Growing a good man

Hey, sweet nugget! It's been a productive few weeks, and you are so big! You now have a stroller (thanks, Nana!), a painted nursery and a crib, but we have a lot to do before your grand entrance into the world. Your daddy and I are doing our best to prepare, but I'm not sure we ever will be ready. Your daddy is fixing your closet up so we can get all your adorable stuff organized (down with wire shelving!), and he is even building you a dresser. We spent all day in a class to learn what to expect during your delivery. We went through all the stages of labor, the myriad of things out of our control, and what we can do to cope with the whole birthing process. The only sure thing I came away with is that I'm more excited than ever to meet you.

I also had pictures taken this week, so I never forget how special having you in my (very big) belly is. One day, I'll show you those pictures and explain that you were once that tiny little baby inside me, just 6 weeks from being born. One of the things I look the most forward to is explaining things about the world to you. I certainly don't know everything, and I won't always be right, but if I can instill in you some basic goodness and empathy, I'll have done my job.

Right now, we are weeks away from a presidential election that has been really controversial. I've been involved in some heated discussions about the candidates and the basic ideas of right vs wrong. People have been offended, have taken a stand for things I can't really comprehend, and have dismissed horrible behavior just to hold their position. I'm probably more involved than I usually would be, because the thought of you coming into this world while our country is being represented by someone who has expressed, almost exclusively, ideas of divisiveness and hatred is too upsetting. I want more for you. It's so important to me that you learn to stand for what is right, even if inconvenient. I'm determined to make sure you know that being a good man means you help to empower and support others. You will meet people in this world who think it's ok to gain advantages by making others feel smaller. My hope for you is that you will be better and do better than that. You will realize for yourself when you are older, that the most enjoyable people to be around are those who lift others up and who bring their own unique flavor of joy that they spread. Raising someone who is capable of being that kind of human is very important to me. It's a big responsibility and I don't take it lightly. You are my most important job in the world. I will make mistakes along the way, but I will always love you and do my very best.

Love, Mama

People's Instinctive Travels Part 3: The Never Ending Story

Hey Nugget,

Just your dad here, picking up where I left off on the subject of how you came to be. It's apparently a very long, multi-post story. But what are you going to do about it? You're stuck in a womb with nowhere to go and nothing to do besides grow (nostrils!) and read this blog.

(On a quick side note, it was exciting to see you on the 3D ultrasound a few days ago. While you were tired and adamant about blocking our view, we were able to confirm that you're a boy, that you take after your old man, and that, thankfully, you have exactly two nostrils. We're very proud of you already, Nugget. Nicely done.)

If you recall part 1 and part 2 you'll know that we're at the point of medical intervention by the Queen City's finest womb whisperer. While we weren't desperate, it was becoming clear we needed help.

OK, we were getting a little desperate.

IVF is expensive and we were getting old. More often than not, people don't have insurance that covers fertility treatments. We were very lucky to have a plan that did cover an amount of fertility treatments that roughly equated to one round of IVF. But that doesn't cover everything.

First you have to meet your deductible. For both of you. That alone could be close to a thousand dollars. Next you have to start getting tested, and hey guess what?! Some tests aren't billable.

So now you've paid for your deductible AND for some additional tests that make sure, to use boner pill commercials as an example, both the hanging tire swing and the football to throw through it are in good working order.

Even after 40 years on this earth, both of us tested well within the sweet spot for how well an outy and an inny should work during prime babymaking years. Don't worry, you'll likely inherit those impressive genes along with some of the other truly fantastic attributes your mama and I have. That's how it works. We take a little of me and a little of your mama, mix in a little magic dust from whichever god the parents worship, (in your case the Flying Spaghetti Monster) and next thing you know you're shooting out into this world resembling us and exhibiting a deep respect for grana padano. It's science.

With IVF you go the standard route or spend extra to take things a step further, hopefully ensuring a greater chance at a successful pregnancy. The problem is sometimes that extra step, genetically testing each embryo, is expensive and may or may not be billable to your insurance that you probably don't have. We were lucky in that our insurance coverage would reimburse for that test, but the problem is you still have to pay up front for it. By the time you get the receipt and submit your claim you may already be out of the original insurance benefit. But that's not all.

Your insurance may cover fertility but it's not going to be 100% of whatever they do along the way. You're going to be nickel and dimed to death along the way. Then, something like this could happen:

You're told the genetic test will cost around $2500 to $3,000 because they give you a base cost for testing up to 8 embryos. After the 8, assuming you have more to test, they will charge you $250 per embryo for any sample over the original 8. So when 21 eggs are retrieved and 17 are fertilized properly, you're going to start panicking because sending an extra 9 embryos to get tested is going to cost an extra $2,250. Of course that's if they all grow in the lab properly for the next 5 days, but if you have shitty luck like I do you figure you're definitely going to be on the hook for close to 4k.

Because they don't bill your insurance for you they require a credit card for whatever it is they'll need to charge you. I'd just gotten a job again after a year of unemployment, which meant we had income but hardly anything in the bank. Plus every credit card was maxed. I needed to take what we had and pay down a credit card by 4k so I could count on having that money available and dedicated to making sure we could pay for these tests.

So I chose a card, one that I always liked better than the others for no real reason I could verbalize, and made a payment for 4k. The next morning I was headed to visit my dad for our annual member-guest golf tournament. A great time with lots of golf and quality father son time. On the drive to his place my phone dinged with an email. At the next stop for gas I checked it and found this:

"There was a recent review of your account and credit information. As a result, we have revised the credit limit to $3,050. This decision was based on the information obtained from a consumer reporting agency."

So basically, after paying down my maxed out 7k credit card by 4k they just took the money and immediately lowered my limit to roughly $75 over my remaining balance. The 4K for the test was gone.

And with that I should probably stop. I'm getting the black rage all over again and you need to go to sleep. Grow those limbs, practice breathing, and get mentally prepared for entering the world in the year 2016. A time of civil unrest, proudly uneducated citizens, but yet, far less Justin Bieber than a mere 12 months ago. I feel like we're trending in a good direction and I can't wait to guide you through it all.

So have a great night and keep this advice in mind:

People may be horrible, and often are, but they're always entitled to their wrong opinions. Mock them once they leave, never while they're there. That way, if you have to ever see them again in a social situation, they have no idea how stupid you think they are.

~ Your Dad

model baby

We got to see your face last night, and I know I might be slightly biased, but you're probably the cutest baby ever. We did a 3D ultrasound, and by using some crazy science that I don't understand, they turned sound waves into your adorable face. And your little feet and hands! You love your hands. You had one in your face almost the whole time. You were also holding onto your umbilical cord like it was a balloon from a party clown. Something you'll never have at your birthday parties because clowns are creepy, and there are plenty of scary things in this world we won't be able to shield you from, but clowns aren't one of them.

Seeing you made me fall even more in love with you. You have the sweetest chubby cheeks already! And your daddy's nose. And you are a little stubborn because you hated facing the camera. I even stood on my head for a little bit to try to get you to move. It did not help. Glad you get something from me! Just 10 1/2 more weeks until I get to snuggle with you and kiss that gorgeous chunky face. Even if you are as stubborn as I am, I will always always love you and take care of you and do my best to develop as much patience as it takes to help you grow into a happy human. I feel so incredibly lucky. Thanks for doing your part by growing big, strong and healthy.

 ~mama

People' Instinctive Travels Part 2: Electric Boogaloo

Hey Nugget,

Just your old man here, picking up where he left off on the subject of how you came to be. To recap, we tried everything and nothing but buttsex* seemed to work. 

*Not scientifically proven but try telling that to my heart. 

Anyway, we'd had a couple miscarries and it was time for medicinal intervention, and not the wacky tobacky kind. There are these doctors called, well, doctors, and they specialize in making babies out of thin air. The same way David Copperfield makes a card appear in your pocket, Penn & Teller can put a cut-to-all-hell woman back together again, and Jesus was an expert at finding coins behind ears, these saints will McGuyver a baby for you out of two rubber bands, a Zagnut wrapper, and spoiled plums. It's like wizardry. But we'll get to that part later. 

The first questions we needed to answer were 1) Where do we go for help, and 2) How will we pay for it? I'm not rich, as you can probably tell by how I constructed that last sentence. A Harvard man would know how to get that grammathically correct and he wouldn't have to make up words when his vocabulary fails him. 

So, where to go? In our case there were three options. The largest health system in town has a fantastic place that friends and family have used with success. The slightly smaller rival system has a very well respected center as well. We also had friends who used that facility. To make things even more difficult, there's a third option in town where a local guy named Fast Eddie guarantees a baby "within three months of purchase" and "with relatively similar skin color". Price was right, reviews were terrible. 

We picked the first option and couldn't be happier. Well, that's not true. In fact, that's an overused phrase. We could have been way happier for a variety of reasons: Less expensive, quicker, free massages, Mellow Yellow cans in the vending machines. You get my point. 

For our first attempt at making you we pumped your mama full of hormones and whatnot, attempting to make her ovaries take their loafers off and relax. A relaxed ovary is a happy ovary and a happy ovary is going to produce so many eggs you'll be giving extra to friends. Those friends will be like, "Gross! Why did you just dump them in my hands haven't you heard of a container?" but they don't know how expensive containers are these days, and besides, you're saving for a baby!

So with crazy good egg production comes an increased chance one of the sperms can Kool-Aid Man their way into an egg and make a human. Unfortunately it didn't work. 

So then they offered up a few more options to try:

IUI: This is where they place a tiny robot in the vagina and it does this little robot traffic cop dance that shows the sperm where to look for eggs. Works best on nerdy, rule following sperm and we've already decided you'll be a pro athlete so we passed. 

IVF: That's "In Vitro Fertilization". With IVF the doctor will spend lots of time inside the vagina getting to know it, mapping its many tunnels and surprises. Once they have the topography figured out they can properly spelunk an embryo into the correct spot. More on that later. The embryo, not the spelunking. 

ST: With ST (Shake Treatment) they get a double dose of the dad's sperm and after injecting the woman with it they spin her upside down and use a human version of Home Depot's paint shakers to distribute the sperm in "all the right places". The key to this treatment is knowing when to find another doctor if yours follows up "all the right places" with a high five attempt. Which is how we ended up doing IVF. 

The basic gist of IVF is that the doctor will stop letting your bumbling idiot bodies swing and miss at making babies and do the work for you in a lab. Once they create a little lab baby they might put it right into the mama or they may freeze the baby for later, ensuring they get a good seal on the ziplock because freezer burn is how things like Seal's face occur. 

(That was mean of your dad to say, by the way. Always remember that I say many things as jokes and would never hurt someone's feelings on purpose. Unless they deserve it, of course. Seal is probably a good person and I'm no Bradley Pitt in the face department either. But back to the story. I'll make up for this later by holding the door for a broad, or something. Oh wait! I had a gimme in the karma bank from the other day. I told someone with truly ridiculous hair that I liked it because I could tell they worked hard on it and were more than likely quite proud of it. So I'm even!)

((And probably like, a saint or something.))

(((It was a woman and she made her hair into the shape of a hat. It was flawless execution but pretty ridiculous nonetheless.)))

But one reason they might freeze an embryo instead of immediately putting it inside the mama is that sometimes you can have two seemingly healthy people who get pregnant but can't stay pregnant. And in that case they can do an additional test of embryos to determine whether or not they're good or bad. If they don't do that test, and simply dump (medical term) the embryo straight into the mama there's a big risk that the embryo was destined for miscarriage right from the get go. That just leads to another soul crushing moment a few weeks later and delays the chances of a baby yet again.

We were a great example of those types of potential parents, having less of an issue getting pregnant as we had staying pregnant. So we got tested to see if we had any genetic issues hiding in our bodies that would, to quote from the journal Annals of Obstetrics and Gynecology, "cause a Jeff Dunham". It turns out we had no such issues, my own genetic makeup scoring a perfect 100 on the Aryan Scale. Your mama's was pretty good as well.

This all means that we were ready for our first round of IVF. But right now it's probably time you take a break from reading and get back to growing all your important parts. A little advice before I go...

If you don't know the answer on a test, a good strategy is to go with C. If it's not multiple choice, or a question asking you to write down your favorite vitamin, you're screwed and you should write in a hilarious answer you can brag about while everyone else is graduating.

~ Your Dad

All the Things

Nugget,

I know your daddy's been working on a follow up to his last post, but he's taking a long time, so I figured I'd interject with some slightly sappier, definitely not-as-funny but true thoughts. You have gotten seriously active in the past month or so, and its exciting and makes me giggle and sometimes a little startling. It's a reminder that there are all these things we still have to do and an increasingly short amount of time in which to do them. 

Birthing class: your daddy and I will sit all day in a class that talks about what to expect the day we finally get to meet you. I'm curious to see how long it takes until daddy gets that glazed look over his face because he hasn't quite embraced the reality of you. I mean, he is very excited and thrilled about your arrival, but I just don't think it's as real to him because he doesn't get to feel your constant presence like I do. I think he's actually a little jealous about that. I would be, anyway.

Stuff: Oh. My. God. All the stuff. Crib and stroller and things for you to sit in, and bounce in, and gates so when you're mobile, you don't fall down stairs and soft things for you to wear and to sleep on, and things to carry you in and wear you with, and cute things for you to be surrounded by when lying, sitting, sleeping, and things to stimulate you and fascinate you, and keep you from being upset during tummy time, and things that make feeding you easier, and to monitor you, so you're safe, and all the things to encourage you to be thinking, empathetic, healthy and strong. And some of that stuff will be gifted by sweet friends and family who will be generous and lovely, but some won't, and your daddy gets all crazy about the prices of things (that is definitely his job because it's not mine) even if it's something I think is super necessary and he doesn't get it. It's a LOT of stuff.

Your room: This is fun, and while I have a lot of it planned, I know that some of it will come together organically. I painted it the perfect color I had in my head (after daddy painted it a color I thought was the one in my head but it was actually a gross baby blue color once it was on the walls and I hated it). This will also require some stuff. Like curtains - specifically black out shades, because I want you to be able to sleep. I want us all to be able to sleep. And your closet is currently filled with a great many things that don't belong in there, like christmas stuff and an air mattress and random daddy memorabilia, and those horrible wire shelves that need to be replaced with actual useful shelves and rods on which to hang all your adorable soft things.

Also, there are currently men dismantling our porch so it can be rebuilt. A tree fell on it a little more than a month ago in a storm, and it's finally getting fixed. It should only take a couple of weeks (or so I'm told), so I'm really hoping that's true, and the threshold we carry you over in 3 months is solid and beautiful and not at all filled with holes or remnants of splintered wood.

There is more, but I'm already a little overwhelmed. Frankly, I know that even if we check off all the things that need to get done before your arrival, we still won't be ready. How could we be ready for a whole new universe? It's fine, we'll learn and work it out together, sweet boy. You'll have us and we'll have you, and really, that's enough.

People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm...and In Vitro Fertilization

Hey Nugget,

Strap in for a long one.

Lots and lots of things have to go right for you to come out ready to drop Blue Steel on everyone. It's a journey and we had a long, expensive one to get where we are today. Nobody knows that more than your mama. She's had to bear the brunt of the duties, carrying you around in her belly, getting wands shoved in what you'd typically prefer to be wand-free zones, countless needle sticks, and the fear that goes along with wondering if all the efforts are ever going to pay off. Or, worse, going through everything and having them not pay off, which has happened a couple times now.

We waited until we were married to try having you. Lots of people wait until they're married to have kids because that's what their religion tells them to do. We didn't have that problem because the Flying Spaghetti Monster just wants you to be a decent human being. Well, that and to eat a lot of pasta. No, ours was more of an Uncle Sam issue. Having a baby is expensive business and I wasn't about to pay out of pocket for $200 Advil or get surprised with an extra $2,000 because the anesthesiologist decided to bring a resident along without asking. We wanted to be insured to help with costs and access to quality health care, ultimately ensuring you'd come out poppin' and lockin' with the best of them. Which is also why I play Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo for you every night once your mama falls asleep. Sometimes I mix in classic clips of Rerun too.






But back to how you came to be...

We got married almost five years ago. We kicked off our efforts during the honeymoon. I won't go into details but maybe this American Medical Association graphic will help explain it.


I know that's a very scientific explanation but some day you'll understand.

So during that first month we got pregnant! It was very exciting. Especially since we waited so long to meet each other and get ourselves into position to start trying. There's this pesky little problem where it becomes harder to have children as you get older. We weren't getting any younger, buddy. It was go time.

As the first trimester comes to a close you can begin telling family and friends with more confidence because the statistics will tell you that your risk for miscarriage drops considerably. Well, during the 11th week we had some concerns that something wasn't right. With a couple trips booked for the coming weeks we decided it was best to lay our concerns to rest with a visit to the doctor. In heartbreaking fashion, because we felt like we were only a week away from locking in that baby, we found out the baby stopped growing around 6 weeks. We just didn't see the symptoms until week 11.

There's nothing that can prepare you for that kind of news. It's a special kind of devastation.

In the coming days, weeks, and months, we learned that maybe there were fibroids causing the problem. That would suck to find out, but in a way it could have given us something to hold on to as a reason for the miscarry. Meaning, next time we'd be fine because we could remove them. Ultimately they proved to be harmless and we left with no reason for our bad pregnancy luck.

After the proper recovery time we were ready to give it another go. In fact, with how quickly we got pregnant the first time we thought for sure it'd be easy.

Then I was laid off work.

A year later I was still looking and we'd cashed out everything we had to stay afloat. Family and friends came to the rescue at necessary times and we just couldn't even think about trying to get pregnant without insurance or income.

Enter your dad's new job and a brand spanking new insurance plan some 16 months after the layoff and 20 months since the miscarry. It was time to start mashing privates with a purpose (OB/GYN term) again. We were confident it would happen quickly.

Over the next 8 months we carefully watched the calendar, trying our best to get our grind on at all the appropriate times. Maximizing our chances for conception was the name of the game and boy did we play alllll the positions. Ughhhhhh.

Sorry, Nugget. Got a little off track there. Where was I?

Oh yeah...

Here are some things that we tried:

• Hoisting legs up in the air. As if gravity was our only problem. GET. DOWN. THERE. YOU. STUPID. SPERMS!
• Pillow under the butt. Another gravity-based adjustment to our typical efforts that did nothing more than look dumb.
• Special Positions. You know, because of the angle of the dangle (common anatomy phrase).
• Lik-m-Stiks. Supposedly you can lick a small lipstick-like tube and then hold it up to your eye, like a jeweler inspecting a diamond, revealing a certain type of go-time crystallization that means start Marvin Gaye on repeat and get to work.
• iPhone apps. Those are basically just calculators for math you can do in your head.
• Yelling at the belly. This was my idea. "You WILL become a baby! I WON'T SAY IT AGAIN MEOW YOU BECOME A GODDAMN BABY!" 
• Acupuncture. In hindsight we should have gone to a professional because I only had small nails available and zero idea where they were supposed to go. 
• Post-Coital Jazzercise. Get up and groove that sperm into the egg! Ultimately we didn't give this one as much of a chance because you want to perform Jazzercise in a leotard, arm bands, and whatnot, but typically you want to perform sex without all those things. Unless you're Jazzercise role-playing, which got old for us a year into our relationship. Too much back and forth into and out of leotards to sustain this method properly.
• Buttsex. They say the closest distance between two points is a straight line and I thought maybe it would provide a clearer shot at our objective. Turns out doctors claim this is impossible. Jenny McCarthy and I disagree, but we moved on to other methods nonetheless.
• Praying. We didn't do this personally but mama's mama made sure to pray for us. I'm sure many others did too. This is a delicate subject because it clearly does not work but many people believe in it. If praying worked we'd all be rich, married to models, living forever, and nobody but those dirty Swedes would ever have a rough go in life ever again.

After none of this worked for eight months we magically found ourselves pregnant again! Buttsex? COULD BE! But we were happy regardless of the method that somehow worked.

Until six weeks later we were back in the ER and pretty much knew we had a problem again. It was confirmed with a blood test that saw hormone levels were going the wrong direction and we again found ourselves on the receiving end of life's cruel backhand.

It was after this attempt that we brought in the big guns. No, not that big gun. I'd been bringing that from the get go. I'm referring to the fertility experts in our area. We sought out the biggest and baddest fertility doctor in our town and I punched him in the face to exert my dominance and show I wasn't a punk. Didn't realize this wasn't applicable outside of a prison and had to apologize profusely before he offered to take us in for a consult.

But that's all for another post. As always, a bit of advice before I go:

Don't go chasing waterfalls. Please stick to the rivers and the lakes that you're used to.

~ Your dad

Funny Eggplant

You're now 24 weeks and the size of an eggplant! That's pretty big, so it feels ok that my belly is so big and round. Eh, who am I kidding? I love my bump. It's the most fascinating thing I've ever experienced. I feel like after you're born, I may actually miss this time, when you're nestled in there. Perhaps I will be too busy with you to consider these things.

We're in Asheville, and your daddy has some work stuff to do for another hour, but then we get to just hang out and walk around with Kaya and eat yummy food. Food is super important in our family. You'll learn pretty quickly that a lot of our plans revolve around where the best place to eat will be. Get ready, baby taste buds (Which are developing right now, according to my many pregnancy apps)! You will not be subsisting on nuggets or hot dogs. Anyway...Asheville.

 This is where daddy asked me to marry him and we were planning your big exciting life from the very start. In fact, his ability to be awesome with kids and the way we agree on how to do all sorts of parental things was a big factor in loving him so much. You'll find out soon enough, but your dad is kind of amazing. I guarantee he will make you laugh more than anyone else you'll meet for at least a few years. Once your social circle grows, maybe you'll meet someone else hilarious who won't also have to sometimes tell you to stop shoving things in your mouth/ears/eyeballs, so you'll appreciate them more. Until then, he will be your go-to comedy source. Which is fair, because I'm pretty sure you will remain our main source of comedy for many years to come. Keep growing, sweet boy!

~mama