Another Pennant, Woot woot!!

It's World Series time again, baby.

Times like this, I really miss my dad. He would have LOVED the Indians/Sox games (he was a closet Indians fan because he liked underdogs, I guess; I also think he liked their politically incorrect hat) and he would be psyched about another Series run.

I hope you can still watch, Dad.

IMPORTANT! A very worthy cause.

I don't do this very often (read: never) but this is different. Please, bear with.

My friend Calliope has been trying to get pregnant for a Very Long Time. She's a kick-ass woman trying to be a single mama using Man in a Can - she's been doing this for a long time. She's had more medicated IUIs than anyone really should. She has spent more money than I even want to THINK about.

This is compounded by the fact that Calliope's full-time job is to be the live-in caretaker for her grandmother, who has a degenerative disease. She does not get paid for this work. She hardly gets recognition. She was not eligible for health insurance. She does this for her family. Her grandmother, mother, and she live together and try to make life work - and she is trying to create the fourth generation.

Eventually she ran out of money and thought she had run out of options. Her only available option was IVF, and she couldn't afford it. The family had spent everything they could. She gave up on babymaking, but continued to cheer us all on.

Then she discovered a Shared IVF program run by a clinic a bazillion miles away from her home. In this program, she would stim for an IVF cycle and half of her eggs would go to a woman who was financing her IVF cycle. She filled out the application on a lark, and was accepted. Then she was matched. And then she got started. It was a dream come true.

She has been away from home for several days gearing up for egg retrieval and fertilization. She was growing lots of eggs for her and her recipient, and things were looking GOOD. And today... well, today she got a call saying that she tested positive for HepC and her shared cycle was cancelled.

She is pretty sure it is a false positive (she's been tested a million times doing different TTC things) and asked for a retest, which will be available on Friday. But they are still cancelling the Shared IVF. They already told the recipient. They told Calliope that she could continue the IVF cycle (you know, the one she's in the middle of) on her own dime. We're talking thousands of dollars, people.

Calliope is away from home and her mother is willing to sell the family car to continue her IVF, but this isn't feasible. I never ask for money online, but CALLIOPE NEEDS YOUR HELP. There are at least 200 people linked to this journal and if everyone gave $5, that would be over a thousand dollars! Can you even imagine? This could really happen, people.

Guys, she deserves this. She really REALLY deserves this. Her eggs are growing RIGHT NOW and this was HER TIME.

Please.

Donate to Cali's IVF!