Cheers & Jeers!

Yehaw! We paid off my car yesterday! Yea US!!!!!

Eeech! In less than one year I've put 22,000 miles on the car. SHIT.

Um. . . .Actually. . . . (or, blogpost in which I spiral out of control & then try to redeem myself)

So, twins. Yes, twins. Twins. See above diagram. Twins.

Twins will mean many things. (inshallah applies to all of these, please don't make me type it over & over & over)

• Twins means not three. Thank Jesus Christ. I had three "ripe" follicles when we inseminated.


• Twins means no more crazy-womyn-juice for me. Ever. Still want four? Let's see. And if so, there are other ways of adding to the family.

• Twins means we will have two more babies in the family.


• Everything is going to change. Guess what? Everything was going to change anyway. If I'm truthful, I'd have likely had a panic attack no matter what we found out at the sonogram today. It just happens that my panic attack is about twins. Our twins.


• Our back-to-tightwaddery begins now. I am feeling so vulnerable with all these thoughts swirling in my head. Don't tell anyone at work but I can't imagine I could keep my job (we would clear $ 300/month after daycare expenses and I commute and I could never keep any kind of travel schedule and I would be completely fucking useless anyway with what's left of my brain and I may already be!!) I'll have to work somewhere evenings/weekends because I can't get on Scully's insurance & I am someone who must have insurance. I don't know if Scully & I will ever see eachother or if we'll just do the kid-shuffle meet & greet as we pass between each other. And what if I have to be out on bedrest before the babies come and what if we tank through my paid leave and our savings during the pregnancy? Money does not really make us safer in the world and I get that but having something in savings makes me feel a bit more secure. Even if that savings account is rapidly losing value simply because it is in US dollars.


• And women do this all the time with less money, less support, less resources, without respect from their partner, facing violence from immigration officials detaining them or their family, violence from their partner who says "sure you're pregnant & bleeding but there's nothing wrong with your mouth", violence from the welfare state which monitors and controls their mothering, their bodies, their lives. . . Women do this all the time. with less help. with greater risks.

• Khubz was just crying. I went upstairs to get her out of her crib (it's 5 am.) She sat up, said "sheep", grabbed her sheep and moved into my arms. I sat in the chair holding her and she immediately fell back asleep, her body nuzzled into mine, her face nuzzled into sheep. And I thought "I cannot wait to give you more family to love." And I thought "I cannot believe I will have two more babies, inshallah, to hold and love the way i hold & love khubz." And I kissed her head and thought "ya, Khubz, I am so sorry that everything between me & you is going to change." And I thought "I hope we are doing the right thing for you." And I thought "I am a bit fucking scared right now."

• So please don't mishear me, blogosphere/dear reader/universe/goddess. I am grateful, excited, thankful, humbled by this new way in the world. I know that I don't know anything yet. And I do believe that Scully & Khubz and I all bounce really well. I am keenly aware that many women may not even know they are pregnant yet and that means we have a lot of distance to cover. I know many things may yet happen and my energy should exclusively go towards hoping we all get safely into the world & stay. And I do hope that. And I do wish & pray for the well-being of my family.

• And I'm feeling a bit better. And I know we're all adjusting to an idea.

• And I am excited to pick pairs of names and put them on my tongue along with "Khubz" and "Scully" and "Fruitfemme"

• And I know we have lots of family we can move in with. (ahem, are you reading this Kelly?)

• And I know we have phenomenal supportive friends

• And I know Scully woke up at 3 in the morning to help me through my panic attack and I know I will have more & I know Scully is actually quite practiced at helping me recenter

• And along with that I know that I have cavernous emotional-needs and I cannot expect one partner or one blog to absorb all of that

• And so I'm going to leave it there and go check out the double-stroller at a garage sale while the rest of my family is still sound asleep.

love you,

the ff

Time to get creative

Okay, how can we raise some more cash without getting another job? (After all, I worked really hard to get Khubz and I'd be hard pressed to spend more time away from her.) Anyone ebay savvy? Two Shews, I heard you talk about Craig's list? Someone else told me about Treasure Troopers? We are planning a garage sale in the spring (thanks to the donated driveway space of some friends.)



Also welcome: cheap recipes that are not entirely dependant on sugar and white flour.



While we're at it, if anyone knows how to get me back to the gym, I'd welcome that advice too!

Quick call to Target

And the cost of Bravelle is actually $85 dollars a vial. Not $50.

Sometimes I feel a bit fucked.

$1500 in my closet

Yes, there is $1500 in my closet. And it's not enough.

I make a quick call to the fertility clinic to brush up on the cost of everything. My memory of what we did before was a sort of a blur of periodically shelling out $300 to the clinic here & there.

Cost of the insemination procedure? $206
Cost to wash (separate the tail from the core) the sperm? $60
Cost of the sperm? $400-$500
Cost of the crazy woman juice? $2250

This is for one cycle. . . one try. . .one month.

How did we do this before?
Insurance covered the cost of the fertility drugs.
And my policy now does not.

Will it cover the lab work? The sonograms? The progesterone? The hCG shot?

Scully and I talked through a couple silver linings to this really big problem.

• If we were only going to get insurance to cover one round of trying to make a baby, alhamdillah, they covered the first round. We know so much more. We won't be wasting time, money, meds, treatments just trying to figure out what kinds of help i need.
• We found this out before we incurred any costs. This relieves a lot of pressure.
• This means after I have my second child, inshallah, I can make a decision about whether and where to work based on what is best for my actual family, rather than wondering if I should stay somewhere for the fertility coverage while pondering whether to try for#3.
• I am totally proud of how Scully & I talk about money and I do believe we'll find a way to swing this.

Of course any silver lining is attached to a cloud: I still haven't gotten my period despite my best efforts to sabotage all my attempts to get my period back

All this is to say, how did we find $1500 in our linen closet? We have 5 boxes of Brevelle, each with 5 vials. Those suckers are $50 a piece. The vials. Not the boxes. We have 25 of them. Anyone want to check my math? $1500, right?

Yea us!

I mean, sure, they expired in December of'06, but the dr at the clinic said they should still be good. And so we're going to use them.

That gives me 7 days of treatments. To conceive Khubz I was on the meds for 15 days (3 vials a day.)

So all I need to do is figure out how to make a cool thousand and we'll have our first round financed. To celebrate, I went out and bought a $70 turkey. I know. Don't worry. It makes sense to me.

Blog of Consumption

Uh.

You can all thank 2 shews for this.

It's good. A nice UMF! to our commitment to frugality and a much needed reminder of many things (like how badly I suck keeping up with my recycling)

So what have I consumed today?

• Morning's heat, electricity, housing, water to get ready for the day
• Deodorant in a recyclable plastic container, toothpaste from a recyclable container, dental floss from a recyclable plastic container, mousse from a recyclable metal container, moisturizer from a recyclable plastic container. . . oh, but, wait. Even though all those things could be recycled, our recycling center doesn't accept them.
• Gas to commute to work (alone because my carpool buddy is on vacation) as well as paying the toll to get here
• Electricity at work for my lights, computer, heat, digital serviced phone, the microwave to warm up lunch
• Ugh. Food: 2 apple/cranberry muffins, someone brought in brownies at work so I had one of those, lunch leftovers from last night, a dt. dr. pepper from the vending machine, another brownie, a cup of non-fair trade, pesticide laden coffee which i didn't like and only drank because i didn't feel like having water and i ran out of change for the vending machine
• 147 puffs with lotion kleenex even though they could easily use recycled materials, they don't and i may go to hell for saying this but I just love their lotion-filled softness

there is more. There is so much more.

Although, to my credit, there is not a third brownie to list.

And I'm posting this nice primer on fair trade for when I complain about how expensive things are at the merc (which is often) and for when I feel like our save money values conflicts with our mimimize evil values.