birth story part four: similarities

It must have been shortly after birth when our sweet nurse, M, was looking at the babies with us. H pointed out that they both had my nose and cheeks. But little A’s hands and feet were so much like her dad’s, it was amazing. Even her shoulder and arm muscles – she would have been a power girl! It was wonderful and heartbreaking at the same time.

Both of us have always said that adoption is an option for us. I don’t think either of us was very attached to physical resemblance. And still, it was so special to see what our children, these particular combinations of H and me, looked like.

I don’t think I saw it in the hospital, but later at home, maybe even days later, H pointed how beautiful little C had been. And indeed, she was, my precious tiny firstborn.

it’s a rich man’s world

Our insurance has officially denied coverage for IVF. While this doesn’t come as a surprise, it still sucks. I grew up with socialized health care, and basically everyone from there is flabbergasted when I tell them about how much even trying is going to cost us (Ginger and Lime had some good posts about this recently).

Due to some lucky circumstances, we’ll be able to afford trying anyway — once. And maybe a FET, should we have anything to freeze. If neither of those works out, it’ll be a long time until we can try again. I’d like to think positive and hope we won’t get to that point, but sometimes it is hard to shake that nagging feeling of what if. I already feel incapable for not being able to get pregnant the way so many other people do. I’ll feel even more incapable for not being able to afford the treatment it would take, even though rationally that probably has less to do with my capabilities and more with the unfairness of not recognizing infertility as a disease that deserves insurance-covered treatment, the salaries paid to scientists, the crazy rents in this amazing city, etc. To cut my long ramblings short, we’re looking into the ARC packages with a money-back option. If you have any experiences with this, or any other ideas on how to finance IVF and/or how to spend tons of money on something that, more often than not, doesn’t work out and not feel bad about it, I’d love to hear them.