Countdown: 4 weeks: The big surgery to-do list

4 weeks until I'm the proud recipient of some real live health insurance.

I work in healthcare. And I don't have any. And I will keep my thoughts about the US healthcare system to myself. For now.

Despite the politics of it all, I am SO EXCITED. And nervous. I am very very nervous because so many things have to happen. And not only happen, but turn out well.

• HR has to process my health insurance forms correctly so that my coverage actually starts on October 1 (no small feat)
• My lady bits, which can't grow babies, but can grow fibroids! and polyps! and dermoids! have to still be a good candidate for a myomectomy
• My doctor has to have an opening in late october and agree to book my procedure
• My insurance has to pre-auth and pay for my procedure
• I can't develop any pre-op complications
• My doctor has to be able to get the fibroids and the polyp out in one procedure, and declare my uterus fixed and ready for baby makin'
• I can't develop any post-op complications

Then comes 3 months of recovery and a much longer IVF to-do list. But I'll save that for another day.

Fingers crossed!

Second. Best. Website. Ever.

S is definitely the gay man in our relationship. She is the go to person for design questions, matters of aesthetics, and a bitchy retorts. (Also, sometimes she is also a big ol' queen, but that's another story.) I, on the other hand, am the practical one. I can't tell you the difference between ochre and amber, but I can tell you where to get the best deal on your paint.

Anyway, we're doing some house updating and I've been trying to help with the choosing-of-the-new-colors. My brain hurts.

Enter this.

Hello magic color matcher thingy. I love this place. So pretty! So easy! Everything looks good together and I don't even have worry my pretty little head over what goes together.

You're welcome.

And if you want to know the first best website ever, you can find it here.

Home study renewal...it's a process

Oh ditzypants, what would our home study be with out you?
(likely, a more enjoyable experience)

Phone rings.
Ditzypants: Hi. I'm on your street but I can't find your house. Which side of the street is it on?
Me: Well, that depends where you're coming from.
Ditzpants: I'm at the intersection of your street and your cross street.
Me (looking outside): Well, again, that depends which way you're coming from, but do you drive a grey car?
Ditzypants: Yes.
Me: I can see your car. Just turn around, we're the brick house on the opposite corner.
*Much conversation ensues and after another 10 minutes, she arrives at our house*

Home study interview begins.
Ditzypants: So, this is a home study renewal?
Us: Yes.
Ditzypants: Have you heard from any birth mothers in the last year?
Us: Yes, two.
Ditzypants: Wow! That's terrific! What amazing news! I'm so happy for you!
Me in my head: Are you kidding me? Do you not know how this story ends? Do you see any babies in this house?

Scene.

Anniversary. The "fuck, this-again?" kind.

It's here (well, in a few days). The anniversary of our home study and when our adoption profile went live. I'm kind of...jaded. I have my sad days. And my hopeful days. But mostly, I'm kind of numb. I definitely have my jealous days. And my ragefull it's-not-fair days. And my happy daydreaming days. But sometimes, I'm just really, really over it. Not over the wanting kids - the wanting to be a parent. But over the waiting and wondering. Over the stupid agency. Over the emotional roller coaster.

Here are some stats on our first 12 months with a live profile:

• We were directly contacted by 4 birth mothers
• 1 never called us back
• 1 was not actually pregnant
• 2 were matches
• Our hard-copy profile was sent out by our agency 56 times (that doesn't include the 3 months that they forgot to keep stats. However, it does include the multiple times that they sent it to potential birth families that did not match our "profile")
• There are 411 families listed with our agency (as of today) and we are number 182 (which doesn't mean anything, really, since this is not the local starbucks and we are not in line waiting our turn)
• We started "trying" (one way or another) just 1 month shy of 3 years ago
• We feel more prepared to be parents now than we did 3 years ago
• I feel less hopeful, now, that we will be parents than I did 3 years ago
• We recently moved to a "good" school district, even though we don't actually have any children

Here's to this list looking very, very different in August 2013....

Double Fisting It*

Life is barreling forward like a freight train. The good kind of freight train that you are happy to see and that gives you the the warm fuzzies. I was *finally* offered that job I've been talking about forever. And I took it! Today marks the completion of my first week. It's definitely an adjustment, but I I like it, and I am SO GLAD we made that decision. Bye bye being my own boss, hello health insurance! The sad news is that there's a 3 month waiting period before my benefits kick in (grrrrr), but the good news is that I did some finagling and my benefits start October 1. Bring it. This Fall = me + uterine surgery. Can't wait.  If everything goes according to plan (and it usually doesn't, but I'm hoping for the best here), I'll have surgery in late October and a successful round of IVF in February. Fingers crossed.

In the meantime, we are about 3 weeks out from our 1-year adoption profile anniversary. And that means things are ramping up to renew our home study. It's kind of a bummer because I thought for sure we'd be done with the waiting part before a year rolled around. But instead we just have 2 failed matches. Maybe 3rd time is the charm. (Coincidentally, we were assigned the same ditzypants social worker for our 2012 home study as we were for our 2011 home study. Original story is here: part I, part II, part III)

I'm super excited (and thankful) that we're able to keep both of these doors open. This is what we wanted from the beginning (one successful pregnancy/birth, one successful adoption) and I am glad we're forcing our way down both paths.

*S says this is a very dirty thing to say. Where I come from, it means doing two things at once - particularly, holding a beer in each hand. Either way, clearly inappropriate for the current topic of discussion.

Stuck. Unstuck.

I have not been good at this blogging thing. It was feeling like too much of a highs (yay! good news!) and lows (boo! bad news!) place. But mostly I've been stuck somewhere in the middle. S.T.U.C.K. We've been on this roller coaster for about 3 years now (how did that happen?). And we've put so much of our life on hold. S considered going back to school or getting a different job a million times, but always backed off because, "what if peanut gets here". We thought about moving, but didn't want to make the financial (or even geographical) commitment because we didn't know what was going to happen with adoption or IVF. I never wanted to plan things more than a month or two in advance, even taking long-term work projects would make me nervous..."what if peanut gets here." And honestly, that was kind of a sucky way to spend the last 3 years. So we stopped. Being stuck. And here's what our life looks like now:

Work. S found some amazing opportunities in our city. She applied. She passed the phone interview. She has an on-campus interview next week. I am SO PROUD of her. And we are both so excited for the opportunities that might be headed her way. I know she's going to rock that interview. She's one of those fun, interesting, witty people that other people love to be around (she's the tigger - while I'm one of those people who should live their whole life on the internet - moody, snarky - the eeyore of the relationship). AND, her potential new job believes in domestic partnership (bring on the health insurance!). They don't cover IVF, but they do cover maternity, so we could potentially try to knock me up again. As far as my work, I'm still waiting on the July 17 deadline to find out if I'm going to be offered a new job (with IFV!) or not. It's not looking promising. And I'm feeling rather disgruntled about working with that client in general. However, I'm glad that the offer is still on the table.

Kids. Have I told you how much I CAN'T STAND our adoption agency? I am SO FRUSTRATED with them. The amount of craziness that has gone on is ridiculous. But I feel like our hands our tied (clearly, they ask for their $ upfront for good reason). We have been pushing back and speaking up when we feel like we can. And just taking deep breaths through the rest. I did talk to the birth mother who wants to place her toddler (I called her! On the phone! All scared and introverted like!). I'll admit, I had made some pretty serious judgements about her in my own mind. And I was WRONG. She loves her kids. She's involved in their lives. She's trying really hard to do the right thing. And honestly, I don't know what the right thing is. She doesn't feel capable of parenting and she doesn't have the support to get through this and she wants to give her baby a life she feels she can't provide, so she's decided the best way to deal with all of that is to find a situation with adoptive parents who can provide what she feels she can't (time, patience, experiences, encouragement, etc). I don't know that there's a "good" answer to this situation. If she chooses to continue parenting, I hope she is able to find access to the resources that could help her be the parent she wants to be, and if she chooses to place her child, I hope she picks us, as I think we'd do a pretty amazing job at raising that little boy and honoring his birth mama and what she wants for his life. I don't know where things go from here. At this point we're just going to step back and be available if she reaches out to us again.

Life. We took a vacation! S and I have been working hard. And we were both close to burn out. So we escaped to our own little magical bubble in mexico for a few days and it was absolutely perfect. Did you know Puerto Vallarta was SO GAY? We thought it might be itsy bitsy gay, but no, that town is OUT. When we checked in at our hotel (that pic is not actually where we stayed, just some fancypants photo I found online) they gave us a map of the city and circled the "gay part". They actually wrote "gay part" on our map so we'd be sure to know :) They even asked how long we'd been together and if we were celebrating an anniversary or anything. Sometimes I forget I'm a regular person with a regular wife who lives a regular life. It's nice to be reminded sometimes that being gay isn't so damn weird.

Faster than a speeding bullet

I feel like time is rushing by. Everything is moving forward and changing and I am standing still. I had a really good cry this weekend. And did I ever need it. This constant infertility stuff is hard. Like slamming your fingers in the door over and over and over. And over. I am sad we don't have kids. I'm am sad my kids will never know my grandpa. I am jealous that BFF is now pregnant with her second and we started trying at the same time. I am frustrated by how much I can't stand our adoption agency, but they have us by the balls financially. And this is not a matter of I've-waited-so-long-and-now-I-don't-like-my-agency. They just aren't supportive like we thought they would be. They sold themselves as this great agency that provided support to adoptive parents and birth parents. But really, they are just a glorified marketing agency - and not a good one at that. I sooooo want to complain. But from what I've read online, everyone who has complained has been told to take their profile down until they "deal with their anger". Nice. The top 2 reasons we picked this agency are 1) they work openly with gay people and 2) they said they provide free lifetime counseling for birth parents. But during that last match - before it fell through - we received a letter saying they would not provide counseling to the birth mother because she lives too far away. She lives about 45 minutes from the agency. WTF? And even support via phone is better than none at all! I feel like they bait and switched us. And I feel like a chump for falling for it. But mostly I'm just mad because everyone involved in the process deserves so much more.

As far as real life updates - we haven't heard from the agency in a week regarding the potential toddler situation. I'll email tomorrow to see if there are any updates. The potential job-with-IVF situation is on hold until mid-July, with potential for the "on hold" part to be extended further at that time. The waiting sucks. But I'm trying to be better at enjoying the moment and feeling really grateful (why is grateful not spelled greatful - would make so much more sense?) that I can sleep in or take the morning off to go for a run, and that there are still options open to us, even if they are delayed options.

And, just to document that everything isn't a downer around here - S took a really brave step career-wise and I am so, so, so proud of her.