Married? With Children?!

Yeah, that’s a really cheesy title. But it caught your attention, didn’t it. Suckers.

This is going to be a quick post about future marriage and future baby-makin’… because I have a lot in my head and if I get this out, I can flush out a huge post over the weekend about it. I know, you’re excited.

Marriage: It might be happening, for me and Fil, that is. I know I said we wouldn’t waste our money on it, but it may be a situation where we spend little-to-no money of our own. Ooh.

Baby makin’: We might be moving out of our dreadful apartment sooner rather than April, so you’re soon going to be seeing “is this temp normal around ovulation?” questions… lots of questions. Oh and so much sperm talk you’ll be turned off the stuff for years. (I really just did that to tag this Sperm)

Did that tantalise your tastebuds? I hope so.

Cheers, Friday is three days away!

TTC… SRSLY?!

Everyone makes a New Year’s pact to do something… not eat greasy foods… not eat chocolate every day, only on Saturdays… stop drinking… stop smoking.

All good, valid resolutions with simple plans to keep them in effect.

This year I have the standard resolutions: get back in touch with my body, restore healthy eating habits, try exercises to return normal function of left ankle, etc.

But I have a few new ones.

Like, drink water at every meal. I do that now, but I mean at every meal. No more diet Pepsi or iced tea. Only water. Especially if we’re eating out. It will not only save us money but it will save my body, too.

Also, I won’t snack at work. Lately the early mornings and late nights have made me ravenous at 11 a.m. I was snacking on carby salty crackers and throwing back a Diet Dr. Pepper at noon, but no more. I will bring a sandwich and water bottle every day and eat only that.

Sort of a side resolution to that, I will eat breakfast every morning, even if it kills me. No diet/exercise schedule will work if I don’t eat at least 3 meals a day. It’s also really bad for my blood sugar that likes to plummet after a few hours of constant monotony.

And I will meditate… because 20 minutes a day helps keep the doctors AWAY.

I will talk to my doctor about my various health concerns. Namely, a possible thyroid problem, gas pains before ovulation and during my period and my damn hips. I will also see the dentist and have my wisdom teeth removed before they destroy my perfect orthodontics.

I will take care of myself in every way possible. I will only buy clothes that fit me right and that make me feel like I’m on top of the world. I will straighten my hair whenever I want because it makes me feel good. I won’t wear make up because I’m beautiful without it. And I will find a pair of pretty, comfortable flats to wear to work.

I will work hand in hand with Fil to help JT through therapy and medication so that he can get better, happier and healthier.

I will work on this relationship with Fil so that we are safe and sound and confident in ourselves as a couple. We will be the amazing couple we once were and I will help her kick cancer’s ass.**

I will keep thinking like we’re going to start TTC come next November and by then I will be serene and Earth Mother Goddess about it.

We will find our donor. He will be perfect and wonderful and beautiful and will be so much like Fil you’d never know the baby wasn’t part of her, and part of me.

(First we have to, you know, make FRIENDS in order to find that perfect, wonderful donor I talk about. How do we do that, huh?)

And on that TTC note, I will try to convince Fil to start a nest egg fund over the summer, since we’ll hopefully both be working.

On that working note, I will try very hard to be a valuable asset to this department. I will be so damn valuable that D, my boss, will want to make me full time and give me a raise and it.will.be.glorious.

Just wait and see. The new me? The NEWAtt is going to take the freakin’ world by storm.

** That totally includes WAY more sex than we are having now!

No News?

The title of this post is a misnomer. I have a lot of news. And because I’m rushing around, trying to find my final project for math, I’m going to start with the bullets.

• Work is going really well. I’m still in the training stage, but it seems relatively easy. Plus, I get to see my father 3x a week, rather than every few weeks.
• JT is on vacation, which means I can just relax after work and not worry about helping him with homework for like, 2 hours every night.
• Fil got a huge dose of chemo on Wednesday, as well as a lot of Nexium, Cymbalta and pain medicine to hold her over until her next appointment in January.
• We’re almost done with Christmas … sadly we thought we were ahead of the curve when we got 90% of JT’s presents out of the way before Thanksgiving, but since money has been tight, the last 10% have had to wait until ALMOST Christmas Eve. Ah!
• Fil bumped into our potential donor again while dropping of papers at work. I completely forgot about him because Fil hasn’t been into work or seen him in months. I’m so excited that he’s still in the picture!

I guess not everything’s been good, though. My sore ankle has gone from sore to painful. It’s constantly tense, and it’s very hard to point my toes forward without a jolt of pain.

We’re missing a lot of ornament hooks from the bottom of our tree and we’re nervous our younger cat Isis has swallowed them. We’ll have to take her to the vet soon if we can’t find them by next week. Uh oh!

Now it’s off to shower and get ready to turn in for my early morning tomorrow.

Sad

To start, here is our 2 year plan because I’m waaay too lazy to backtrack. Italicised items are school items, which tandem our 2 year plan.

• Summer ‘08: Begin workout regiment. Discuss weight loss with PCP, now known as WonderLee or WL. Discuss plastic surgery with WL and begin researching local plastic surgeons. (Side note: get annoying, could become cancerous moles removed.) Complete BA and get into anatomy.
• August – December ‘08: Continue workout regiment, accompanied by supplements for weight loss. Goal is to obtain a healthy pre-op weight (note: NOT desired weight) and general mental well being related to physical appearance. Complete total course load. Anatomy,  Human G&D, Maths.
• Winter Break ‘08-’09: Have breast reduction surgery (right breast hypertrophy). Take the whole break off from anything like school. Start a savings account AND get a cell phone plan for family.
• January – May ‘09: Post recovery, return to normal workout regiment and continue weight loss to desired weight. Finish all pre-requisites for nursing school and file the application. Discuss with counselors about an accelerated degree course.
• Summer ‘09: Start looking for houses in desired Austin area (south-west Austin, Barton Springs area or Duval area), squirreling away money for substantial down payment (think, $10,000+ which according to a real estate broker is a great down payment) and if needed, finding a donor (if UD is needed, split savings into frozen sperm fund). If possible, start accelerated degree course, finish 1 semester of nursing.
• August – December ‘09: Keep saving for a house/sperm/baby. Keep on the accelerated course, DON NOT DROP THE BALL!
• January ‘10 – May ‘10: Start temping, wonder if VIP FF account is worth the money. Maybe do a few OPKs for confirmed ovulation. Re: Last bullet.
• Summer ‘10: If nursing degree is obtained, start finding a job and start waiting for the insurance plan to kick in. If no degree, re: last bullet.
• August – December ‘10: Should finish nursing school at the latest. Job finding during winter break. Most like, TTC begins here. (2 years after the plan was written!) At least, serious ovulation tracking and a definite internal check-up (due to last years PID/miscarriage, there could be unknown fallopian damage, or whatever) Adopt JT and look into common law/name changes.

The rest you really can’t bullet point. Our whole plan relies heavily on the completion of my degree. I will be nearing 22 and I would definitely LIKE to be pregnant before we cross that line (I’m thinking in terms of Fil’s age, really). But mostly I want to be out of school and into the field. Finishing college, means to me, more financial stability and emancipation from my parents. I am most excited about the emancipation thing. Being under my parents wing is comforting at times when we don’t have anywhere or anyone else to run to, but it’s taxing. Constantly being aware that our future plans (a house, more children) do not line up with their life plan for yours truly makes me nauseous. At any moment JT could spill the beans that in one or two years he’s going to be a big brother, and then we’ll have to deal with a whole can of worms. If I’m in the profession, and we either are on our way to owning a home or already own one, there is NOTHING my parents even have the option of being disappointed in.

Wasn’t it my first post where I, in a long-winded way, said I’d much rather have our child RIGHTNOW than wait until we were, uh, ready? Didn’t Fil agree? I think the Att of a year ago was way more immature about having a child than the Att of now. Not saying that I wasn’t ready back then, because I was. We would have perservered and made it through a pregnancy with no qualms. Fil would have worked two jobs, I would have chosen a quicker degree (like, medical coding which is a year) and we would have been okay, as we are okay now.

However, I think taking the drastic steps we were planning (sometimes I’m glad we lost the option of WonderSeed, it’s awful what happened to him, but it threw a definite monkeywrench into the plan and made us wait) would have ruined us. Financially we would have never been as stable as we are now. We would have lost the trust of my parents (and probably permanently lost them in our lives, our children would literally have no grandparents) and possibly ended up a wrecked couple squabbling over pennies that went out with the trash.

You can say, for our children’s sake, we make this long winded plan towards financial stability. The stability Fil has always craved (a home, the same partner until death, children and the option to retire in the future) will come to us. JT will probably spend a good amount of his teen years envying his younger siblings for the simple stability and continuity in their lives that his youth has lacked. Perhaps the majority of his issues are sprung from the fact that everything changes in his life after 2 or 3 years – new house, new school, new state, new parent. But, I do believe that if he gets the stability he needs (we’re almost there, at least he’s had two parents for a year and we’ve promised NEVER to move out of Texas) he will be a better boy for it.

Our plan seems logical to me, comfortable in every way. I’m at peace with waiting to have a baby. While I sometimes look out at the sheer number of pregnant women around me (seriously, every where we go it’s preggo-extravaganza) and wish I was one of their numbers, I know soon I will be. I know the reward of waiting will be an amazing life for them.

However, it seems Fil is increasingly uncomfortable with the plan. Most days she’s either sad or down-trodden at the idea of waiting. Sometimes I know she doesn’t just want to TALK about it, she wants to do it. It may just be because we have a donor now and it could just happen so easily. She probably keeps the majority of her qualms silent because I really want to wait until I’m at least happy with myself (i.e. post-op me) before donating my body to baby. She knows if we don’t wait, I may end up hating myself a lot more than I did when we met. I only wish there was some way for me to ease her sadness over waiting.

On that note, I must end this loong post. I commend anyone who got this far. Now I have to make that first bit up there (about WL) come true and make appointments with her. Also, laundry has to be folded. Yay…

Changes

So, like here I was wishing congratulations to OhChicken because she’d just given birth to Sparky. In said post were wishes of growth and future conception and stickiness for those on the raft of pregnancy or TTC. Two of those women on that raft have jumped ship for a shinier, prettier boat where there is nursery designing and crib shopping and lamaze class (does anyone actually DO that anymore?).

Of course I’m referring to Vee & Jay, as well as, excitingly today, Calli. Here I am again, yay! Congrats, Calli!

______

On the face of my planet, sort of circling those in the TTC and baby world, there are changes in the works. JT woke up early with me and we worked out at the gym at our complex for a solid hour. We watched Food Network and joked and sweated and it was wonderful. He did awesome, only taking a break for a few minutes. He walked the treadmill and did the ellipticle, which was adorable since he’s so short, and even tried one of the cycling machines.

I stayed on the stationary bike for the whole hour and managed 9.4 miles and 215 calories. I’m proud of myself AND of my son. He loved the gym so much he can’t wait to go back. I love having him as a workout buddy, because he listens well when I give him safety warnings, he likes to watch the Food Network (it was HIS choice) and he’s honestly excited about working out. He keeps me going when my calves ache from peddling!

In another world, Fil dug up a known donor. He works with her, and is apparently quite willing to donate since he’s already donating to his sister and her partner. I was a little shocked because I’d put TTC mostly out of my mind. I want to concentrate on my body and getting into the shape I want to be in for surgery and then, eventually pregnancy. But it’s sort of nice to have someone on the back burner, right? It’s also nice to know that Fil is still very into having a baby, but also supportive of my choices to wait and have surgery.

I love her!

Holy f

Just, wow.

So, thanks to LizaWasHere and my insatiable desire to click EVERY link in her posts (just hers, why? no clue), I somehow found myself perusing the fees pages of the Fairfax Cryobank.

Now, I’m no naive lesbian. I know the fees are staggering. But now that we are so darned close to starting, it’s almost nausiating.

1 vial, ICI: $185.00

Various profiles: $45.00

Shipping: $160.00

That’s about $400. Well heck, we can afford that, right?

Well, you know, I’d like to use the same donor for EACH kid, since we want two (maybe three? ack!) more. AND who knows how long it’s going to take for us to get pregnant? Will we get lucky? Or will we be saddly un-lucky. Hmm. Let’s re-arrange those figures…

8+ vials, ICI: $1,480.00

Various profiles: $45.00

Shipping: $1,280.00

That’s more like it, with the scary numbers. $2,805.00

At least it includes free storage (at the Austin branch of  the Fairfax cryobank – at least we’d only have to pay shipping once!) for 2 years.

That leads us to… hey, what if I don’t LIKE the donors at Fairfax? There’s always California to think of.

But, damn! $370.00 for ONE vial? How much is in one vial? Standard 10 mil? That must be some damn good sperm.

So, obviously I’m having qualms with assisted reproduction via sperm banks. It’s so alarmingly expensive and such a huge, overwhelming process that, inevitably, would end up like this: us, no baby, no money. I am terrified of that aspect.

And, the no money thing is really no sweat, if we use a KD. By god, IF! But there are so many snags and snares along the way with KDs – like, WonderSperm suddenly getting HIV a few short strides shy of Try #1 almost a year ago in August. Ye-gads. Then there was possible KD #2, who will forever be labled McDirty since his girlfriend turned the whole situation into something awkwardly undesirable. Perhaps if he ever dislodges himself from his nasty girlfriend, we could use him. (If you do feel the need to wander over to those linked posts, I’d love to update you on the fact that I’m all for mixed-race, any race. We just want a happy, healthy baby. I’ve done some serious soul searching and realize that Fil is not the kind of person to turn her back on a child because it doesn’t look like her. I actually have Chicory’s wonderful blog to thank for that.)

I’m currently so utterly at a loss. We’re trying to take out a loan to help with expenses (our car needs four new tires and two new rims, along with other things) and any left overs could go to help with our TTC process. But, that’s just remnants, not thousands. (I would love to magically find an at-home, online job-type thing to help supplement income, but blue moon!) How do we go about finding a KD? We plain don’t have friends. We don’t know any men except for the ones that work with Fil… and that’s just a no-go zone. My guy friends from high school are just that, from high school. They’ve spread out through the continental U.S. and I barely talk to them. HK, a possibility, may be out of the runnings for a potential… potency problem.

That brings us back at square one. No KD possibilities. Cryobank an almost an impossibility. No pennies for a Cryobank bank.

What do I do?

LTNS

Or something internet slang-y.

Anyway. Last I posted ’twas the eve of my birthday and nothing was stirring, not even a snot-nosed child. But now my 19th birthday is 5 days past and normal life has returned.

I got a few wonderful presents, a Little Mermaid note pad from my friend C (Little Mermaid is my favourite), a beautiful black DS from Fil along with My Sims, a new car from my parents (haha), $100 from my parents, dinner at one of my favourite pasta/pizza places (Brick Oven) and Age of Empires: Age of Kings from JT.

I got another game with my money, Maternational so we could all play as a family. I also got a Christmas present early, Cooking Mama 2: Cooking With Friends.  I really enjoy playing my DS, it helps me unwind after a day with the kids, school and making sure everything for Fil is copacetic. I like it.  I got Fil the special edition Triforce DS for her Christmas present. We are now the coolest family in the west.

I went to FertilityFriend and got myself a new account, mostly so I could get the schnazy 30 day free trial, but also because my old account had a weird BBT chart that had FertilityFriend predicting ovulation at CD20. Mm. I think it’s because my temp was so high due to illness/fever late in that cycle. And it wasn’t a full cycle of readings.

So, my birthday pledge to myself is this: on CD1 start temping and maintain stable temping time (6.00 a.m.) throughout this cycle. Hopefully my temp will show something on a chart, FF will pick up ovulation and we can estimate a future insemination date.

Also, according to FF, my predicted ovulation day is either Christmas Eve, Christmas Day or the day after Christmas. Wouldn’t that be sort of wonderful, to say to Tarryn or Jack that they were conceived on Christmas? What a wonderful TWW present. Huh?  But no luck for us this time, seeing as we won’t be any kind of ready by then. No donor, no free doctors visit, no baby.

So, before I go fold laundry, I will leave you with this book recommendation. Briar Rose by Jane Yolen. It’s about the Holocaust, incredibly interesting with twists and turns NO ONE would believe. I love it. It’s Young Adult, but that changes nothing. It’s quite heavy material, for YA I mean.

Oh GROSS!

This time, I don’t come bearing my soul fears. This time I come bearing an “I knew it!”

So, our prospective donor, S, talked with his girlfriend. Who agreed to the terms of using his sperm, as long as Fil (hold your breath) goes down on her.

Yes, look back, re-read it, I’m not fucking kidding. Pardon my French but this so, seriously deserves insulting language.

I’m appalled at the response by his girlfriend. That stretches beyond over-stepping into parenting, or anything I had imagined. That is shocking, insulting and maddening.

So, our beloved, beautiful S is now out of the picture. I was slightly getting used to the idea of a mixed-race child. But now, the search is on again.

I would still like to look into any siblings of Fil’s super-boss who looks just like Fil. Or even another one of Fil’s colleagues because there are some absolutely beautiful men that she works with.

And speaking of Fil, she bought me a DS Lite (I’ve been itching for one for months) for my birthday (which is Dec 6). I’m shuddering with anticipation, but I only have 2 games and want more!

Here we go again…

Things fall apart.

WonderSperm called. He’s definitely not our donor. We could’ve kept him on the back burner if we decided to have more children later, but now we definitely won’t. He’s HIV+ and starts the cocktail tomorrow. He tells the rest of Fil’s family tomorrow too. Which means her grandmother WILL be calling us to yell at Fil some.

You see, Fil’s grandmother pushes for babies. She wants us to have kids so bad that every time she calls Fil, she has to ask “so… how’s it coming… you know… babies” which is kind of amazingly sweet because it reaffirms in my head that she won’t treat the children I birth any differently from the way she treats Monster.

Oh god, poor WonderSperm.

Makes me even more sad that we lost Michael, because he would’ve looked perfectly like Fil and I.

Oh well. We’ll take our loss, mourn it a bit, and move forward.

In other news: I just started school. It’s fun, but annoying as I have to travel ALL OVER the place just to take classes.

And then

I am so, SO sick right now it’s not even funny. But I’m so awake and jittery because we only have Exced*rine for headaches.

But a much better reason is that Fil got a promotion!

She called me hours ago (from the bathroom) saying she got a managers position. She’ll be working days, a solid 40 hours, insurance, vacation time, salary pay. We’ll have more money, we’ll probably have our own apartment, we’ll be .. better, maybe.

There is no real baby news. WonderSperm is almost 100% out of the running. It’d be almost a year before we’d know if he is really HIV free, and even then, we can never be truly sure. Fil doesn’t want to risk infecting me and the baby and then possibly the whole family just because we want him/her to look like Fil.

So, naturally, I’m hurting a little.

Last night, after sex, I laid my head on Fil’s chest and cried. Hard. I let it go – all my fears of her not loving the baby if we use donor sperm, of the baby not feeling like it belongs with her and Monster because we used a donor, of Fil hating me if we use donor sperm. Everything. I was shaking, wet-tear-coughing and everything. And then Fil was crying, and I was crying, and we were both sweaty and tired and just done.

Bless her for dealing with me.