Week in Review: Part the Second, In Which Whozat Tells All At Work

Well, that post was getting rather long, so I figured I ought to break it up a bit.

Moving on . . . .

Starting this Wednesday, Director is off work for about a week, having knee surgery, so I'm "on my own."

Note the quotation marks. Luckily, the EDs have arranged their schedules to make sure that one or both of them is around, in case I have questions.

(I have plenty of questions.)

I have, however, been doing a lot of things on my own this week, and I'm feeling a lot more confident.

This week, I've had several parent conferences. These generally only take about 10 minutes, and you just go over how the kid's been doing, and what they've been learning.

On Wednesday, one of the moms that I talked to brought along her teeny-tiny newly adopted baby. He is eight weeks old, but was born at about 31 weeks, so he really should still be in utero.

He was about 3 lbs at birth, but is up to around 7 lbs now, but is still tiny, and still has a bit of a fetal look about him. In the most precious way imaginable, of course.

She was planning to pay her June invoice while she was there, so she had a credit card - which just happened to be a Rainbow Card - sitting on the table the whole time we were talking. A clue! A clue!

At some point in the conversation, she said something that allowed me to confirm my suspicions, and to come out to her, as well. Very cool.

Also, I practically begged her to let me hold the baby, which she did. He was fussing, I was juggling him, trying to find a position to make him happy, the whole time we were talking.

I believe I may have mentioned to her that, "Man, I gotta get me one of those!"

On Friday, ED2 and I had a conference with a gay male couple who is enrolling their son. At some point there was mention of him having been picked on about ". . . his potential orientation."

I'm not sure if he's questioning, or if the teasing is based on his dads' orientation, or what. He's certainly not effeminate at all, so I doubt kids would peg him as gay, just out of the blue. At any rate, I took that as an opportunity to come out to them as well.

(I say this as though I think there's any way that I'd not already set off these people's gaydar!)

I also told them to feel free to out me to the kid, and to tell him to come to me directly if he has any problems.

After that meeting, I was telling ED2 about that part of the conversation (there was another person involved in the conference, and she was talking to him when that exchange occurred).

She seemed very pleased that I'd done that, and that the kid will have someone whom he knows he can come to about such things.

Then, I told her about the earlier conference, and was talking about the baby, and was going on about that, and I realized that this was really as good a time as any to share my plans with her.

I'd been thinking I'd talk to her about it right before the end of the day, but it seemed like a perfect seque.

So, I said, "That actually reminds me, there's something I wanted to talk to you about. Can we do that now?"

She seemed to have an inkling where I was going with it, and had a sort of, "I know what you're going to say!" look on her face - in a good way.

So, I told her that, "Normally one wouldn't bring this up with their boss at this stage of the game, but given the circumstances, I feel like I need to. I'm about to start trying to get pregnant." Then went on to explain in more detail, and tell her that I'll probably need to miss some work, on pretty short notice.

She said all of the "congratulations. . . good luck. . . that's very exciting" things that one would hope to hear, and voiced no concerns about how it all might affect my work.

Whew!

Then she told me that she'd conceived all of her children - the 10 year old and the 5 year old twins - in vitro, so she's been through all the testing, and drugs and such, and totally understands both the timing issues, and the urgency, given my age.

I told her that there's a reproductive endocrinlogist very close to work, whom I hope to use if we go that route. She had to drive an hour or two when she was doing this, so I think she was relieved to hear that.

And, of course, I am very relieved to have that out of the way, and that it went so well. I still need to talk to Director about it, but that will just be a matter of logistics, rather than worrying about being "in trouble!"

In more directly-baby-related news, we're still waiting for "cd (cycle day) 1" to arrive. (That's "ttc" (trying to conceive) talk for "I haven't started my period yet.")

As soon as it does, we'll be able to place our order with the sperm bank.

Freaky.

At the moment, it looks like Doc is out of stock, Popeye and NewGuy are in stock and BowTie is "call for availability." I suppose that could change in the next couple of weeks.

Given that the bank is most likely closed tomorrow and Monday, and that I should see "AF" (ok, that is the first, last and only time you'll see me use that stupid euphemism: AF = "Aunt Flo" = my period) within the next couple of days, I suspect that I'll be placing the order on Tuesday.

We've decided to pony up the extra $40 to upgrade to a 14-day tank (from 7 days) so that we can have it arrive earlier than we think we'll possibly need it, and the little guys will still be frozen way past when we think we'll need them. Just so I can quit freaking out about the timing.

Shipping takes two days, and the doctor wants it there one or two days before we need it, so there goes half the seven-day lifespan already! That only leaves about three days leeway in our estimated ovulation date.

If this continues for a while, I suspect I'll get more confident about knowing exactly when I'll ovulate, but since we've never actually confirmed that, I'm a little hesitant to bank on a very narrow window. It's well worth the forty dollars for that extra peace of mind.

So, what else happened this week?

We got together for dinner with some friends on Friday - none of whom we've seen lately, and none of whom knew about the baby plans. So, of course, we told them! They all said the appropriate things, of course. And then we drank too much.

Tomorrow, I think we're going to a wine and arts festival about forty-five minutes from here.

(Actually, it's in the town where I thought TutoringCenter wanted me to work, before the decided to hire me for the location that's an hour away.)

Wine, music, art, crafts, food. Should be great - I'll try to remember to take the camera.

But first, it's time for bed!