My New Baby, Part Deux

Heyas,

Well, the naming situaton resolved itself, finally. I really, really did not wanna call that boy Max. Naming animals is a very picky process for me, as I'm firmly convinced that animals should have names that fit them, as well as hold some meaning for their human companions. Any road, I was having a fun night with D tonight...just trying to figure out what the new furball is, exactly by entering various dog breeds into Google images and trying to find puppy pix that resemble him. I mean, he's obviously a bona fide Heinz (y'know, 57 varieties? Yes, I'm a dork), but we finally decided he's mostly Golden Retriever (with his coloring, head shape, and fluffy coat) mixed with Border Collie (ears, muzzle, and general attitude and intelligence). Found some pictures of Golden/Border mixes that look just like him and the other two in the litter.

So...plus side, both breeds tend to be incredibly sweet, smart, and loyal, as well as great family dogs. Down side....Border Collies are very intense. Very, VERY intense. He'll probably require a lot of stimulation and entertainment. Which will be good when I have the Imp to run around with him, but will require me to become more active than I currently am. Which isn't a bad thing, now that I think about it. Hehe, can't wait to take the little guy to the beach!

Any road, so after our totally scientific and not at all subjective diagnosis of what his parents were, we're clicking through a website that literally lists thousands of dog names and calling out random ones that appeal to us.

Milo
Lancelot
Radar
Finley

And then all of a sudden, I come upon it. THE name. The perfect name that suits him just right, fits ME just perfectly, and is so blindingly excellent that I can't believe I had to find it on a website instead of it occuring to me right off the bat.

So, my new baby's name is officially: Tarot.

Score :)

On the Imp-front, I'm going to make an appointment with my OBGYN on Monday...I'm going to go ahead and start my paperwork with Midwest. I'm not sure when exactly I'm going to try again. I might end up waiting 'til next summer after all...it would give me a chance to get some excess weight off (I'm healthy, but I'm a very large woman...it sure as hell wouldn't hurt anything). Plus, I think I need a checkup anyway...I've had the weirdest sensations in my pelvic/abdominal region lately. Things just feel...tight sometimes. Like there's something hard in my guts...but things don't feel hard when I press. It happens frequently enough that it feels weird to sleep on my stomach anymore (and I'm an avowed stomach-sleeper)--not painful, just strange. Weirder still, I've been having the most bizarre gas pangs when I turn on my side...strongest I've ever felt in my life. Last night, it was like someone had reached inside my guts and was walking their fingers up and down my lower ribs and hip...like hard. I'm kind of worried, actually. My sister has IBS and was diagnosed with Crohn's this year. *sigh* That's the last thing I need to deal with right now.

If it ain't one thing, it's another, eh? At least I'll have a cute puppy to snuggle with soon.

My New Baby

Heyas,

No...not THAT baby. I am still working logistics on the Imp-front (and kind of getting pissed off at my possible KD, 'cause he keeps joking around with me--'you know, between the two of us, the kid'll be a picky eater,' but still refusing to give me a straight answer as to whether or not he'll do it...and I know in KD-land, that's pretty much guyspeak for 'I really don't want to' and I totally understand and respect that and am making other arrangements anyway...but a simple yes or no would suffice. I hate coy bullshit.)

But ANYWAY....

Imp, my love, you are going to grow up around animals from the very first. Mommy is a bit of a 'rescuer' and has two cats that she's adopted over the years. Well, all right, Arwen just appeared on Mommy's front porch and adopted her, but Mommy went to the animal shelter for Micah. And there's our family dog, Lucky, but he lives with Grandma and is most likely not going to be around long enough for you to remember, as we got him when Mommy was in seventh grade. Incidentally, Lucky will be the gold standard by which Mommy measures all other dogs in our lives. Best. Dog. Ever.

That said, though, the other night, Grandma was driving home from her job and came upon a truly heartbreaking sight. Three puppies, abandoned on a busy highway, miles away from civilization, busily tearing at a deer carcass someone had hit. Grandma talks a hard game when it comes to animals, but she's a softie. The pups came home in her car...muddy and bloody as they were. Two were adopted out easily enough, but one they could not find a person for.

So, of course, Mommy stepped up.

I like the idea of you growing up with a dog and by the time you're here, he'll be trained and out of the underfoot all the time stage, but young enough for you to have many years of roughhousing with.

And it doesn't hurt that he's cute as a button, very cuddly and easygoing according to my sister, and already showing signs of the kind of intelligence that makes Lucky such a great dog. The vet puts him at about six weeks and he's absolutely adorable.

But damned if I can think of a name for him. The vet says he's some kind of Golden Retriever mix (though I think Yellow Lab is more likely). Ordinarily, I'd pull from whatever TV show I happen to be insanely devoted to at the time (ie, Arwen was adopted during my Lord of the Rings phase)...but nothing's jumping out at me now. I hate, hate, HATE common names and am not overly fond of human names for animals, either (though oddly, he kind of looks like a Max to me, which gets strikes on both counts).

So far I've got a list that looks something like this (and having said I really don't like human names for animals, it amuses me to no end that this little guy keeps inspiring them):

Max

Remy

Sylar (I do like Heroes, even if the show has lost its damn fool mind this season)

Jasper (roomie is a Twilight fan)

Jinx

Reid

Gideon

Loki

Riley

Quinn

Harper

Shay

I really don't want to name him Max. Everyone has a dog named Max. 'Tis annoying.

But isn't he sweet?

To Tammy....

'Cause I know she drifts through here sometimes, and I love her dearly for it and all her just general wonderfulness, and because I can't seem to figure out how to make google ID me to post on her blog...

I just wanted to add another voice expressing how very sorry I am that you're going through so much. You've been on mind almost daily since I read your post about what happened. I don't pray in the traditional sense and I think it's pretty obvious that our spiritual perspectives are somewhat divergent, but for you and Mark I've been praying with every fiber of my being that this will someday (SOON) be okay for you and you will be holding your peanut.

Lovies,
Elfgirl

You Know What? This Elf Says She Makes Her Own Destiny

Heyas,

You know what Universe? I'm having my baby. I don't care how long it takes, or how many other BFD's I have to endure, or what paths you lead me down...I'm having my baby. My Imp is going to be so loved and so cherished and I will be a Kick. Ass. Mom. That was a hell of a rollercoaster you put me on this summer, and I hated damn near every minute of it for the uncertainty, the weird feelings, the freakin' NAUSEA for a month straight, and I loved damn near every minute because for just a little while I tasted a bit of what it'll be like when I have my Imp. And that's worth anything.

So there. You messed with my plans a little...and I'm sorry to say that for a little while I forgot that I'm pretty damn good at rolling with whatever punches you throw my way. I'm having my baby. And maybe it won't be all neat and well-planned and deliberate. But it'll be me and my Imp and that'll be enough. I will make it work, and I will make it work well.

And I believe that there are forces guiding what happens, and some things may or may not be meant to be. But I also believe that I myself am a proactive force...I do not have to sit here and let things wash over me. I am ready for my Imp. I am ready to love and care for and be responsible for my Imp. I don't believe that I would feel these things if there was not a path somewhere that would bring us together. I'm having my baby.

Now, witness me going out and making that happen.


So, yeah, now all I have to do is join in a funky dance around a dining room table and I'll have met the girl-power-oh-hell-YEAH quota on the Lifetime Movie Event scale. But you know what? I'm tired of being depressed and wishy-washy over this whole thing. The BFD fiasco and then all that shit with NW Andrology (and some personal stuff that I just don't wanna talk about online) really messed with my head for a while. I see signs in things, you know? And I really thought that all this was a sign that the Universe just wasn't down with my plans.

And then I remembered that that's not the attitude that I've ever approached anything with. Fall down seven times, get up eight; what does not kill us only makes us stronger; etc, etc, etc. I've never in my life just rolled over when something doesn't go exactly the way I wanted it to...just tilted my head and looked for the new perspective that'll get me where I'm going. So the summer birth thing didn't work out...I guess that just means I'm meant to be one of those Moms who throws awesome classroom birthdays. A Halloween baby...how appropriate would that be?

So yeah, I'm going for this. Taking a couple of months to explore options...I actually asked a friend of mine if he would be willing to be a KD and he's mulling it over. If that doesn't work out, I think I'll go with Midwest, and maybe just go all out and do IUI this time. But I'm going to have my baby. Full speed ahead and damn the torpedos.

Things this Elf is looking forward to: Thanksgiving! Home, home, home, home, home!
Things currently annoying the crap out of her: State-mandated writing tests that require seventh graders to type an entire essay in seventy minutes when they don't start 'keyboarding' classes until high school.
Pretty boy of the moment: Matthew Gray Gubler (aka, Dr. Spencer Reid on Criminal Minds)...which really blows my mind. He looks almost anorexic...I desperately want to take him home and feed him a proper Italian dinner...or six.

But yeah, afterwards, I'd totally hit that. ;)

Adventures in Getting One's Head On Straight...

Heyas,



I'd like to take a moment and just say....Tammy, I want to be you when I grow up.



Well, maybe minus the interest in Precious Moments, 'cause frankly they kind of creep me out a little. ;)

In Lowe's of All Places

Heyas,

So, the red haze of utter fury that had enveloped me last week has lifted somewhat. I'm still pretty convinced that NW is incompetent at best and underhandedly spiteful at worst...Marina emails me with a thoroughly polite message that basically boils down to they have no idea how someone could've been looking right at my file and not told me that it had been declared closed. And also that they HADN'T filed a police report on me because the dewar arrived the day after they had called about it and so they didn't pursue it. Also didn't have any idea how someone could've told me that it HAD been filed. Also, best of luck, don't contact us again.

Call me picky, but I fail to see how a company that appears to have ONE customer service rep answering the phone (at least, I talked to the same person every time I called) could have absoutely no idea about what the guy was saying.

Whatever.

I'm still angry, but there's nothing I can do now. I'll look into Midwest, but there still remains the fact that I made a very strict pact with myself that if I wasn't pregnant by September, I'd put it off another year. Stupidly, I didn't realize how hard that would really be.

Unfortunately, it hit me in a very public place today.

I'd said that a part of me always suspected that something was wrong with the South Africa BFP (hereafter called BFD...Big Fucking Disappointment), but well, Imp...the rest of Mommy had gotten pretty used to the idea that she was going to be a Mommy. And I was out with Auntie D today, and we stopped in Lowe's...and they already have their Christmas stuff up. And Mommy had to laugh, because it's not even Halloween, yet...but then she started roaming the Christmas aisles because she loves all things Christmas. The ornaments, the lights, those little Christmas Villages you can build out of models that light up and move...she can spend hours just looking at them. She even found some adorable ornaments based on the claymation "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" movie, which she loves.

And standing there in that aisle with a plastic Rudolph in one hand and a plastic Clarice in the other it suddenly hits me that I would've been picking out the Imp's stocking this year, and everyone would've given me baby stuff for Christmas and we would've been so excited that the Imp would be here next Christmas. This would've been the last Christmas before I went from "I" to "We." And the one failed try is nothing next to what some of the women I've come to know have been through...I'm not even sure if it was an actual miscarriage or a chemical pregnancy. I know that I don't have much room to complain...but it still hurts. And it hurt even more to think that because of someone else's "I just don't know what happened" I wouldn't be able to try again until next year.

So there I am, Rudolph in one hand, Clarice in the other, crying my eyes out in Lowe's.

I don't want to wait for a whole year. It surprises me how much I don't want to wait...now that I've actually made an attempt, the desire to be a mother is like a living, breathing thing inside of me. I have good, solid reasons for insisting on a summer birth, but it's hard to remember them right now. My sister, C, says I shouldn't wait, that I should just go on trying until I get the Imp...after all, other people don't plan their baby's due date and they're not dropping dead in the streets. Other teachers have done the single mom route and not bothered with timing it for a summer birth.

But I want to get back to Ohio, Imp, so that you can be close to grandparents, cousins, and aunts from the very first. I don't know if it's the brightest thing in the world for me to go into a new job and then go out on maternity leave in my first year. I don't know that I want to put you into daycare or leave you with relatives that young. I just know I want you here, with me.

What should I do?

Universe Says, "Fuck YOU, Elf!"

This is a vent. And a rant. And I'm not going to be polite.

Barring a last minute miracle, I'm out for the next ten months. I have never been so fucking incandescantly furious in my life. NW Andrology can go fuck itself. I'd heard stories about them fucking their customers over, but I hadn't realized they were quite so spiteful about it.

Full disclosure, the start of was my fault. In the whirlwind of getting moved into D's house and getting packed for Africa, I kept forgetting to send their damn dewar back. I ended up mailing it on the day we left, and the freaking FedEx return label was lost somewhere in my move and my stupid town doesn't have a FedEx station anyway, so I sent it UPS. And then I was driving through backroads with no cell signal and on a plane for twenty four hours and then I was in Africa, and I forgot to call them to let them know that the dewar was on its way back. And then I get this email while in Africa saying that they haven't received their dewar and I emailed back with the details of the UPS tracking number and whatnot. Three days later I get a nastier email threatening to file a goddamn police report on me for grand theft! I email back the tracking number again, and the thing was scheduled to arrive the next day, so all was well. I even fucking CALLED them from South fucking Africa to confirm the dewar had arrived safely and get the total of late fees I owed. Couldn't pay it right then, 'cause a charge in the US when I was supposed to be overseas would've shut down my bank account. But I fucking asked them if this would affect my ability to make future orders, and the guy says "There's no notations on your record, but check back later." Fine.

So I get back from Africa, and the first thing I do is pay them. And I ask again, will this affect my ability to make orders? "If we haven't sent you a letter or email, then no, you're fine." And you know what? No letter or email. I got a bill for the late fees, which said nothing about my account.

Called them AGAIN last week, to check donor statuses and asked them AGAIN, because I was feeling paranoid, and was assured AGAIN, that since I paid the late fee, all was well.

Called today to make my order, and am told, "We shut down your account, and oh, by the way, we filed a police report on you."

A fucking TWO MONTHS after I sent the fucking dewar back.

I'm a teacher. A teacher who wants to get a job in another state next year so I can move closer to my family. A police report filed against me is major, major shit on my background check. Oh, but the best part? I called my town and county police AND sheriff's offices and they've never even heard my name before. Or of NW Andrology.

So. NW LIED to me, repeatedly, about the state of my account. LIED to me about filing a police report on me. And oh yeah, since they didn't see fit to inform me that they didn't want my business before I actually tried to order sperm, it's now too late to try to find another bank. I'm due to ovulate this weekend. Fucking. Bastards.

And you know what? I wouldn't have even been all that upset if they'd just been upfront and said they weren't going to deal with me anymore. I broke the terms of the dewar rental, they have every right to refuse me future service. I understand that part. What I don't understand was why I was told, repeatedly, that I'd still be able to order.

Fucking. Bastards.