24 Plus 280

So..24 days..and counting. I am happy to report that we have successfully completed all the "prerequisites". The fertility office is still waiting for confirmation that the baby box rocks, but we all already know it does, so not worried about that. Which means we are moving on to the actual process!

Egg Basket goes for a "lining check" next Wednesday and if it looks good and thick, then she will start injecting her tush that night (or the next, depending on when the results get from Connecticut to Maryland). I KNOW she is looking forward to that! Unfortunately, I will be on a plane to California while her lining is being examined, but she knows my heart will be with her and I intend to call the second my plane lands..if I have to miss something, I guess this is an okay thing to miss..sigh.

The next step will be another "lining check" on the 16th and if it is all good, touchdown on the 20th..phew! Then about 2-3 weeks of nail biting and we will know!

In the meantime, my husband, son and I all went up to CT this past weekend to visit Egg Basket and her family. We arrived in the middle of the night on Thursday and stayed through Sunday evening. I can't describe how wonderful I felt being there. It felt like I went home, even though I had never been to her house in CT before. In fact, I was really depressed to leave because talking to Egg Basket on the phone and computer aren't the same as sitting in her kitchen, drinking wine and eating whatever yummy thing she just whipped up for me. I comforted myself with the knowledge that there will be many more visits and lots more time together.

Still..over the last few days I realized that I had a nagging emotion that I am not used to..insecurity. There is a part of me that feels so indebted to Egg Basket for all that she is doing that I am constantly over-analyzing my actions. I am worried about annoying her, pissing her off, making her feel under-appreciated..whatever. As much as intellectually I know that she and I are in this together and nothing will change that, the emotional part of me questions how to act.

Of course, I just be myself...but that is where the insecurity sets in, what if myself isn't good enough? what if I've changed so much and she doesn't really like who I am now? the person I've become in the last 8 years? I am an incredibly emotional, wear my heart on my sleeve type and she is not...

Then I remember, she does put up with my neediness in this situation (just as she always did) and of course I've been emotional since the day she met me, and intellectually I know she loves me regardless of all of this...yet, I think that the insecure feeling is a part of this process too..

I expect that this feeling will ebb and flow throughout all of this, if it works..but at the end of the day, how do you thank the woman who is willing to carry your baby or when/if she is actually carrying your baby? That is a question I will gladly struggle with..for the next 24 days, and G-d willing for 280 more days after that (give or take a few, right Egg Basket?)

True friendship is seen through the heart, not through the eyes

The countdown has begun, I am sure you have all noticed the ticker that we added to count down the days.
This is all so very exciting now, as I feel that we are in the home stretch of this first part.
I had the baby box inspected Friday, and filled the doctors office in on our plans.
They were very supportive! I loved the midwife... he is a guy, but I was comfortable with that... after 5 kids, you really don't care much about who looks up in there! HA!
He suggested that I go for a mammogram... so I will. I did argue that one should probably have breasts in order to do that... he laughed... I guess my small ones qualify!

I started my second pack of birth control pills.
I will only take those for 14 days.
After that I will be checked to see if the lining of the baby box is looking embryo-friendly... if it is looking good, we will start the injections, one every third day... I will be checked on April 16th, then if all continues to look good, we will start the daily injections until the transfer on the 20th.

I will have my hubby do the injections, since he used to do that a lot when he worked for the WWF. HAHA! oops! did I say that??
Good thing I am not afraid of shots eh?

So that's the plan, folks.
I am stoked.
I got the legal contract in the mail today, Hubby and I will sign it and ship it back and that is the last piece of business.

I did have a moment of sadness when I received the contract.
On it was a little post it note from Baby Mama.
When I read it, I instantly realized that I no longer recognized her handwriting...
It had been THAT long.
There was a time that I recognized her handwriting as easily as my own.
I missed her so much. The social worker was concerned for no reason, I will never, again, walk away from our friendship.

There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will

This particular blog entry has taken me a few days to sort through in my mind.
As Baby Mama indicated we had hit a bump in the road… temporarily anyway.
I was in an intriguing position that made me a tad uncomfortable.

I agree with Baby Mama… we were never told that there was some sort of higher veto power where the Social Worker could veto the entire process after our meeting.
Our understanding was that it was more a formality and, absent my being a stark raving lunatic, (something that may be debatable by some) things would move forward as planned.

The bizarre way that we found out that the social worker had reservations that our friendship was not rekindled for long enough was certainly not, in my opinion, professional at all.
Baby Mama had many emails and phone calls ignored before the nurse in charge of my meds finally talked to her and told her, in a roundabout way, that there was an ‘issue’. This run around went on for a week.
At that, getting the, whole story seemed akin to pulling teeth!
At any rate, once we were aware of the Social Workers concerns, many things jumped into my brain.

I understand Baby Mama’s feelings of emotional despair and lack of control over her reproductive life. My concerns were more fundamental and pragmatic.

First, someone made my sister cry, uncool.
And second, the Social Worker’s philosophy made no sense…. And I would try and use this, to fix the first issue! HAHA!

So we launched a multi-level attack (of sorts)
Baby Mama would hit her with the emotion issues she discussed, and I would beat her down demanding answers for her, apparently arbitrary, two-month wait proposal.
The next day we had a conference call with the SW. I won’t rehash the semantics of the conversation and I know Baby Mama posted about her end of it. Basically, from my perspective, while the SW’s concerns may be valid under normal circumstances, there were NOT valid for 2 reasons. One reason is, I don’t believe that the SW fully considered the specifics of our relationship in drawing her conclusion and the second reason is, even if her concerns were valid, two months simply wouldn’t make a significant difference in defining the potential longevity of our renewed relationship. Ultimately and in addition to Baby Mama’s points, like the true lawyer that I am, I tore apart her ‘logic’. Then I countered, with my far superior logic HA!

I think that, ultimately, we brow beat her until she gave up. Of course, she never intended to stop the process, so I think it just wasn’t worth the battle to her… Baby Mama and I can make a relentless team and we ended the conversation with SW assuring us that all was a ‘go’.

The next day, I got a call from the nurse regarding the “firmed up” schedule for the transfer. We went over how things would progress and ended the conversation with the promise of an email from the nurse with an outline of what was to come. Seemed like an inoffensive enough conversation, right?

Nah, of course not. Little did I know, somehow, some way, this nurse had told the doctor that the date for the transfer was “unacceptable” to Baby Mama.
This struck me as pretty odd since the nurse has JUST hung up with me confirming the date…
Needless to say the doctor called Baby Mama and he was pretty upset... and got her pretty upset which... pretty much, PISSED ME OFF.

My take on the whole situation is this… in his excitement to get the ball rolling, the doc kind of gave us some unrealistic timetables to get the transfer done. Unfortunately, with the issue with the SW, and the lack of communication… that added to the delay. As in everyday life, people get defensive when they screw up, and I believe that’s how this all evolved.
Problem is, I love Baby Mama and I hate to see people make her upset, particularly if they are doing it to save face. I also know that we need to concentrate on the task at hand, and save our “being pissed off” for a later date.

I know that is tough to do, being in Baby Mama’s position. I know that she is hurting over what has happened.

I guess, to a degree, we all have our own sense of powerlessness… for me, it’s an inability to make this all “right” and “ok” for Baby Mama.

Ultimately, we have sorted through the details and set a date…. Albeit a month later than we had hoped, but a date nonetheless.

Barring any unforeseen circumstances, April 20th is our day.

So Hard

Okay..so we have had a bump in the road..what we hope will be a minor bump, but we aren't sure yet...
It all started with the lovely, gorgeous snow storm we had last week..it seemed to knock out the electricity in the doctor's office which meant they had to cancel Egg Basket's appointment for the annual baby box check..which is one of the pre-screening requirements. So we called and emailed our two nurses about what should we do..and got NO ANSWER...no return call or emails..now truthfully, I had also called two days earlier to check in and had gotten no response either.
Finally, one of the nurses sent Egg Basket an email which implied that we shouldn't worry about the baby box exam because there would be another month of pill taking...NOT part of the original plan..so I called the nurse and got her on the phone and she very nervously told me that I needed to wait for the doctor to call me because everything was on hold due to the social worker's reservations!! WTF???
Finally, at 8:45 pm last night the Doc called...
Doc: "The social worker is concerned that you and Egg Basket have not be reunited long enough and would like you to wait 2-3 months before proceeding"
Me: (naturally) "WTF???" - okay on the inside- I really said "what does that mean, does the SW's have veto power?"
Doc: "Well what would be the point of having social workers if we didn't listen to them?"
Me: WTF?
Okay pause here- first of all, we were told that the mandatory meeting with the social worker was "for our benefit"..to make us aware of how the social worker could be a resource if we needed someone to talk to... over and over we were told, this is not a test...NEVER was it mentioned that this chick had any kind of veto power..okay back to the conversation:
Me: "Okay..so what does that mean?"
Doc: "Well, I am going to talk to the social worker, tell her that I don't agree with her and ask her what the benefits would be for waiting- but the worse case scenario is that we'd be delayed 2-3 months..which isn't a lot.."
Me: "With all due respect..I disagree..2 months IS a long time, we have been working with you since 2001 to complete our family...each day is another day that we don't have that family"
Doc:..something like I understand but "in a year from now, these two months won't matter"
Me: WTF!!!
so basically he defended the process of using social workers and gave lots of examples of when it was very important..then my husband took the phone and gave the doctor a piece of his mind :)
Ultimately the doctor said that he would talk to the social worker and she would call us today.
So Egg Basket and I hatched (ha ha) a plan...it seemed that we still had one chance to get the social worker on our side...
fast forward..
Social worker calls at 3pm today..and I conference Egg Basket into the call..
SW: (after all the sorries about not calling us sooner) "So, as I expressed to you both when you were here, in the ideal situation the two of you would have been reunited for a longer period of time"
Me: WTF? Seriously? because two months is going to do what?
Okay really:
Egg Basket: (in a very polite way)" So, can you explain what the purpose of two months is?"
SW: "Well I just want to make sure that the two of you are still comfortable with all of this and that it hasn't been moving too fast, I am not trying to stop the process"..blah blah blah..
Ultimately I made two points:
1- the clinical "What if" scenario of mine and Egg Basket's relationship needed to be weighed against my emotional turmoil of waiting..I repeated the part about building our family since 2001 and how each day is another day..how we went from having no hope to lots of hope, that the emotional turmoil of wondering if it will work, the need for it be over, the stress interfering with my work, dissertation, parenting..the growing age gap between my son and whatever child hopefully is to come...all needed to be considered in her judgement
2- This whole process is about powerlessness..My husband and I have absolutely no power or control over any of this..we have to work with doctors and social workers..we have to have someone else carry our baby..we are completely vulnerable and at everyone else's mercy...and here we were, with one more person telling us what is best for us, one more person deciding that they know better than we do..
Egg Basket made a lot of good points and made the social worker explain- but I will let Egg Basket describe her perspective/side of this if she chooses..
Ultimately, the social worker said that she would email the doc and let him know that she thinks it is okay to move forward..of course, since we got no answers for a week, it looks unlikely that or original transfer schedule will hold..we are probably looking at another month just because of the time this has all taken.
So- I won't feel better until someone calls me back (doctor or nurse) and give me a plan..a real plan..with dates and schedules...
As I drove in the car today listening to the Dixie Chicks' song, "So hard"- which was written by two of the band members who had infertility issues, I was struck by the words:
It felt like a given
Something a woman's born to do
A natural ambition
To see a reflection of me and you
And I'd feel so guilty
If that was a gift I couldn't give
And could you be happy
If life wasn't how we pictured it
And sometimes I just want to wait it out
To prove everybody wrong
And I need your help to move on
Cause you know it's so hard
It's so hard
It's so hard when it doesn't come easy
It's so hard when it doesn't come fast
It's so hard when it doesn't come easy
So hard
I can live for the moment
When all these clouds open up for me to see
And show me a vision
Of you and me swimming peacefully

So that is it..it IS so hard...waiting is never easy..but I continue to believe, to hope, to know..the clouds will open up...even if it is in 12 months instead of 10.