In which F takes one for the team

I went to the doctor last week just to feel out the situation and see what he had to say. I've been assigned (I have Kaiser) to a new gynecologist since I moved to VA and I hadn't yet made his acquaintance. I make it a point to "meet" my OBGYN at least once before we get really "acquainted". When I showed up the receptionist double checked that I KNEW that this OBGYN was a man. Yes, I was aware. Was I OK with that? Ummm, yeah.
And I have heard my girlfriends say that they prefer a woman gynecologist - but I have to say, I don't get it. I don't ever want to confide in someone about my lady business and have that person thinking - "Wow, thank GOD that NEVER happens to me, how embarrassing." Or, inspecting the goods and thinking, "Wow, I am so glad I don't have THAT!" I think of a male gyno as classic car enthusiast. He may not have one, but that doesn't mean he can't appreciate it.
And the lesbian factor - I simply don't want ladies' hands in my lady business. Ewww. Sorry.
Anyway, the subject did come up, because, you know, I'm 33 AND THE CLOCK IS TICKING PEOPLE. He was totally cool.
He indicated that the clock was totally not even ticking and wouldn't be ticking for another 2 or 3 years (whew) AND that the doctor (my last primary care physician who TOLD me that - in fact, her exact words were "fish or cut bait") was totally wrong because he treats women for infertility all the time and I shouldn't even be concerned.
But he did ask, so I confessed that F ands I have been making a concerted effort for awhile now. Soooo, no big deal. Apparently there is only a 20% chance of conception occurring during every cycle. BINGO!
However, however, however...
Because F had (6 years ago) testicular cancer and lost one testicle, he ordered a semen analysis JUST TO RULE IT OUT.
When the test comes back absolutely normal, we can just proceed as usual and if I'm not knocked up by January (an official year although I quit my birth control pills long before that), I should go back and have a talk with him.
So F has to get up at the butt crack of dawn tomorrow (bless his heart) and drive to BFE to (yes into a cup and all that). Poor guy.
Delivering that test order to F was a little nerve-wracking.
A. Would he be angry that I discussed his medical history with my gyno? (This is a very personal issue for F; he doesn't discuss it with ANYONE. Most of our friends and family don't know. The only way I found out was, well anyway...)
B. Would he be angry that I was discussing our personal bedroom 'bidness' with a stranger (a stranger with an MD, but all the same, F is a VERY private person).
C. He has to YOU KNOW IN A CUP.
But, he surprised me, as usual, and took it like a trooper. He even called and made the appointment himself and took the earliest one available, even though that meant driving a considerable distance at the butt-crack of dawn to get in first thing. :sigh: Sometimes, I just love that man.

I which we tried, seriously, to get pregnant (no joking) and it still didn't happen (WTF?)

Dumbfounded, really, is the only way I can describe it. Um, a little annoyed. And like - "NO, really, I said I'd like to be pregnant now, not later. Obviously you didn't get that the first time, fuckard." Frustrating because there is no management to appeal to here. There is no reasoning or rationalizing my way into being pregnant. I have actually asked friend(s) who have children, "So, How does that work, how did you actually GET pregnant. I mean - details." As if, I'm doing it wrong. My logical mind cannot grasp that I am not able to accomplish this task given that I understand the process and the directions. I have a high success rate. Generally, when I attempt something, I succeed. I've even started thinking recently - "Do I only try things that I know I can do?" "Have I only attempted the easy things?" Like getting knocked up is a law degree or a marathon (things I would like to try but haven't). Did I not attempt them because I knew I wold fail? Have I taken the easy path my whole life? Do any of my accomplishments really mean anything? And then I realize - but this is getting pregnant! Retards do it! Bad people do it! So, while I fully, 100%, totally deserve to get pregnant whenever I FEEL like it, I am getting the shaft. Oh, and that's great because I totally deserve the shaft. I've been luckier than 1 person should ever hope to be in a life.

Bastards.

I am that woman who reads a news article about a woman who has a baby diagnosed inutero with a fatal tumor, and then reads a few lines down that she already has 4 children, and thinks - oh, she already HAD 4 children, what does she expect?

Or sees the pregnant woman and automatically thinks, "WHORE!"

I am not the woman who has "always wanted to be a mother", or thinks a child will "complete me". I'm too pragmatic for that kind of sentimental bullshit. Really, I am the woman who has tried, TRIED to make good choices and plan, plan, plan. I have tried to do the "right" thing. That included waiting until I was "set" and "ready", etc, etc. to have a child. Now that I am finally "ready", the result is a resounding "too bad".

Worse, one of my facebook friends who was married after me just announced that she is 3 months pregnant and posted a picture of her embryo/fetus as her default picture. Whore. Yeah, I'm jealous. And why do I feel like I am back in High School again? Why do I feel like she is smarter/better than me because she can get pregnant?

I go back to the doctor on the 30th. It will be a new doctor since we moved. I'm going to try to refrain from sitting myself down on the examination table and shouting, "What the fuck, Chuck?!?" At the doctor. It is not, after all, his fault.

And so it goes...

It has been a month now. 6 weeks since I gave my notice and went to work for my current company. Since that time I have received 1 cease and desist letter and a shit storm of threats designed to scare me into quitting my job for fear of being sued. I've been advised that their threats are bluffs, but not knowing when or where you might be accosted by a process server, is taxing. I am hoping that the last last certified letter is the last correspondence, but I'm not getting my hopes up. Keep you fingers crossed.
In other news. Well, possibly getting sued pretty much consumes all of my time and energy. If I' not dealing with it, I'm thinking about dealing with it. Sucks.
And. I've been trying to get pregnant. For awhile.
Turns out, what happens accidentally to most women, and with not too much thought or planing for other women, doesn't happen at ALL for me. Not to say that it won't, but damn. Really? It's been close to eight months. I spent a lot of time worrying I was pregnant when I was younger, when really? I shouldn't have bothered.
So. Not to harp on it, but I did go for some testing (everything looks good - 3 small fibroids, but nothing that would prevent a pregnancy) so, now I have another appointment with my ObGyn to discuss this in more detail. I really want to just discuss it because, um, the whole situation freaks me out.
And, well, maybe people that don't just get pregnant aren't supposed to be pregnant, you know? Like, what if I'm fighting destiny or the "way things should be even though I can't know or see the reason"? What if I fuck with the cosmos and disrupt the balance of the universe? I know, I am not that important in the grand scheme of things, but something feels very wrong about messing with "mother nature".
But, I am 33. And they say that if I want to do this, I need to do it now rather than later. I see the point; I understand that I can't just go on waiting for years. I mean, I can but waiting a few years will mean another set of obstacles.
So there's that.
Otherwise, we just got back from a weekend out of state with good friends, good food and all the raucous nonsense and silliness that I used to take for granted before we moved so far aways from everyone. Here on the right coast. It was so fun and so sad to realize that moments like these are so few and far between now. I used to take friends and family for granted. So that's what I'm doing right now.

Know when to walk away; know when to run...

Here I am, 4(ish) months and no post. Sorry, but life is sometimes so stressful, hectic and complicated that committing it to a post seems overwhelming. Sort of like, if I don't write it here - maybe it isn't really happening or maybe it will be over really, really soon.
So, the update on the job situation is that: yes, I did get it.
And no, my company that will (from here on out) be referred to as "Company A" due to possible pending litigation, was NOT happy about it, in a major way.
In the litigating sort of way. I've had no end of threats and accusations in the week since I've resigned. Is it possible that this has only been going on for a week? It seems like 6 months at least. I can't get into specifics, but apparently Company A thinks that going to work for my current employer is a violation of our non-compete and non-disclosure agreements. They are wrong, but I can't be specific due to afore-mentioned issue.
Anyway, although I know that I am in the right, and although counsel has advised me as such, I cannot relate to you how stressful it is to be sued. The only other time I have had occasion to be involved with lawyers was during my divorce and I wasn't exactly being "sued". What I did learn, however, is that lawyers are freaking expensive, no matter how right you are. At the minimum, they have to illustrate to the "other guy" WHY you are right. That takes time, and they bill hourly, not by the job.
I'm in the wrong business.
While I was an absolute mess for the first 3 days, the last few days I've sort of settled into vacillating between a general malaise and sense of reckless abandon. Either way, it's kind of like: "Screw it!" Which, either way, is a definite improvement to not being able to sleep or eat and suffering horrendous anxiety. At least I can sleep at night. I think this is, in part, due to the fact that at some point on the 3rd or 4th day of this debacle, I realized that I was morally right. Is what is immoral necessarily illegal - of course not. I used to think that the converse was untrue, but I find now, being in this situation, that I was wrong. If I have, in fact, acted illegally, it most certainly WAS moral. So the laws and morality are now totally separate for me, weird. I should say that they do have a relationship; they are intertwined, but they are not as black and white as they once were for me.
Which is to say, I don't know the ramifications of my actions, but I know that I could not have acted any differently. I had a moral obligation to break the parameters of my contract, but the contract may still be legally binding. And I think, for me, I'd rather be on the side of the moral than the legal - if I have to choose.
Which makes you a better person??? I your opinion? In mine? I'm not sure at all.
So now we are in a holding pattern. Which is a particularly appropriate analogy for this situation as I actually once WAS in a literal holding pattern and it was nerve wracking, exactly like this. I was flying into Atlanta and there was a storm on the ground, so the pilot couldn't land the plane, but the turbulence was severe. We stayed up there, 30,000 feet above the airport for 45 minutes - circling, and there were moments when I did not think we were going to "land" so much as crash into the earth in a fiery inferno. This is like that. Until I get some kind of final confirmation that they are either going forward with litigation or not, I'm stuck - hovering. I do believe they are trying to bluff me. Can I call it?

Valentines Day

Happy belated Valentine's Day. What'd you get? Roses? Candy? Hmmm? I got pot holders. But I'm not bitter.
I've been a reluctant blogger recently because I just didn't have much to say and I was tired of whining all the time. Finally good news to report.
I was sent out to contract directly to one of our clients (remember, I work for eSuckz) and they offered me a job. The only hitch was that it's a gov't deal, so I had to jump through all the hoops. Turns out, I made #4 and they can only consider the top 3 candidates. Apparently one of the top 3 was disqualified or dropped out because I was unofficially told today that I made the "short list". Oh - I can't even tell you what a relief it would be to be able to officially tell eSuckz to suck it.
Here's the thing - I know they'll try to sue me, but I don't even freaking care. I'm just so happy and relieved at the prospect of not having them in my life anymore; I didn't realize what a drain they were on me - physically, emotionally, everything.
Plus, the salary is double what I make now.
Did I mention that I got my w2 and, sure enough, they shorted me 10,000$. That's why your company won't give you pay stubs and insists on direct deposit. I'm surprised I even survived last year. When I think of the hours I put in - and then they forced me to take 2 weeks LWOP before I started here when I had vacation due to me. It's not worth the anger and frustration of fighting over it, but it is a valuable lesson that I will never repeat again. Keep your fingers crossed.

I forgot, after living back in California for 3 years, how hard Winter is. I am so, so tired of listening to the howling wind rattling my windows and staying in on yet another Friday night because I just can't bring myself to bundle up and head out into the 30 degree night after I was in it all day. I want to stay in bed all. the. time.
In addition to the 235,879 thing that we've discovered don't work in this house, apparently the heating system is one of them as well (in addition to the toilet which we found out about yesterday). Our heating bill is 600+ dollars/ month and it's COLD in here. Apparently this place has no insulation. When F opens his built in drawers, he can actually catch a draft of cold air. This place leaks heat like a sieve. Never rent a house built by a weekend carpenter. Never again.
In other news, this blog is about to be about 1 year old (or close to it). I started blogging after F proposed, to commemorate the journey. That was the weekend after Super Bowl weekend last year. Unfortunately I haven't been as prolific as I had hoped of late, probably because I spend way too much time on Facebook, but I am excited. Other great news - my sister and brother in law and BABY are coming to visit in April-May for almost 2 weeks. Yes, I know it's February, but I can hardly sleep because I'm so excited already. It really doesn't take a lot to make me ridiculously happy. Baby is in an early preschool program (although he's only 20 months) and he's been singing songs at "school" so I'm sending him the Sesame Street sing along book. It has a music playing device and several plastic disks that you can insert into it. There are a total of about 40 songs. I hope he likes it. It's a little loud, but I can only hope it drives his father insane.

The Wedding

Well, Mike and Rachel finally got married. F and I went up on Friday afternoonish, just in time to make it to the rehearsal dinner and then a night of boozing at the local Superior watering holes. This was my first trip to the Duluth/Superior metropolitan area. It was freaking cold. It snowed and snowed, but it was beautiful. We also got he hummer limo. I'm not one for hummers in general, but this limo was fantabulous - plus, it was stocked with champagne and Pabst Blue Ribbon - a local (and personal) favorite. We drove around for an hour stopping off at random locales to take pictures (oh yeah, we had our own photographer). Cool!

The church was beautiful, but the reception was like heaven. It looked like there were about 500 people there - it was huge. F and I got a room at the Sheraton across the street for the reception - so nice. The next morning we stopped over at the Burkholder's suite to pick up the wedding dress for transport back to the Score house before we left town. I know Rachel's sad that it's over. I'm sad that it's over. I don't get to see good friends very often anymore these days and with the economy the way it is, I don't see a lot of travel in my future, so it was so, so nice just to hang out with the people that I love and miss all the time.

Maybe that will be my New Year's resolution. :)