there in my office. Over sandals. I wish I were kidding.

That’s me. I can handle IVF. I can handle multiple miscarriages. I can handle a second mortgage, and an emergency motion, and the horrible backlog this motion has caused at work. But apparently I can’t handle ugly shoes.

The Calm Before the Storm

I've been so absent from BlogLand lately I thought I'd drop a short post just to let everyone know I was okay. Occasionally I go through these phases where I just have nothing to say. Or rather, I have lots of things to say but they all seem: (1) boring and inane or (2) too complicated to be worth the time and effort of typing them out. On top of all that, J has actually been home almost every night for the past couple of weeks, so I have no privacy. It's nice having him home, though. Much less lonely.

A short version of what's been going on:

1. The Boring: I've been sick. Got a brutal cold at the beginning of June. Gave up on healing on my own and got a doctor to give me antibiotics in mid-June. But my chest is still a mess. Don't know if I've managed to suddenly develop asthma (possible, given that I have had allergies since I was 20), or if the cold is hanging on. Now on another round of antibiotics.

2. The Complicated: I've worked out the contract for the shared risk program at my RE's office. This got complicated because I never told you that it was a problem, so explaining that I've solved it seems odd. But I solved it. Contrary to what my RE originally told me, the contract I was shown had an early-out penalty. Essentially, I thought I was going to sign up for a shared risk program that gave me the option of doing 6 fresh IVF cycles plus any FET cycles, but allowed me to drop out before that was done and get a full refund. After all, I've already done 3 IVF cycles and 1 FET. I can't imagine doing another 6 plus god-only-knows how many FETs. I figure if this hasn't worked after another 3 cycles, it just isn't going to work. But the whole point of laying out $21K is that I get that money back if the IVF doesn't work, so I have some money left to put toward adoption.

But the contract I was shown had this clause that said that, if the patient wants to pull out of the program before completing all fresh cycles and any FET cycles, she loses $5K of her refund for every cycle she's done. So this means after 2 cycles, half of my refund would be lost. And after 4 cycles, I would get next to nothing in a refund. Can you imagine having to do extra IVF cycles, not because you want to or think they would work, but because that was the only way to get your adoption money back? Insane. Medically unconscionable.

I wrote to my RE and told her that the contract didn't match what she had told me, and that if we couldn't work it out I would have to go Giant Factory Fertility Clinic in the area, which I know has the shared risk program I want. But I really don't want to go to GFFC! I love my RE, and I get individualized treatment. And the last thing I want to do is start all over again with a new clinic.

Anyway, (see why I thought this was both boring/too complicated to explain?), she talked to the other doctors in the group, and they all agreed that the early-out penalty was crap. I think the funny part is that patients have been signing this contract for years, but the early-out penalty has "never come up." Apparently, all but one couple has come out of the program with a baby, which is a good sign.

Then I had to deal with the office manager person, who manages the contracts. But the short version of this story is that they basically let me re-write the contract. How cool is that? I felt like Kick-Ass Lawyer Chick, my favorite superhero. And I felt like they were kind of foolish to not run it by a lawyer. Not that I screwed them; I was very careful to protect them. Basically, my RE trusts me and the contract was with her.

See? Not an interesting post at all. But that's what's going on. As soon as my period starts I'm jumping into another cycle. Which will be soon. So right now I'm in the calm before the storm, or the "quiet before the plunge," as Gandalf would put it (I think that's how he put it). Too bad I wasted my entire month off being sick and cranky.

And, I might add, I'm very scared of having to buy my own drugs. No idea how much that's going to cost me. I have a decent supply of Gon.al-f, because we over-ordered (deliberately) while I had insurance. I won't have to buy much more of that to get through one cycle. But the mena.pur and ganarel.ix are going to cost a lot, I think.

For those of you who think I'm spoiled (I have been) because my insurance covered my drugs until now, help me out here. How much should I expect to spend on drugs for one cycle?

All right. Back to work. That's what they pay me for, theoretically.

Vet Mafia Bitches

Fuck yeah! I’m the vettiest of all the Vet Mafia Bitches Bloggers. In pleasant blogville, I’m known as the sweet and supportive (and sometimes pushy) Babychaser.

But in the dirty underground of the VMB, they just call me EM/C. Why? Because, sista biotches, I am the motherfucking Early MisCarriage QUEEN of all time!

Who else can get a lighter shade of pink on the pee-test? What other chickie out there watches that pee-stick line get lighter day by day? Anyone else landed a beta below 40 … twice? How about having a miscarriage at the same time your beta’s doubling (but no pain killers, because maybe you're just losing one baby)? Anyone else pee on a stick every day for a WEEK after a missed period (after implantation bleeding), and only then have a faint, faint, so-faint-I’m-totally-imagining-things line show up? Anyone manage to get a high beta just once, just that one time, out of four fucking pregnancies, then end up in the ER a week later because the dumb-ass embryo crawled up into your tube before it settled in for a nice nap?

Yeah, I didn’t think so. You bitches can only dream of my bad-ass scars. (Not to mention the IRL scar, slashing across my pubic line like an opening salvo from Zorro.)

EM/C is my name, and broken dreams is my game. Can’t stay pregnant to save my life. Can’t stop trying. (How can you stop when it keeps almost working?)

My regular doctor says “just relax.”

My RE’s nurse says “God is just giving you a break—babies are a lot of work.”

My mom says “your infertility must come from your father’s side of the family.”

My mom-in-law says “can I have your sister’s e-mail address so I can send her a mother’s day card?”

… and she says “as soon as you put in the adoption paperwork you’ll get pregnant.”

My co-worker (who started TTC after I did and now has a toddler) says, “You should just adopt. I watch Wednesday’s Child all the time and I want to adopt them ALL.”

… and she says, “I have a friend who’s paying TWENTY-FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS to doctors to get her pregnant. Can you even believe someone would do that???”

Angelina Jolie says, “of course I didn’t use ART to get pregnant with my twins.”

Hollywood says, "You know what would be hi-larious? A movie about a woman that has to hire a surrogate because she can't bear children! Laugh riot."

… and it says, “Let’s give Sex and the City a happy ending and make Charlotte preggers. After all, everyone knows as soon as you adopt you’ll get knocked up, right?"

My man’s twin brother says “we’re pregnant, and she was on the pill at the time (but the antibiotics made it less potent).”

… but he says he won’t even discuss being our sperm donor, because “you really should adopt.”

My cousin says “we’re pregnant.”

Our best friends say, “we’re pregnant.”

My other best friend says, “I’m pregnant.”

My co-worker says “I’m pregnant.”

What do I say?

I say FUCK THE FUCKING FERTILE HO-BITCHES.

I will cut a bitch.

Just try me.

I am EM/C, and I can bleed and cry at the same time. What can you do, beotch?

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Think you have what it takes to be a VMB? Come find out. I double dog dare you.

Vet Mafia Bloggers

Who Am I, Anyway?

I’ve been meaning to post for days now, but I just don’t know what to say. I have plenty to say when I’m commenting on others’ lives, but mine just seems so unworthy of mention.

The truth is, I feel empty inside. I was a pretty fun kid, then a wild and rebellious teenager (by Happy Valley, Utah standards), then a passionate college student. I’ve always liked myself, even when I was down about my looks, or my job, or some of my self-destructive tendencies. I always felt like I had personality to spare, that I could shine and sparkle and charm and generally feel great about myself because people liked me. I’ll admit it, because you are my no-censorship crowd: I always thought I was pretty damn cool.

Now? I hardly recognize myself. Occasionally I catch a glimpse of myself, usually in a storefront window reflection, and I can’t believe what I see. Am I that old? Am I that fat? Worse, am I that frumpy, in my orthotic shoes and the outfits designed to cover my flabby tummy? When did I become so … ordinary? So lifeless? So joyless?

Would I feel this way if I had a child? My first baby would be one and a half years old now, in those early stages of learning to walk and talk. And I don’t grieve that baby. It was never all that real to me. But the loss of opportunity, the time passing while my body grows older and older, while I watch myself fade into the washed-out background of my empty life, that’s something that hurts more and more, day by day.

So I guess I’m depressed. Not surprising. And I’m terribly lonely. Also not surprising. But mostly I’m just tired and disappointed with life. I want to go back in time, not that far, maybe eight or ten years back, and start all over again. I want to be young again. To be thin, to be sexy, to have energy to play, to go out dancing, to be wanted. I want to be able to work out without hurting myself. I want to wear pretty shoes. I want to have friends again, not the kind you see every three months––the kind you have to talk to on the phone every day. I want to flirt, to have guys flirt back, to feel that thrill of knowing I’m sexy. I want my husband to be thinner, and interested in having sex even when I don’t suggest it. I want our bodies to fit together the way they used to, and I want to be able to have wild sex without my back hurting the next day. I want to go back to a time when my whole life was ahead of me, when I could still dream about the joy (and discomfort) of pregnancy with the innocence of someone who’s never crashed and burned. I want to feel hope, without having to smash it down, terrified of letting myself dream.

I just want to be me again. Whoever that was. I really really miss me. I liked her. And I don’t like this me so much at all.

Motherfucking OWWWWWWW!!!!!

A word of warning to anyone considering a miscarriage: they hurt. And not just a little, ooh-was-that-a-twinge kind of hurt. They hurt like a motherfucker. Like a beast clawing at my uterus from the inside, shredding the lining that I took so many drugs to build. Like a hot poker twisting in my lower gut, trying to burn its way out. And this is with one and a half percocet already in there fighting the battle. Soon I will take more. Soon.

The thing is, I knew this was going to hurt. After all, I’ve done it three times before. And twice without any painkillers, because the miscarriage hadn’t been “confirmed” yet. But you never really remember how bad something hurts, until you go through it again. (I’m convinced this is why women have second children, even after experiencing labor once.)

I’ve known this was coming for a week now. And I’ve thought back on those other times, trying to prepare myself for what’s to come. But the miscarriages of the past are all so abstract. And maybe it’s because I like thinking of myself as tough (one of the only consolation prizes of multiple IVFs and multiple miscarriages is feeling like an infertility badass) but there’s almost touch of fondness when I look back on those memories. Yeah, I remember my first miscarriage, lying all curled up on the couch watching old episodes of Buffy, heating pad on ‘high’ strapped to my belly, getting up every five minutes to hit the toilet and see what comes out. Yeah, good times…. So the pain has actually managed to take my by surprise.

I’m actually kind of glad J has to work tonight. He’s not terribly overwrought by my pain; he doesn’t treat me like I’m made of cornflakes and will blow away in a strong wind; it doesn’t break him apart to see me cry. And for the most part, I think that’s good for me. I’m a terrible whiner, and I need a “buck-up, little tiger” person in my life to keep me from being totally pathetic. But for tonight, I just want to take my drugs and feel sorry for myself with no audience.

While I’ve been writing this, I’ve had the strangest image. The cramping is coming in waves, easing up for a minute or two, then, just when I forget about it, kicking in and burning and making me resort to my deep breathing exercises. But the image I have isn’t the cramps coming and going like the ocean. The image I like is a to-the-death battle taking place within my uterus, which I picture as a dark cave with deep red walls. The battle is between the slavering beast within and the wonderful, white, lovely percocet, which I guess looks kind of like the happy pill in the old zoloft commercials (but with a sword, of course!). One minute, the percocet will take the high ground, forcing the snarling, fanged beast into a corner where he can only chew on a small part of my uterine wall. The next minute, the beast has regained its footing and is ripping me to shreds while the white pill cowers and tries to hide. Hmm… maybe it’s time to send in reinforcements.

Out of the Woods

Looks like little McNulty is going to pull through. He spent a scary night in the hospital oxygen tank. A specialist came in and took and EKG. He doesn't think McNulty has a heart defect, but he also doesn't think it's pneumonia. He thinks McNulty had a damaged or injured lung, and that's caused pulmonary edema. We're going to be giving him some aggressive medication over the next month or so, and he should recover.

I don't know if this will be a recurring problem, but he seems out of the woods for now. Right now he's home and playful and cuddly and purring and sucking on my shirt again, all of which is very nice (except that when he sucks on my shirt he insists on kneading me with his claws, and he prefers to do that on my bare skin, which isn’t so nice).

And the last 24 hours cost us about $1,500, which is less nice. McNulty has now cost us more than our two 12-year-old cats cost us in their entire lifetimes, put together. He’d better be extra cute to make it up to me.

Here's a picture I took a couple of weeks ago. I like it because it shows off his goofy smile.

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In other news, my miscarriage finally started a couple of minutes ago. Thank god. Hopefully it will be quick. I’ve got percocet and maxipads, and I’ve arranged to work from home. So I should be all set. So far, my cold (which is STILL kicking my ass) and my sick kitty have done wonders to distract me from what’s going on (or rather what hasn’t been going on) in my uterus. Now that the miscarriage is finally here, I’m hoping to be totally blasé about it. That’s my goal, anyway.

Just want to mention that you all have been amazing and wonderful to me. I didn’t have anything like this kind of support last time I lost a pregnancy. I can’t describe how much it means to have friends that really understand what I’m gong through.

Love you all,

Babychaser

The Universe Hates Me

McNulty, my sweet little (okay, not so little anymore) kitten that I adopted purely as a measure to bring new life and joy into my dismal barren life, is very sick. He had his neuter surgery on Monday, and seemed like he was recovering fairly well yesterday. But this morning he seemed to have trouble breathing, was lethargic, and wouldn’t eat. This afternoon J took him to the vet. He just called. It’s very serious. Either McNulty has pneumonia or a heart defect.

J and I suspect it’s a heart defect. He’s always seemed a bit wheezy when we hold him on his back, and he doesn’t have a fever indicating an infection. I don’t know if he’ll even survive this. If he does, it’ll involve daily medication for the rest of his life. I don’t know if I’m up for that. I don’t know if I’m willing to bond even more with a pet that’s going to have a shaky life, and could die on me at any moment. And I’m sure this is costing me a fortune right now.

I’ve stopped crying, because I finally took a xanax. Luckily, no one at work is going to notice, because I’ve been so fucking sick for the past three days that my eyes and nose were already red and swollen, and my lips were already pink and puffy (and not in an attractive way, I assure you). Basically, ever since Sunday I’ve been coughing. Pretty much constantly. My throat is so raw it hurts to breathe. Last night and today the congestion kicked in on top of it.

And the miscarriage has yet to start, even though my beta was down to 6 on Monday. Why won’t it just fucking START already? While I’m already miserable. While I’m already incapable of functioning. But no, it has to wait. Wait until I’ve blown a sick day on the cold (stayed home Monday, but have been here at work yesterday and today), which I was hoping to save for the miscarriage. Wait until I’ve given in and cancelled all plans for the next week in anticipation of The Bleed. And now it’s waiting until I get news that my new there-is-still-hope kitten might die.

In 2007 I had two miscarriages, major surgery, and my 12-year-old cat died. I was kind of counting on 2008 to go better. But it’s less than half over and I’ve already got one negative beta, one miscarriage, a second mortgage if I want to keep trying to have a child, and now maybe another dead cat. I mean, seriously, how much more of this shit can one person take?