In the end though, I guess it doesn’t matter how much I love him, or how hard I tried, or how much I wanted it to work out.

He dumped me. And then he went to France.

I would have never done that to him.

You don’t do that to someone you love.

I guess that is the point.

Today is one of those days.

I was pissed at Geo when he showed up last night.

Which wasn’t good because he was pissed because he saw mice in his house.

Which also wasn’t good because if you recall, I have recently discovered that I am deadly frightened of mice, so much so that I think I might even hate Minnie Mouse and her red polka dotted bow.

And this morning I was pissed at Bug, who decided to eat an unacceptable breakfast and then leave half of her unacceptable breakfast plus all of the things that she used to make her lunch all over the kitchen I had spent about an hour cleaning last night.

But hey, that was OK. Because Geo had brought his..well actually my TIVO over here. The TIVO was the only thing I wanted when I got divorced. I mean seriously, I took my clothes and my books and some personal things and my computer, but Kenny got everything else. Except my TIVO. I kept the TIVO. But then the TIVO ended up at Geo’s. And this TIVO is an actual TIVO, bought when TIVOs were like 400 bucks. (Kenny and I were not very responsible with money)

But I digress.

The point is that Geo, since he felt an overwhelming need to mess with his new turntable, was going to record Greys for me (because I am still TV-less) and then bring the TIVO over to my house so I could watch it.

Which he did.

So after I was pissed and he was pissed and then I was pissed again, I propped up my pillows and sat in to watch me some McDreamy.

Except.

He ONLY TAPED HALF.

HALF.

See, he never lets TIVO call in to get the listings, so TIVO didn’t know Greys was an hour so it only taped half an hour.

And then I was pissed.

Except then I found out that an 800 dollar deal he made is probably going to fall through due to…the weather.

So he was pissed.

And one thing I’ve learned about two very stubborn people is that it is never good to engage in conversations when both people are pissed.

Plus, I am doing PURE POSITIVE PRAISE.

So I can’t say, “Thank you for taping Greys for me, EVEN THOUGH IT CUT OFF RIGHT BEFORE ANYTHING GOOD WAS GOING TO HAPPEN” because that would not be pure. Or positive. Or for that matter, praise.

Also, Geo wants us all to go to his house tomorrow so that on Sunday he can watch the football game. (Because again, I am TV-less)

Except what if a mouse touches me??????? Hello, that is worse than half of Greys.

And one more thing.

Bug has informed me that she will do very good at her first basketball game tomorrow because she is excellent at doing everything except getting the ball in the basket.

Well alright then.

Technorati Tags: basketball, TIVO, mice, Grey’s Anatomy

Oh boy. Bug seems to go through phases. She’ll be really good for awhile, then rotten for awhile. She’s in a rotten phase now. I’m not sure if it is Christmas-related, because she didn’t have the same problem last year. But she’s just running around like a crazy person. Being rude, throwing tantrums, saying she hates me over a game, asking for food and when I say no, taking it anyway. Last night, Geo got fed up with her for pretty much the first time ever. I mean, he was FED UP. It was kind of nice, because for once I was the good guy instead of always being evil Mommy who makes her do what she is supposed to.

About Geo’s Christmas gifts..he got me several things, including some bedroom furniture. He got Bug and I authentic licensed Cubs jerseys. On the back, it says our respective nicknames, and then 11 on mine and 8 on hers, for 11/8..our adoption day. Isn’t that sweet? He was really proud of himself.

Now I’m just trying to get back in the swing of things. This is the first time in a long time that I haven’t held a full time job, or been going to college full time. I’ll be working at home, and I’m nervous about it. I’ve been working at home for awhile, but just as a way to bring in extra cash. Luckily, I have my disability compensation and Bug’s adoption subsidy (which is only $275) so I’ve got a good head start.

I’m hoping 2007 is a kick ass year.

Oh, speaking of 2007, do you know Walmart has already replaced all the Christmas stuff with Valentine’s day stuff? Isn’t that slightly ridiculous?

Also, I’m going to be blogging about my attempt to do the Flylady program over on my other blog. I’m looking for people to join me. Come join me!

P.S. If I owe you a Christmas card because we participated in an exchange or because you sent me one, I KNOW. I SUCK. Between graduation and the move and all, I did not get them sent out. But they are going tomorrow. I know. It’s dumb. But better late than never right?? Also, I’m having difficulty with my Outlook Express, so if you email me through the site and I don’t write back right away, I’m working on it.

Technorati Tags: adoption, Cubs, Valentine’s Day, Walmart, Christmas, Flylady

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Hope all who celebrated had a great Christmas today, and those who didn’t..hope you had uh..a good day off work!

Our Christmas was a whirlwind of excitement which included botched hand signals during Operation “Santa,” a bunch of really thoughtful sweet presents from Geo which I’ll talk about tomorrow, a stuffed monkey named Larry who Geo carries around like a baby, a nice collection of presents for all of us, Chinese food, and an incident in which Bug said, “I hate Mommy!” during a game of Deal or No Deal. Loads of fun, that was.

But my fortune cookie said:

Your troubles will cease and fortune will smile upon you

And that, my friends, is some really good news.

Merry Christmas!  

First, to answer Aurelia’s question..I’m not 100% sure that it is Galinda’s turn, but just making a good guess. I’ve been having alternating pain directly over my ovaries. Last month, it was on the right side (the good Elphaba side), this month it is on the left side, and it very painful. That is my rather unscientific conclusion.

I just got back from my old house. I’ve finished up moving everything out and getting it all cleaned. Of course, now the kitchen and living room of the BDH is a gigantic pile of everything I own.

Bug seems unphased by it, asking if we can bake cookies and go shopping. I told her we could bake cookies once we found the kitchen table. It has to be under that pile somewhere.

Speaking of the BDH, yesterday the phone company came out to check the lines to see why my dialup is so slow. I’m running a dialup accelerator, so it shouldn’t be THAT slow. The guy came to the door, and it was like I was on a cartoon. He looked like the host of a Saturday morning kids show. He said, “HI!! Do YOU have a problem with your PHONE?” and then made a sad face. Bug poked her head from around the corner to gawk at him. Right then, this other guy came barreling through the woods where there is a truck path. He pulled right up, and stopped. “You rentin’ this house?” “Um.yes?” “I’m your neighbor.” “Oh hi.” And then he just sat there. And then he left. It was very weird and Little Mr. Sunshine told me that he had come right up behind him at like 100 mph. Maybe Little Mr. Sunshine slept with my neighbor’s wife or something. I don’t know.

But then Bug told me that while she was getting things out of the van, another guy pulled up, asked if she was moving in, and then asked her if her parents were home. When she said yes, he said, “Well, I’m your new neighbor, so tell them I said hi.”

After I gave Bug a stern talking to about running inside if strange men pull into your driveway, I called Geo, a little freaked out. I think he’s running out of patience for my freaking out because that is all I have been doing for the past 24 hours. First there was the, “Well YOU HAVE TO LET ME KNOW IF YOU ARE BUYING STUFF FOR MY STOCKING BECAUSE MY STOCKING CAN NOT BE EMPTY GEO!” fit, followed by the sobbing I did over my internet. “It’s so SLOW. You don’t understand. All I want to do is post on my god damn blog. But it is SO SLOW.” “Well, it is ok, hon, we’ll get it fixed up for..” “Nooo…I want it fixed nooowwwwwww!”

And then I tucked myself into bed so I wouldn’t act like an idiot anymore.

Geo told me that my neighbors were probably just being nosy because that is what people do in a country town. Which is true, because not only do people ask you a bunch of questions, but they tell you about themselves. Everytime I check out of Walmart, I hear a story about the girl’s boyfriend who slept with her cousin but that is OK, because they are getting married because she needs the insurance money. Or something.

So now the one house is empty and everything I own is in a pile, and Bug keeps knocking on the door asking if she can start working on it, because she has 60 more points to earn in order to get Christmas. And she heard on the radio that Santa is making his final preparations before leaving and now she is freaked out. “I’m through with being bad,” she said. “Look where it has gotten me!” she sighed.

(P.S. Don’t forget to enter into the drawing to win a free copy of Cycle Savvy! See below)

I received a comment and I figured I would talk about it here since it was something I was planning on talking about anyway.

Catherine said:

Erm, you don’t have to draw up legal papers to have a baby with your boyfriend. There’s already a legal status for it, and it’s called “father.” In fact, if tried to define the relationship through paperwork, it would probably not be valid.

Well first off, he’s not my boyfriend. Second, we are not talking in terms of having a “baby with your boyfriend.” We’re talking about a known sperm donor. It’s a shaky legal area. If I buy sperm from the sperm bank, is that a father? Yes, this is the child’s father. But can I seek out the sperm donor and sue him for child support? No.

If I had a child by sperm donation, there would be no father listed on the birth certificate. Likewise, women can choose not to list fathers on the birth certificate. Even weirder is after adoption. Bug has a birth certificate that lists me as her mother, even though I was in English class at the time. And she has no father listed.

Now, this obviously doesn’t negate the fact that she has a father.

If Geo and I decided to go with a known donor route, and NOT as having a baby TOGETHER, he would still be the biological father. But his role would be no different than if he was an anonymous sperm donor. Should he have to pay me child support? What if I put down no father on the birth certificate? What if we agreed that he would just give sperm and have NO contact with the baby? Just as if he was an anonymous sperm donor? But then a year down the road he changes his mind and says that he wants custody of the baby? Does he have a right, as the biological father? Does an anonymous sperm donor?

The problem is, the law doesn’t really cover all these things really well. And the law tends to favor mothers. If I don’t put down a father on the birth certificate, then Geo has no rights. He has to go out and prove the child is related to him and then petition the court for rights. That isn’t fair to him.

So if we were to enter into some type of parenting agreement, we would put it in writing, have it witnessed and notarized and also to speak to a lawyer. Sort of like a parenting pre-nup. Why? Because we both want to protect our self interests. Say Geo is willing to provide sperm for the baby but he does not want to be involved in raising the child. I am happy with that decision. The baby is born, and then six months later, I think this is too hard. I want help. So I take Geo to court, establish paternity, and make him pay child support. Like Catherine said, legally he is the father. But that is not how we conceived this child. We conceived it no differently than if he was a sperm donor. So is that fair to him?

From what I’ve found out, states vary in how they handle these situations because they are relatively new. I’ve read instances where the father is allowed to relinquish his rights, similar to if he was making an adoption plan for a child.

Here is one website that has some forms related to this.

Regardless of what we did legally, if Geo and I went this route, we would draw up a parenting contract. We’ve done something similar in our discussions with Bug. I’ve given him guardianship of her. I’ve written out what my expectations are for her being raised. We’ve discussed his role in her life now..for instance, can he discipline her? Can he make decisions about her without consulting me? Can he administer medicine to her without my knowledge? Those types of things. These kinds of things are important when you are dealing with non traditional families.

So even if our state would not recognize any other form of relationship except that Geo is the biological father and he has all rights associated with that, then we would STILL write something up. First, because if we ever did get into some kind of court situation we would have this paper to show the judge that “hey..this is what we originally said.” Because sure, Geo and I can say that things are this way, etc, but what if he marries some lady next year that wants that baby with him now? So things obviously could change.

The second reason is that I think defining some of these things are important prior to any big relationship move. If Geo and I decide to have a baby TOGETHER, and not in a sperm donation capacity, we would still write a contract together. We would talk about guardianship and what would happen if we split up and financial responsibility and who will pay for the baby’s college if he marries some other girl.

Not because we don’t trust each other, but because it is vital to ensure that you are on the same page when you are legally making yourself connected to one another. Nobody wants to make a pre-nup, but half of us get divorced.

If Geo’s sperm met with my screwed up body and created a baby, he would be the father no matter what. The child, just as Bug knows who her bio father is, would know that he was the father. The child would know why we did what we did.

But we also need to be smart, find out how our state would view this situation, and discuss with each other how exactly each one wants to be involved in the child’s life and how best we can handle this to ensure that the child is never caught in some tug of war between us. Because I can say that Geo would never do that, or I would never do that..but who really knows? Things change, people change, and 18 years will pass as the child is growing up.

This is why the thing with Geo is a lot more complicated than just get him drunk off vodka tonics and get knocked up. I want to make sure that everyone in this situation is happy. I know it can work, I’ve read stories of some of you in your blogs that have made it work.

That all being said, I have no idea if we’ll even consider this path at some point. I would say that it is more likely that we would get back together and decide to have a child together inside our relationship rather than through a sperm donation situation. But I don’t know. I can only wait and see.

And in the meantime, explore other avenues of adding to the family.

So yesterday started off like any other day really.

I woke up from this dream I had about Grey’s Anatomy and I felt quite proud of myself. I’m not sure why. The dream had something to do with McDreamy being upset because Meredith was distant, and he thought it was his fault because he wasn’t being romantic enough. So he was doing all these things for her and she was getting more distant and then turns out that she had slept with Sloan and that was really the reason. But I’m not sure where I fit into this. Whether I was Meredith, or I knew all this, or I wrote the episode, or I worked at Seattle Grace or what.

But I woke up feeling quite proud of myself.

Then I asked Bug if she was wearing a bra and she said yes and I said which one and she said her tan one. But I could tell she was lying. I don’t know how, I think I have acquired that top secret Mom sense. So I told her to come here and I pulled down the side of her shirt. No straps.

So she told me that she was wearing it with the straps hanging down. Hahaha. Nice try.

Well, then the day just turned to crap after that really. A lot of people have talked about the shipping for the sperm being really high, but I don’t think it is unreasonable. The package weighs over 25 lbs, as obviously the vials need to be protected and temperature controlled. They ship you the dewar here and then also to ship it back. So we’re talking two way shipping, on a large package, that has to move very quickly by DHL.

So it’s going to be expensive. I don’t know why I didn’t realize that.

And then some other crappy things happened which I won’t go into here as it would just be more of me whining.

But all in all, I couldn’t get past the idea of this plan I had just going all to hell. At less than $200 a vial, I could justify shooting it up there without knowing whether I was ovulating off of my good side or the bad side. But once we started talking $350 or $500..I just can’t.

I would feel totally different if I had two sides that worked. But I don’t. I could theoretically get an ultrasound to see which side I was ovulating on, but that would do me no good as the sperm has to be ordered two weeks prior to the ovulation. I could get one done this month and then assume that the other side will go next month, but that isn’t certain either.

This is different from IVF or even IUI because those things are able to be planned more precisely. This is just me guessing. And I pick the wrong side, I just throw the money away.

Then I got to thinking about what I really want. What do I want?

I want Bug to be taken care of. I want to be able to comfortably provide for her. I want to have a nice house that we can all live comfortably in and be happy.

I want to add children to the family that are close to Bug’s age.

I want to raise a child from birth.

When I really thought about it, I don’t necessarily want to be pregnant. And I really could care less about the biological connections. I want a baby.

So now what? What are my options?

1. Go ahead with the sperm donation.

2. Take the money I would have used for sperm donation and use it to get a bigger house (I’m planning on getting a bigger house anyway, but this would help) that would be more conducive to fostering.

3. Start saving money for another form of adoption (perhaps international).

4. Work out something with Geo regarding sperm.

Right now, I don’t feel comfortable going ahead with the sperm donation. I’m not sure if that will change once I let a few days go by. But I just can’t justify throwing 500 dollars up my cha each month when that 500 could do so much good in other ways.

Geo and I have actually talked about the sperm donation thing several times. He has a friend who was the known donor for a lesbian couple. He had kind of a bad experience as the couple promised that he would be able to have a relationship with the child, but then changed their minds. (This is all coming third party so I don’t know any of this for sure) Anyway, Geo is concerned that he wouldn’t want to just be a “donor” so to speak, he would want to be involved. But that idea scares him. I’m not sure whether I want a co-parent, although I think Geo is an excellent co-parent to Bug. More so every day. So obviously we would have a ton of talking to do, legal papers to draw up, etc. But it is not a definite no, but it’s nowhere close to even being a maybe.

The house thing..I’m excited about that. This house is way too small. For a little bit more money, I could rent a nice place with four bedrooms and a garage in a nice neighborhood. I’ve been talking about moving already, for instance, if I was chosen for that sibling group I’m interested in, I would have to.

I guess there are no clear cut answers. Obviously I could be called for a foster child next week that ended up staying. Maybe the sperm thing would work out with Geo. Maybe I would decide to go to Guatemala or something.

I don’t know. All I know is that I was ready to start trying this month, I mean, I had my check card in my hand. And then it got smacked out.

And it hurts.

Oh, and then I got my period. Because of course I needed something to cap off my day.

And did I mention this was the day that Geo and I were going to get married?

Yeah.

This concludes this whine session.

Aurelia asked if my comment about Geo sex was a big hint that we are back together and the answer is “NOPE.”

And I’m happy.

We’ve been hanging out, he’s been doing things with Bug, we’ve been having fun. We’ve had some very serious talks in which I learned a lot. There were some things that I thought were quite clear between us which apparently weren’t clear at all. I was quite shocked about the way he felt about certain things, some very good and some not so good. In the end, I felt like we were forced to take a really hard look at some things and we both learned a lot in the process.

In the meantime, we have been getting along good. He truly is my best friend, and I’m glad that I didn’t have to throw that away.

As I explained on my TTC blog it is all a matter of timing. I want to try for kids now. I don’t want to wait. Although I would like to have kids with him some day, the biological makeup of my children is not important to me. The only reason I am trying to have a biological baby is because I want to raise a child from close to birth. I don’t care that the child will be related to me biologically. And I don’t really care if a child is related to Geo or not. (Except it would be cheaper to try than sperm donation!)
It all is unconventional and kind of strange, but it is working for us. I don’t know what will happen in the future. Maybe we will end up married. Maybe we will live together as roommates. Either way, after talking to Bug’s shrinks and doing a lot of thinking, I could not in good conscious eliminate someone who loved her and she loved out of her life, simply because he talked to some other girls on the phone. He didn’t sleep with them, he didn’t even take them out to dinner. He has gone out of his way to try to rectify the situation, he’s admitted he was wrong, he has offered to go to counseling..he’s done everything he can do to make it up to me. And in retrospect, some of the things I was doing (probably as a result of my stress and depression over the surgery and the after effects) were not at all good and were unfair to him.
But that is between me and him, and not Bug. Bug has lost SO much in her life, she doesn’t need to lose the person who plays four-square with her and lets her work on race cars and tries to show her how to bowl.

Geo and I don’t want to lose each other either. Maybe we’ll never end up married and live happily ever after, but for now, we are all happy. We care enough about each other and about Bug to make a situation that works for all of us.

It’s working for us and we are happy.