I REALLY Hate Bills

Came home today to a bill in the mail. It was for a $300 co-pay for the 2nd hospital I took DH to when we visited the ER. I called my insurance to see if we had to pay both co-pays...verdict: YES! Since he received treatment at both, we have to pay the $300 co-pay at both. UGH!!! So from now on, we'll just go to the one big, main one downtown 45 minutes away so we don't have to pay twice.

While I had her on the phone, I found out we have about $700 worth of MORE bills coming for the renal scan he had. Good news, we hit the deductible, bad news we owe about $1,000 and I JUST paid the last $1,800 for BFN IVF. Awesome...sometimes I wonder if this is God telling us that this is why we can't have kids. Long, rough day and did I mention I'm in my house SWEATING!!! I'm going to sit in front of a fan...

A Twitterview!

I got an email from Kelly with Resolve and MyDestinationFamily.org. She wanted me to pass on some information about a twitterview this Friday. Here's the info:

"I wanted to let you know about a new project you might be interested in—a Twitterview looking at the male perspective of infertility leading up to Father’s Day, this Friday, June 17, at 2pm ET.

Blogger Alec Ross, a leading voice on men’s infertility at Fertility Authority and on his blog I Want to Be a Daddy, will share his experiences through a personal, informative Twitterview with Barbara Collura, Executive Director of RESOLVE. We invite you to follow along at hash-tag #tvFD (for Twitterview for Father’s Day) to read the direct question-and-answer exchange between Barb (@RESOLVEorg) and Alec (@infertility_guy). If you can’t follow the conversation live, you can visit RESOLVE’s MyDestinationFamily.org Twitterview page for a full re-cap following the interview."

I don't think I can follow live but, dealing with male factor infertility in our situation, I will definitely be checking out the recap.

Here's to happy Father's Day to all the new poppas out there and to us still waiting, here's to surviving another one!

Half Mary Pics!!! Thank you Blogger for Working!

YAH!!! I finally got my pictures uploaded from my half marathon last weekend. It was my third half marathon, all ran within a year PLUS I did a full back in October! I'm pretty proud of my accomplishments if I do say so myself! Now on to some fun photos (but still annoymous!)...

The race was about 4 hours from where we live. I rode up with 2 bloggie friends (okay, they are no longer bloggie but IRL friends!) and headed to the expo. What a surprise when I see the banner and my face on it:

Want an even BIGGER suprise? I was on my very own billboard!!! Yes, I was somewhat of the poster child for the race. My first half was this race exactly one year ago.

It was a VERY hard race!!! It was over 90 degrees and VERY HILLY!!! I'm so thankful I had DH meet me every 1.5 mile for water, Gatorade and a wet washcloth...he was (and always is!) a godsend!!!

I beat my time from last year's race by 9 minutes which I was pretty stoked about that BUT I was *only* a minute slower than my half 4 weeks ago. That half was VERY flat and perfect, cool running weather so I feel like I should have been way faster than a hot, hilly course! Then again, I did have a 7 hour ER visit, minimal sleep and stress, stress, stress playing against me. Anyways, hope you enjoy the pics! It was a great weekend because we got to see some wonderful friends and running half marys=burning LOTS of calories=indulging in deliciousness!!!

UPDATE on DH: I never really followed up on him after I posted we went to the ER. He's got bladder stones. He's not in major pain so the doc is letting things go and then will see him to inspect in July if they're still there. Never a dull moment...

UPDATE on Bill: Remember I posted that I got a "past due" bill from the hospital? I called to pay and told the lady, "I know you won't make note of this and probably don't care but I just wanted to let you know that I never got the first notice." She said it wasn't a big deal, but to OCD me it was. She goes on to take my payment and then goes to confirm my address...yeah, my DAD'S address that I haven't lived at in 10 years! I said, "Well, no wonder I never got the first notice!"

Big weekend for us! I'm trying out CrossFit in the AM (wish me luck!) then haircut and wedding (I only get my haircut on day's I have something going on). Sunday is MIL's birthday so church, then DH and I are bike riding then MIL birthday dinner. WHEW! Never a dull moment with DH and I...

I Hate Bills...And This and That

I came home today and had a bill from the hospital where Dr. Val works at. It says the bill is past due, yet its the first time I've seen it. Of course, it's too late to call by the time I get home. I pull out all my receipts and have all my documentation to prove I paid then I start looking closer...it's for the ICSI and storage fee. UGH!!! Like I really want to be reminded of my BFN and want to PAY for something that FAILED! So looks like I'll be calling tomorrow and dropping another $1800+ for the last IVF. Bringing the grand total for our failed IVF to $14,852.77-awesome. I would have rather paid this in December and be done with it. Hospitals suck.

I had my second acupunture today. It went awesome! I brought music and closed my eyes. I focused on our babies, holding them in our arms, telling people it worked...being positive! As the songs came on, I pictured myself teaching my kids Jimmy Buffett's "Cheeseburger in Paradise" (yes I was listening to some Jimmy) and running through sprinklers as hot as today was. It felt REALLY good! I'm actually looking forward to next time.

Oh a sadder note, which is why it's hard to be TOO upset about much tonight, I had a frantic phone call from one of my camper's parent today. I knew the parents were divorced and I was dreading getting in the middle. Turns out, her mom was calling to tell me that her ex-husband (the camper's dad) had died two weeks ago. This was just three days after I met with him. I meet lots of parents throughout the course of a summer, some I remember for good reasons, some not so good, others come and go and I don't remember them at all but him? Him I remembered. It was a crazy stormy day and we were trying to get in the basement of the building running outside only to find the doors locked. Most parents would be PISSED because of this and because we were VERY distracted trying to take care of things with the storm. But he was laid back and calm, very friendly, shook my hand, introduced himself. She is in our junior counselor program and he treated her like an adult, making her ask the questions or feeding her info to ask. I REALLY liked him because he seemed like a great guy who was really interested in his daughter actually gaining something from our program, not just using it as babysitting. So my heart's sad tonight for her and her family.

Sorry this is a mish-mash of a post!

When We're Not TTC

Hey ladies! I'm sure you've wondered where I've been...or maybe not. Not really doing much on the TTC front so I bet you're saying, well A, what do you do when you're not jabbing yourself with lupron/PIO, taking cupcakes to the RE's office or researching other clinics in my area? Well, let me tell you! I had some awesome pics to go with this post, complete with captions and all so that might be a post for another day.

Since our BFN three days before Christmas, I picked myself up and decided to make some changes for the better. I've lost about 20 pounds since then and I feel better and have gotten tons of compliments that I'm looking good which makes me feel good. I did a 40 flight stairclimb and beat last year's time which was only the start of my PR's (personal record). I ran a 5k, 10k and half marathon all in one week...PRing in all of them and SMASHING my old records (a sub-30 5k!!! Big girl can RUN!). A month later (this past weekend), I ran another half marathon and didn't PR but beat my time from last year's race so I was pretty thrilled about that. I started speed training so I'm sure a 5k will be on my schedule soon. I swam 15 miles in about 3.5 months to join the Swim Mileage Club-big deal for me. I've survived one week of summer camp (even if we only had 23 kids the first week vs 160 the other weeks, it still counts as survival!)! I endured my first ER visit with DH and I didn't stroke out at the cost (I even thought about going to my RE's office to nap because it was 2 streets away and they have much comfier couches). I had planned on doing a tri but Dr. Val denied it but I'm still planning on training just probably not as intensely. I've read a TON of books, blogged a ton on my non-IF blog and had some awesome outings with friends and family. I've volunteered for some really awesome organizations.

So yeah, I've been busy because all of that is OUTSIDE of work. I've tried to loosen up on the OCD and "go with the flow." It's been a fun, active winter/spring time and I can say that I'm VERY proud of myself. So see, I DO have a life outside of TTC! ;) And because I'd planned pictures but cant' get the ones I want to upload, I leave you with this picture I took while in FL last fall. We won't be going on a vacay anytime soon but at least I have pictures to brighten my day!