My job of a husband and father

I do not look back on prior posts intentionally because i do not want to edit or change that was going on with me at the time.  I dont want to have this blog feel like its is something that is edited, produced, or choreographed.  This blog about more than anything, is about me.  It help me get in touch with what i am feeling.  Maybe one day, when this is over (the baby stuff) i'll do a typical sit-com thing and do a flash back of all of the prior posts and comment about things that i was totally wrong about, or feel differently about now.  who know... heck, i may not even be here when and if we reach that stage.

Two things that are running through my mind right now are... 1) inability to plan things since this female body thing is not like clockwork.  2) this unbelievable excitement of what we are about to go through.  The wonderful marvel of the whole scientific discoveries and the progress of civilization thing.  

I never used to like planning things out.  I liked to go with the flow and live by the seat of my pants.  It was exciting for me.  I always felt that i could start my day doing one thing, and at the end of the day end up in a plce that was exciting and new and fresh.  But, in hind sight, i was an unreliable person who never made commitments, missed appointments, bailed at the last minute, and never really went anywhere.  I liked the possibility of thinking that i could go somewhere, but i never really would.  

WHEN YOU ARE GOING THROUGH FERTILITY YOUR WHOLE SCHEDULE IS OUT THE WINDOW.  Vacations, business trips, business meetings, planning a weekend away.  They all take a back seat to the "Process".  You cant plan winter trips because you are not sure what is going on.  Summer vacations you try and not plan too far in advance because you could have to stay around the dr.'s.  THE WHOLE PROCESS CAN TAKE OVER YOUR LIFE.  BUT, IT DOESN'T HAVE TO.  I have found a sort of middle ground that works for me.  I have had to accept that this is what it is going to take for us to have another child, and there is nothing that i can do about it.  I cant micromanage my way through human body variations.    

a chance to listen to some quiet music.

So, as you can tell from the prior drama things took a bit of a detour.  Here is where we stand
The GC's cycle is not "regular" so the timing that the doctors were thinking was a little off.  This process has been very long and very slow.  Its worse then watching paint dry.  If i could equate it to something, i would say that it is like staring up at a starless night with heavy clouds and you are in a land that it is perpetually night.  You stare at something, but dont get any satisfaction looking at it because it becomes bland.   You almost become numb with boredom waiting for something to happen. Dont take it the wrong way.  I am not bored at all in my day to day life.  I am just talking about waiting for the egg transfer to happen.  Anyway, i digressed....

It turned out that the GC was not pregnant and that her cycle was just late.  I can say that i have become much more comfortable in understanding a person's menstrual cycle and discussing it.  So we recieved a text from GC earlier saying that she had started and that she is going for blood work on Friday and it looks like the transfer date is going to be moved from February 10th to around the 20th.  Sounds funny that all of that stress was just over a 10 day delay, but sometimes 10 days could seem like a lifetime.

I have noticed that now that we are getting closer to the actual date, my anxiety over the entire process has started creeping its way into my everyday life.  I notice that when you get that 'finger in the belly button" feeling (Anxious and a little nauseous) that my responses to it have not always been appropriate with what is going on.  As a way of relaxation and enjoyment I look into different groups of people across the world and across time.  I watched this youtube video on martial arts.  It wasnt the punch like this, kick like that type of video.  It went into more into the artistic side of it.  The message that they were really discussing was a state of mind called "mind like water".  I am really paraphrasing the message of the story and over simplifying it but the premise was when everything is calm your mind should be calm like still water on a lake. If someone throws a pebble in the water, the water acts as its supposed to.  It takes the impact of the pebble and you see the appropriate sized ripples spread across the water gently until the water goes back to its calm state.  If you take a bolder and push it off a cliff into the lake, your mind should respond with size appropriate ripples.  Although we would have preferred that the boulder not fall into our lake, our mind however responded appropriately for the situation.  What was going on with me was more of "mind like cannon".  Let me give you an example of what it means.  There is a fly 3 feet from you standing on a table.  The table top has glue on it, so the fly is unable to get away.  The fly in this case represents the possible subtle situation that arises during the day.  I see this fly and i am going to take something out to rid myself and this world of this troublesome fly.  After all, that fly has caused me to not feel ok.  I have just the to beat this fly back, it helped me last week when I had to work my tail off at work to be awarded this project at work.  I reach into my bag and pull out a canon.  This canon is 5 feet long and shoots a canon ball that weighs up to 10 lbs and shoots it at over 200 MPH.  I take said canon and point it at this fly only 3 feet from me and on my table what happens to be covered with this hypothetical glue.  Seeing nothing wrong with this, i light the fuse, plug my ears and watch the entire room that i am in get destroyed.  I look up, and for a moment i am happy and quite content in seeing that i accomplished my goal.  Its not until afterwards that I realize destroyed everything around me.  As i realize this i look at my feet and see a rolled up newspaper.  Then i realize that my mind was not like water.
The actual event that happened came right after i was feeling anxious about the whole baby thing.  I am nervous that she may back out.  that she might not want to give the baby up after she does deliver.  That something could go wrong during the pregnancy.  There could be a complication with one of the embryos.  This whole process is so expensive, what happens if we do not end up with a new baby/babies.  Now that i have spent all of this money, i just pushed retirement back a good 3 years.  I am now going to have to save more each month for college.... and on and on and on.
When i am getting this rush of feelings, i should have either excused myself so i could spend a few minutes to process them or agree with myself to put them in a folder place them down for now and I will come back to it later tonight when the time is appropriate.  I didn't do that.  I used a canon.  And the canon was my mouth and brain.  A work situation popped up that was a 6 on a 10 point scale of "this is not good".  Someone had messed up internally and effected a customer of mine.  They clearly stated their disapproval and i had to go into damage control.  I was already mentally burdened with all of these thoughts when I received the phone call.  I got off the phone and stated making internal calls to find out what failed internally to cause this to happen.  it didnt take long to unwind the mess and i found the source of the breakdown.  Yes the person made a mistake, yes she makes these mistakes regularly.  I have already had her reassigned to another project.  My handling of the situation was not very good.   I embarrassed her when i took out all of the 'no ok' feelings.  i realized my error within a few hours and called to apologize for my handling of the situation.  She said it was ok, but that wasn't the truth.  People make mistakes, hers was not intentional, but it was a mistake none the less.  It caused a service interruption at one of my major accounts, but it did not deserve me embarrassing her.

Its ok to feel not ok, but you have to make sure that your response is appropriate to the situation.  Easily, i could have waited a few minutes and remove the emotion from the situation, but i didnt.  Tomorrow I am going to do it better, and better still the day after that.  If ever i fail again at it, i have to acknowledge it and take the appropriate steps for correction.  I'm tired and going to bed now.

ps. i really do hope that this process is safe for the gc that we are using.  she is such a sweet person for even considering it.  I realize that she is paid to do this, but come on, the money cant be the only thing.  God if you could look out for her and her family i would be grateful.         

Getting ready, to get ready and wait

Michele and I are anxiously waiting the 10th of february because that is the date that we are scheduled to do the transfer to the GC.  Communication continues to be a little "strange"  Its not the GC and its not us, but surprisingly it is a strange set up.  THe GC that we have chosen is an extremely nice, personable and seemingly honest woman.  She has a family of her own.  She communicates rather well with my wife. (she really doesn't come to me for anything.  If need be i could go through all of the "girl" stuff with her and discuss the cycle and either the thickening or thinning of what ever it is.  But, thankfully my wife has assumed that role.

so, while i was working from home today, Michele came down and was clearly upset.  she told me that our GC was not doing well with the medications.  (She had started the shots a were or so back).  Michele said that during her Dr.'s apt. that the Dr. said that her utters (<------- damn auto correct, but its funny so i am keeping it) was too thick and that she never had her period this month.  Well, i guess that its kind of stocking, but what did it really mean is what i was wondering.  Well, Michele mentioned that the GC had to take a pregnancy test to make sure that she (the GC) was not already pregnant.  Hello! I never thought of that possibility.  What happens is she gets pregnant on her own and cant go through with this.  The time that we have spent, the money, the emotional cost.......i never thought that it could happen.  While we talked about it for the next few minutes, Michele shared with me the texts that were going back and forth between her (Michele) and the GC.  Now, i must admit i felt much better after reading those.  THe GC seems really trustworthy (as much as you can tell from meeting someone 5 or so times) and she assured us that she is not pregnant because her and her husband have "stayed away from each other".  which would have been a really funny conversation if they had it face to face because you are talking about your sex life in front of someone that you hardly know.  My mind could go to a thousand places thinking about how she would say..... never mind, i'm going to keep going.
So, continuing.  During this time a rep from our fertility dr's. called and said that it is possible that she never actually had her period and that if that is true then we would have to wait for her to have it before we could move forward.  Naturally, Michele asked the standard follow up question."didn't you (the dr's) know that she never had her period?"  "why would you start her on the medication if she never had it?"  So, right now we have the GC, Michele, our fertility Dr. and the fertility clinic local to the GC, our attorney and the GC's attorney(6 parties) and I cant help but wonder if this process is really being managed by anyone?  With all of these people involved there is no way that someone can control the situation where things like this would not happen.  

As I am writing this, I am completely calm with a full understanding the process that we have chosen we have to let it run its course.  The parts that Michele and I can control are finished.  From here out we have to be patient, supportive (to one another, and to the GC and her family).  But, its not easy.  On the outside I am a very laid back person, but inside i am tortured with pressures, imaginary obligations, and a desire to want to control everything around me.  I am not sure if i had mentioned this, but I am Obsessive compulsive.  Not the ha ha funny type where people kid with their friends and say "OMG, I am totally OCD".  I am the not so fun type.  I have had to count internally, touch things, not touch things, say things, not say things, etc. for no apparent reason.  Thinking that if i did, i could prevent the world from ending and those closest to me from being hurt.  I have been in therapy for it for a few years now and i do get to avoid the majority of the 'ticks', but they do pop up every once and while.  While initially my mind was ok with the news that we heard today.  It wasn't until afterwards that i noticed that i was acting differently than i usually do.  When i realized that the path that we are on does not come with a directions, a map, airbags, parachute, anything to show us how this is going to happen.  All anyone talks about is how it 'should' happen.  But, being at the point that we are right now, we seem to always be in the 'don't worry about that, because it never happens column.  There are exactly 3 hours and 40 minutes left in this day and i am finding myself thinking about what the pregnancy test results will be tomorrow.  If she did get pregnant on her own I am going to be very disappointed and feel kicked in the gut again.  But, I cant help but think that I believe in my wife and I.  We are good people.  There is no doubt in my mind that we are going to rid ourselves of this ball and chain of infertility and we'll have another kid.  I believe in our GC and that someone up above is going to throw us a bone.      

Its been a while...

SO as of right now, we are about 3 weeks away from completing the egg transfer to the GC.  Right now i am struggling with the decision of placing one or two eggs into her.  My wife and I talk about it and we usually walk away saying that we will talk about it later, but when is later going to actually happen?  I wish i was a person who could make a decision based on black and white data, but im not.  A lot of my decisions and judgements are done with others in mind.  And sometimes pleasing the others  is more important than making the decision that i want.  Hmmmm. interesting that i write about this when we ar making this decision.  Mt wife and I have been on the same page when it comes to it.  We want to put in two.  So its not like i am holding a resentment, or am afraid to say i only want one...... i guess that its because i am reserving a spot in mind mind to say that i told you so.  sorry for what seems like rambling , but i just realized that as i was writing it.  I tend to do that a lot.  I sometime pretend to take the other persons view because i want to reserve a spot to back out later and say well, it wasn't my idea anyway..... hmmmm.  not a therapist, but that doesn't sound good.  I need to talk to her about that one.

without a doubt the single largest expense that we have had to date is the emotional toll that this has taken.  we met with the GC and her husband a few months back and they were terrific people.  They are younger than we are (early 20's, vs. 37 for both of us).  we clicked really well when we met at the airport and at the doctors offices.  we went out to dinner afterward and sat and talked for close to two hours on topics like , our current families, our upbringing, what we want to do, what we are doing, what's important to us, etc.  Afterward i took them back to the airport and they flew home.  its been about two months that we have been waiting to get this transfer set up.  And, no matter how many times that you try to pretend that it is not a big deal, i still don't know how to react to things with the GC.  my wife sends off a funny email asking some routine questions and they don't answer.  then randomly a week or so later they send an email about a totally different topic, and never even mention the first email.  we don't want to be confrontational and say that "we are hanging onto every second waiting for a response to make sure that you don't want to back out on us" but we cant.  I try and tell my wife not to worry, but the truth is, i worry about it.  I have already dealt with the "loss" of thinking that i would never have another child.  I opened that up again and i am really quite gun shy right now.  I dont like taking risks (even though others would tell you that i do) I don't.  I am scared right now.    

Some big decisions

So I was talking with a friend today about this whole blog thing that I have been doing. I was sharing with him that I have had this interal battle raging inside of me about what to share on here and what to hide or just fail to mention. He b. fought up a very good point when he asked me about what I am wr icing it for and do I ever expect the potential future child to read it. Good question........... I don't know. The truth is that I am filled with self doubt about this decision. I want another child soooo badly I am willing to go to the ends of the earth. I know that in my heart that I will be a terrific role model for my children and fell that I would raise the child right. BUT, I am really fritened about putting myself out there again, and get hurt....again. When we first started the fertility thing a few years ago I could not understand how someone could walk away from the possibility of having a kid. I told myself that I would tough it out for as long as it takes. Sign me up for what ever gets us a kid. By the end, I felt that my wife and I were in a sense....... broken. No matter how much we loved each other and continue to try, it wasn't in the cards for us. It broke my heart time and time again. I felt bad for my wife, my son and me. From that I grew to try and accept the fact that we were on,y going to be able to have 1 kid. So now the papers have been signed, we gave a check to the lawyer. We are ready to start this process. TOTAL INVESTMENT: $ 475 consultation, $5,100 lawyer fees.

Taking a deep breath

I am having some difficulty finding out when his process really starts. We have a meeting scheduled with our layer and her team on Wednesday. At this meeting we are going to discuss the fees, open up escrow, and discuss our answers to the questionnaire that we filled out. This was not your typical q&a. It forces you to put your choices in black and white. Most of the questions are ones that you would love to pass on if you are in any type of social setting. It comes straight out and asks you about your preferences for race and religion of the carrier. It also has multiple questions on terminating a pregnancy under a few different scenarios, and your felleings on selective reduction. Opinions are very easy to have and typically they don't cost you anything. But in this case it could impact the cioion of a gestational carrier choosing my wife and I. So i am guessing that a potention GC is going to review our submit tall package and decide if this is someone that they might be interested in. I would be lying if I said that I did not at least think about how someone reading our responses might react. Ultimately we put down our beliefs in a clear, non emotional way that described what we wou,d do under certain circumstances around the three trimesters and what we would do in cases when the health of the GC is in jeopardy. Or, if there is a health risk to the fetus. I really did not like spelling that out, but we did as we were told. I have shared my opinions on the whole right to choose issue before, but I have never put. It into an official document for people to see and judge me based on that opinion. It was a lot more tormenting that I thought that it would be. Right now I am in a position that I think that we will be picked by a few potentional GC's, I just still have doubts about this whole thing working out and having a baby at the end. Fertility has taken a tole on me and it is hard not to feel snake bitten. On my week off from work I have really gotten very excited about starting this and feel like I am jumping in with both feet, with out looking what is below me. As long as I am molding my wifes hand and my son in my arms when we land, we will get through it.

Money-Paperwork-Money-Questions-more money

It has taken us about 2 1/2 years of fertility treatments for us to get to where we are today.  We have had several miscarriages, one after the first trimester (which I'll talk about later).  We also had to go through a D&C http://www.americanpregnancy.org/pregnancycomplications/dandc.html (to prove how much terminology gets thrown at you, until just now i thought that it was pronounced "DNC").

Before we go too far, the money has to be addressed.  Once we realized that using a gestational carrier may be an option, I have been looking at the costs for moving ahead.  There is the $ expense that is first and foremost, but also the total "costs" of moving ahead.  We will go into the non monetary costs at a latter date, as i am sure that those feeling will continue to simmer.  My wife and I have two totally different perspectives when it comes to the price tag.  When we look through the paperwork and talk to people she see's the costs in the $30,000-$40,000 range.  I on the other hand feel that at a minimum this is going to cost $100,000 - $130,000.  That is a
RIDICULIOUS amount of money!  My average salary and commissions over the past 5 years have been in that range.  There were years that I made considerable more, and years that I made on the low end.  I felt that is important to put that information forward since it is basically my entire years pay! Oh, by the way, we may have nothing to show for it.  At the end of this process, we could spend every dime that we have, make every right decision, have the perfect carrier, and still HAVE NOTHING TO SHOW FOR IT!

In this blog I will outline the dollars and cents that we spend.  Starting with the $495 consultation to our attorney for the set up of our account and to go through the paperwork that we have been filling out.  So, right now, I am keeping the total spend at $0 until after this meeting.

In preparation for this meeting, Michele and I have to to write (separately) a one page letter to a perspective gestational carriers describing ourselves.  We are to talk about our home situation, what we enjoy to do, and what we do for a living.  I have no idea what these people are looking for.  I don't want to come off too clinical and cold and turn someone off, nor do I want to look like a idiot and turn someone off that way also.  The part that is causing me the most stress is the section that describes the type of relationship that I want withe the gestational carrier.  I have written this thing three times already and I am about to start the 4th.  The first one was really ho hum I want to be involved, but not too involved, there but not, supportive and stand offish...  Not what I was looking for and sounded just plain silly.  The second attempt was waaayyyy too forceful.  I was trying to come off like I was able to make decisions and could be a rock for the person.  The third one I actually asked the opinion of the man sitting next to me while I was getting new tires installed on my car.  I slowly turned and looked at him and said "If your wife was going to carry my baby, how would you want........"  I didnt get any further when I stopped myself and in an attempt to show this man that I am not a psychopath.  This man knows none of my back story and now, I just talked to him about his wife carrying our child.