I super-love Target (although I'm getting a lot of mixed messages about their attitude towards the LGBT community, which I chose to resolve for myself when my mom said she met a lesbian who worked at Target HQ and who said that it was a tolerant and welcoming place to work), and there are few things I enjoy more than a meditative stroll through their handbag and jewelry departments. Cadbury eggs, for one.
What I do not enjoy, it turns out, is the redesign of their return policy, which reflects the grotesque failure that is their recent website redesign and equally discourages me from shopping with them in the future. Not that discouragement means anything when there's inexpensive jewelry on the line... (Seriously: someone on their website misspelled "jewelry" and that is an oversight up with which I will not put.) I went to return a coat which I knew better than to buy online, equipped with all manner of receipts and original packaging, and spent thirty minutes standing at the Guest Services counter, waiting on a $60 refund that should NOT have been so hard to execute.
I didn't get $60 yesterday, or anything other than grimaces from Heather, when I called her potential ob-gyn's office to determine whether her insurance was accepted. Heather has been seeing Dr. C for a few months and enjoyed it, but there's another doctor in the picture whose role is up in the air. Dr. King was recommended with high praise by Whitney and Mamie, with co-signing from my mom's cohort of TTC co-workers. (Yeah. I did it. I brought out the hokey abbreviation. Sue me.) She was the medical holy grail who was so much in demand that we had to make an appointment two months in advance before it was rescheduled for a month after that. Dr. C was a place-holder.
I've mentioned my love for structure and rule-following, so when people I take seriously tell me that Dr. King is the best & brightest, priority one is to get Heather into her office. Heather, per usual, is in a fog of oblivion, disconnected from these administrative goings-on (and not married to structure the way I am), so what she knows is that she doesn't like going to appointments and that Dr. C is a straight-shooter. I'm the medical gadfly at the other end of the spectrum, constantly making appointments and telling her what not to eat.
Yesterday Heather had an early-morning appointment to have her blood drawn, resulting in a flood of e-mail to me from the waiting room about how everyone else was being seen and she had to keep reminding the receptionist that she was there. Not many hours after she made it back to work, we had lunch in the park.
"Heather, I want to say something and I'm afraid you'll get mad."
Hostile pause
"Yeah?"
"We have a doctor's appointment next Tuesday with Dr. King."
"Rachel! Why? I'm sick of these appointments. What's wrong with Dr. C? I like her."
"Well... Dr. C was just for the interim. Dr. King is supposed to be the very best."
"What more is she going to do?"
And so forth. After much, much back and forth, Heather said that, if Dr. King's office (the fanciest in town) took her insurance, she would go. I snatched up my phone and called, with ambiguous results, and then called the number on Heather's insurance card. They gave me another number, which I duly called, and they referred me to the previous phone number. Somewhere in the midst someone gave me another number, but Heather nixed any more calls for the afternoon.
All of which is to say that Dr. C is fine for testing, but I'd just figured we'd have some test results to take to the fancy doctor. Now Heather wants to toss the fancy doctor aside altogether, meaning that if we wanted to get an appointment with her later on, it would be another three months' wait. I'd rather get in there now. What's wrong with getting another opinion?
So I have one more call to make today (after following the live blogging of today's Apple announcement), with either good news for me or good news for Heather: she'd like to avoid another doctor, and I'd like to lock in the magical reassurance of magical Dr. King.
All of which is to say that I've had a lovely break during Heather's testing cycle, and now it's time to jump back in. Nothing is going to be lovely. There might be fertility drugs in the picture, IVF, or the usual sperm deliveries. Jesus Christ.
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