Judecorp.

( All fertility stuff. Skip at will. )

HOLY THINGS MOVE FAST, BATMAN!!

So what IS behind all the curiosity of who our donor is? No less than 12 people have asked me questions inquiring about the guy, what he looks like, etc. I'm not really sure what to make of it all. Part of me thinks maybe people are just being curious and asking questions (and maybe I would do the same thing) and the other part of me gets kind of weirded out.

I mean, as far as I'm concerned, there's no GUY involved. There were a bunch of .pdf profiles that we looked at to check health records, hair/eye color, etc. There's an encrypted number and I called the bank, I inquired about availability of the number, and I arranged an order. There's no name, no face, no personality profile, no favorite song. It's not a real person. It's a couple of tiny vials of stuff that my wife and I hope to use to make a baby. Our baby.

I guess it's sort of natural curiosity to want to know more details, but the part of me that is weirded out is the part that's incredibly protective of Jen. This is HER potential child, and anything that leaves her out, even a little bit, obviously raises my hackles. I dread the day when we're actually pregnant and the question changes from, "Who's the guy?" to "Who's the father?" I can't decide if I'll answer with, "Jen" or with something snarkier.

If we were using a known donor, perhaps there could be more talk about the guy. ("A friend," I could say, or, "This acquaintance of mine.") But it's not even like that. Jen felt much more comfortable using a totally anonymous bunch of words in a bank, and so we're paying the hefty price to have that anonymity, to /not/ have the presence of a guy, you know? There's just me and Jen. And hopefully a baby.

And what about this guy, right? Well, as far as I'm concerned, as long as he's healthy and his sperm is viable, who cares? He doesn't matter to me in the slightest. It's just a fertility treatment expense, just like the meds will be, just like the IUIs will be. There's nothing to tell.

~//~

So, to be fair, those of you who have ever thought about asking "about the guy," let me hear your side (if you want). What brought about the question? Why would you want to know? What would you be hoping to hear? Inquiring minds want to know.

First thing's first - happy birthday, wendywoohoo!

I got crap all done at work today. I had two visits scheduled after playgroup and they both got cancelled, so I thought I would get a ton of work done (paperwork) and instead I just couldn't stop talking to people. Argh, I hate it when that happens! I only get things done when no one is in the office. However, I got my letter in the mail saying that if I send the money ($68) I will have my LICSW. Score!

We went to Lyssa's to watch Survivor and eat pizza and ice cream. That was big fun. I like watching Survivor with others. It seems much less nerdy when it's some sort of social event. Besides, pizza and ice cream is probably my favorite meal. Somewhere in there I started losing my voice. I hate when that happens.

Actual conversation last night:

Me: So who should we say will be our babydaddy?
Jen: What?
Me: I think we should give him a name.
Jen: David?
Me: No, my old supervisor is David.
Jen: Donald?
Me: No! My high school boyfriend is Donald!
Jen: Uhh... D'Brickashaw?
Me: Yes! YES!!

Choosing sperm is HARD.

I'll start backwards because it just happened and because it would seem weird at the end: I just passed my last social work exam! EVER! This morning I took my ASWB Clinical exam and got an 81 (needed a 75) and now, as soon as they send me the paperwork and I fill it in and send them even MORE money, I will finally be a Licensced Independent Clinical Social Worker. Which is pretty much the "end of the road" in my career, and means that I can be a program manager and a supervisor and an independent clinician and all of that. Which is good.

I didn't tell many people that I was even taking the exam today because I felt there was a very good chance I wouldn't pass... and if I didn't, I'd have rather kept it on the DL, especially at work.

~//~

Yesterday I had my follow-up with my incredibly sexy fertility doc with the British accent, and it went /awesome/. He was pretty much ready to start sperming me up right away, like... ASAP. ( The Gory Details: )

So, holy crap... we could be doing this as soon as I bleed again (and I told him I would call him in 3 weeks-ish if I have no sign that I ovulated and no period in sight). WOW.

I was looking up my medical claims online with my insurance company to make sure my fertility consult had been paid. (It had.) I also noticed the claim for all of the bloodwork the fertility clinic had me get: tests for HIV, chlamydia, syphyllis, HPV, gonorrhea, other things like that; genetic testing for cystic fibrosis and Tay-Sachs (I thought it was only common among Ashkenazi Jews but apparently it is also an issue for French Canadians and my mother is of distant French-Canadian ancestry as far as I know); some other stuff I don't remember. They took 6-8 vials of blood /and/ a urine sample that day. It was insane!

So I noticed online that the lab charged the insurance company $1500!! And that the insurance company has paid about $250. The most expensive test was $330 (probably the Tay-Sachs) and the insurance company says it's not covered. They also said that I am not responsible for the bill if the billing source did not tell me that it might not be covered and make me sign some sort of paperwork saying I would pay anyway. And now I'm trying to remember.

I don't know if I signed anything saying that I would pay for anything the insurance didn't pay. I know that the doctor said he wasn't sure if the insurance company would cover the Tay-Sachs test but HE didn't make me sign anything... but I don't know if I had to sign something at the blood lab. I mean, I signed so many things that day!

Argh. My insurance policy says that Tay-Sachs testing is covered for Jewish or French-Canadian descent. I guess if I /do/ get a bill from the blood lab (which I haven't yet), I can just plead Canuck.

Freaking insurance.

I think I'll probably start lj-cutting all of the baby-making stuff because I'm willing to bet there are people who absolutely don't want to see a million posts about charting and cervical fluid or whatever. I'm not great with consistently using filters, and besides, filters make things friends-only and I don't like that. So... skip the cuts if you don't want to see. :)

( So I have this charting fantasy... )

Of course, I also have this weird dream where 2006 is going to be this dynamite year of change - new town, new house, new job for Jen, baby on the way. Right now, I can't really bear to imagine that these things might be, you know, difficult or less than smooth.

I don't talk to my mother very often and we don't have a terribly close relationship. It's not surprising since my parents got divorced when I was three and I lived with my dad, but I think that my mother always had this notion that we didn't have a relationship /because/ of my dad and that we would somehow magically be close when I moved out of my dad's house when I was 17. Except of course that didn't happen.

We actually did start to get kind of close for a while when A. and I were together, when I was in Boston for grad school, and then when I moved to Maine to be with him. We talked quite a bit and she came up to Maine several times. When I moved to Ohio we saw each other occasionally but distance kind of killed that, and then she got really weird when I got divorced.

I thought at the time that she just had such mixed feelings about my getting divorced... she was going through rocky times with her husband and I'm not sure if my divorce from A. was really difficult for her or what. When Jen and I got together, my mom had a lot of trouble with that for a long time and seemed to have a hard time even saying Jen's name. She would change the subject a lot and stuff. I guess it's one thing to have your kid tell you she's queer and another for your kid to be a /practicing/ queer or something. Whatever. She's nice to Jen now and that's all that really matters to me... but we still don't have a relationship.

I decided to call her tonight since I haven't talked to her in a long time, and the last time I talked to her I was in a really bad mood and not much into talking... so I thought it would be a good idea to just catch up on stuff. I decided to tell her (why, I don't know) that I have been seeing a fertility specialist (I've seen reproductive endocrinologists a couple of times through the years, so she's aware of my fertility-type problems already) specifically because Jen and I want to start trying to have a baby. I thought... oh hell, I don't know what I thought, really, but I thought she might be kind of jazzed about it.

So I tell her, and her entire commentary revolved around the fact that I told her when I was 18 that I didn't want to bear children. And that's it. Not even in a question or whatever, although I tried to pretend it was like that and decided to go into the many reasons we were considering /not/ adopting right now, as well as reasons why I (and not Jen) am considering trying right now. And I talked about the whole fertility process and the costs and how we have to decide how far we want to go with this and how much we can realistically spend and yadda yadda.

And she changed the subject.

Aah well, I tried. At least she said hi to Jen.

Okay, so it started with the morning nookie that got denied.
Then the 10 hour workday.
Then the Valentine's Day dinner of Raisin Bran.
With the cats as my dates. (But they're cute!)
Then Jen came home, and I went to bed earlyish.
She said, "I'll be there in a few minutes."
(Which was really about 90.)
So we argued into the inky morning, and I couldn't sleep.
Around 2am, I think, I drifted off.
Woke up around 3am after having a weird dream about getting my period.
Figured, hey, might as well check, right?
And there it was.

The rabbit hadn't shown its head since December 2nd and it couldn't wait until a /decent/ hour? Gah. Crappy cap to a crappy day.

Oh well, I guess that means I'm able to start seriously charting and see if I can make some sense of it all this time around. Maybe the doubled meds will help with something. Too bad I didn't win that monitor on eBay.

(Big gothy hellos to my newest LJ friend, vlindinhauer. Some of you may know him as the infamous Dark Overlord. Too bad this journal's full of whining and babymaking these days.)

It was recently asked of me if I thought it was responsible to go through fertility treatments to potentially bring a child into the world who might also have infertility issues, thereby creating familial dependence on the pharmaceutical industry. The comment and question was: I don't really consider fertility drugs a good idea. I understand the urge to be pregnant, to carry and give birth - I have that same urge. But I'm also aware that pregnancy may not be the best option for me and my child. If you push to have biological children, they will likely suffer the same infertility problems you're having, condemning generations of your offspring to dependence on Big Pharma.

My quick response:

Interesting perspective.

I don't consider myself any more dependent on "Big Pharma" than your average Joe Schmo American. My family history, like most people's family histories, is full of pharmaceuticals - high blood pressure, type II diabetes, cholesterol, heart disease, skin cancer, depression, et cetera. All of these are fairly common problems these days, especially as people get older and "modern medicine" keeps them going. My grandfather is 88 years old and has had 2 heart attacks and one bypass surgery, takes medication for heart disease, blood pressure, and type II diabetes (largely diet controlled). Should he have not had children?

I think the push to adopt existing children is admirable, and more than admirable, it should be considered and pursued by more people. However, I think that discouraging people from having children (biological, adopted, or whatever) usually ends up boiling down to trying to create some superior class of people who 'should' have biochildren over others who 'shouldn't' - queers, single parents, poor people, sicker people, older people, people without health insurance, people in poorer countries... I could continue to go on.

I'm appalled by a statement that implies that a child with the potential to develop endocrine problems (like PCOS) is somehow less desirable or would be 'suffering' more than an adopted child. My parents actually /don't/ have a history of PCOS or other endocrine problems, although PCOS is now seen largely as an insulin problem more than an ovary problem... and since my grandfather developed type II diabetes later in life it's /possible/ that I've inherited some sort of predisposition to him. Of course, it's also possible that I could have a heart attack in my 50s like my father, or have high cholesterol like my grandmother.

What /is/ a shame is the way pregnancy and childbirth have become big business for medical and pharmaceutical companies, with scheduled inductions and pain-free laboring and intervention after intervention that in most cases are not necessary and may impede progress. In that sense, /anyone/ who chooses (or doesn't choose) to be pregnant is feeding "Big Pharma." What next? End all pregnancies? Decide no one should give birth?

I think it's fantastic that you have soul-searched and come to the conclusion that pregnancy may not be the best option for you and your child. My hope is that every person is able to do the same amount of thinking and have the same amount of choice.

I thought this would make an interesting interactive debate, because I know that I have a lot of different friends with a LOT of different perspectives. SO HAVE AT IT!