Best Planned Lays

This isn't going to be one of those well-made blog posts. This is one of those pissy lists. BUT: Before the ranting commences, Hello and Thanks for dropping by! to everyone, but especially to those of you directed here by the lesbian-lovin' Kymberli. It's a pleasure having you. If any of the rest of you don't read Kymberli's blog, you should certainly head over to read today's tale of accidental head-shaving.

1. LH surge: I can has one, pls? Still spending my days with legs crossed, still but the palest of lines on the OPK. Not yet out of bounds for my longest cycles, but getting close. Am secretly convinced I don't make LH.

2. Farewell, Mr. NMEBSI? It turns out he wasn't screened for a genetic disorder that I only just now got tested for. I won't know my results for at least another month or so. I had thought that no donors had been screened (so my own results would only be to help us decide about prenatal testing), but it turns out that some have. So we will choose a screened donor for September, at least, and maybe beyond (depending on my results).

(If you think I'm being over-cautious, please keep in mind that my father is a pediatric geneticist, who treats very small, very sick kids. This disorder is common, and although my parents raised me to be independent, he all but asked me to get tested.)

We were pretty upset about this, but we've since found some screened donors who also seem like good choices. Which means we have plenty of energy left to be upset that...

3. Dr. Baby Factory will not waive the $450 counseling session, nor will he allow us to see a counselor outside of the practice (who might take our insurance or just charge a little less than $9/minute). There are so many reasons this enrages me (and fills me with hopeless despair, but the anger is more interesting, I imagine) that it's hard to keep them all straight in my mind. I'll limit my rant to three. I'm realizing that they mostly come down not to the refusal to waive the counseling but to how it's been talked about.

a. There's equal ≠ fair aspect to the whole thing -- Dr. Baby Factory cannot or will not (as I find white men of privilege generally can't or won't) wrap his mind around the idea that treating all couples using donor-whatever in the same way may be equal but it isn't fair, in the sense that it is willfully blind to what brings each couple to this place. The best I can come up with is that this is like saying that it's fair that no employees get Jewish holidays off, when in fact that's equal but unfair. It bugs me that he won't acknowledge that our position is different from that of a straight couple using donor-stuff.

b. There's the giant fuck-you that is their counselors working with NO insurance. I don't think I'd be half as mad if they worked with some but not ours, though I'd still be pretty tweaked, since we chose this practice because it works with our insurance. But taking no insurance at all? So it's just an automatic "too bad you aren't normal" charge? Shitty, shitty, shitty.

c. There's the way Dr. Baby Factory distinguishes straight couples from us by referring to them as "married". GAH! I AM TRYING TO BE MARRIED, JERK-FACE. (How I wish we'd already eloped to CT, so I could tell him off properly for that one.)

As I see it, we have three options -- but please let me know if you think of any others, wise internet:

1. Suck it up, swallow pride, see if pooped-out pride sells on eBay, and pay for it.
Pros: Path of least resistance (except cost means less sperm means fewer tries before we have to store up money again).
Cons: Money, rage.

2. DIY at home, at least to start. (Assuming Dr. Baby Factory will still sign the home delivery release, as he said he would back at the HSG.) Reevaluate after a month or so.
Pros: No one involved who makes me want to spit nails.
Cons: Lower conception rate than IUI. Inefficient use of money, since we would be buying 2 vials/month and having to get them shipped every month (vs. getting 3 months' at once and storing at the clinic).

3. Change clinics.
Pros: I have another recommendation that my insurance will cover, with free sperm storage and no seekrit psych fees. Could work on details while trying DIY for a month.
Cons: Starting all over with intake, etc. More prodding of the vages. More theories. Sounds exhausting and like it will take forever.


Stay tuned, internet, to see down which path our heroines next gang agley.