June 2012
57 posts
Tiger Beatdown: We cannot have it all because we no longer have dreams →
tigerbeatdown.com
Eh, as it was bound to happen, I wrote a response to the piece that Anne-Marie Slaughter published at The Atlantic.
This has been the week of backlash against feminism. In fairness, it is always backlash week against feminism but Anne-Marie Slaughter’s piece at The Atlantic, Why women still can’t have it all, has revived some of those sentiments. Feminism has failed us, she implies. We were promised a balance between career and private life. We were told that if you worked hard and juggled between your work, your children, your spouse and your social life, you too, could be successful. If your spouse embraces this model of cooperation and takes on their fair share of housework and child rearing then you could also reach the highest echelons of power and, in the words of existential philosopher Mr. Spock, live long and prosper. All it took, we were told, was commitment and creativity.
All of this is, of course, pure unadulterated bullshit.
Diane Arbus
There is an upcoming art show by my place by Diane Arbus.
Which let me to think about the movie Fur which reminded me of Robert Downey, Jr. charater.
Yeah, I had totally forgotten about this.
And today I pretty much pantomimed “chaffing thighs” to my German pharmacist.
As The Infertility World Turns
We went to Prague and met with a new RE and his team.
I’m trying really hard not to be sad and upset about how I was treated with DEIVF 1.0. It’s not that they were terrible but they just treated me with no special care: a protocol that was not tailor to my needs, relying too much on the quality of the zygotes and not preparing me to receive them.
Prague RE believes that I have autoimmune disorders, too many natural killer cells or NK cells. Pretty much means that my body attacks the zygote/embryo and kills it. This usually means m/c but I don’t even make it that far. This is fairly new and many REs are not really behind this, but you can’t have no implantation (4 times, 3 IUIs) and think that everything is just bad luck.
NK cells is something that I was aware coming in, I had done some research, and when he brought it up, I knew that I could trust this team.
He also recommended a hysteroscopy, he will go and take a look and do whatever he feels it’s necessary: remove some polys if any, scrape a biopsy , etc. Do a serious tune up!
This is also something that should have been done, you can’t have difficult transfer each and every time and not recommend a further investigation.
We are doing a bunch of blood work, he suggested I do the NK cells test too, but mentioned how expensive it’s. Either way, he’s pretty sure this is my case and will treat me as such.
We will proceed with DEIVF 2.0 in September, the donor has been selected and we made a deposit.
I also requested to be under total anesthesia for the hysteroscopy & transfer, I’m not reliving that nightmare again.
I can’t believe I’m “that” person.
DEIVF 2.0 is a Go
Sometimes I feel like such an ass for doing all these infertility treatments. Sometimes I wonder if I come across full of… I don’t know… privilege?
I have the money and the means to keep going and going and maybe I should just let go; really let go of it all and focus on other things*.
The thing is that I tried to let go, you all have read this. I let go and something always comes up and comes up again.
I just don’t want people to think I’m taking everything for granted.
*I do other things, like trying to learn German which it’s another uphill battle.
Prague
My bag is packed and my ticket is printed.
This will our first European train ride. We leave tomorrow around 7am and arrive around 11am or so.
Everyone tells me the scenery is just lovely and it goes really fast.
I found some hotel right by the main square, I hope it’s fine; European star system is bit… off. I want to drink lots of beers and eat lots of goodies and take lots of pictures of graffiti.
We also have our appointment on Saturday, I really don’t know what to think or say about it. I’m trying not to be angry with my last clinic and their protocol. I feel like they relied on too much on the 24yr old eggs and not enough on getting my body fully ready to accept them. I can’t think too much on that. The point is moot now.
I’m just feeling very overwhelmed right now.
it's 6:30pm and everyone is getting home
and my internet connection can’t handle it. It times out and gives me problem loading errors.
Every weekday is the same thing.
I'm just so stressed out rigth now.
Stupid infertility stuff. It hurts and it hurts. It takes and it takes.
Saturday is my appointment and I just need to breath in and out. In and out.
Flohmarkt
D and I cleaned our closets, a total major Unfucking!
I had lots of clothes that I either didn’t like anymore, didn’t fit right, or were business clothes that I just don’t need.
I first cleaned my closet and looked at everything, twice.
Since D finished first doing his closet, he then went through a lot of paperwork that needed to be shredded, thrash or filed away. Team effort!
Then we put everything in our suitcases. This made it easy to move it and to pack in the car.
We took everything to the fleamarket this past Sunday. I sold almost everything. I really didn’t care how much I was getting, I just wanted it out. We got one table between four of us. We brought snacks and drinks; It was a really fun experience,
At the end of the day, I walked away with 196euro and a pretty clean and unfucked habitat.
As The Infertility World Turns
D and I talked and talked.
We understand that having someone that is very closed to us offered to be our surrogate is kind of a big deal. She doesn’t want anything in return. This is really a gift.
So we talked and talked some more. This is getting to be a ridiculous version of “when a door closes, a window opens”. First window was the fact we moved here and that IF treatments in Europe are much, much inexpensive than in the US. Then, it was the donor egg thing, and now we have a surrogate.
If we were still living in Chicago, I doubt really hard that we would have done all this since D’s insurance covers no infertility treatments, even though they’re based in Illinois.
I did get 10K from my insurance, kind of like a “sorry we don’t cover infertility either, but here is some money to make us look a lot less heartless, never mind we make toys for a living”. This amount went really, really far here in Europe, but if we were in the US, yeah not so much.
We decided to have an exploratory meeting with a new IF clinic. If we do proceed to surrogacy, we still need a zygote or two. If we are getting zygotes, might as well transfer one or two back to me. If that doesn’t work, BFF/Surrogate will came to Europe and do a transfer on her.
Are you following me still?
Another Year
We received our contract for our extension - we will be staying in Berlin until 10/2013.
We knew we were on the budget, but until we sign this piece of paper, it doesn’t really mean anything. Later this year, we will send our passports to get our visa stamp.
The rumor is that we could applied for a different Visa due to the type of job D does and his earning bracket. If this is correct, the Visa will extent a work allowance for me. We probably will look into this.
Right now, I’m happy and relieved. I like here and I’m putting a lot of effort on the language, meeting people and trying to make this our home; 2 years just seems like a really short time to move this far.
Thank you D and your awesome Job.
Happy Loving Day! Celebrate the 45th anniversary of Loving v. Virginia (legalized interracial marriage) http://ping.fm/6omGp LovingDay
Ramit from I'll Teach You To Be Rich
is giving away a free month of rent or mortgage.
He will pay your rent or mortgage up to 3K.
http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/pay-my-rent
I went looking for that OPI Spotted
I sadly didn’t find it. Opi is also expensive as F*ck around here. London Butter is around 17euro and Opi around 15euro.
I probably will go to the fancy department store KaDeWe or Galeries Lafayette next week and see if I find it there.
That picture of Juana Inés de la Cruz de Asbaje y Ramirez
that’s going around, she reminds me of Alpha-lima-lima-papa!
A-L-L-P has pretty curls but she totally looks like her.
