January 2006 Archives

Last week, my job and my infertility chose Friday to join forces to make my life difficult. Friday night I was feeling so sorry for myself that I actually almost started crying. I was driving home at 10:00 o’clock that night, and it felt like they had combined to suck the life out of me. I was so tired all I could do was crawl home, eat a bowl of noodles and sit on the couch staring blankly at the documentary John was watching on the history channel.

Work is work, and of course I can’t talk about it, but I will say that Friday was a trying day, work-wise. And, then on the fertility front, things just got confusing. When I called my old doctor about getting my records, she said she’d be willing to work with my insurance company so that I didn’t have to pay out of network costs. If I could get them to confirm in writing that I wouldn’t incur any additional costs, I would consider sticking with her. But I don’t know. I think there are benefits to staying with her – she’s an excellent doctor and I get very personal attention from her. And I was a little turned off by the whole “we have a process” vibe from the clinic. But the clinic has more resources, and a very successful reputation, offices close to my work and my house, and I liked the doctor I met there, too.

Right in the middle of all of this, my financial coordinator from the new clinic called and said that she had gotten me approved for diagnostics, but that my insurance doesn’t cover IUI. And if they don’t cover IUI I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do. I’m not sure I’m ready to do IVF. For that matter, my insurance will cover IVF, but I don’t know what requirements I have to meet before they will approve it. And if I do go with IVF, am I better off with a big clinic?

Anyway, I had a lot on my mind, and a tough, 12-hour work day. On top of that, I had a mini-bout of insomnia last week. Not the terrible up until 4 a. m. kind, but I was about two hours short every single night, so by Friday I was exhausted. Being tired always makes me weepy.

But now, after two days of rest and relaxation, I’m starting to regain my equilibrium. Work will sort itself out, eventually, so I’ll try not to worry about that situation. There’s nothing I can do about it anyway. I don’t have the money to pay for an IUI right now, so I don’t really have to make a decision there right away. I will work on getting more detail from the insurance company and the doctors so I can make a good choice.

But more than anything, I’m trying to keep the fact that I have a good life fixed firmly in my mind. I have a wonderful husband who loves me. I have a sweet little dog, a healthy family, and amazing friends. I don’t have to worry about where my next meal is coming from or fear for my safety. John and I own our home, something which seemed impossible just two years ago. I’ve got a good job, which I even enjoy most of the time. I need to focus on appreciating what I’ve got now, and be positive. And maybe, just maybe, that which seems impossible now, will become possible.

I’ve been feeling wildly adventurous lately. Ok, not really. But I did try two new food items today. Split pea soup and peach yogurt. Last night when I went grocery shopping I was checking out the soup selections and realized that I had never had split pea soup. I just assumed I wouldn’t like it because it is green and mushy looking. Plus, it is frequently made with ham, but this was vegetarian. Well, it turns out that I don’t hate split pea soup. I think it is kind of boring, but I don’t hate it. And the peach yogurt thing was just a whim. That experiment was a success, which means now I can have yogurt flavor variety.

I mentioned all this food exploration to a friend in passing today (we were discussing how I don’t like carrot cake, and I was explaining that I felt I had tried enough new food for one day) and she asked, half kidding, if I was going to blog about the pea soup. And here I am, writing about it. But really it is just a set up for the segue into talking about the other new thing I’ve tried recently…the new doctor.

I’ve already written and discarded two posts about the new fertility doctor and clinic. I’m not sure why. I think it has something to do with my reluctance to seek treatment or talk about my infertility in general. But I’m trying to put all of that behind me now. Time is passing. I was 32 when I started trying to conceive; I’ll be 35 in March. And 35 seems to be some sort of magic fertility number, so my watchwords for this year are positive, assertive and aggressive. I’ve got to keep a positive attitude. I’ve got to be assertive in discussing what I want with the doctors. And I can’t hang back from treatment and hope for the best. If I really do want a baby (or really, a chance at more than one child) it is time to get serious.

So, the new clinic. The visit went well. It’s clear that this will be very different from the treatment I was doing before. My old doctor didn’t have any associates. Hell, half the time she didn’t even have a receptionist. This new place is definitely in the business of fertility. I now have an RE – a man, and I while I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about that, he was actually very easy to talk to – a nurse who will schedule appointments for me and get coordinate testing, prescriptions, instructions and results, and a financial coordinator who will work with my insurance company and get approvals and information about what is covered or not covered. They have lab facilities and acupuncturists and support groups and classes where you learn how to give yourself injections. The new doctor seems to think my old doctor was on to something with her diagnosis of potential non-standard PCOS. That may be why I’m having such a hard time losing weight, too. If they start me on Metformin it could make a huge difference, apparently. They want to repeat blood work on me and on John, and they want me to do another HSG. Apparently the tubes can spasm shut during the test, so maybe I don’t have a blocked right fallopian tube after all. Although I’m inclined to think that I do, personally. But even if I do, they may be able to try to thread something through the tube if they see a blockage during the HSG to see if they can open it up. No matter what they find, he seemed to think there was still reason to believe that doing an IUI with injectables could work. And there’s still a ton of stuff we haven’t tried yet. So I left feeling a little overwhelmed, but also very hopeful.

This morning, as I lay sprawled in the bed contemplating how much I did not want to get up, my husband, his rest no doubt disturbed by my resentful brainwaves, woke up, smiled at me sleepily, kissed me gently on the wrist and mouth, gave the hopeful tail-thumping Seamus a quick pat, and then went back to sleep. And it made all the difference in the world, making me feel cherished and ready to face the day after all. I guess Mr. Lennon had it right – all you need is love.

That seems to be the theme I keep returning to this week.

First, at work. For the last four and a half months, I’ve been working on a series of…projects, let’s call them, that sort of fell outside my normal job description. Well, kind of, but not really. It’s hard to explain without details. But anyway, my point is, I was doing something different-ish, and it went very well, and now I’m handing it over to someone else and going back to focusing on my old job. But I’m coming at it from a very different place than where I was when I took on the new projects in September. I have more people reporting to me now, and being a good manager is not something I'm still working at. I have to take on a bigger leadership role on my team to take some of the load off of my boss, who has seen changes in her own role. I know I'm capable, but I have to change my focus. It will be my old job, but in a new way.

And then there’s the thing I’ve been obsessing about all week. My break from fertility treatments is coming to an end. Tomorrow I start with the new doctor. Actually, instead of the one RE like I saw before, this is a whole clinic, and one with a pretty good reputation. I’ve been wobbling back and forth between hopeful (new doctors! A clinic! More resources! Untried treatments! Better insurance coverage!) and a growing worry that it won’t make any difference. It’s been two and a half years of trying now. I started 2004 saying “this is the year I’ll have my baby.” I started 2005 the same way. Now here we are starting 2006, and I’m trying to believe that this year, it will really happen.

Keisha was never officially my dog. She was never supposed to belong to any of us, really. Jules took her in for two weeks in the fall of our senior year of college – a small, frightened little pup who had been starved and abused. She was just going to stay with us temporarily while her original owner looked for a new home for her. But naturally, we all fell wildly in love with her. We instituted “love on Keisha time” where we would take turns holding her and petting her and telling her how wonderful she was. And she slowly started to come out of her shell. At some point, I think her owner did say he had found her a new home. I can’t remember exactly what happened, just that there was drama, and in the end, Keisha stayed. Stayed, and came into her own. She was half pit bull and half black lab, which meant she would ferociously hold you down and kiss you. And she loved to swim. One of my favorite memories of Keisha is of watching her swimming around the reservoir at the Medford Woods and wagging and grinning like mad.

Jules and I were roommates for years, so Keisha and I were very close. And even when we didn’t live together, she was still my special girl. Plus, she and Seamus were pals. They loved to play together. She always had a soft spot for beagles. Anyway, she died this morning. I knew it was coming. I’d had a dream about her a couple of weeks ago where she came to see me and sat on my lap and put her paws on my shoulders and kissed me like she used to do, and it was like she was saying goodbye. I talked to Jules after the dream and she said Keisha had been having good days and bad days, and the vet said she was dying. I’m glad she’s not suffering, but I’m so sad she’s gone. I’ll miss you, my sweet Keisha girl.

Keisha and her "brother" Wesley, who died a long time ago. Keisha is the black dog on the right.

The talented, smart and funny Sheryl has declared this de-lurking week, after a very successful de-lurking day last year. And boy am I glad she did! I missed de-lurking day almost completely last year because I had to work late. And talk about a shocker – I would have missed it yesterday and today too, because I had to – wait for it – work late! Oh, I was all full of good intentions last night, but I had a really crappy day. I was feeling really beaten down by my job for some reason so when I got home after nine, I decided that really, what I wanted to do was eat junk food for dinner and watch a movie with John. We consumed a ridiculous amount of unhealthy food and watched Layer Cake, a British gangster movie, which was ok. It was overly complicated and sometimes I had trouble understanding what some of the people were saying. But any movie with the phrase “she done a runner and legged it back to London” can’t be all bad. Plus, Daniel Craig and Sienna Miller are pretty to look at.

Which brings us to today. My day today was just as busy as yesterday, if not busier, but for some reason it didn’t get me down today. At one point, I actually had two people in my office for question A, a third person stopped in with question B, and fourth person came by with question C, my boss dropped in with question D, and two more people stacked up in the hallway waiting to talk to me. Which is just wrong, but I had a lot going on today. And I got it all done, too.

But the whole point of this post is to encourage people to comment.

So please, if you’re a lurker, I’d love it if you said hello!

John and I got up early this morning and went to an auction. I was a little nervous about going, but it was actually a lot of fun. It’s run by this good ol’ boy who goes around to estate sales and then holds auctions a couple of times a month in the barn on his property. He’s a real auctioneer who gets up and does the sing-song auction talk to get bids, tells jokes, and has a good time. His whole family helps out and they sell homemade soups and snacks, too. John picked up a couple of items he’s going to sell on eBay, but we’re definitely going back when we have more money to spend. They had furniture and a couple of handmade quilts that were quite nice, and they sold for hardly anything at all. This is the way I’m hoping to get my hands on a china cabinet without spending a thousand dollars. John’s mom has one that I like which she’s offered to us, but she’s still using it, and I have a feeling that John’s sister might raise a fuss if we take it. And I saw a bunch of really lovely quilts when I was in Asheville last year, but they all cost hundreds of dollars, which I can’t afford. I do have a quilt that my great-grandmother made, but I’d like to have one or two more.

Then I went down to meet my friend Becky for a movie and dinner to celebrate her birthday. Happy Birthday Becky! We saw Brokeback Mountain, which I really liked. It was depressing, but good. And beautifully shot. I don’t know if they actually filmed the movie in Wyoming, but the mountains are gorgeous. It could have been Wyoming, I suppose. I thought the Grand Tetons were spectacular when John and I drove through Wyoming. Anyway, the acting was excellent. The movie tells the story of a complex, long-term relationship in a simple, spare way. And Jake Gyllenhal and Heath Ledger are hot, separately and together.

I also ran into this girl Eden who I was pretty good friends with in high school, but who I had completely lost touch with. Sadly, she couldn’t have been less interested in talking to me. Well, I suppose she could have outright snubbed me, but instead all she asked was what movie I was going to see, said she was going to see Brokeback Mountain too and then she took off with her mom into the theater. I guess that’s better than getting into an awkward long discussion where I discover that we have absolutely nothing in common anymore, but it felt weird. Oh well. All in all, it was a very fun Sunday.

Got any mooning to do? Have I got good news for you! A judge declared today that mooning is legal in Maryland. What does it say about me that it never even occurred to me that mooning might be illegal? Don’t get me wrong – I haven’t been running around mooning people, nor do I plan to start. I just think this story is funny.

On a totally different note, did anyone see David Letterman last night? Bill O’Reilly was on and Dave showed him to be the idiot he is. Go Dave! I’ve always liked you, and now I like you even more.

And finally, work has set a new land-speed record for totally stressing me out and kicking my ass. No details, just a small whimper. Thank goodness it is a short week.

*For those not fortunate enough to be a native of Maryland (aka the mooning state) Maryland, my Maryland is our state song. It is sung to the tune of O Tannenbaum.

Day two of the new year was much better than day one. John and I did what we should have done on Sunday, and stayed home, hung out and relaxed. Which brings me to this morning's request: May I have another week of vacation, please?

Once I get in to the office, I will be fine. In fact, I'll probably be so busy I won't even have time to wish I was at home. But right now, I'd really rather just go back to bed.

I do like this money that they pay me for showing up though, so I guess I'd better quit screwing around and just go to work already.

Here's hoping we all have nice, smooth, easy weeks to start out the new year.

I’m always a little bit cautious about New Year’s Eve, due to a string of truly disastrous New Year’s Eves in the early ‘90’s. Seriously, unless you’ve had a New Year’s Eve that involved death or loss of limb, I’m fairly confident that one of the experiences I had between 1990-1995 can beat just about any crappy New Year’s story you’ve got. So I’m usually pretty content to just stay home and hope that nothing blows up (which is one problem I haven’t encountered…yet.) Anyway, John and I did in fact stay home last night and had a delightful evening. I made a bunch of appetizer-y dishes from the cookbooks I got for Christmas – tomatoes stuffed with risotto and baked, mashed potato croquettes, garlic crouton with carmelized onions and Camembert (the tastiest one) and French onion soup. It was all quite delicious and I had a lot of fun trying out so many new recipes. John built a fire in the fireplace for the first time, and we just hung out and enjoyed it.

Little did I know the New Year’s curse was just lulling me into a false sense of security, biding its time and waiting to strike. This is going to sound awful, but I’ve had a lot of family time over the last ten days, and I’ve about had it. We all need to go away and not talk to each other for a couple of weeks. (Except for you, Tim. You are a delight, of course. Even though you should be nicer to mom. But that’s a conversation for another day.) On our way down to see various family members today, John got pulled over for speeding and got a $280 ticket. $280!!! Sure, he was speeding. But $280? Happy fucking New Year. And then we got to John’s mom’s house, and while my niece and nephew are sweet and wonderful and I love them, today the baby was fussy and my nephew was very busy being almost three. He doesn’t want to sit in the chair. He doesn’t want to play with that toy. He doesn’t want a cookie. Oh, wait, yes he does. But he’s going to whine while he eats it. And shout and play the piano and push his aunt and swing his toy fishing pole around and whack poor Seamus in the head. I'm sure there are going to be days when my children act exactly like that, but today it was trying to be around.

And then we had to go have dinner with my dad. A dinner which he insisted on having before my brother goes back to school tomorrow. Now, we’d had my dad over for dinner on Christmas Eve, but he didn’t bring presents then. I knew this was a ploy to ensure that we’d hang out with him again while Tim was here. He doesn’t have to do shit like that, by the way, he just thinks he does. But anyway, John and I got to the restaurant at about 6:25, so maybe five minutes early. My brother showed up at 6:40. And at 6:45, we called my dad who was just leaving. I don’t know what it is with my family, but I’ve said it before to them, and I’m sure I’ll say it again: YOU DON’T LEAVE FOR A PLACE 15 MINUTES AFTER YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE THERE!! God, that makes me crazy.

But not for real crazy. That designation is saved for my dad in this family, and unfortunately, it was crazy dad who showed up tonight. It just makes me so sad, because my dad so obviously wants to have a deeper connection to my brother and me and John too, but has no idea how to do it. And the problem is the crazy. He has all of these ideas he wants to share, but they don’t make sense and he can’t explain them. Because they are crazy or so steeped in symbolism that they only make sense to him. I love my dad and I want him to be happy, and of course I want to feel connected to him, but when he gets like this, he just makes me miserable. And then I imagine what it is like to be him, sitting there at the restaurant looking across the able at three sets of confused and slightly hostile eyes, and I feel guilty. But the stuff he’s talking about doesn’t make any sense. And I don’t think it ever will.

What a lousy first day of the New Year, particularly after such a promising beginning last night. Hopefully we’ve gotten all of the bad stuff out of the way right at the start of the year. Yes, that is how I’m going to look at it. The only other alternative is to take to my bed, and that would be letting the New Year win.