Spirit of Christmas Past, Present, and Future

Hmmm. Since I've been MIA for almost TWO MONTHS, I have a head jumbled full of things to write about. Gosh, I hope that I still have some readers left. I've been trying to keep up with everyone's blogs, but it's been crazy around here as usual. My apologies. This post may be all over the place!

We finally mailed in our egg donor application! Actually, we mailed it right after my last post... almost two months ago. k. We figured that we would be more productive with getting everything in line knowing that our doctor could call us at any minute with a match. At our office, they have their own pool of donors and the waiting list to get matched is currently 5-6 months. So, we are basically standing in line with a bunch of other couples ahead of us. We could use an outside agency to make the process go faster, but that comes with a pretty hefty pricetag. We would have to pay the outside agency, travel expenses for the donor, plus pay our doctor.

And that ain't happenin'.

Soooooo.....for the past two months we have done several things to help prepare for "the call". Our nurse said that as soon as we get matched, the ball starts rolling pretty fast. We have to be ready to strike a check and get the cycle going in full force.

I present to you...our baby preparation. Bulleted.

• Refinanced the house. Finally. I threatened to abduct my banker's children and he was on it.
• Sold Andy's car (this past summer).
• Cashed out life insurance policies. As of now, there are no children to get the money anyway.
• Cashed out one 401k account. Hey, prevents taking out another loan. Otherwise, we will get the money when if we retire and have to turn around and pay off our B.S. infertility debt anyway. The penalty will be a heck of a lot less than the years of interest we'll pay on another loan.
• Had two years left to pay on my car, so we just went ahead and paid that off. This way, we free up a car payment to have more wiggle room when we buy Andy another car.
• Disconnected the home phone/internet. Replaced with cheap, unsecured internet. Awesome.
• Cut off cable and replaced with cheaper satellite. Double awesome.
• Canceled my crappy health insurance policy and added myself to Andy's policy.

After we combine all of this with our failed IVF refund and what my parents took out for us, we should be good to go. Since we have the best luck ever, if donor doesn't work out we will need this money to "just adopt".


Now, a bulleted list of what I wish I was doing with this money:

• Go on our 10 year anniversary trip next year. Happy Anniversary.
• Buy Christmas presents for our family. Merry Christmas.
• Take our child to get Christmas portraits made and send out cute little cards. Oh wait. Hello another childless Christmas.
• Pay for our child's education. Hello scholarships. 
• Have the money to raise our children. Hello welfare.
• Retire. Hello work until I'm found dead in the nurse's station.

Now, a bulleted list of what Andy wishes he could do with this money...he really compiled this for me:

• "Buy Jessica a nice diamond ring." Hello rock.
• "Buy myself a nice watch." Hello bling bling timepiece.
• "Go on a month-long cruise through the Mediterranean." Hello babies that we can steal and bring back to the U.S.

Other than this ridiculousness, everything is going good. We recently celebrated the first birthdays of both of our nieces. They are growing up so fast! We also spent Thanksgiving in the mountains with Andy's family and had a great visit with lots of awesome food. A couple of weeks ago, my blog buddy from Arizona came to visit! Her husband will be stationed here in Augusta for the next 5 months, so we showed him around town and got him settled in.

If I can just make it through the end of the year, I will be good. Maybe. This time of year is always centered around children, and it's getting more and more difficult to keep the Christmas spirit. I was pregnant and happier than I've ever been this time last year. I finally felt blessed and complete. I had something in common with most of the women on this Earth. Grrr. Whatever. I'll just sit back and drink smile while all of the cute little families do their thing. And do I even need to bring up Facebook posts this time of year? Pour me another.

At least I can drink unhealthy amounts of alcohol this Christmas.

Bah humbug.