Thursday Thirteen #48

(Warning: Nerdiest. Thursday 13. Ever.)

Thirteen Federal Tax Deductions That We're Taking

Actually, these are just a few of the deductions that I'm taking. We do all this stuff in my name and I itemize, and Shrike just takes the standard deduction. We should probably do it the other way around, since she makes a good bit more than I do, now, but I think we're still both in the same bracket, so I guess it doesn't matter.

1. Mortgage interest
2. Real estate taxes
3. State / Local taxes
4. Health Insurance Premiums (pre-tax deduction)
5. Charitable Donation: March of Dimes
6. Charitable Donation: American Cancer Society
7. Charitable Donation: Our Local Animal Shelter
8. Medical Expenses: $0.20 / mile for travel to doctor's appointments
9. Medical Expenses: Fertility Medications
10. Medical Expenses: Intrauterine Inseminations
11. Medical Expenses: Blood Tests
12. Medical Expenses: Dildo-Cammings
13. Medical Expenses: Our Dr. T visits for which I was smart enough to sign the check

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

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Wordless Wednesday #45: Panty Raid

He's waiting at the back door, thinking that I'm actually going to let him go outside carrying my favorite underwear in his mouth. He is sadly mistaken. In reality, I am going to bribe him with a rawhide chew to drop the underwear. Oh. Wait. . .

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Ten on Tuesday #20

Ten Things I'd Buy If I Had a Million Dollars
(and had to spend it on myself)

1. Pay off the house.
2. Pay off my car.
3. Pay off the baby debt.
4. Pay back my parents for the baby money they gave us.
5. Hire a maid.
6. Hire a cook.
7. Hire a grocery shopper.
8. Buy every panda-related baby decor item ever made.
9. Buy whatever Shrike wants (if she's happy, I'm happy).
10. Invest the rest, and pay ourselves an annual salary, so we don't have to work for a while.

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Manic Monday #21

1. If you could have a servant come to your house every day for one hour, what would you have them do?
   Wash dishes, wash clothes, change the litter box, clean the bathrooms.
   
2. Has your life ever been changed by an apparently random occurrence?
   Absolutely - meeting Shrike. Unless that was fate, or something else that I'm not sure I believe in.
   
3. You're having dinner with several friends and acquaintances. They all criticize a close friend of yours (not knowing he/she is a friend). The criticism is unjustified. What would you do?
   I would like to think that I'd have the balls to stand up for my friend.

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A Very Interesting Evening

Last night, we had dinner with Shrike's sister and her partner, and two other couples from their church, one straight, one lesbians. (It's a Unitarian church, if you're wondering.)

Early in the evening, we found out that the lesbian couple had used IVF to make their son (now 10 or 11?) and that the wife of the straight couple is a surrogate, who's currently in a "two week wait."

Technically, she's a gestational carrier, which means is someone who carries a baby for another couple, using their egg/sperm. (In this case, they are using an anonymous donor egg, as well, since the intended mother had ovarian cancer about ten years ago, requiring a complete hysterectomy.)

A surrogate, on the other hand, uses her egg to make the baby, carries it, and then gives it to the intended parents.

They have an eight-year-old daughter of their own, she carried one baby who's now fifteen months old, and she's currently working on a second.

So, the vast majority of the evening was spent talking about IVF stuff, and comparing notes about the fertility clinic and its staff (she's working with the same clinic we go to).

The kids were in and out through the evening, so this conversation, which happened as we were reading to our niece (7) and nephew (10) before bed, was rather inevitable:

Shrike ("hypothetically," to me): You know, if we have a little boy, I want him to be just like GodzillaBoy, and if we have a little girl, I want her to be just like Niece. Hmm, she needs a blogonym, doesn't she?)

Niece: Are you going to have a baby?

Whozat: Oh, maybe some day.

Shrike: (Something equally non-committal)

Niece: Are you trying?

What the hell? She's seven! Well, shit. I guess there's no point in lying about it.

Whozat: Well, actually, we are. But it might take a while.

Niece (not particularly confused, just curious): How are you going to do that?

Whozat: The same way that Cousin and Cousin-if-there-was-a-law made Baby R.

Niece: How did they do that?

Oh, darn. I was hoping that had already been covered. Oh well, I'd better get used to this.

Whozat: Well, you know about how babies are made usually, right?

Niece: Yeah, by having sex.

Oh. Right. I'd forgotten about that option.

Whozat: Okay, so you know about how women make eggs and men make sperm?

Niece: Yeah.

Whozat: Well, they are going to take some eggs out of Aunt Shrike, and put them in a dish together with some sperm from a very nice man, who is helping us, and they'll get together and make embryos, which are very tiny, and might grow into babies. Then they'll put a couple of the embryos in me, and we'll hope that one of them grows into a baby.

Niece: Well, if you have a girl, I think you should name her (name that we like, but it rhymes with PerfectPup's real name, so we can't use it). Or (some other name) or (her name) II. You could call me Big Name and call her Little Name. Or (and proceeds to list the names of like every little girl that she knows).

So much for not saying anything to the kids just yet, but I think that went quite well.

Photo Hunter #44: Old Fashioned

This cedar chest belonged to Shrike's paternal grandmother.

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I Really Need to Read the Directions More Carefully

Shrike (in an email earlier today): Can you do me a favor tonight? I washed the comforter but am afraid to dry it while I am gone. Can you throw it in the dryer this evening?

Whozat: Sure!

So, I came home from work, remembered (all by myself) about the waiting comforter, and turned the dryer on, for its maximum time. Go me.

A few minutes ago, I thought, "Hmm, I wonder if it got completely dry. I'd better go turn it back on, to be sure. And, further more, won't it be nice to have it all warm and snuggly at bed time. While I'm at it, maybe I should rearrange it in the dryer, and turn it inside out, in case the inside parts are still damp. Go me, again."

So, I open the dryer, and it is . . . empty.

I open the washer, and there's the wet comforter.

I'm all ready to write a post titled "Could You Be More Specific?" in which I claim that Shrike just told me the dryer needed to be run, and didn't mention where the comforter was.

Then I read her email again: "Can you throw it in the dryer this evening?"

Shit.

There's really no talking my way out of this one, is there?

Five on Friday #2: Thinking Warm Thoughts

1. What is your favorite hot beverage?
   Coffee and Kahlua, with whipped cream
   
2. Describe your favorite hot food?
   Chili con queso dip, from Casa Ole'
   
3. What piece of clothing makes you feel warm and snuggly the moment you put it on?
   Shrike's big purple hoody, shown here
   
4. Do you warm up your car on cold days? Do you run the heat all the time or just enough to defrost the windows?
   If I'm clearing ice or snow, I'll start the car / heater and let it warm up while I do that. If not, I'll just hop in and go, cursing the cold (and the woman who's making me live in it) for the first few minutes until the heat kicks in. The new car actually warms up pretty quickly, though. I run the heat full-out at first, then switch it from dash to mixed to floorboard, and then turn it down, as it gets warmer.
   
5. What is your ideal warm-weather vacation spot?
   Hmm, the Caribbean?

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A Highly Informative Day

This afternoon, we received both our tentative schedule for the IVF cycle from the fertility clinic, and a draft of our donor / recipient agreement from the attorney.

I also turned in a couple of consent forms to the fertility clinic, so that the social worker is now allowed to actually tell people that we're not crazy, rather than having to keep that highly sensitive information to herself.

I've added the tentative schedule to our "How to Make a Baby" agenda in the sidebar. Of course, all those dates are iffy, depending on how we each respond to our respective medication protocols, but it looks like we'll be "getting started" (I take my first meds) in just over a week (!) and we should be doing the actual baby-making the first week of March.

In the meantime, we need to finalize the donor/recipient agreement, and order up some sperm (need to make a final decision about a donor, first, I guess!)

The agreement shouldn't be a big deal; I've looked over the draft and it's pretty much what we asked for. I just want to tweak a couple of small things.

One is that it says the agreement is good for two retrievals or six months, and I want it to cover all six possible retrievals.

The other thing, which we may or may not be able to change, is that in the first "hereafter known as . . . " paragraph, it says that Shrike is "The Donor" and I am "The Intended Mother."

I've asked the attorney if we can change that to refer to me as "The Recipient," since the whole freakin' point of the document is to establish that we are both the intended mothers!

Other than that, it's pretty much good to go. Here's the gist:

The sole purpose of this agreement is to enable Recipient and the Donor to have a child by means of in vitro fertilization using eggs donated by Donor and semen from an anonymous donor. . . .

The Recipient desires to have a child or children considered legally hers and the Donor’s and intends to be implanted with the donated eggs fertilized with the donor sperm and then carried to birth. . . .

Donor also desires to have a parental relationship with any Child born pursuant to this agreement. Further, she believes and intends that the Child is morally and legally that of both the Recipient and herself, the Donor. . . .

Donor wishes to utilize her unfertilized eggs and together with the Recipient intends to fertilize the eggs with the sperm of the anonymous donor and have the resulting embryo(s) implanted into the Recipient’s womb. The Recipient proposes and desires to gestate the resulting embryo(s) to term, and together with the Donor intends to accept all parental rights, claims and responsibilities for the child/children thus conceived and born. It is absolutely the Recipient' and Donor’s decision together whether to gestate these embryos to term. . . .

Both Parties agree that upon retrieval, both the Donor and the Recipient shall have equal ownership of all eggs retrieved and embryos created, including any embryos cryopreserved for later use by the Parties. Donor agrees that Recipient shall enter her name as the Mother on the birth certificate of any Child born from donated eggs. The Recipient agrees that the Donor shall share equal parental rights to any Child born as a result of the egg donation, and the Parties will each sign documents before and/or after birth, and will take all necessary steps to fulfill the intention of the parties to make the Donor and the Recipient exclusively both the actual and legal parents of the Child. . . .

Thursday Thirteen #47

(Better late than never, right?)

Thirteen Habits of Highly Annoying Animals*
(*Who Happen to Live at Our House)

There's a reason they call them pet peeves.

Feel free to comment your speculations as to which critter commits which sin. Some apply to more than one of them.

1. Drinks out of the toilet.


2. Sleeps between us in the bed.


3. Only likes one specific brand/flavor of treat.


4. Throws up on a regular basis.


5. Sleeps under Shrike's desk (ok by me, but I suspect it annoys her).


6. Refuses to come in the house when called.


7. Insists on being in my lap while I type.


8. Hovers while I eat, waiting for leftovers.


9. Drinks out of the toilet, and takes things out of it when the opportunity presents itself.


10. Brings bones into the bed and chew them loudly, sometimes leaving behind shards.


11. Refuses to go into own room when we are ready to leave for work.


12. Loves, loves, loves to go for a walk, but runs from the leash / harness.


13. Poops just outside the litter box.

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

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