I'm A Lesbian And I'm Okay

I should really put my insurance on speed dial. Not a day goes by, it seems, that I’m not talking to them.

This morning, I finally got resolution on the “will you pay for this genetic test” question I put to them in…June. That’s 2 months of their losing letters, requiring codes they hadn’t asked for in the first place, requiring still more codes, and so on. Every fax takes two days to process because they convert them to microfilm before reading them. This makes the bureaucratic aspects of my health care sound more like a James Bond movie, but also seems to negate the speediness of faxing.

Now I’m on hold to find with a different branch of the company. Rather than the Mozart the main line uses, the mental health section favors silence punctuated by a firm voice saying, “Please wait.” Repeatedly. I’m calling the mental health division because apparently, I’m cruising for a nervous breakdown by being gay. News to me, but hey, I’m no doctor.

The above is an oversimplification, but near enough to the truth. Sugar and I had been thinking we’d skip the Barry White and vanilla-scented candles portion of the TTC journey in favor of the favorable if florescent-lit odds of IUIs at the Kips Bay Baby Factory. Mr. NMEBSI* has more IUI than ICI vials available, and we have been starting to think that we should face the fact that we don’t have baby-making equipment in the house, rather than let sentiment stand in the way of a better chance of conception. In the aftermath of my HSG, I had been feeling reluctant to encourage any more catheter-on-cervix action, but now I’ve had two months of the least painful periods since high school. Some private investigation indicates that I’m bleeding almost exclusively out of the side that was — to quote my chart — “perforated” at the HSG, which makes me think that totally tubular experience left my cervix more open and that an IUI was therefore less likely to require overwhelming force. So today I called the clinic IUI nurse to find out the procedures. All fairly straight-forward, except, oh, had no one told me I’d have to meet with their psychologist first? Everyone using donor sperm does.

Let me be frank: I’d rather we didn’t have to use donor sperm. I’d rather bring home a bottle of cheap champagne, line a roasting pan for Ray’s lucky Beer Can Chicken, and end up with a kidlet who looks half like me and half like Sugar. I’d also like a magical flying pony who lives in the apartment and doesn’t poop. I suppose I can see recommending a sit-down with the counselor for het couples using donor sperm, who perhaps haven’t spent more than a decade considering the ramifications of having a child who isn’t genetically related to both of them, but come on. We’ve been over this, trust me.

I find this requirement annoying if not discriminatory, but I also remember my grandmother telling me not to cut off my nose to spite my face, so I called the office psychologist and made an appointment for next week. Sugar must have been able to tell over gChat how pissed I was, because she didn’t say boo about having to miss more work. At the end of the conversation, the receptionist says, “By the way, the fee for the consultation is $450 and we don’t work with any insurance companies.”

EXCUSE ME? $450 because you’re worried that I might not have thought about being gay? $450 so Sugar and I can put on our Happy, Well-Adjusted Couple Show for you? No matter what anyone who’s known us for more than an hour might think of our parenting ambitions; clearly what you think matters most.

Since I started writing this post, I talked to a very nice woman at my insurance company, who tells me that they’ll reimburse for 80% of the fee, less my deductible, which is $363. So it would only cost me $380.40 to be gay. Bargain prices! Everyone will want to be gay now!

I say “would” because this pisses me off way too much, even if we had $380.40 we couldn’t figure out how to use (answer: sperm). I have a call in to the doctor. If he won’t waive this, we’ll go elsewhere or just crank up the Barry White after all.


*I love this name, by the way. Mr. Nmebsi sounds like he would get his oil changed by Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni and perhaps respectfully consult Mma Ramotswe about his suspicion that his neighbor was pilfering from his garden.

The Word On The Street

Here's where we are these days, apparently (click for biggerness):



(Word Cloud courtesy of the very fun Wordle, which I found out about thanks to the even more wonderful starhillgirl.)

Clearly I need to be saying vagina more often.

Voice Recognition

Baby Mama and I are trying to pick a donor. Somehow I thought this would involve a lot of choice - huge numbers of profiles and audio clips to go through, baby pictures to order, etc. In reality, we have only a few donors on our list, since we are restricting to ID consent and also trying to find someone with my ethnic background. (In the WTF category - how come no one is eastern European up in here? I'm kind of from Chicago, so this just seems unthinkable to me . . . )

So we found this guy who is, in fact, partly of my ethnic background and even seems to have my interests - studying art, introverted. But his audio clip is intensely boring. It sounds like a high school essay on 'Doing the Right Thing.' Every time I hear it I'm like, really, that was your best answer?

Behind door number 2, we have Mr. Not-My-Ethnic-Background-Silly-Interests. There isn't as much to recommend Mr. NMEBSI, except that his audio clip makes him sounds like a sweet guy. What he talks about in his 30 seconds isn't very profound, but it's funny, and it sounds honest. I would rather go with him.

I have no idea if this is a good way to choose a donor. In fact, it's probably not. There's less chance that a child from Mr. NMEBSI will look like me and less chance that this child will want to major in the humanities (although, wait, maybe that's a plus . . .). The only logical thing I've thought of so far is that since we are looking for ID consent, there is less likelyhood that Mr. NMEBSI will be a tool when, 18 years from now, our child might be cold-calling him.

I just don't want to stick the sperm of some doofus who has learned how to give the right answers to pass the test (Morals and ethics my butt, you're like what, 20 years old?) into Baby Mama. Yuck. That's what we avoided by being lesbians right? We had coming-out anxiety and bizarre interactions with old friends, but not the sorrow of sleeping with some surface-y guy who later turns out to be arrogant and a little dumb.

The whole choice of donor thing feels so random. I wish it didn't have to happen at all. It seems both important and impossible. (I mentioned to Baby Mama my wish that we could just have Sperm Tuesday every month or so, when sperm would fall from the sky, but she said that would be gross . . . .) So Mr. NMEBSI here we come, I think.

Waiting

Hello, internet. I'm feeling a bit blue today. No good reason, except that summer is winding down and the writing projects I've been supposed to finish remain undone. By the same token, I'm blue because summer is not done yet, and I'm impatient to start TTC in September. I've made the big decision, so how come I'm not pregnant yet? Baby, get in my belly! (I'm going to be a real picnic during that 2WW business, no doubt.)

Ages ago, the very marvelous Musings of A Fat Chick was kind enough to tag me for a wee meme, Six Silly Things. At the time, I was feeling too blue to think of anything, but I'm going to make an effort to pull myself up by my boob-straps and cheer the heck up. It's a beautiful day, I have a cookie sheet of perfect biscuits cooling on the stove, and Sugar and I are going to have a picnic in the park. There is no call for gloom!

Without further ado, here are the rules:

* Mention and link to the person who tagged you
* List Six Silly Things That Make You Happy
* Tag six of your favorite bloggers to play along

1. My very serious cat:




2. Making inanimate objects talk, puppet-style. I enjoy it more if the object in question is resolutely un-puppet-like, say, a salt shaker or a coat hanger. (This is why we have a house full of junk. Every time Sugar tries to throw something out, I make it talk to her. I am going to be so good at mother-guilt!)


3. Sneaking up to and petting the night toads that hang out near the beach on Fire Island.



4. Nicknames. I rarely get them, maybe in part because my real name is uncommon in my generation, and I cherish the ones I do have. I also LOVE making up new ones for Sugar, but I'm sure she'll do me grievous injury if I share the best ones here. Most aren't...conventionally complimentary, though they aren't conventionally insulting, either. Maybe she'll tell you one if you ask nicely...but I doubt it.

5. Clothing that seems "circus-y" to me. Or piratical. Or both. Big stripes, big dots, overblown fishnets, black and white, bright red, fancy shoes and mismatched parasols. Japanese silk haori bound with an obi, tiered skirt, t-strap high heels, hair bound up in ribboned braids like Frida Kahlo. That kind of thing.

6. The soulful stuffed animals Sugar makes when she's feeling crafty




7. Breaking the rules.

Speaking of breaking the rules, I'm not nearly bold enough today to tag individual bloggers, who could ignore my tag (entirely unlike how I've been ignoring Musing's) and prove my worst ideas about the world and my place in it all too true. So how about this: if you're reading this, and you have a blog, be tagged. If you put a link in the comments, I'll come check it out and love up on you for doing it. I can put you in my blogroll, if you want, too.

xoxo,
Bionic

Happy Baby

Our friends have a very charming baby. She's about two years old now, and she's smart and cute and all that, but the thing that really amazes me about her is how freaking happy she is all the time. How does she do that, and where can I get some? Or at least, where can I learn how to bring up a kid like that?

Cause I got depression and I really, really don't want to pass it on.

I had extensive depression lessons as a kid. For example, when I was about four and my mom's rheumatoid arthritis flared up, I remember standing next to her chair and talking to her while she stared straight ahead and didn't answer me. When I was a little older she found a dent in a tea strainer that sent her off weeping. And about once a day for my whole life my dad took some perfectly normal occurrence to mean that the world was coming to the end of its inevitable downward spiral. It was a barrel of laughs around our house, for sure.

I learned it, and I don't want to teach it. Yikes.

So I'll act happy, right? I'll espouse concepts like 'the world is great', 'people are basically good', and 'everything is going to turn out just fine.' This seems like a solid plan until I remember myself as a cynical, irritable seven year old who was having none of it.

Like the time fifth grade some nimrod at my elementary school hired an inspirational speaker to come inspire us. Our class was marched down to the all-purpose-room to hear an old dude with stick-out ears chant 'life is good, good, good!' at us. Even at the time I wondered how much he got paid for that, and could we have our taxes back? Then in seventh grade we all had to take a course called 'Quest' aimed at making us love one another through planning our social and financial futures in unsupervised 'cooperative' groups. At the end of the quarter, when we were allowed to give feedback on the experience, I stood up and announced that the entire class had been unmitigated hooey.

wait, are pep rallies required?

What to do? Right now I only have a growing version of what one of my college students called 'the anti-list' (everything he wasn't going to do for his final project, including mediate the artistic process with his mind). So far I've got:

• not say that child's behavior x will result in eventual doom
• not say (or imply) that child is unattractive
• not send insomniac child back to room with instructions to 'work on your breathing' (sorry mr. buddhist, but save that for the grown ups)
• not insist that every single thing the child thinks is wrong is due to lack of sleep
• not to announce that the world is becoming uninhabitable for environmental/economic/aesthetic reasons
• not have inexplicable crying jags

I sent Mr. Artistic Process back to write me a new project proposal after reading his anti-list. Now if only I could come up with my own . . .

On Dedication

Stop what you're doing. I don't care what it is; this is too important. Stop it. (Oh, not you, sir. You just keep at that transplant surgery and come back when you've sutured.)

Go to (New! Improved!) Musings of a Fat Chick and read this post, now. If you're in the kind of office where you shouldn't be laughing out loud, take appropriate precautions. Close your door. If you're in a cubicle, gag yourself.

If you have a story to beat this, please post a link in the comments, because DAMN.

You Might Be Disappointed If...

...any of the following searches got you here (and according to Google, some of you got here these ways.):



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When I have a punk band, this will be our sophmore album.


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baby your bionic and i dont think your

What? You don't think I'm (im?) WHAT? This is a frustrating elision.


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This one shows up twice. TWICE. I'm trying to figure out what constitutes non-"bizar" speculum female catheter play tube.


In other news, we just spent a week at the beach. When the relaxation wears off, we'll find something to fret and therefore post about. Spermy plans now delayed until September, so I can get a better sense of cycles and how to pee on the stick rather than my hand.