navigating a relationship

As we seem to be approaching the birth at the speed of light (25 weeks tomorrow) many people are starting to question the relationship that we are going to have with Sabrina after the birth.  I know that people are coming from a place of love and concern, really I do get that, but at the same time I find this to be the most invasive questioning and really it is something extremely personal.  So what does one do with such a personal question?  Writes about it on a public blog!  I know that seems insane but really I try to be very open about things and this is the easiest way for me to do this.

All things in life are only understood through the frame of reference which someone has to understand what they are experiencing.  Surrogacy is becoming more mainstream, or that could just be the fact that I am just seeing it more, but still more people know others who have gone down this particular path to parenthood.  Of course, more people just know the horror stories that make the news.  Ours is the farthest thing from that kind of story.  That is not to say that we are skipping through a field of daisies all the time, but when there are things that we do not view the same way we are able to be respectful of that and still express our opinions.  In the end we either just agree to disagree or one of changes the other’s mind. 

This is a relationship of friends where one person just happens to be carrying a baby for the other.  For purely selfish reasons I want to keep Sabrina in my life.  Then there are the multitude of reasons that I want our son to know the family that completed our family.  I will also be the first to say that when we first started looking at surrogacy I was perfectly happy with having someone have the baby and that would be the end.  My only frame of reference was that of adoption, which does not fit into surrogacy very well.  As an adopted child I knew that having my birth mother be part of my childhood would not have been good for me or my family, not that I have anything against open adoption. 

Adoption is only a good reference for surrogacy in that it teaches you that genetic makeup has nothing to do with who you consider your family.  Other than that there is nothing similar between these two paths to parenthood.  This pregnancy began as ours.  Yes, our son is the genetic product of an egg donor and the husband.  Yes, he is being carried by Sabrina.  But I literally willed him into being.  I worked through all the years of emotional sludge that comes with infertility and got myself to that place where parenting was way more important than pregnancy.  Without my intention to be his mother Cletus would not exist. 

Along this journey there have been those moments when I have felt the twinges of jealousy.   I do not think there has ever been a woman in my position that can honestly say that they have not felt the same.  Then one day I realized that there were always going to moments in his life that others are going to experience with him first.  I am just a little ahead of schedule with this particular mommy moment.  In a perfect world I would never have had to deal with this, but we do not live in a perfect world. 

Sabrina is currently playing the most important role in Cletus’s life.  I will be doing that for the rest of his life.  She loves him like she loves a few other people’s kids.  I am filled with this amazing warmth and light and unbelievable amount of love every time I look at that picture of Cletus as a five day embryo.  We all have people in our lives that have made a huge impression and have made our lives better for being in them.  All I can hope is that Cletus has Sabrina as one of those people in his life.  To me denying the existence of Sabrina would be the same as saying we were ashamed of how our family was created, which is the same as saying we are ashamed of our son on some level.

Honesty with our child about how they came to be was really the first big surrogacy question we ever asked ourselves.  For us part of that honesty was maintaining a relationship with the woman who carried for us.  In the end this is the story of how we became a family until Cletus draws his first breath, then it becomes his story which is not ours to edit.  I am not going to pretend that it will always be easy to tell him this story.  I know that there will be times when it is downright painful to help him process what this all means to him, but we are prepared as his parents to do whatever we can to help.  We made this commitment to ourselves and our child from the first conversation we ever had about surrogacy.

Then there was the moment in the ultra sound where I was holding onto the husband, also holding Sabrina’s hand, Cletus was on the screen, tears streaming down my face, and it felt like this was just the way it was meant to be.  I am not sure that I have the words to adequately explain what that moment was like.  All I know is that any worry I ever had about being able to handle surrogacy and whatever came after just melted away.  That squirming little image on the screen was all that mattered to any of us and he was perfect.  I cannot imagine anything that would make me ever not want to continue having those moments.  So Cletus might just be the first “insert brilliant thing here” to have both his mother and surrogate at his “insert fancy award ceremony here”, but I would not have it any other way.  I will always be his mother and she will always be his Aunt Sabrina who spent nine months growing him under her heart.

I will spend the rest of my life trying and falling miserably short of repaying this gift. 

Yikes!

Yikes, these past few weeks have just flown by!  The mother in law was here for a week (everyone say HI she is reading this) really it was a wonderful visit and I am so happy that we got to see her.  The husband could not take the whole week off of work, so for the first time ever she and I spent whole days together.  I will be the first to admit that I was a bit terrified of this, not that she is a scary person, just we had never really hung out alone for that long.  When the husband is around they get into conversations that go strait over my head most of the time, which relieves a lot of pressure to talk.  It was truly a silly thing to worry about, and I seem to be doing a lot more of this needless worrying lately, we had a great time or at least I did.  Since this is my blog I get to say that WE had a fantastic time!

The best part of the whole visit was getting to be around someone else who was so excited about Cletus.  Our immediate families live in different parts of the world, and the ones that live in the same country are very spread out, so there has been little sitting in the same room excitement.  My parents are coming through town this weekend to get me my next fix.  I really think that there is something addictive about people sharing their exicitement with you.  I have actually delayed telling people just so I have enough people to get me enough fixes between now and the baby shower.  I have always known that the husband and I have amazing families and friends, but there is really nothing like the love that surrounds talking about Cletus. 

This is something that I have never heard anyone talk about before.  Now, I have avoided pregnancy talk like the plague making it entirely possible that I just missed this part.  For those of you who know me, I am not a sunshine and rainbows kind of person, but this is just an amazing amount of puppies and unicorns pooping rainbows.  It is also completely terrifying.  We are going to be parents, that cluster of cells in the picture on my fridge is a real being that we are expected to raise to adulthood.  YIKES, this is suddenly a little scary, not that we can’t handle it, just a bit terrifying. 

I have really had a lot in my head that I need to get out here, but those are for different posts, which I promise will be coming quickly.

Take That!!!!

Our BETA number is so good that we are not even having another. Sunday would have been the normal day to test. Since we are insane TTC people that would not work so we had a pratice one on Friday. So I guess you want to know what that amazing number is, because it is so amazingly wonderful that I might just be taking it to college at 10. Oh, something that I need to tell you first the baby has a name Cletus! Since we live in the south no need to worry that the kid will be made fun of, Cletus will fit right in.

Oh yeah you wanted to know the number. How about 139! That is an awesome number.









239 is a much better number and just happens to be ours!!!!!

How I lost the ability to count!

I promised you the transfer house of horrors story.

The day before the transfer I called the clinic to confirm our appointment. At that time I went over what our wishes were. What I thought was a very clear conversation that was understood, I was so very wrong.

We, Sabrina and I, get to the transfer on time which was no easy feat in the pouring rain. Thankfully, the hospital has valet parking, of course I think that the grocery store should have valet parking but that is another story entirely. Everything is going well. Sabrina got all geared up. Embryologist comes into talk with us, and this is where I should have known something was up. She shows me two pictures of very adorable embies. I do not want to know the gender until maybe 20 weeks and I am seriously considering waiting till birth.

We go back to the transfer room. Sabrina gets all strapped in, lights are turned down, and the doc calls for the embies, as in plural. To tell you the truth I did not even really hear him. Sabrina turns to me and asks if we are transferring two. Since this whole adventure began the husband and I have been fanatical about only transferring one at a time. It is something that we feel very strongly about, our lives and personalities are just better suited to parenting one child.

After some prodding I ask if they are aware that we are only transferring one embryo, open flood gates of misery. The doctor stands up and walks over to me, all 6 foot plus of him while I am sitting on a tiny surgical stool, and starts talking about lower percentages of success with just one, blah, blah blah. The problem was that he did not stop there, he asked five times, in five ways, to get me to agree to both embies. Not only was I willing to do two, but I could not have made that decision even if I did want to transfer both. The husband was almost a thousand miles away and unreachable that the time. How many children we purposefully have is not a decision that I could make without consulting with him. Finally, I just said we are only doing only one in a big girl voice that made him stop pestering me or at least I thought.

The embryologist finished prepping the single embryo and brought it into the room. At this point I was just elated to be almost finished with the whole thing and just get out of there. “You do realize that there is only a 30% chance of this working. I really hope this one works for you,” all said with the most condescending bordering on accusatory voice coming out of the doctor’s mouth. Basically, he was making sure that I understand that if this transfer did not take I was fully to blame. I wanted to scream and run out the room after stomping on his foot, but I decided to be a normal person and just wait. After the transfer no words were spoken to us by the doc, which was fine with me.

The more I have thought about the situation the angrier I get, which is very rare for me. 99.9% of the time things bother me for a day and then I am over it or at least very close to being over the situation. Not this time, because there are some very fundamental things wrong with this whole situation that could have had serious consequences for not only my family’s life but also Sabrina and her family. The responsibility that I feel for Sabrina and her family is overwhelming at times. Pregnancy is risky, we all know this, but when that risk is being taken on by someone who only wants to see you happily become a family it creates a need to do everything to reduce any risks. As a mother your first priority is the safety of your child, as an intended mother my first priority is to the woman who is giving our family the chance to grow.

In the eye of this fury hurricane I lost my ability to count. So if you have made it this far you get to hear the real news. Because our BETA would fall on a Sunday the nurse agreed to give us an order for a BETA today. At 8dp5dt our number is a 71!!!! Next BETA Monday!

and then i cried

Now I just feel stupid about my last post. Today is just a simply amazing day. I never thought that seeing TONS of medication and needles not meant for me would bring me to tears, but you learn really fast in this process that anything is possible. Sabrina has her medication, a lot of medication. This is really happening, for real, like in reality, where I live part of the time. Seeing the pictures brought me to tears. Never did I think this was going to happen. Through countless phone calls and tons of logistics, it all just seemed like I was watching a movie of someone else. Now it is real, we are really going to do this.

In The Bog

I found myself in the bog yesterday, one that I have witnessed others sunk in but one that I have never visited. I pulled myself out, with the support of the man who has always stood there and pulled me from the edge. His love and willingness to sit with me through the worst moments will always amaze me, always. This is our relationship, we have seen the worst in each other, we embrace the ugliness, and move through it together. Without our ability to maintain our love for each other through all the dark and frightening places my life with him would not be possible.

Yesterday was the first time that I was terrified of letting him see me in the place where I was sitting. In some way this has all been building over all these years of trying to become a mother, but I ignored the fact that there was the possibility that I could fall. Each turn that we have taken on this road has just been taken. I would feel the pain, mourn the loss of the moments that we would not share and then move to the next step. At times getting to the next step took a long time, but I always found my footing. Every email and every phone conversation felt like it was all part of the universe telling me to just stop, just give up on this silly dream of being a mother and go get a life worth living. Never had I questioned that I was going to become a mother, some way some how I was going to have a child all I had to do is just keep trying and one day I would have the honor of becoming someone's mother.

The bumps were so minor yesterday, miniscule compared to everything that we have gone through to get this close. Our donor had a very low level of nicotine in her urine. The pharmacy and the clinic had a minor bit of miscommunication. The clinic was having miscommunication with Sabrina and I. My husband will be on the other side of the country around our expected due date, if this works the first time. All these things have one common thread, every single one of these is completely out of my control. This is my dream, the one thing that I want more than I can ever begin to describe and it is all in the hands of others. This is something that I have never worried about, I trust Sabrina completely, and I trust our clinic.

Having to stand outside of all this has been bothering me for a while. Not because I have a problem with not being able to just do this on my own. Not having a role at the moment just feels weird. Having a woman willing to give up her body, time and ability to always be with and do things with her own children so that I can become a mother is always going to just be strange. Knowing that a woman is willing to hand over her eggs to us will always be amazing. It is easy to diminish what is happening by saying that monetary compensation is involved, which they are. In the case of the donor I believe that this is a bigger motivation, but in no way is it the only motivation. When it comes to Sabrina I know that the compensation is the smallest part of her motivation. Part of feeling strange about this is my inability to accept that other people are willing to give to me, I am horrible at this. Another part, possibly the bigger part, is that I need to feel a sense of control over what is happening in my life. Handing over the biggest dream in my life is simply terrifying.

Add all of this together and you get a perfect combination for a lot of self doubt. Yesterday, all of it just came to a head. I feel so guilty about even entertaining the idea that I should not be a mother. I have wanted a child since I was a small child myself. Friends in high school called me mom, because I spent a great deal of time mothering them. There is nothing else in my life that had been a more stable character trait. Through all the changes that have occurred at the center of me is my desire to be a mother. Doubting that I should continue to pursue this, even for the briefest of moments, was crushing.

I am much better now. We are going to retest the donor, but our doctor does not believe that such a small amount of nicotine should be a problem. The pharmacy mess up was fixed in 13 minutes. I believe that the communication problem with the clinic has been worked out. If the husband has to be gone, then there is nothing that I can do about it, he has to do what is best for his career. Missing the birth would be sad, but there are years and years of moments that he will be there for and that one moment is really small in the big picture. I no longer believe that there is a vast conspiracy to keep me from motherhood. I just hope that I never go back to that place, because it scared me in a way that I have never been scared.

No Pollyanna Here

Thank you all for the wonderful comments I just adore ILCW!

I want to make something very clear I am no Pollyanna. I have gotten many comments about how positive I am, and thank you for thinking so, but the truth is that it has taken me a very long time to get to this place. Reading posts about the hurtful comments, the wading through the muck and the just general despair is all so familiar. I go to these places all the time, but I have also learned so much from being there.

Hearing people say something just stupid because they have no other words was the first thing that I really had to work on. It was either lock myself in the house or learn to deal with the platitudes. We were at a party a year or so ago and someone asked if we had kids, a person that I had met ten minutes before. The poor unsuspecting woman, who was just trying to start a conversation, got the meanest and nastiest response I could muster. She obviously was embarrassed and for a moment, I took so much pleasure in watching her just squirm. Then I just felt horrible, it was not her fault, she really had done nothing wrong. It was in that interaction that I knew I had to find another way to cope with the questions and comments, because I did not want to be that mean person that took pleasure in others' pain, and I was not going to let my infertility take my humanity, that was a price I was not willing to pay. Intellectually I had known for years that all those comments, from "Just relax" to "A dog is just as good" were never meant to be hurtful, they came from people who loved me, from people who did not want to see me hurt anymore, or from people who were just at a loss for words. In a very bizarre way, they were all telling me that I was loved, in the same way that my husband tells me he loves me when he takes out the trash or cleans the dishes. It may not be the way that I want or need to hear it, but it is still all about love and concern. It is the same way that I instinctively tell those who lose a loved one that I am sorry or a friend with a horrible disease that it will be okay, I have no idea what to say so I pull out the safe platitudes that do nothing. I just had to learn and constantly remind myself that this was love, it was not meant to be hurtful it was meant to make the hurt go away.

In May of 2007 I had my first major baby boom, it seemed like everyone was pregnant and they all announced it at the same time. Every announcement ripped my heart out. I had dealt with those announcements before, but they had always been spread out. Two of the announcements came at the same party; a party that I could not just walk out of and trust me all I wanted to do was run. I was happy for them, I really wanted to share in the joy but I just could not muster the strength. My pain and hurt, my firm belief that I was never going to be a mother stood in my way. I missed the baby showers, I sent a gift and made an excuse and everyone kindly pretended that it was not about the pain even through they knew. I missed the first birthday parties for the same reason. Really, who wants a crying person sitting in the middle of the floor at such happy occasions, no one wants that and no one wants to be that person. Then a friend of mine, a woman who is so amazingly wonderful and who has stood beside me for so long, was having trouble conceiving her third child. Instead of picking up the phone and calling the one person who understood right where she was, she sat with the pain because she felt guilty complaining because she already had two children. Being stuck in the muck of infertility had caused someone I cared about to suffer the same pain without my support, and that ripped my heart out more than any pregnancy announcement or party invitation ever could have. I had to pull myself out of my world and help her deal with her world; I had to find a way to support her through her misery and fear. In order to help her I had to get out of my pain and myself. As difficult as that was, being able to help her was the best thing that could have happened. Her daughter was born two months ago and for the first time, in a very long time, I was able to be happy because a new life came into this world. For those few months I was able to remember, what it was like to not sit in that misery.

As a teen and part of my young adulthood, I was clinically depressed. During that time I believed that it was easier to be miserable, being in that place where all I had to focus on was how unfair the world was and how everything was nothing but a conspiracy to keep me feeling like the dirt on the scum of someone's tennis shoes. Then at some point, and I really have no idea when, it lifted and I felt so much better. I remembered how to laugh and have fun, and that place was so wonderful and amazing. Somewhere along the road that pain seeped back in, and it came so slowly that I had not recognized that it was back. Knowing that someone I loved felt like she could not come to me with her infertility struggle made me realize that I was back in the muck. My misery was so apparent to everyone else that they were afraid to upset me. I knew that being miserable was so much harder than being happy and I knew that if I did not find a way to get out that I was headed back to a place I had fought so hard to get out of. Yes, my infertility hurts and yes, it is unfair, but it is not the only thing in my life. I have so many other things that matter; most importantly, I have amazing people who need me as much as I need them.

The only way that I knew to get out of the despair was to face the worst-case scenario. What would really happen if I were never to be a mother? As terrified, as I was to look at that possibility I knew that without doing so I was just doomed to live in a space that I hated. I would still have amazing people around me, I would still have my husband, and I would still have all the children in my life that I love with all my heart. Childless I would still have a purpose in this world, I would still be a social worker and I would still find ways to have a positive impact on some area of the world. Yes, it would be heartbreaking, but I would still go on. I did not have to be a mother to justify my existence as a woman, being a mother would make me no more of a woman than I already am. The worst thing that could possibly happen would be a deep sadness, and I knew how to deal with that, I knew that there was help and that I was capable to accepting that help. I also knew that there is another side of that pain and that I was capable of making it there. Knowing all of this gave me the power to not always be in that pain. Yes, I want to be a mother more than I want to breathe, otherwise I would not be where I am at the moment. I also know that if this never works my life will still have meaning and purpose I will still have worth.

The weirdest part of being infertile and trying to conceive is that you become a parent to a person who does not exist. You live your life for someone who is not real. Every decision and every action becomes about them, and it is so easy to lose yourself in the process. When I was going through all of this I felt an immense amount of guilt, I felt like even considering the possibility of failure made me a horrible person. What I learned is that it did not. Being able to see the reality of the situation gave me the freedom to heal some wounds and really become a better person. I am in no way saying that every infertile person needs to work through these issues, I would never dare place that on others. I just know that this helped me get to the place where I am able to not always fear the future, and where I am able to enjoy parts of my life that I was unable to before. It has given me the power to control the parts of my life that I am able to and not to constantly worry about the parts that I cannot.

Due Date

We have a due date!!!

Okay, not that kind of due date, but a date none the less. On August 7^th we will know if we will be able to use my eggs! The genetic results will be back on that date. There was a mess up in the insurance and the clinic that delayed the results, we should have had them weeks ago. I was furious when I found this out, and really got to the point where I just wanted to go ahead and get a donor. It was the plan in the beginning so why not?

Why not, becomes a very loaded question where you asurrogacy re talking about the genetics of the child that we are creating. In the beginning, and now, my first priority has been to make sure that my child does not have the bleeding disorder that has made my life so difficult. While I know that there are so many other things, like my huge hips or my learning disability, that I could possibly pass on, but this is something that I can prevent. Sometimes, I believe that part of this is just a need to control the one thing that I have control over in this situation. Then on the days that I am able to actually think clearly I know that this is really about a quality of life issue. Just as we plan to provide the best educational opportunities and medical care that we can, we also want to make sure that our child is in the best health that we can make them from the start.

If we are able to find the fault in my DNA that is causing the von Willebrand disease. We will then be able to move onto Pre-implantation Genetic Diagnosis of our embryos. This is a process that I am still learning about, and there is a lot to learn. I of course will update you all as I begin to know more.

Blogging About Surrogacy

Over the past few weeks, a couple of blogs that I really love have gone private. This is something that I just cannot seem to wrap my head around. Not so much that they would go private, but that they would do so without telling anyone. To tell you the truth, I feel a little hurt that I was not given the opportunity to express my good wishes in the future, or asked to be invited. This feels like a high school clique thing, and I hate that. The world of surrogacy is bigger than most people think, but when it comes to intended parents who are willing to share the world gets much smaller.

Surrogacy is a touchy subject and blogging about it opens you up to a lot of nasty comments, I get that. I keep my personal e-mail address on the side of my blog, so most of the hate comments that I get tend to go through there, so I get these long e-mails about what a horrible person I am and how my child is just going to drain the world of resources and how I am exploiting this poor pitiful woman who has no other options in her life. I write back to every one of these people because I hope that in some small way I can educate them. No matter how bad these comments hurt me, they are going to hurt our child even more. Educating people may just make my child’s life a little easier.

I want to take a moment to answer some of the comments that I have received.

- Adoption, is a wonderful thing and I am a strong advocate for adoption. I am an adopted child, I have worked in the adoption field, and it is something that I believe very strongly in. That said, it is not something that is right for my family. I believe that it is important to know your limits and work within them.

- The world’s resources, yes this is a concern for me. My only question here has always been, what is the difference between having a child that I carry and one that is carried by a surrogate? Does a child carried by another woman use up more resources? No not really. We would still have used IVF resources if I was carrying the child.

- “You will never be the mother of this child.” This one really got to me on so many different levels. First, it came from a woman who has two adopted children. Second, I will always be this child’s mother, I may not have carried them or given birth, but I have literally willed them into being. Third, a mother is not someone who gives birth, yes that can be part of it, but the much larger part is being there for every moment of the child’s life and loving them through all of the good and bad.

When I began this blog my intention was to give myself a place to get all this out because carrying it around was so painful. Over the past year, my goal has shifted, now I want all of this story out there so that one person may not have to feel so alone anymore. When I first started talking about surrogacy to the people in my life it was very difficult. Not because they were unsupportive, but because there were so many questions and so many suspicions. They were trying to protect me, which translates to they love me.

Back when we started this process all I wanted was someone who had been there to tell me that this would work out and that there were people out there who had come through the other side. What I found were horror stories of surrogacy relationships that had gone horribly wrong. I learned from these stories, I read them all and they helped me decide what was and was not right for us. While I was learning from them, I was also being scared away from making our family through surrogacy.

For those of you who have found it necessary to take your blogs private, I will miss you. I am sorry that you feel that you can no longer share your story with the world. For those of you who find the need to berate and be rude to people who are just telling their story, try for a second to put yourself in someone else’s shoes before you say something hurtful.

Where I was, where I am

As many of you are new here, I thought this would be a good time to give a bit of a re-cap.

At age 12, I was diagnosed with a bleeding disorder, von Willebrands disease. This diagnosis was made after I had my period for over 2 months and 3 birth control pills a day were not helping.

At age 20, I was diagnosed with PCOS.

Combine these two disorders, and you have a recipe for disaster in the menstruation department. For almost 20 years, I battled month's long periods, the longest being 6 months and 3.5 weeks. As you can imagine that gets really old really fast. There is not a hormone made that I have not taken, and not one of them worked for longer than a few months.

At 31, I had decided that I could no longer live like that. There was no way that I would ever be able to raise a child when I was wiped out half the time. I opted for an endometrial ablation, kind of like cauterizing your nose only with your uterus. As bad as I was suffering this was a decision that took me almost four years to make.

As an adopted child, with amazingly wonderful parents (HI MOM!!) I have understood for a long time that biology has nothing to do with making a family. My husband (Joe-Bob, which is not his real name) decided that my comfort and health trumped having a child. After the surgery, I began to research the best way to create our family. My main motivation for surrogacy was that I did not want to deprive my husband the chance to have his biological child, not that he ever said that this was important to him, but because I felt so much guilt about not being able to give him this child. He is the love of my life, we have been through hell and back together and I would walk through fire for him.

For over a year, I researched surrogacy as if someone had a gun to my head. We went to an agency thinking that this would be the best way for us to have a great experience. It turned out that we were very wrong, there were many hurt feelings and we almost just gave up. I began this blog because there was so little information from the prospective of the intended parent. My pain and hurt was so deep that there were days when I was unable to think about children, which meant that I spent a lot of time at home staring at the walls. I have always been prone to depression, and spent all of my teen years in such a deep depression that I forgot what it was like to be happy. Thankfully, I came out of this until I thought that all hope of ever having an infant was gone. All those feelings came back and I was scared out of my mind, this was a road that I had been down before and I knew where all the sinkholes were. I was standing right on the edge when I wrote this post. Little did I know that it would bring an amazing woman into my life, Sabrina has been just amazing. She e-mailed me and brought me into a support group that honestly saved my life, and gave me hope that I would become a mother. Months later, Sabrina agreed to be our surrogate, this amazing woman was going to help us create our family, to this day I only half believe how lucky we are.

Here we are.

• Our contracts are signed.
  
• We have our first clinic appointment.
  
• We are waiting on the genetic testing to see if we can do PGD on the embies, so that I can use my own eggs.
  
• Sometime in August or September, we should be transferring.
  
• We are just transferring ONE, because the idea of two at a time makes me want to hide in my closet.
  

Please feel free to ask me anything that you want. I LOVE questions, almost as much as I love comments. No question is stupid, I understand that this is something that most people do not know a lot about.

WELCOME!!!

A Match Made in Heaven

Sabrina and her husband and my husband and I all had dinner together tonight. This is the first time that we have met face-to-face. It was like having a meal with old friends. We laughed, ate way too much, and just had the best time ever.

We are the luckiest people in the world to have found such a wonderful woman and her husband to help us create our family. They are just the most amazing people. It is important for us to all remember that the spouses of our surrogates go through this with us too. I am just so excited about all of this that I really am at a loss for words, so I will leave you with a picture.

A Word of Caution

Please go read Sabrina's post about her problems with insurance from her first journey. It is important that we are all as educated as possible when it comes to these issues.

A Whirlwind

I have been super busy and there is no slowing down in sight.

The husband and I went to Denver last Thursday to see The Dead, it was an amazing show and a wonderful graduation gift. This will hopefully be our last show without a baby, yes we plan on taking the baby if we ever get the chance. I think that it is important for children to have these experiences, and let's face it these great bands are not going to be around forever. It was also just nice to get away and have a couple of days without worrying about the surrogacy and genetics. Sometimes the best thing to do is just to take a small mental break.

I graduated with a B.S. in Psychology and a B.S. in Social Work on Saturday!!!! College has been a huge struggle for me, like most things in my life. I was diagnosed with a learning disability in the fourth grade, so graduating from college is something that I did not always believe would be possible for me. I am not used to completing things in my life, most of the time when things get really hard I run. I ran a lot from college, which is why it took me 16 years to finish. I finally feel like things in my life are really coming together. As much as that scares me to death it also feels wonderful. The most wonderful part is that I did not wake up on Sunday morning feeling like some kind of adult, I just woke up and felt like there was one less thing on my plate.

At the end of this week we are going to visit Sabrina and her family!!!! Part of me is super excited. Another part of me is really scared, not because of anything anyone has done, but because until now I have been able to live a bit disconnected from this whole experience. It is safe hanging on the edges of the orbit, and I am comfortable here. I am so excited to get started, but I am also scared that these steps ahead of us are not stable and could be masking a lot of heartache and pain. I know that focusing on this part is not going to so me any good, but I am a prepare for the worst and be happy when the best happens.

I really am excited about finally being able to sit across from Sabrina and meet her family. I know that whatever the future brings that I will be able to handle the situation. The streangth that I have and my amazing support system ensures that there is nothing that I cannot survive.

A Year in Blogland

A year ago, today I started writing here, in the hopes that this would just be a place where I could vent and chronicle this journey for myself. I never really thought that anyone besides the people that I knew in person, okay my mom, would ever read what I had to say. Over this year though so much has changed, more than I ever imagined. The people that I have met and the stories that I have been privy to are so amazing that I have no words to describe how I feel about them. On the days when I think that there is no more that I can take, when this journey just becomes overwhelming I come here and all of you show up and find healing. The healing comes from every comment, every view, and every other story that all of you allow me into. There are the times when this journey actually goes right, when I cannot wait to come here and share the news, and you all show up and celebrate with me. Infertile is not a title anyone of us wanted, and this is not the club that we want to belong to and this makes the support even greater. The fact that so many people in the world can show up and support each other through something that is often horrendous, will never cease to amaze me. So, I am going to use this post to thank all of you, if I forget anyone it is not because I do not care, it is just my little brain gets overwhelmed.

Amanda, this would have never started without you. It was because of you that I had the courage to come out and tell this story. You are an amazing friend, I could never be able to articulate the ways you have made me a better person.

Mel, all of us infertiles owe you a debt of gratitude that I cannot begin to comprehend, thank you for bringing us all together and making me so much less lonely. I will never be able to put into words what you have done for me.

Sabrina, what can I say? You found me at my lowest, when I was ready to give up. You took a chance and let me into a group that has saved me more times than I can count. That would have been enough, just to have you next to me while I walked this path. The fact that you will be carrying our child still astounds me. Thank you is too minute a word.

Emily, my hopeless Emily, you have given so much hope. You have let me into your life in a way that I could have never imagined. Your strength is infectious, and I could have not gotten through this last year without you.

Amani, you are constantly amazing me and have taught me so much about overcoming what feels like insurmountable problems. The way that you are able to take a situation that would break others and use it to change the world so that others may realize their dreams, is awe-inspiring.

Allison, I could not ask for a better cheerleader. Even when you are working so hard with your own journey, you have always been there to encourage me.

Meredith, your writing takes my breath away, your talent as a photographer inspires me. Sharing your journey over the past year has given me the ability to open up here and learn that fear will get me nowhere.

Momsoon, thank you for making this world of surrogacy feel much less lonely.

Duck, you handle all of this with a grace that I can only hope to have. Thank you for teaching me that surrogacy is truly as beautiful as I imagine.

Daniele, you are always there to comment and support me even when things are not going well for you. Just reading your beautiful writing has given me the ability to heal more than you will ever know.

Cara, you give me the strength to face the days that I feel like will finally cripple me. The Bear and The Comedian keeps reaffirming that I am working towards what I really want.

Mrs. French thank you for the beauty you bring into my darkest days, and all the shopping you make me want to do.

Kristen, your constant comments make me want to keep doing this.

Corine, the humor and beauty you bring into my life is so important. It is also her birthday today (hint, hint, wink, wink)

Yolanda, you are my self-esteem coach. You do not blog nearly enough, I only say this because I miss you. Thank you for the amazing amount of support that you have given me, it mean more than you will ever know.

Lisa, you are my geeky comedian and the person that is never afraid to say what is on her mind. Thank you for the friendship and the smartass comments.

Cyn, you just amaze me.

Anonymous, who commented yesterday. Please feel free to e-mail me anytime.

To all of you, who I may have forgotten, thank you. All of you really mean the world to me. I never thought that this community would give me so much. It is hard to feel like I take so much more than I will ever give, but I am trying. Please go read some of these amazing women, I promise your life will change.

I look forward to being with all of you in the next year. To share all the moments that makes our lives and our world a little better.

An Infertile Life

As part of National Infertility Awareness Week, I have been reading some new blogs, not commenting as much as I should, but learning new stories and processing the enormity of the issue. It is so easy to for me to let myself get wrapped up in my own little world; this cocoon is safer than out there in the big world. Out there, I live in fear of the questions and having to give answers that make others uncomfortable. It has been my experience that when others become uncomfortable the platitudes begin to fly. All the ones that we have heard at some point or another, those comments that are made to end the conversation and to lock our mouths. Those comments that just scream, "I am incapable of dealing with your pain, so just keep it to yourself."

Relaxing is not going to get me pregnant. Adoption is not that simple. A dog is not a child. My time will not just come, I have to struggle to parenthood. Going on vacation is not a cure for infertility, if it were I would be living in the Caribbean.

No doubt that this is an uncomfortable topic, it is painful, personal, and sad. Therefore, I have decided to let it all out. If you cannot read any further that is fine. If you do, I hope that it helps you understand or gives you somewhere to direct someone who is having a hard time understanding you.

I am just going to list all the ways that this marathon to parenthood has changed my life, the good, the bad, and the indifferent.

Any modesty that I began with is gone. Once you have discussed you sex life, been poked and prodded, had countless internal sonograms, and had everyone in the free world examine all the workings, there is just nothing left. My dignity has gone the same way. Not only has my body failed me but also it has come to define me, what I had of brains and talent no longer mean anything, I am just a broken body.

Over these years, I have walked around like a shell of a person. It is nearly impossible to continue with a real life when all your energy is focused on one event, one moment in time. I would guess that this is what it is like for someone with a substance addiction to function in the world, constantly searching for the next fix. My life has become an endless search for becoming a mother, I read, research, and thrive off this quest. At times, I understand that it is destroying my relationships, my future, and me; I am unable to give up. I cannot let this defeat me, with all the pain it brings; I just have to keep going. All those times that I have not gone to the baby shower, all the times that I have missed the birthday party, all the times that the birth announcements get tossed aside with nothing more than a glance, and all the announcements of pregnancy make me angry, have all stolen pieces of me and ended friendships. I do not want to be this person, I want to feel the joy and excitement, I want to be 100% elated for all these people because that is what they deserve, the pain just stands in the way. This all will bite me one day.

All the times that I have wanted to be with my friends and family, on the holidays and special occasions. Those times when I am there just thinking about next year, the future that will bring a child. I have robbed myself and them of these moments. I smile through these moments, and know that I am not the person that they deserve. No matter how much I want to give them all of me the majority of the time it is just not possible. There are different reasons in different situations but the result is always the same I am not fully there. Dealing with infertility is stealing my moments, my relationships, and major parts of my life. it is also stealing me away from my family and friends.

I feel a constant guilt for my infertility. I blame myself for not being a better person, for not being more deserving of motherhood, and for stealing the chance for my husband to be a father, my parents to have grandchildren, my sister to be an aunt, and my friends to have one more child in their life to love. This is not all about me, yes, I am the one with the problem, but it affects all of us. I know that there are times when they hurt just as bad as I do, because this is there loss as well. Of course, this is something that I have always kept to myself all these years. Seriously, how so you tell anyone that you feel this way about yourself? It is a burden to put that on other people.

Not only have I walked around with all this pain, trying so hard not to put it on others, but I also try so hard to be a whole person. It is hard to measure if I am successful at this because it is almost impossible for me to gauge how others see me. I am almost certain that this is a universal problem, the majority of people have no idea how others perceive them. I guess I could ask, but the truth is I do not really want to know. The feeling that I am not really a woman shadows the feeling of not being a whole person. Frustration and anger accompany the fact that my body refuses to do what the majority of women have no problem doing, just simply having a baby. As a child, I always believed that I would grow up get married and have a baby, sound pretty simple and straight forward. Not for me, no matter what I have done, there was just no way that this was going to happen for me. I am so unhappy with myself all of the time, even now when I have made peace with the fact that motherhood is not going to happen for me the way I dreamed. This anger just will not go away, these feelings of inadequacy sit in the pit of my stomach and in some ways, and they are eating me alive.

Over the years, it has become necessary for me to harden my heart, build walls that deflect all of these feelings, without these defenses I will crumble. The walls that protect me also keep me from living the way that I want. As much as I want people to be close to me, I am afraid that my damage will infect them. What this really means is that those who want to love me have to work that much harder, most people are unwilling to do this and I understand the result is that with each passing year I become more isolated. Just at the time when I should be surrounding myself with support, I am incapable of letting people get that close that easily. It also is not fair to the people who love me because they have to work that much harder to stay near me. I do not want to make them go through this with me and at the same time, I am incapable of surviving without them.

There was a time when this all got so bad, where I had sunk so deep, that living childless was the answer. I had resigned myself to having a life where no one would ever call me mother. It was actually a very liberating moment. I found enough strength in myself to know that I could learn to live without the one thing that I had always wanted. It was during this time that I learned to concentrate on myself; it was also when I learned a lot about healing and what happens to a heart that has been shattered. I was never going to be the same person again. At the time we decided that, we were ready to have a child and that we both were just lying to ourselves when we said that we did not, I learned that healing is not always lasting.

Complete healing may never happen there is a very real possibility that I will be broken forever. For a long time I told myself that once we got to parenthood, once we started the process the healing would begin. Now that we are there, I am learning that there is nothing that will make this all go away; I will forever be an infertile woman. The best that I can hope for is that the pain will fade and my heart will soften, and I am okay with that. More importantly, I know that it is no one else's responsibility to save me, especially the child that we are creating. I am learning to rise above this; I am learning to not allow being an infertile woman be the only thing that I am.

In all the sadness and tragedy to this, some wonderful things come out of infertility. Compassion, just being able to sit in those uncomfortable moments with someone, I am so much better at this than I ever was before. Not that being there is always easy, but after years of platitudes and stupid comments I have learned that there is nothing better than someone just being willing to sit and listen. No one has the power to fix these issues, but they do have the power to help me heal. It is as simple as just being able to listen and care. I am going to live with this forever, my family will live with this forever, and my child will live with this forever.

All these years will become part of my child's story. This makes me so aware of how everyone in this situation is treated because he/she will forever be a child of surrogacy a journey that he/she did not choose. I really overlooked this for a long time. Sure, I knew that one day this would be part of the story that created our child, but for some reason I was just not able to understand that one day this story would wholly belong to them. The best that I can do is making sure that they are created with as much love as I already feel for them.

In Limbo

We are still waiting on the contracts and my genetic testing. So right now we are just waiting, nothing is happening except angry calls and pacing. I am just so ready for this part to be over. It does not help that I have a whole month off, which just adds to the waiting. I am currently in that space between one thing is about to end and another is about to begin. A month from now I will wish that I had this time back, but at the moment it is a bit overwhelming.

Getting my hopes up is just not something that I can allow myself at the moment. I am afraid that if my expectations are not met that I will just become more numb than I am now. Over the years I have dealt with all the disappointments by just growing a tougher skin. Each scab that has gotten pulled just leaves a thicker skin, and it is now to the point where I am afraid it will turn to stone.

Part of me believed that once we got this process started I might begin to soften, as if moving forward would be like an exfoliate. This has not been the case, it is not getting any worse which is wonderful, but it is also not getting any better. It is not a bad thing, it just is and for right now that is okay. Just being is not something that I have been able to do in a long time. In fact, it has been so long that I find it a bit uncomfortable, almost anxiety provoking in fact.

All these years have changed me. Some of the things have been for the best, but some have not. Maybe that is what this time is for. I need to redefine who I am now, learn where I fit now. Spending years as the inactive infertile has left me complacent. I guess for now it is just growing pains.

wow these are harder than i thought.

Contracts!! Don't they sound like the most fun you can ever have. They are so much fun I am thinking of having my toenails pulled out next.

This is one of the most important and one of the most uncomfortable parts of surrogacy. This document is to protect all parties involved, legally define the relationship and in the end make it possible to take the baby home. In all the research I have done on surrogacy, I have found very little information on what is normally included in a contract and what others expect out of these contracts. So, I am going to try and give you an example of what we have done, what we feel is important, and what we have had to decide that we did not expect.

This is just the initial basics that you need to think about.

- Get a lawyer who specializes in third party reproduction law. Having someone who is already familiar with the process will save you a lot of time and a lot of money. I would also suggest finding someone who charges a flat rate, because I thought this was going to be cut and dry and it turned out to be anything but. We are currently on our second draft and I am thinking there is a good possibility for a third.

- Be clear about what you want. This is not the time to commit to things that you are unable or unwilling to do.

- Prepare yourself for questions that you never wanted to think about. Trust me they are in there and you are going to be very uncomfortable at moments, but more about that later.

The nitty gritty:

• Compensation:
  
  
  • One what dates are you going to pay your surrogate?
    
    
    • Most compensation starts at some point after the first positive blood test, and then in regular intervals thereafter.
      
  • How much are you paying for housekeeping and childcare?
    
    
    • Make sure that you and your surrogate have an accurate idea of how much this is really going to cost. In the event that she is on bed rest the amount agreed on needs to cover everything that she will need to take care of her children and her home. The number may look scary, but it is also vital for everyone to know what will be needed in the worst-case scenario.
      
    • Come up with a limit for bed rest and one for the third trimester. I have never tried to clean a toilet 9 months pregnant, but I imagine it is not an easy task.
      
    • Remember that this is for the health of your child. I know I was initially not in love with the idea that she would have a house cleaner and I would still be cleaning my own house. Really, this is just to give her a hand when it is not in the best interest of your child for her to be doing all that work. Of course, I had these thoughts pre-Sabrina, post-Sabrina I would hire a cleaning crew for her right now; then again, I would also hire the celebrities of her choice to carry her around.
      
    • Just so there are not any questions of abuse of these services, put a daily cap on what will be paid out for these services. This helps everyone be clear on what is and is not permissible.
      
    • As with everything else this will be a personal experience, and what is right for me will not always be right for you.
      
• Insurance
  
  
  • How much life insurance are you going to purchase for your surrogate for the benefit of her family? Yes, I just said life insurance. Pregnancy and birthing are not risk free activities. While the chances are small, she is putting her life on the line. For us, there is no way that we could live with ourselves if we did not know that her husband and children would have a buffer financially if something were to happen to her. (I told you there were things that you did not want to have to think about.)
    
  • Health Insurance!! Do not assume anything. Get it all in writing, once they have written it down they are legally obligated to fulfill their promises. One issue that we ran into was that our insurance will not cover the child while they are out of state, this is not written anywhere in our books. Thankfully, we found this out by asking and were able to make other arrangements.
    
• Death, the part that we really do not want to talk about.
  
  
  • What happens if the intended parents die? You need to identify who will take custody of the child if something were to happen.
    
  • What happens if the surrogate dies, but life support could be used until the baby was viable? I warned you that this got nasty. For us, we have no interest in turning Sabrina into a human incubator. Nor do we want her family to have to watch her in that situation just so we can have our child. It is a horrible thing to think about, but it needs to be thought out. This is a situation that we both feel strongly about, and also one that none of us really wants to talk about, but I know we will all sleep better knowing that it is taken care of.
    
• Legal representation
  
  
  • It is important that everyone has an attorney. For some people this will make having to talk about these uncomfortable situations much easier, just let the lawyers talk to each other.
    
• How much are you going to compensate for invasive and other procedures?
  
  
  • Having a huge needle in your belly is uncomfortable. Who am I kidding, it is down right painful and terrifying. There are also all other kinds of procedures that hurt. What you are compensating for is pain and suffering, and these things fall under that category. There are additional fees associated with doing these procedures. I would say that it is best to define these procedures to the best of your ability, this helps with any confusion that could lead to a strained relationship later on.
    
  • Along the same line it is preferable that you do some research on these procedures and decide what you may or may not want. This does not have to go in writing, but at least you will know what it means when someone starts spewing abbreviations at you.
    
• Travel
  
  
  • Where can the surrogate go and when? There are laws that make it impractical for her to travel outside her state after a certain amount of time. Surrogacy contracts are not enforceable in all states, in fact most states do not even recognize them. If you have questions about this ASK.
    
  • If you are doing this without an agency, and with some agencies, you are going to have to work out these arrangements. It is important to define how much she and the person traveling with her will have for food and other incidentals.
    

The most important thing with these contracts is to be honest. This is the time to speak up. If the person decides not to work with you because of something, then it is a good guess that there would have been trouble when you are dealing with the situation. I understand the feeling of desperation and fear that comes with this relationship. You want to be the perfect person in the beginning because you just want them to like you. Think of it this way, when you first start dating someone how long does it take for you to finally be the real you? If you are like me, not long and defiantly before 9 months. It is better to know that you are not a right fit before your lives are forever entwined. The right person will come along.

For those of you that have been through this I would love to hear the things that worried, surprised, or made you laugh.

Toxic Anger

Over the years, I have done a lot of research on planning my family, and this research has taken me to some very dark places. No one wants to be in the place where we are having to research alternative family making and there is nothing worse than reading all the stories about people who want to prey on us because of our desperation. Many people approach the business of creating a family from a place of distrust, and this distrust is often a posture that is necessary. Sad as it is, the fact is that there are many people who make a living promising others the sky, only to take what they can and run.
There is another reason for this distrust that I think a lot of people are reluctant to speak about. I know for myself, I have spent a very long time being angry, very angry. None of this is fair; my body is refusing to perform the most basic of biological functions. There are people who judge me every day for the decisions that I have made. There are days when I look at children and think that they were all put here just to remind me of what I will never have. Over the years I have missed events, because I cannot find it in me to be around children. While I love all the children in my life, they have also been the source of a lot of heartache. So on top of all the anger at my body, I am angry that the world can seem to keep turning while I am crushed. I am angry that there are people who do not want their children, who seem to pop them out on after the other, I am angry at all the people who judge me, I am angry at the world some days, and I am angry at all the people who tell me that I should not be angry and that the anger is just making things worse.
Here is where it gets tricky. From my observations there are some people out there who go into their relationship with their surrogate and forget where the anger belongs. My anger is my own and I am the only one who is allowed to play with it. I know this goes against everything that we were taught in preschool, but here it is appropriate. Just as I would never share a snotty rag with someone, because I would not want to give them an illness, I cannot share my anger either because it is just as infectious. I think that many people do not recognize this because it comes out in very odd little passive aggressive ways. The most common is being annoyed about the money that must be spent. Now this is a very fine line, and I would tell anyone that you should never pay out anything that is not spelled out in your contract. This is the whole point of a contract. Sure there are going to be little things that can be forgotten, but this is why you take your time and make sure that you are not forgetting anything. That piece of paper is there for everyone’s protection and should not be rushed, even when it feels like you are never going to get it done.
This is also why I think that is important that intended parents be emotionally ready to enter into a relationship with their surrogate. It is not easy to do this, but it is incredibly important for everyone involved. Why add stress to an already stressful situation? A few more months is really nothing in the scheme of things, and it really is nothing to ensure that you have the healthiest baby possible. I know that I have given up a lot in deciding to use a surrogate. I know that there are going to be times when I am going to sit in the floor and cry because I am missing out on parts of the experience. I also know that I am going to experience something that very few people ever do; a relative stranger (who will forever be a part of my family) is willing to give up at least a good year of her life so that my dream can come true. I do not want any of my own issues to get in the way of having this experience.
The only way to ensure this is a good experience for all of us is to make sure that we are clear about our expectations from the beginning. How would I be any different from all the scammers out there, if I promised things that I had no intention of doing? If you do not want to share pictures or have any contact after the birth, then you need to make that clear from the beginning. You should never promise anything just so someone will work with you. That is unfair to that person, but more importantly it is unfair to your child. This is their history and their beginnings in the world. Do you really want that all to be built on a lie? One day they are going to have to be told, whether you think they will or not, and do you really want to have to tell them about the lie that started their life. Yes, creating a child is all about us right now and our desire to be parents, but one day it will all be about the child and they deserve to be created in a place of honesty and trust.
If this post has offended you, I am not sorry. It is my opinon that things that offend often hold truth.

Spinning Head

I never thought we would get here. The contracts should be ready for review by Thursday!! I know it blew my mind too. With every step that we take this becomes more real to me. it is not that all this was not real, it is that I never really let myself truly feel like we were ever going to be parents. Sure I always knew that this is where we were heading, but I just never really believed that we were going to get anywhere close.

While I have said this a thousand times, I worry that all these years have obliterated parts of me. The fact that I can let myself get excited about pieces of paper make me feel like I can recover form this. One day these scars will fade, like stretch marks. At the same time I am careful to guard myself, there are still a million things that can go wrong. I am just so grateful to have all these amazing people on my side. In this adventure the most important component, is not the quality of the materials or the experts on the team, it is the people who are willing to walk through the dark forest when you are completely lost. Once you have these people with you, all the dead ends and u-turns are so much easier. Even when some of these people come with snide remarks, often made out of ignorance, they are valuable.

Thus far, the contracts have been the most stressful. You find this amazing person that you want to work with and then you have to dig through all the details of their life. A personal relationship that, to me at least, feels like a marriage turns into what at times feels like a hostile takeover. I know that this will all go away once we get through this, but it is just so uncomfortable. Like medicine that you know is working because it burns, getting the contracts done and getting them done right is painful but important if you want to keep your body parts. No matter how much we want to make this all about the personal relationship, and I think for us it is 99.99% of the time. I also want to make sure that all our butts are covered under the law. Our contract process has been fairly straight forward, and I think that can be attributed to the fact that all of us feel like we can speak our minds about the whole process. That and we try to keep a sense of humor about the whole thing.

LAUGHTER!!! It will save you more than it will ever cost you.

Adventures in Insurance

Have I mentioned how much I hate relying on others to do things for me? This is the control freak in me coming out. I know, not very conducive to the whole surrogacy experience. Good thing that I recognize this and have informed Sabrina that she has my full permission to slap me upside the head if I pull the whole controlling crazy lady act on her. It is also good that most of the insanity I manage to keep to myself, which I think is part of the reason that I never considered myself a control freak. I mean are you really a control freak if you do not make others suffer along with you?
So now we are caught in the most sadistic game of “Mother May I” that anyone has ever played. You know the game, we used to play as kids, where you would make your friends do insane things just so they could boss others around too, the one where if you forgot to say “Mother May I” you had to go back to the start. Really it was just a game to torture the hyper kids, and show everyone who your bestest friend was, or at least make others try to promise you that you could be their best friend if you would only let them win. Well now I am playing the adult version. This time I am waiting on doctors, lawyers, this specialist and that specialist. Nothing that I do is going to make any of this go faster.
Then there is the whole take a tiny step forward and take 6 giant leaps back. We just found out that our insurance is not going to cover the baby while they are out of state. Sabrina is not going to come here to give birth, she has a life you know. So now I have the fun task of trying to figure out how to get the munchkin covered. Easier said than done. The first hurdle is trying to get people to understand that you are calling about a child that has not been conceived. After they quit laughing in your face, you then have to convince them that you are not insane. Some of these insurance people are real pains to deal with.
Here is a sample conversation:
Yes, I know that it seems way too early to be talking about this Mr./Ms. Insurance Person, but you have to understand that I am a newly diagnosed control freak.
NO, there is no code for that, I am not requesting treatment for myself, I just want to find out about covering a child that may or may not be born a year or so from now.
NO, not an elephant, a human child.
YES, I know that it only takes 9 months to make one of those, I refer you back to the start of this conversation, you are dealing with a C-O-N-T-R-O-L F-R-E-A-K.
EXCUSE ME, I do not need everyone in your call center laughing at me, could you please take me off the speaker phone?
YES, I understand that no one is going to believe this one. That is your fault for not being a more credible person.
Somewhere in all this they do manage to pull it together long enough to actually give me some information. Like I said this is just an example, and has been infused with humor. Most of the time I am talking to an idiot who just passes me on to the idiot supervisor after I get them confused enough. I know that we will get this worked out, I just wish I could find one person with half a brain to speak with.