Handbags and Glad Rags

It's my day off and I'm never up before 10:30, but I had a call before eight saying that I had to pony up $555 so my used car-- valued at approximately $3,000-- doesn't...  I don't know what it might do, other than that I have a chronic fear of breaking down on the interstate.  So anyway I told the guy to get on with it and now I can't go back to sleep.

I have the money, but it was earmarked for our baby-drug fund, held in my bank account in car-repair escrow till we knew what this would run me.  I'm getting a tax refund, and it's going there, too.

The bitch of it is that the drug fund, in combination with the procedure fund, is just hanging out.  First we were waiting to kick off the pre-process of pap smear and Clomid challenge because we were going on vacation.  Then Heather wanted a few weeks' worth of time off to readjust and go to the dentist. 
When I finally called Dr. King's office to make an appointment, it turned out we weren't done with the waiting because she can't see us for a month.  And it takes what looks like two or three weeks to proceed with the Clomid challenge while we wait for Heather's next cycle to kick in, then another ten or eleven days to do the test, then I guess a new appointment(s) in Nashville to either see the doctor or take the four-hour prep session or both.  Best case scenario, we could kick off the IVF procedures in April. 

While that makes for a lot of time waiting and getting not a damn thing done to actually produce a pregnancy, it's also time that Heather needs to spend to quit smoking.  I know that it sounds like something she should have done before we ever inseminated, but then again I've never smoked, so I don't have any clear idea how difficult it is.  Still, she said she'd smoke like a chimney on our trip so she could enjoy it before quitting when we got back, but then she says things to me like, "I wonder when I have to quit smoking," as though it's not necessary until one of the doctors specifically tells her, "Okay, you have two weeks."

What doctor is going to say that?  No one is going to say, "Eh, it won't impact your body's ability to get pregnant till we're actually testing your hormones."  It's probably already affecting her hormones.  So-- and this revelation is predicated on the belief that Heather never, ever reads this blog-- I called Dr. King's office this morning and left a voicemail for her nurse, asking if they might humor me by calling me or Heather to tell her she needs to quit before the appointment.  I'm going to piss her off mightily and ineffectively if I say it myself, but if someone official tells her, it could actually work.

So I'm going behind her back and doing something kind of dishonest and crummy, and I know for sure that, should she ever find out, she would not view it as well-intentioned and good-hearted so much as shit that I have no right to meddle with.  I can't imagine how the doctor's office feels about it since a) I'm on her forms, but more as a person to whom medical information can be released than a person who can intervene in her medical care, but b) surely they do want her to stop smoking and probably don't realize it has to be said.  I'm hoping the latter will outweigh the former, and they'll figure that, while they can't, policy-wise, take my preferences into account when it comes to Heather's care, it's still important to tell her.  But we'll see.

(Seriously, local friends, I know it's tempting to throw fuel on the fire by telling her, but for God's sake, don't you want her to quit smoking, too?  Don't you want her to get f-ing pregnant instead of all of us living through purgatory for months longer while she struggles?  Don't you want to be an auntie?)