Sunday, February 22, 2009

Premature conversations

Spent the afternoon at the inlaws' today and it was, as it sometimes is, what one could call somewhat trying.

As the date quickly approaches for the first attempt at insemination (By the way, I've been referring to our procedure completely wrong for awhile. We're not to the point of having to do in vitro fertilization; what we're doing is called interuterine insemination. IUI, not IVF. I'm sorry if I've mislead you, but when we first learned everything about this stuff there was so much information thrown at me, I got a little overwhelmed with trying to understand everything. I won't go into specifics, but this procedure is used for people like us, seemingly healthy and with no obvious obstacles, but for some reason haven't caught pregnant. The idea is pretty much the same, the procedure is slightly different. In that it's not painful, I won't have to be knocked out and it takes about five minutes. Win win win.)...ANYWAY!

We filled them in on what's going to happen over the next couple of weeks with regards to the procedures and when we can expect to find out if the procedure was a success, which should be sometime around the middle of next month. They had all kinds of questions and we answered them. But then the conversation went a little awry.

As I've hinted, on the very small chance my eggs go gangbusters and too many happen to get fertilized (something this fertilization place goes to great lengths to avoid), there are several kind of scary options we'd have to make decisions about. I'm certainly not going to get into the politics or ethics of it here, but I'm sure you can figure out what I'm talking about. There's no way in hell I'm prepared to have any more than twins and even that would be considered a high risk pregnancy, especially at my age. I just hope it doesn't come to that. Especially since his mother turned pale when we just discussed the possibility of that.

Then things got even more uncomfortable when they brought up the fact they expected us to raise the potential child in the church, starting the baby off bright and early in Sunday school. Oy. I sat on the hearth of their fireplace as far away from everybody as possible thinking, Are we really having this discussion already? A little premature, right? And so I didn't want to, but sort of felt backed into a corner; I pulled the Jew card.

Yes, obviously they know I'm Jewish. But they've also seen me willingly go to church many times and know my beliefs are pretty wide-ranging on the subject. I just felt like it was the right time to remind them that hey - we respect what you're saying, but remember that it is going to be our kid. And the only people who need to agree on the type and intensity of religious or spiritual training the kid has are me and Brian. And we've had plenty of years to discuss it amongst ourselves and feel the same way. The last time this issue was even an issue was for our wedding and I squashed any potential bullshit by having our ceremony performed by a friend of mine who was a notary. I'm sure certain people had stuff to say about it, but we didn't have to hear any of it. The goal was to get married and we achieved the goal.

So we're home now and I'm starting to unwind a little bit and to get the feeling back in the left side of my body that went numb a few hours back. Not that it's not important, but for the next week or so I have to try to concentrate on being calm, healthy, getting enough sleep and trying to grow my egg holders to the best of my ability. The goal is to have a baby. Let's see if we can achieve that as successfully as we did the wedding and then we'll talk specifics.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey! No pressure, right? ;)

Anonymous said...

*strongly sympathizing*

Swistle said...

OMG, I love that they are not only counting the chickens but also directing the chickens' religious education. I'd be all "listen very nicely and then go and do precisely what I want" ( <-- My Fair Lady reference, but haven't seen movie in many years so quote may be Way Off).

Anonymous said...

Insemination? I wasn't planning on coming down there for a couple of months...I'll see if I can get a ticket.

Maybe I'll just mail you "something". :)

Kim said...

Heather - Yah. And if they keep it up they'll have a Jewish grandchild!

Cris - Thank you; I was in danger of my head exploding a few hours ago.

Swistle - I wanted to make a counting chickens long before they hatch joke but I was too pissed during the writing of this. But thank you for quoting my favorite movie; I think that was right!

MTAE - You might want to use UPS as the U.S. Postal service has been unreliable lately.

Anonymous said...

Ugh. Reasons I'm with Dys and not my ex!

Kim said...

TB - Inlaws can be a scary scary thing. I'm glad I've had over ten years of practice with these people. When I first met them, Brian took me to their house for lunch and I noticed on the coffee table in a pretty conspicuous spot, a book called How to Lead Your Jewish Friends to the Mesiah. I almost ran screaming out of the house.

Anonymous said...

Hmm. Awkward. And I would hold off on setting the record straight until you have the baby (or, lawsy, babies???)... no point in borrowing trouble.

Kim said...

Yes. I don't plan on having another conversation of this sort for quite some time, if ever. Well, that's hoping for too much. Not for a long time. Hopefully.