Feeling Blessed(And I'm Not Religious)

Why is it that good things (and bad) seem to come in droves? If today is any indication of my luck, I should be agreeing to start my FET next month because I'm feeling lucky.

This morning, J and I drove to Foster City where an IF friend gifted me with a shot of humira. This is expensive stuff, I think about $1500 for a box of two shots, and my insurance has been sitting on their hands with my preauthorization. I don't even know if they WILL cover it at this rate. So the gift of humira was so well timed and appreciated as I need to start the injectible medicine on Monday, after my NKs are retested. Another IF friend has agreed to see me a second shot (I need a shot every two weeks) for $25. Another amazing and so appreciated gift. I am amazed at how the ladies I've met have been willing to help me though this.

And now...just this afternoon, I got a call from an agent on one of my listings. This is a condo that is nice enough, but priced just a bit higher than everyone else's, $20,000 more, that I feared that I would have trouble selling it. So this agent calls me today, out of the blue, and tells me that she stopped by to see the place while I wasn't there and that her clients ADORE the place and they are writing up an offer this very evening. WOW!

But it just continues on. Someone walked into my open house today and literally said, "What do I need to do to get the ball rolling with selling my house?" I nearly fainted. Procuring real estate listings is no easy business. To have one fall in my lap is truly a blessing.

But there's more. Another wonderful owner in this loft complex that I am working came in just a few minutes ago and wants to get together about pricing his loft.

I just don't understand it. I'm flabbergasted.

In real estate you can't count your chickens til they hatch. I'm excited but warily so. I can't really count on any of this happening until it actually comes to pass.

Today, just today, I am having such wonderful luck with my job, with getting the medicine I need to procede with my next FET. I am not a religious person, but something is going my way and I simply don't understand it. I hate to question, to analyze it, at all.

Maybe some bizarre cosmic forces are at work here.

Feeling Blessed(And I'm Not Religious)

Why is it that good things (and bad) seem to come in droves? If today is any indication of my luck, I should be agreeing to start my FET next month because I'm feeling lucky.

This morning, J and I drove to Foster City where an IF friend gifted me with a shot of humira. This is expensive stuff, I think about $1500 for a box of two shots, and my insurance has been sitting on their hands with my preauthorization. I don't even know if they WILL cover it at this rate. So the gift of humira was so well timed and appreciated as I need to start the injectible medicine on Monday, after my NKs are retested. Another IF friend has agreed to see me a second shot (I need a shot every two weeks) for $25. Another amazing and so appreciated gift. I am amazed at how the ladies I've met have been willing to help me though this.

And now...just this afternoon, I got a call from an agent on one of my listings. This is a condo that is nice enough, but priced just a bit higher than everyone else's, $20,000 more, that I feared that I would have trouble selling it. So this agent calls me today, out of the blue, and tells me that she stopped by to see the place while I wasn't there and that her clients ADORE the place and they are writing up an offer this very evening. WOW!

But it just continues on. Someone walked into my open house today and literally said, "What do I need to do to get the ball rolling with selling my house?" I nearly fainted. Procuring real estate listings is no easy business. To have one fall in my lap is truly a blessing.

But there's more. Another wonderful owner in this loft complex that I am working came in just a few minutes ago and wants to get together about pricing his loft.

I just don't understand it. I'm flabbergasted.

In real estate you can't count your chickens til they hatch. I'm excited but warily so. I can't really count on any of this happening until it actually comes to pass.

Today, just today, I am having such wonderful luck with my job, with getting the medicine I need to procede with my next FET. I am not a religious person, but something is going my way and I simply don't understand it. I hate to question, to analyze it, at all.

Maybe some bizarre cosmic forces are at work here.

Feeling Blessed(And I'm Not Religious)

Why is it that good things (and bad) seem to come in droves? If today is any indication of my luck, I should be agreeing to start my FET next month because I'm feeling lucky.

This morning, J and I drove to Foster City where an IF friend gifted me with a shot of humira. This is expensive stuff, I think about $1500 for a box of two shots, and my insurance has been sitting on their hands with my preauthorization. I don't even know if they WILL cover it at this rate. So the gift of humira was so well timed and appreciated as I need to start the injectible medicine on Monday, after my NKs are retested. Another IF friend has agreed to see me a second shot (I need a shot every two weeks) for $25. Another amazing and so appreciated gift. I am amazed at how the ladies I've met have been willing to help me though this.

And now...just this afternoon, I got a call from an agent on one of my listings. This is a condo that is nice enough, but priced just a bit higher than everyone else's, $20,000 more, that I feared that I would have trouble selling it. So this agent calls me today, out of the blue, and tells me that she stopped by to see the place while I wasn't there and that her clients ADORE the place and they are writing up an offer this very evening. WOW!

But it just continues on. Someone walked into my open house today and literally said, "What do I need to do to get the ball rolling with selling my house?" I nearly fainted. Procuring real estate listings is no easy business. To have one fall in my lap is truly a blessing.

But there's more. Another wonderful owner in this loft complex that I am working came in just a few minutes ago and wants to get together about pricing his loft.

I just don't understand it. I'm flabbergasted.

In real estate you can't count your chickens til they hatch. I'm excited but warily so. I can't really count on any of this happening until it actually comes to pass.

Today, just today, I am having such wonderful luck with my job, with getting the medicine I need to procede with my next FET. I am not a religious person, but something is going my way and I simply don't understand it. I hate to question, to analyze it, at all.

Maybe some bizarre cosmic forces are at work here.

Feeling Blessed

My Rant About Blogger

This is the 3rd time I've lost a blogger post I was working on. I came home from Nogales and had been working on a recap of what happened there. My computer froze up a few days ago. No matter. I logged back in once I'd rebooted and my post was stil recoverable. Blogger seems to autosave your post if you navigate away from the page, and if you crash, you just open a new post and "recover post" and it's there.

But I just crashed about 15 minutes ago, I opened blogger, tried to "recover (my) post", and it was gone. Gone. Totally. How can that be? It was there during the last crash. Why is it gone this time? That really gets under my skin.

I know that lots of bloggers wind up moving to typepad because of lost posts, but I don't know if typepad is any better at it.

Growl.

The Journey to LIT #2 Begins

Tomorrow we're leaving for Tucson on a 9AM flight. Short layover at LAX, grab a Bux Decaf Soy Latte, and back on a plane. We'll arrive in Tucson about 1ish, secure our rental car, and go check out downtown Tucson. Is there anything to see or do there? It's going to be blazing hot. Not sure if the heat will be condusive to being touristy.

After that we'll head south...stop by the San Xavier del Bac Mission. A Saint is buried there in a clear glass casket and people come from all over to pray for things. I'm not religious anymore, but being raised Catholic I still saw fit to ask the monks to put my prayer for a baby of my own flesh and blood, which they promise to put in with the Saint's remains.

After that I think we're just heading to the hotel, where we'll be lodging for two nights. A fellow infertile, M and her DH, both patients of DB will be there as they're doing the LIT thing, too. In the morning we'll make the 10 or 15 minute drive to Nogales and wait for Dr. Quiroga to fetch us from the infamous McDonalds. Yet another infertile, LL and her DH, are driving from Palm Springs and will meet us there as well. There might be other couples from elsewhere in the country, but we haven't heard yet if there are others. It will be interesting to meet the other two couples. Perhaps we'll hang out in a bar while we wait for our LITs to be prepared and chat about our stories over some cold cervesas.

At any rate, this trip is doing double-duty for us as a medical and anniversary trip. Monday is our 6 year anniversary. 6 years since the day that J and I met. I'm still utterly smitten with him and hope that he is as well. The story of how we met is a story unto itself and maybe I'll post about it on Monday.

Hopefully this is the last LIT we'll need in order to do our FET next month. My B and T IgG cells both went up with the first LIT, but not enough that I could get away with just one treatment. It's actually less than a month until the embryos are going back in, but in a way it seems so far away in a surreal sort of way, as there is just so much to be done between now and then. I can't even get my mind around it yet.

Dr. S, DB's replacement, thinks we might want to wait for yet one more month to pass by because he thought I'd need to do an IVIg **before** our next LAD results would be in...but his assistant said it's really not necessary to do a preliminary IVIg with a FET (we're not being exposed to all of the stims that can cause an NK flare) and reassured me we could procede next month with a mere IVIg 2 days before transfer. Mere IVIg my ass...at $2015 a pop it's no mere treatment. But a big relief about not needing two of them. If those test results come in and say my LADs are still dismal, we can cancel the FET and head to Nogales one more time. Ugh. I'm not sure I have the patience to wait, or to make another trip to Nogales, though. That 42nd birthday is coming up way too fast for me.

Fancy Models

I had a transaction close escrow today and I customarily pay for a Home Warranty for my buyers as a closing present. These buyers didn't want a Home Warranty, so I had to come up with something tasteful and apropos, and quickly.

"J" said that since they bought a loft The Walnut Factory that I should get them something with walnuts. So off I went. I bought a nice French red at The Wine Cellar in Los Gatos, a couple of sheer wine bags at Fiore (?), filled them with English walnuts from Lunardi's (also picked up a basket here), and a nice set of walnut paraphenelia from Sur La Table. I added in a personalized note card, some pretty blue shredded paper and Viola! a gift was had.

So when I was in Lunardi's perusing the basket section, I caught a slightly older man checking me out. He was kind of Latin looking, very dark eyes and hair, very pale skin, maybe Spanish, had a Gypsy look about him that is rather obvious if you know the look, very handsome. He smiled at me. A very warm, inviting smile. Bright eyes. I smiled back. If I were single I would have seen where this would have led. For some reason I was looking nice today, a flush in my cheeks, a new shirt from JS, but beyond that I don't know what was different. I noticed myself thinking, "I wonder if he would be attracted to me if he knew that I was infertile?" and that set me down a mental path, that continued until I got home.

So as I perused the baskets and paid for my purchases, I pondered the whole idea of whether it would really matter to a man if a woman was fertile or not, capable of bearing young, when accessing her "attractivenes" or "date worthiness". Let's face it. We're animals. The instinct to breed is inherent in us. There are things that are so ingrained into our biology, hardwired, if you will, that we don't even realize that we're controlled by our biology.

Men are by their very nature attracted to women with large breasts and full hips. We say, "It's sexy", but these physical characteristis are also indicative of a women who has ample fat on her body in order to ovulate and sustain a pregnancy. Too much fat and her fertility drops. Too little and she doesn't ovulate. The woman that falls in between these two extremes is both attractice to the opposite sex, and more likely to be fertile.

Males don't think when they see such a woman, "Wow, she's curvy and has large breasts. She's likely fertile and can breed successfully. Whoa, that really gets me hot!" They just get the visual cue and biology takes over on their behalf. Such is the nature of hardwiring.

So what happens when if a man sees a woman that for all visual purposes LOOKS like a fertile female, but she tells him, "I'm infertile. I cannot have children." What then? Does that cinch his libido in the bud? We humans like to say that we can have sex for the sake of sex, purely and simply, but I wonder if there might be, on some deeper, more primal level, an inherent, subconscious need to breed that can actually be fucked with if we have knowledge of someone's infertility? Remember: we're animals. We have a biological imperative to breed. Can we separate mind from biological predisposition?

I haven't asked "J" of his thoughts on this. In a way I'm a bit afraid to ask him. I have had one lover in my life that had a vasectomy. He called himself a "fancy model" in that he "shot blanks". We were together for 4 years or so, at a time in my life when I kind of wanted children but there wasn't a sense of desperation as there is now. But for me, at this time in my life, I did feel, at the deepest level of my consciousness that there was something different about having sex with him.

These was no possibility of having our lovemaking create a baby. Late periods were devoid of anticipation, anxiety, wonder, and hope.

I can't help but think that there must be a similar current in men's feelings. And if there is, I am not sure what having that knowledge would do to me.

When It Rains, It Pours

In real estate it's always feast or famine. Summer is up, winter is down. This, however, is a weird year. Interest rates keep going up. 30 year fixed loans hit 7%. Ouch. Prices are getting squishy here in the Bay Area. There's a house around the corner from us that was listed one or two months ago for $1.4M. They just dropped it $200,000 to $1.2M. There are many places in this country where $200,000 will buy you a mighty fine house, and here in Los Gatos, that is just the spread on the *original* list price and the *current* list price. It's just mind boggling.

I've lived here just over six years, and I still have what we in the industry call "sticker shock".

We rent, mind you. No way in hell I'd even want to consider the $15,000 a year tax payments on that house. That's a house payment in some parts. And here? That's what you pay for the privilege of owning a house, and a mortgage.

Yeah, it's "all a write off". I know that more than anyone. But that $15,000 a year would be 5 trips to Paris for J and I. It would be a new car. It would be another IVF with Dr. Moustache, or 4 IVFs with the nice folks in Jersey. So many more things. Things that have so much more value to us.

But hell am I digressing from where I was going with all of this.

Despite how utterly wishy washy the entire real estate market is getting, I have suddenly found myself overloaded with clients. I mean, it's like near to being out of control. Just today I landed two new sellers who want to list with me. Unprovoked. Unsolicited. They called ME. Whoa. What the hell is going on here? I haven't been marketing myself, cold calling, door knocking, or anything of the like. Now I am appreciative as all hell for the business. It was a very slow winter and spring for me and I've got some catching up to do, but when things suddenly start falling into place like this it does give one pause.

Anyways, I am going to be off riding this wave for as long as I can. See what comes of it. I ordered a shitload of new marketing materials from the folks at Vista Print tonight in order to try to keep the momentum going.

We're heading to Nogales next week on Friday for our second LIT, and our 6 year anniversary, so until then I'm going to have my head buried in work. I'll get to do some breathing on our short trip to Nogales. Hopefully all this ass breaking work will pay off. And soon.

AF Makes Me Think of Mom

AF or, Aunt Flo, is a euphamism for our periods. But it also makes me think of my mother, because her name is Florence.

AF arrived last night...the first real one since my surgery, and since my first LIT trip to Mexico. I've read many women on the Immunology Support board on Yahoo saying that their "AFs were terribly late after LIT and why didn't anyone tell us that this was a normal thing?"

Maybe my cycle just doesn't want to be messed with but she was right on time, to the day. I've noticed so far that I'm not having as severe cramping as I used to have. But it's still the first day. Maybe it will get worse. But they did remove a bunch of endo so it should really be a lot better according to reports I've read. Well, I'm not sure how much it will apply for my circumstance because the gals that had the delays periods after LIT are the same that said the their endo hurt a lot less after surgery. Many of them had their surgeries done by Dr. Persian, the doctor that my own OB/GYN scared me away from. Apparantely he HAS helped a few women that I know. Now I'm wondering if the scare tactic she gave me was still justified? I may never know the answer to that question.

So if my period continues to be "on time" for the next cycle it looks as though our FET will happen on August 20th. Between now and then I have got to figure out where we are going: Dr. Moustache or Dr. Next.

Millie? Got any suggestions? :-)

The Foraging Fairy

Thursday night I was perusing CraigsList and came across and advertisement for a couch. Not just any couch, mind you, but a Stickley Prairie Settle Reproduction that I've coveted for about 15 years. An old friend of mine, DG, and her husband MG, bought a new one, a reproduction, many years ago and when I saw it it was love at first sight.

I used to collect Arts & Crafts period antiques, pottery, and things of that nature. And to have a couch like this would be the icing on the couch cake.

And on Thursday night one came my way. The asking price was $190. I figured it has to be a cheap reproduction, but I'd be happy with that. Who can afford a $16,000 Stickley Settle anyways.

I emailed and telphoned the owners and hoped, prayed that the couch was still available. It was. The wife said her husband would call me within an hour. He didn't call and the night got late. I sent another email, and called at 9pm. That's about as late as I'd call anyone who is a stranger to me. No answer.

Drats.

However, he called the very next morning. Bright and early. He would be willing to take the settle to work with him this morning if I was willing to throw in $20 for gas. He changed his mind, "No, make that $10." "Deal!", I said, and we made arrangements to do the transaction.

Usually one likes to actually SEE a couch in person before forking over the dough, but something told me, "Just buy it. Commit. You won't be disappointed."

Intuition served me right on this one. I arrived at his work right on time. I found his truck easily because the settle was sticking out of the back. It was exactly as their ad photo illustrated. We moved it into J's van, I forked over the $190 for the settle, $10 for gas, and another $10 for a 4' tall mirror I'd also said I'd buy.

JS and I drove home and I could hardly contain my excitement. Last night J and I moved the settle into the office. I said to him, "Not bad looking for veneer...eh?" J said, "I don't think that is veneer. Let me take a look. No...that is solid oak. Look at the grain here." He was right. It was indeed made of solid oak. And the seats, as I already knew, were real leather, slightly distressed from the previous owner's three children.

I looked online for similar couches and I found a company that makes settles that are exact matches to the one that I got. For $6800. Yowza. I was astonished. Blown away.

This couple, from Tiburon, was moving, selling off everything "big". The husband said to me as he was loading the settle into my van, "Thanks for taking this off of our hands. My mother-in-law is an interior decorator..." and he stopped midsentence, left it hanging in such a way that it sort of implied that their home might be run amuk with odd pieces of furniture.

So their loss was definitely my gain.

But it doesn't end there. There's more. Today, some clients of mine, whose loft I have just sold, found that they couldn't fit all of their things into their new place. So today I inherited a 7-1/2' circular rug and two very cool floor lights that double as room dividers.

J came home tonight and helped me arrange all of the new items I brought home this week. "I thought we were trying to get rid of things", he qustioned. Yes, we are, but for now I'm going to enjoy them.

It's been a week of great finds and deals.

I think my next big adventure, before the upcoming FET, is to redo the flooring in our kitchen and to replace our dishwasher with the one that's been parked on our front patio for about two months (another of my "free finds"). It's uncanny how "things" come to me. But it isn't all that weird...for similar reasons I was dubbed the "Foraging Fairy" when I worked at Go.com. A name that stuck, and one that is kind of somehow fitting. :-)

And Lo and Behold, a Crone Conceives...

Just read today that Statia is k.n.o.c.k.e.d u.p! She is seeing Dr. Pompy, whom Julianna and I refer to as Dr. Next. It's making me wonder if I should be calling the Swift Stork folks to fetch and move my embryos as well. I really cannot, for the life of me, make up my mind if it's better to stick with Dr. Moustache (who did my last two IVFs) or if we should bail the hell out of there and head to Dr. Pompy/Next for our FET...scheduled for next month. We have six embryos on ice.

My OB/Gyn sings Dr. Moustache's praises. Actually he's pretty damned good at what he does. But I think I've noticed that his CDC results for things have been slipping with the exception of donor embryo transfers. Dr. Pompy, on the other hand, does so few FETs in age category (5 in all in 2003, and none conceived) that I am afraid to go there.

Now I adore Dr. Pompy. I really do. I think that he is so much more personable than Dr. Moustache. But I do realize that they're all in this for business. It's their "cash cow". Dr. Moustache never takes a day off. I know he truly loves what he does. I'm sure he's somewhat fueled by the almighty buck. Word has it that he cleared, yes cleared, something like $1.5M last year. Cleared. Did I say that enough times already. I can't even imagine making that much in a year. But I also cannot imagine never taking a day off. Not taking a holiday. So despite it being his cash cow, he is utterly devoted to getting us all knocked up.

Dr. Pompy just comes across as being more "there" for you as a patient. When I emailed his office to ask him a question, I expected an email back. From an office person. But instead Dr. Pompy telephoned me. He actually picked up the phone and called me. This is unheard of in Dr. Moustache's office. Dr. Moustache is too busy to telephone people unless it's a phone consult that is normally set up WEEKS in advance. But does bedside manner indicate that my odds of conceiving will be higher? Probably not. I think that confidence in one's doctor goes a long way to helping though.

I don't know how on earth I will make my final decision, but I do have to make it rather quickly. I have things I like about each doctor. I do like Dr. Pompy more as a person for how he's treated me in the past, but I keep leaning on Dr. Moustache's reputation and his statistics.

Won't someone please just make my mind up for me? Millie? :-)

Happy Day

Just read today, albeit a few days late, that Tonya's given birth to her baby boy. He was a wee bit early, but his weight is really good for being early and so I'm totally optimistic. Hopefully pictures will be forthcoming!

Now I've got my fingers that a couple other friends wind up knocked up.