Another one bites the dust

Well - if you can believe it, my family has now had a second death in the last 7 days. As you my recall, my aunt passed unexpectedly last Sunday. My grandma has now passed away 2 days ago. What's remarkable, is that my grandma's health nosedived after my aunt died, and grams left the earth exactly one week later. Almost to the minute.

I'm so fortunate to have been at my grandma's side. I've spent the past few days at her house, and the day she died I'd been holding her hand since 7am. The family is grateful she passed, as she's been in considerable pain the past few years. And now we know she, and my aunt, have a buddy up there.

One funny thing.... my grandma and I were very close. Every time I'd see her, she'd always usher me into the back room before she left. She'd slip me a $20 bill. Normally I wouldn't accept money from an old lady, but it made her happy to do that, so I would accept it. She did this every time I saw her, seriously. The past 2 years she's been too sick to do anything.

Yesterday I spent 10 hours going through her things, helping with funeral arrangements...and very randomly came upon her purse. It was kind of hidden. My mom and I looked at the contents, and put them back. After my mom left, for some ODD reason, I was urged to pull her scarf out once more to see it. As I pulled it out, a perfectly folded $20 bill appeared. My grandma wanted to slip me that last $20 bill. I took the $20, but will never spend it. I'll put it in a special place where I can remember her generosity. :)

Have you guys seen this?

Pretty funny mock Sarah Palin trailer from College Humor.

Refund?

Hey guys

So I got my letter from Fairfax today. They denied most of our claims, since the vials had been outside their facility for more than 60 days. sigh.
They did mention the most recent vial was substandard: 4mm motile sperm. It also had been at their facility until right before the IUI.

Even still, they said we get a partial refund of $243. Is this normal? Why wouldn't they refund us the full $450? They gave us a shoddy product that didn't meet guarantees....and yet they still only refund 50%? Is this the norm, or should we have expected the full amount?

What pisses me off, is that their crappy product not only cost us for the vial, but we also spend $$ on shipping, storage, monitoring, IUI and blood test. So their crappy product cost us around $1,000 for an IUI in vain.

For those that have filed complaints, have you only gotten a partial refund, or the full amount?

Doing much better

Thanks so much, everyone, for the kind support. I am doing much, much better. My uncle and cousins are doing better, too. We have the funeral on Friday, and then the real healing can begin.

I came up with a neat idea - I bought a nice journal with handmade/pressed paper. I spent an hour tonight writing down every nice memory I have of my aunt. I'll pass the journal to my mom and sister. Once we compile our memories, we'll give it to my uncle/cousins, so they can start writing their memories. Hopefully this will be a nice book to read, to remind us of all the shared/special memories we have of my aunt.

A bunch of friends and I had dinner tonight - it was the best relief! It totally took my mind off heavier things, and it was really nice to get out. These are some great friends, too. It amazes me how I know so many really kind, genuine people. And they all live within a few miles!

In TTC news, I have my pre-op appointment next Friday. Surgery (hysteroscopy to remove polyps) is scheduled for Oct 7th. I'm not worried about the surgery itself - just the awful general anesthesia, and how it makes me sick for days afterwards. A small price to pay, though, to hopefully increase my odds of getting pregnant.

I'm very content in the TTC department right now. I'm not in a rush for my break to be over. I have several friends having babies in the next 6 weeks, and I'm so excited to be surrounded by babies. Two of my friends (who are partners) - had a difficult time getting pregnant, but they persevered. They are now due in 8-ish weeks! I can't wait to meet their little girl, and be an Auntie. It certainly will make my waiting period much easier to bear. :)

Goodbye, Aunt Bonnie

My close (and only) aunt passed away unexpectedly today. We're not sure what the cause was yet, but it appears to be a blod clot that reached her heart. I try to have faith in the afterlife; I can't imagine a better guardian angel than her. Rest in peace, Aunt Bonnie. We miss and love you.

Not much to report on babymaking, so...

I leave you with two cool things:
1. I went to my kickboxing class this morning (one of my luxuries when not TTC). There was a man in the class who had a steel leg. Not sure if he was a returned vet or what, but I was really impressed. He kept up very well, and I know he probably had to work 5x as hard as everyone else. Whoever you are, you rock, dude.
2. As many of you know, I have a Shih-Tzu. I'm very biased, and think they are the cutest dogs on earth. hehe. Here's a video of Shih-Tzu puppies that's bound to bring some smiles.

Two more Babydaddys

So I have some good news! I spent 5 hours going through 284 profiles at CCB last weekend. We found two donors that we really loved. (We are dumping Donor #1)

Both donors apparently just retired, so there was limited inventory left. One donor had 2 IUI vials, and the other had 4 ICI (only). So we bought them all. One donor we call Jewbabydaddy - he is this incredibly beautiful guy (according to staff impressions), and has a cute baby pic. He's smart, outgoing, and we love his wicked sense of humor. He's Jewish - which doesn't matter whatsoever to us. In fact, I think Jewish babies are cute - so I'm excited. :)

The other donor was so cute, smart, etc. We call him "Oliver" since he looks like Becky's nephew. Unfortunately he only had two vials left. It's a small world, but I later found out it's the same donor that Boombababy is using! So cool. (We got permission to share this publicly) We only have two vials, but here's hoping it works. Would be awesome to have half sibs.

So I just sit back and wait a few more weeks for surgery, then we try again a month later. At least we have our babydaddys waiting for us. :)

PS - I now have Swiss readership. Jess - is that you?

Sensing evil

I'm sorry, but everytime I see a picture of Sarah Palin, the scar on my forehead starts to burn.

Minor Roadblock

I've got a few weeks before my polyp surgery. Starting to get more nervous, so I needed a distraction. We're going to find a new donor, and we've chosen California Cryobank. They have a location near our doctor's office, so it'll save us shipping.

A few weeks ago, I went through the list of donors, and narrowed down to my top 15. There were 10 "eh, maybes" and 5 "hellz yeahs." We were excited to pick the winner last night.

Well, we logged into CCB, and first looked at our maybes. Suddenly the maybes seemed like "oh HELL no's" - we found more things we didn't like about them. sometimes a donor looks great on paper, but when you see the baby pic - it looks like they are hobbits. But we held onto our excitement for the top 5. We KNEW one of them would be the winner.

We finally looked at our top 5. One by one - we got the horrible warning message: "This donor is sold out and now retired/This donor has limited vials." Four of the 5 are now sold out permanently, and one just has maybe 1-2 vials left.

I can't really explain why, but this news was devastating for me. I had a mini breakdown last night, and there's nothing more depressing than crying in bed. :\

This TTC thing just hasn't gone smooth for us once yet. Not once. Bad donors, bad doctors, bad timing, ovarian cysts, polyps that now need to be surgically removed, and now no hope for finding a new donor. Bleh.

Surgery and "I'm Going to Have to Wear WHAT!?!?!"

So I've been avoiding the TTC topic for a few days. How about an update? I have some seemingly bad news, and normally you'd expect me to be crying/ready to retreat. I actually feel very liberated, happy, and zen. Ok, how about that TTC news!

I went in for my second SHG yesterday. It wasn't enjoyable - ouch! The RE confirmed that I do, in fact, have a decent-sized polyp. It's probably been growing for a few years, and causing me problems. Plus, I have another small polyp growing. I now need to have both surgically removed. It will require general anesthesia, 45 minutes of surgery, and 3-5 days of missed work to recover. (And I get to wear this pretty pad/panty as illustrated in the pic) AND - it will require 2 more months of putting things on hold.

Becky was so worried I would go into my "k-hole" - since this was a lot of bad news. I am actually thrilled, elated, hopeful, happy, and zen. Yes, it is a lot of crap to absorb at once. Why am I happy?

* They finally confirmed what that growth is
* There is a clear path to improving my fertility
* They can remove the polyps (albeit yucky surgery)
* I get to miss 3-5 days of work (silver lining, people, come on!) ;-)
* I don't have to stress about scheduling appts with my work schedule
* I can eat/drink what I want, for another 2 months
* Maybe I can get my ass in gear, and start working out more
* We have time to pick our new donor

I'm trying to have faith - that with the removed polyp, and a new donor - we will greatly improve our chances. I will get pregnant! The surgery will be in first half of October. I'm just glad we're taking time off to fix these issues, versus throwing money away when my body can't support a pregnancy.

Like I said - even with this truckload of bad news, I feel absolutely zen. Ommmmm.

F*cking Mormons...

Well guess who knocked on our door, to ask us to vote YES on Prop 8? Wow, they have mobilized like nothing I've ever seen. Multiple friends at work, that all live in different cities, have had Mormons come to their door in the last week to talk about Prop 8. Fucking Mormons.

Photo Post

LA was great last weekend. We drove through Beverly Hills, saw Kathy Griffin's house, ate good food, etc. I am so behind in my blogging! I'll post some TTC updates later this week. For now, it's time for a photo post. Yay!

This is a rapper's house near Becky's dad's house in Hollywood. Looks like something out of Big Fat Greek Wedding! The remaining pictures are of: Becky wine tasting in Santa Barbara, Snap, Kathy Griffin's house, Becky on Santa Monica Pier, me in Santa Monica, my nephews Jake and Tyler.

Gratitude

In the spirit of Queerstork's post, I am choosing to be grateful about something today. It's Labor Day, and I am in the "not going through labor anytime soon" bucket. However, there is someone in the "soon to be laboring" bucket - that I am most grateful for today. It was announced today that John McCain's VP, Sarah Palin's, 17 year old daughter is 5 months pregnant. Unmarried and pregnant. I am quite pleased with this. mwa ha ha. (insert super evil Freddy Krueger/Gargamel/Sith Lord laugh)