Sad things happen

Ooh... these little earthquakes... here we go again. Two sad things have happened. First, I wrote kfb a letter on Friday laying out a few things and saying we both needed to take about three giant steps back on the Soyfetus-Kfb Relationship 2.0, because boldly pushing it into places it's never gone before is maybe not for the best. I got an awfully terse response. :( Still, I don't have any idea what else I might have done that would have been better for all concerned.

Second, my dad's neighbor Mr. T has died. This guy was a friend and did many odd jobs for my dad over the last 20 years... he was a bit older and smoked a lot, and so his death can't be much of a surprise, but with every death I think my father sees more of a closing down than a cycle. I have wondered often in the last few weeks why I'm getting less email from him, whether it's a good thing or a bad thing, but I don't know. One thing about having a close relative with poor mental health: you learn detachment in a serious way. I'd better write him back though.

Despite these things, I feel all right today. The long weekend was as restful as some week-long vacations I've had, maybe in part because I was so flattened by the heat and just sat around reading. I got one or two of those days that seem to last a preternaturally long time. So... now to just see if I can make this week a productive one.

Well, that was some interesting research.

For some reason I'm continuing to think about the childlessness/sterilization thing, and ended up calling the Essure information line out of sheer curiosity. The woman I talked to was super nice and told me the names/numbers of two doctors who do the Essure procedure and are convenient to my part of the Boston area... no, let me rephrase that, they're a four-minute bus ride from where I'm sitting right now. Dear God, I love living in this area. A brand-new procedure and I can choose from a decent-sized handful of doctors, all available by public transit. :)

I went on to ask, far more nervously, about whether I was likely to have trouble convincing a physician to do the procedure on me, and she really wasn't able to say much because it varies by doctor, and that they try to avoid post-sterilization regret, which is more common when a woman has not had a child or children before the procedure. I said I understood. She asked my age and whether I had children, and so I had to do my "I have a biological child that I made with infertile friends of mine, and it's all open, and I've met her blah blah blah, and we're doing one more so she can have a sibling and then I'll feel like I've done my bit for the species" talk with an "um, I understand that open egg donorship is statistically unusual and I sure hope the doctors understand" ending tacked on. She said she enjoyed hearing that--I bet she gets to hear a hell of a lot of great stories with a job like hers. It still isn't clear how much trouble I'll really have, but I'm hoping that if I go in armed to the teeth with snapshots of me and the biobrats, and possibly even a letter from the psychologist I have to see anyway before the next egg donation, it will go okay. Maybe they'll just be so confused they won't know how to tell me no.