Decision Made...IVF#2 here we come

So if you look back at this months blogs you know we were wavering on living child free or doing IVF one more time.  And I thought we were going to hold off on that decision until Mid March when it's time for Jeff's bonus.  But Jeff surprised me last night.  Out of the blue after being home for a few hours he said, "So I looked at a 401K for doing it again."  Nonchalant.  I looked up at him in the loft.  "Oh?  IVF you mean?" And he said yeah.

He looked at doing a 401K loan that would be huge - big enough to pay for a full OOP IVF cycle *and* pay off the one we just got in Sept.  It would only increase our monthly budget cost by about $125 a paycheck which so happens to just a little bit less than his promotion/raise is per paycheck so it's as if we wouldn't even notice because we didn't have that money two months ago in the monthly budget.
This would also keep us at one 401K loan, so if we needed another for a decent home loan down payment if need be (still not sure if we even qualify - see last post re that if you're that interested).  AND then his bonus could go toward a vacation for our fifth anniversary.   - And let me just say if you're someone who's all "why would you think about taking a vacation with these financial burdens? Let me just say unless you've come through five years of infertility and two miscarriages as fairly unscathed as I feel I am in the psychological world, you have no business deciding what is and is not needed or what you'd financially do in order to remain a fairly mentally healthy individual.  Not to sound defensive, but I truly believe staying connected as a couple by having a life outside of IF truly is what has kept me/us this sane and as crazy in love as we are.  And since we came out of the last six years having had two 401K loans of similar size and paying them off - I can say those five years go by so much faster than you think.  (:::Jumps off soap box::::).

Anyway!!  I was so happy to hear this.  Deep down I had prepared myself for the idea of child free but really hoped he felt as I did.  That seeing the heartbeat flicker those two weeks and living those several weeks knowing I was pregnant, were so joyful.  I can't help but feel we felt as if we had seen a glimpse of the other side of IF and want to go back and make it all the way to the other side.  We just are not ready to give up on that dream....yet.  So one more try.

To prepare for this, Jeff will go back to taking CoQ10 and Fertility Blend for Men for a few months and we'll plan on doing it in May/June.  I have my final WTF meeting with RE about my miscarriage and tell him we're moving ahead on Feb 17th.  I'll see if there are any tests that need to be redone, get a fresh pap, etc. before my Tar.get insurance runs out April 1st (because while I have fully run though my IF coverage it still has some medical bennies for wellness visits and testing I can at least take advantage before it goes bye-bye).  And my girls have already started mentioning free drugs they have to possibly give me when I mentioned we'll be taking $15K est. for OOP full cycle.  ((FX it is only this much.  I need to look back at my spreadsheet of what all they charged upfront to my insurance company before it was negotiated down and partially covered. YIKES I just looked and it was $13K WITHOUT meds or the transfer or the cryo cost if we have frosties!  Well, we should have two thousand or so in the HSA by then too but Jesus!  Oh and my RE gives a 5% discount to oop patients.  That seems so small  a discount after seeing what insurance gets off!!))  But I'm rambling.

Needless to say I am a frickin bundle of nerves these last 20 hours.  Nervous, excited, worried, happy, anxious - I've said, and it's so true, that I don't know whether to cry tears of joy or vomit.  OK, I did shed a few happy tears when I hugged Jeff after our conversations and have felt nauseous ever since.  So yeah.  There it is.

Any tax experts follow me? Any IVFers take medical deductions?

I'm grasping at straws here but might as well throw it out there when there are a decent size group of followers for such a private blog right?  I plan on finding someone professional to do our taxes this year after spending today looking into this but curious on a few points I can't find answers to yet...

So as mentioned in last blog, we owe $765 to the feds this year for taxes...but that was with me skipping the medical expenses section in Turbo Tax thinking I would revisit it later before filing to see if we fit the 10% of AGI needed to do itemize deductions.  (We take standard deductions because well, we don't have kids or a house so it makes sense).

ANYWAY if you're still reading - here is where it gets technical and boring as fuck.  Without even looking at our HSA (of which his company contributes $1,000 and we contribute $4,000) our OOP medical expenses this year WITHOUT insurance premiums is 6.8% of our AGI (I know it needs to be 10% but stick with me).  This includes our oop for IVF/FET, buying glasses & contacts for me this year, and paying off two huge medical bills in March unrelated to IF that were actually medical care from 2012 but paid off in 2013.

A) Do the bills I paid medically in 2013 but for care in 2012 count?  because otherwise we drop to 3.4% with just the IF and eye stuff.

B) HSA is pre tax (I believe but I'm not sure because...) in Turbo Tax it is listed in a whole separate section from medical expenses.  Am I right it's pre tax? Why if it's pre tax is there a section about it at all and why is it separate from medical expenses?  Because if A and B count we're now over 10%.

C) How can you tell if your insurance premiums (outside of the HSA) are pre or post tax?  I know it can only count if it's post tax.  We're in a CDHP (Consumer Driven High Premium) if that helps.  Like our HSA, our premiums are another ~$4K a year, so again if A & C count, we're over 10% or A&B, or B&C, or A&B&C.

Basically I need two out of three in order to make it.  I'm fairly certain of A being in.  And I'd think either B or C but doubt both...I really think it's B and not C - but the fact that B is in a separate section is what is really throwing me off.

Any advice?  Did any other IVFers do medical expenses deductions in the past have advice for this first timer?  Love to hear from you

Budget check in

So one of my #75strong decided to start a monthly budget conscience check in.  And it came at the right time to pat myself on the back.  I did what I said I would do.  You could read here what I said late March but a quick recap is my goals for 2013 was to pay off three of my four credit cards and cut the third in half.  And that we would pay off almost $5K of other debt (mainly medical bills) and afford our vacation without being thrown off track.  And Boo-Yay!  Done as of Jan 4th.  I had "budgeted" to have them paid off in December but well life does happen here and there and the IVF/FET took a little more $$ than expected etc.  But still I was able to stay on plan  by just one month shy of goal.

So I've been thinking the last hour or so on what to set as goals for 2014, because if you don't lay them out how can you stay with it?  Jeff still believes even with all the progress we've made that a home loan will be out of our reach because of his judgement (When he was a practicing lawyer one of his clients took him to court over something asinine and somehow won.  And for a large sum we will be paying off for several more years).  I think the progress we made is enough.  I told him to just wait and see.  So it's hard to set goals when it depends on that whole situation.  But.... at least this month we have about $200 med bills that are more recent (m/c stuff and whatnot) to pay, and our Nashville trip to pay most of because well fun within our means is soooo needed after all this crap.  So just a short term goal for now.

Oh, and we're going to have Jeff have $30 per check taken out extra for taxes so we won't have a $765 federal tax bill facing us next year (We're not looking for a refund, just not to owe).  And obviously this year's one long term goal is paying off that last credit card of mine and continuing to use Jeff's two at a 30% of credit limit area as suggested to build up his credit history (since he has almost none).  We pay off Jeff's car this August and once that is done we're going to start saving  a few hundred a month to build up an emergency fund (yes I know this is supposed to be the first thing people do for financial responsibility - but we're doing it our way. ie bass ackwards.) Once it's over $1k everything else in savings will be for whatever!  Vacations, furniture, whatever is a want and not a need.  

OK...there's some longer term goals for the year.  Again just writing them out for a record for me to check back with and hold myself accountable.  If once we learn of the house situation more ideas come from saving (as a mortgage should be the same or less that our rent in this high COLA) then I'll write more.

My cup runneth over

I've talked a few times before at how truly amazed I am by the lives I've touched or the lives that have touched me simply through the screen into a world called the internet but I am simply blown away this week.
It all started with the bump Aug. 2009.  Most, if not all of you that read this met me on there.  Within my first week I met a woman named SarahL77.  We were the same age and both starting TTC, and she was nice enough to send me a PM telling me a few things we had in common and we could support each other.  New to the forum - let alone the idea of "getting to know" people on the internet was totally foreign to me.  I had only browsed The Knot for wedding ideas, not used the boards to talk with people.  I was too leary to reach out and tell someone personally one on one so I was grateful for someone else throwing the first life line out to say "We're together on this!"  But still, I guarded my emotions a bit.  In real life many would call me the "strong stoic type".  I don't wear my emotions on my sleeve, and I wasn't ready to start with strangers on the internet.  Not yet.

After a few months I had a group I felt closely connected with, more and more I opened up.  We would share all kinds of girl talk, relationship chat, emotions, etc.  And after 8 months together TTC most of them were moving over to 3T (aka Trouble trying to conceive) and I followed (known at that time as the "Mass exodus" from TTGP.  As the months went by many got pregnant and moved on.  I learned to love a new group, but I missed my friends that I had grown to know that first year.  It felt similar to 6th grade when my friends abandoned me because I wasn't "cool" enough.  Now, I know these girls didn't do it on purpose...it was simply the nature of the board.  Get PG, move on.

Luck would have it they felt close too and I learned a year later they had created their own forum in a secret off shoot - and I was being invited into the secret lair.  A safe place no one could just enter.  Oh how special I felt that they remembered me, even though many of them I had not "seen" online or talked to in that year or so.  Reconnecting with them felt like when people first found facebook and reconnected with their old high school buddies.  If felt like coming home.  These ladies knew me.  And the new group I had learned to love just as well got the same idea about the same time...make a private place for just us.  And thus started what I truly felt was my support groups.

We don't have fights.  We don't have rigid "rules" of etiquette because we're all smart and loving people.  We understand we come from all walks of life - rich, poor, from the far left to the far right, religious to atheist.  We all except we're different but share this common bond.  That bond is love, support, and kindness.  If you had told me five years ago I'd write that; I'd say that sounded way too mushy and hippie to me.  I'm not like that.  It's not puppies and rainbows (don't get me wrong).  We're still foul mouthed chics and making sexual jokes like a group of guys.  Sharing links to fart-proof men's underwear as gift ideas for the husbands as a joke and asking for clothing or cooking advice.

And through this, the toughest month of my life, the two groups (there are maybe four of us that straddle both groups) came together to show their love for me.  The most thoughtful gifts, and tributes to my lost son came in the mail with beautiful cards.  Treats only friends would know I love and personal touches only they could do.  My heart overflowed and tears streamed down my face.  And I realized today that I am like the Grinch at the end of the show- my heart has grown three sizes bigger in these years.  THEY have done that.  No one else but these "strangers" of which I've personally met only a handful of IRL had taught me that it really is OK to fully open yourself up.  I mean - sure, I'm this way with my family, my husband, and my three closest girlfriends.  But I never thought I could expand that circle of trust to so many.  That I would have so large of a trusted group.  I am truly amazed.

I guess what I'm saying is this.  If you're reading this, and you're like me and you had not ever reached out.  Not taken that step to personally say to someone "You're not alone" or "I accept you just as you are"...it's OK to do it.  Sure, they might not respond.  But you might end up having some of the most amazing friends that have your back through just one common thread in the beginning.  And we may still have our differences politically, religiously, whatever.  But deep down, there are so many things to share.  And your heart might just grow three sizes bigger too.

A little sunshine into this blog

So I know the last four or five post are all about my miscarriage and if you didn't know me you'd think I'm walking around with a cloud over my head (like Pigpen in Peanuts walks around with a cloud of dust - yes, I'm picturing you thinking of me as a cartoon).  And I appreciate all the comments with sympathy and hugs.  Yet I feel maybe I am beginning to be a little redundant.  Yes, I will continue to talk about my loss.  Yes some days (like yesterday finding out it was a healthy boy) are hard ...but then there is a new day and I've been fine today.  Not to discount my grief or those still in a grips of theirs.  Everyone has their own timetable for moving on.  And I have not fully moved on yet.

But for me thinking ahead is important in life.  Enjoying life in general is important.  I am important.

So I thought I'd mention some things I'm looking forward to in the next few months.

Well let's start with right now.  I have a three day weekend to spend with my man.  We have nothing exciting planned - buying tires and maybe a dinner out.  But I really love spending all my time with him.  He is my best friend and even doing nothing all three days would be pretty damn great in my book.

Then there is the superbowl, and oscars awards, and Valentines day.  Again, nothing planned - but excuses to do something, anything or nothing - TOGETHER.  Then there is St. Patty's Day.  Last year we went on a pub crawl with a bunch of friends.  I don't do it often but there is nothing like getting your Day-Drunk on.  I tend to spend most of the day giggling like a school girl and smiling from ear to ear so for that I am looking forward to.

The *trip*!  Usually in the late spring we head off to Reno for the National Bowling tournament Jeff is in with buddies - but this year they are going in July and it's in someplace like New Mexico.  Nah, we'll skip that as our July is busy enough with the fest we help put on.  So instead we are going with 32 people on a bus trip down to Nashville to see the last regular season Blackhawks Hockey game.  OMG if you know me much at all you know I loooooove me some Patrick Sharp and my Blackhawks.  And three days in a city I've never been to, and with some friends along (and make some new ones?)  Fun.ass.times.  I'm seriously excited for this.  (If not just slightly scared of how much we'll be drinking as the host of this trip makes legend-(wait for it)-dary bloody mary's and they're part of the fee for the bus trip).

And house hunting!  And hopefully moving into our forever home!  And who knows what else along the way.
So this is my way to say, yes I've been writing out my sad emotions because ~well, those are the ones you need cathartic release.  That writing them out just helps to move on.  But I didn't want my digital footprint right now to not show the full Kati.  Because it is important when I look back in a year or two and re-read these (as I often do of past posts) and get the full sense of what I was thinking of.  But for now, it's Thursday night and I don't have to work tomorrow - so I am heading out to have some drinks with the bowling folks and play some slots.

Our baby was a boy

So I went in today for another follow up beta.  In my previous post I had hoped it was between 20 and zero but several of you ladies warned me the end it drops slower.  So I was preparing myself mentally for the idea it would still be above 100.  But thankfully they said it's down to 30 (from last Monday's 564).  So it should be zero I hope fairly soon.  Still no bleeding but as I believe I've said before I think my body just re-absorbs most of it since I have very very light periods.

However what I was not prepared for was that the genetics testing would be back so soon.  They said it takes two weeks to a month.  It's not been quite two weeks since we dropped it off and it was mailed out.  However it gave no answers.  I was told today that we had a "normal genetic male".

It was a boy.  A little boy.

I knew I would cry no matter which it was.  But before it was "a baby" - a bit in the abstract, if you will.  Now it's just so concrete.  We were pregnant with a little version mix of Jeff and I that would have been a boy.  And therefore it brings the pain back up fresh.

I don't know if I should feel glad to know there was nothing genetically wrong - meaning therefore if we cycle again with IVF we don't have to worry about PGD testing (and costs) or be sad that there is no reason (anti body or genetic) reason why the fuck this happened, so therefore there is no precaution we can take next time to avoid it.  I'm feeling both of those at the same time.

I did do a few of the other things I had on my to do list but can't find the strength to bother to vacuum or do the dishes or plan dinner for tonight.  Instead I think I will ignore it, take a nap, and get take out.  I have not told Jeff yet because it doesn't seem like something he should hear over the phone at work when I can tell him when he gets home.   Yet again the news and emotions it brings is sheerly exhausting.

I am an ostrich. But one with a theme song.

So I just read one of the blogs I follow.  And she mentioned she's a runner from problems (both literally and figuratively)  and it made me think of an analogy for myself.  I myself am NOT a runner - in any way, shape or form.

I am an ostrich.

I stick my head in the sand, hoping the world disappears.  I ignore a problem, or pretend it doesn't exist.  OK, OK - not about everything but that's me currently.  I don't want to think about if we'll cycle ever again.  I don't want to think about "Should I look for a new job since the reason I've kept it these last two years was for that small amount of coverage we've now blown through".  I don't want to think about how we'll pay for it and a house if we decide to go ahead and cycle.  I don't want to think about what if we're never parents.  I don't want to think about learning from the genetic testing if it was a boy or a girl.  I don't want to think about ANY of it!  I just want to shut off all those thoughts in my brain.  So I do.  I read books to take me away from it.  I watch mindless TV.  I don't talk about it.

The problem with being an ostrich?  Every now and then I pull my head out of the sand and am overwhelmed by what we're facing.  Or I see a fictional couple on TV go through childbirth (darn Castle episode had me crying that a couple had a baby and we don't...fictional characters people.  Geez!).   I had put my head in the sand about what might happen returning to work after being off almost two weeks from the miscarriage.  So then I was caught off guard after two hours of everyone treating me normally but not talking about it- when out of the blue my boss's boss said to me "How was your New Years?"  BOOM.  "I turned and said "Seriously?!  Well that's the day I passed my baby so it was pretty much the worst day of my life.  Thanks for bringing it up."  And then went into a room and cried for five minutes.  Yeah, pretty sure she feels like crap now.  All she could stammer out was "I'm sorry, I forgot."  Yeah.

But I had told myself I needed a song to help get me through this (for some reason I've done this all through life.  I have tons of songs that remind me of struggles or triumphs in life.  Even ones that remind me of my losses).  But this time I needed an anthem.  A fighting song.  A song to get me through the day.  I even posted on TTCAL on TB that I needed a "I can get through the day".  And then five minutes later I saw a video one of my friends posted.  It's for cancer patients and it's really beautiful and inspirational.  And I feel guilty for then turning it into "this applies to me"...because hell, I have five friends who are currently personally living with cancer themselves (All between 30-45).  I am by NO means saying their struggle for life is harder then my struggle with my wanting to be a mother or my dead child.  Not at all!  I know to be thankful for what I have and that there's always someone fighting a worse battle.  That being said, it's now linked in my head as my IF and Loss survivor song as of yesterday.  Strangely it's Kelly Clarkson's "People Like Us".  Below are the majority of the lyrics.  Sing along all those who are still in the depth of our version of hell.  (And if you or someone you know is fighting to kick cancer's ass - go find that video and share.)  Much love to my friends Pulga, Siobahn, Krista, Arlene, and Jerry.


Hey… everybody loses it,
Everybody wants to throw it all away sometimes
And hey… yeah I know what you're going through
Don't let it get the best of you, you'll make it out alive
Oh

People like us, we've gotta stick together
Keep your head up, nothing lasts forever
Here's to the damned, to the lost and forgotten
It's hard to get high when you're living on the bottom

Oh whoa oh oh whoa oh
We are all misfits living in a world on fire
Oh whoa oh oh whoa oh
Sing it for the people like us, the people like us

Hey, this is not a funeral
It's a revolution, after all your tears have turned to rage
Just wait, everything will be okay
Even when you're feeling like it's going down in flames
Oh

People like us, we've gotta stick together
Keep your head up nothing lasts forever
Here's to the damned, to the lost and forgotten
It's hard to get high when you're living on the bottom

Oh whoa oh oh whoa oh
We are all misfits living in a world on fire
Oh whoa oh oh whoa oh
Sing it for the people like us, the people like us

Oh whoa oh oh whoa oh
You've just gotta turn it up loud when the flames get higher
Oh whoa oh oh whoa oh
Sing it for the people like us, the people like us

They can't do nothing to you, they can't do nothing to me
This is the life that we choose, this is the life that we bleed
So throw your fists in the air, come out, come out if you dare
Tonight we're gonna change forever