ooops...

So, when I walked into the clinic this AM, ready to advocate away, the receptionist said, JUST BLOODWORK. Ooops, so maybe that is why my financial rep didn't call for pre-approval. There was nothing to pre-approve. My bad. I had to call her and leave a message letting her know that the insurance company was going to be calling her and asked her to call me back because I still have a question about coverage. She called me at 2:45 and left me a message to tell me she is out of the office next week.

The clinic we use offers this 'state of the art' test that they created that tests 21-chromosomes on embryos post retrieval. They test for a bunch of genetic differences which, as you would imagine, increases the chances that the best embryo is chosen for the transfer. And hopefully decreases chances of miscarriage and birth defects. Of course this is also the test that allows you to chose the sex of your baby. Which we have opted not to do, just pick the two best embryos (baring everything goes well). My doctor kept saying, 'Are you sure you don't want to know?'. My husband and I decided that if all the embryos are created close to equal (again, baring there are embryos to chose from), then they probably just pick one girl and one boy. Anything else seems to upset the normal order of things. Oh wait, normal? I never use normal to describe what we are doing. Actually, I never use normal at all--the word itself carries to much judgment.

Today I had one of those moments of clarity. Most of the time going through all this I am on automatic pilot, just going along, always waiting for the next trip to the clinic, blood test, ultrasound, medication. Then all of the sudden I will feel stopped in a moment. This is real. We are really dealing with fertility. We are really going to do this? Oh wait, we have done this?  We are going to have embryologist make our baby through ICSI? I never felt this way through my IUI's. Not one time, I guess for me that still seemed natural, where as this next step seems surreal.

When I was younger and I would say, "I never want kids" people would say, 'you say that now, but just wait'.  I am starting to believe the whole, be careful what you wish for...

I have set June 2011 as the deadline for all this IVF stuff. I say that now anyway.  If by June we are not pregnant, I am starting to smoke cigarettes again (2 years, 5 months and 1 day), buying a convertible BMW and quitting my job to work at WAL-MART (...just because).

My hope for today...that I never smoke another cigarette.