Grand Slam

"I like things to happen; and if they don't happen, I like to make them happen." - Churchill

"Human life begins on the other side of despair." - Sartre

I do not believe I have eaten anything that wasn't 50% or more sugar in the past week.  My meal Tuesday at Denny's was a giant, syrupped waffle with a bit of scrambled egg on the side, and it followed a ten-minute crying spell, which followed a four-hour appointment at the Nashville clinic.

We'd filled out pages and pages of paperwork online, so when I rushed Heather out of the hotel room in the morning, she insisted that we couldn't possibly have any more left.  You know I wouldn't mention it if there wasn't, and we each had about five pages, reiterating our innocent family histories and promising to pay for any and all probing.  IDs and insurance cards were copied; I read Entertainment Weekly.  We each had wrist-bands, without which we weren't allowed into the sanctum sanctorum of the fancy-ass clinic.

After a combo of questions from a nurse and a twenty-minute wait in the exam room (Us Weekly this time), we went to a consultation room to see the doctor.  She was, Heather noted, "a sharp lady."  We talked about tests and prescriptions and lifestyle changes, and I felt like things were at least forming into an action plan: Heather would quit smoking, she'd take some kind of Clomid challenge (?) to test her FSH levels, and there'd be some kind of process with birth control later on.  Then we both got ultrasounds (Heather had a generous supply of microfollicles; huzzah) and were sent to the financial lady.

The story there is that the IVF package is $8,800.  That sounded okay.  But, oh, the medication isn't covered, so that, she estimated, we'd be shelling out between four and seven thousand for those.  Thousand.  We also have to come to Nashville for a four-hour orientation, which begins at 9am.  And, oh, it's a three hour drive, so we'll be spending another $80 for a hotel room, along with gas for the car and fast food for us.  (This time we ordered room service and it was both gastronomically and financially disappointing.)

Heather tried to reassure me that this-- IVF, childbearing, et al.-- was really going to happen, although what we'd been talking about moments earlier was whether it was worth spending another four grand to get our embryos tested for genetic abnormalities before implantation. 

How?  When?  What if Priceline gives us a hotel without free WiFi?