Monkey's new job

Monkey is a day away from starting a new job. This job will be a lot less stressful on him and will bring in a bit more money and regular increases. Though the extra money will be nice it isn't what I am most excited about with his new work arrangement. What thrills me is that he will have support staff.

Monkey when into his last job shortly after graduation with no support staff and supervisors fully admitting they have no idea what he does. There were no policy and procedure written and they had not hired any other medical team, including a medical director. That is one hell of a way for a newbie NP to jump in! I'm proud of how Monkey handled it all. He was stressed and overwhelmed but eventually that medical team grew and now things are much better than when he first arrived three years ago. However, it wasn't good enough to keep him. The leadership still didn't really get what he did or what a current NP pay scale was nowadays. When he asked to be brought up the the bottom of the current pay scale he was turned down. (Keep in mind that this was the bottom of the pay scale for community health, that is low. Monkey works out of love but he still deserves compensation for his skills.) There were other things that went wrong there, bigger issues, but the pay raise was the last straw.

(After looking for a replacement for a month, they realized that their pay scale was a load of crap that even pre-graduates wouldn't take. They are now offering well over what Monkey asked for as an increase so that they can actually get a warm body with a valid licence to practice into that office. I'm well aware that this is terribly spiteful of me but I take great joy in this.)

I am so excited for Monkey to start this new job. He will have full support staff, a supervisor who is actually trained in his field and established P&P so he knows what is expected of him. To top it all off, it is all out-patient. No more late night on-call situations. No more worries that reception on the phone is spotty and they won't get through with an emergency call. He can now go to the movies without worrying that his phone might go off and he'd need to dash out! Emergency calls are still possible, that is the nature of medical work, but they are much more rare with out-patient situations.

Things just keep getting better!

Deserving

One of the comments I hate the most on ttc/infertility communities is "you deserve this." It is used to absolve any guilt people have of getting lucky and leaving the rest of us behind. It is a good thing to elevate guilt, especially in the infertility community, but the flip side of this statement is troubling. It implies that somehow those of us who haven't gotten pregnant don't deserve it yet. That we haven't suffered enough or we aren't good enough. That we aren't deserving. That disturbs me.

I've been striving, working, suffering for a pregnancy for the last four years. I've been taking care of my body to the best of my ability. Eating well, taking vitamins and cutting back on alcohol and caffeine. I have tracked my cycles, agonized over donor choices, coordinated schedules and read every conception, pregnancy and parenting book I could get my hands on. If this concept of "deserving" is true then what have I done to not deserve this? Why do good people, who have gone through a hell of a lot more than I have, not deserve this? Why do drug-addicted criminals with no interest in improving their lives get knocked up wily-nilly, keep doing drugs and living crazy deserve parenthood?

The answer is that deserving doesn't come into getting pregnant. There are great people, caring and dedicated to becoming wonderful parents, who never have a child. There are horrible people who only care about themselves, are abusive and hateful, who have a gaggle of kids. Even adoption isn't really about deserving, even though the system tries to say it is. (Trust me, I know enough adoptive parents to have seen that "deserving" only gets you the application.) Becoming a parent is a huge amount of luck. Maybe it is bad luck if you didn't want to be a parent or maybe it is the best luck in the world when you've been trying for 4 years and thousands (or tens of thousands for some people) of dollars of treatments. But ultimately that luck, that element of chance, is the biggest factor in whether or not you become a parent, deserving or not.

I am deserving. Monkey and I will make wonderful parents. We just have to hold out for our luck to change.

New Possibilities

Monkey and Author met with a potential donor last night. I will call him "Fixer," not only because he is an engineer, but because fixing problems seems to be a core of his identity. Fixer's wife was a surrogate for a couple they are friends with. He was very inspired by her gift to them and decided he should become a sperm donor. He also recently took a class on gender and sexuality that opened his mind to all that queer people have to deal with in a straight-based society so he decided that helping a queer family would be where his help was most needed. This is a problem he could help "fix."

It is actually kind of a sweet motivation and one that makes sense to me. The fact that he participated in helping his wife go through the surrogacy means he has seen the kind of legal hoops that are not nearly as involved as ours would be. Our sex and std rules all make perfect sense to him, as does our contract and our legal needs. (He loves our contract. Everything is spelled out. It is pretty detailed.) He is older than our past donors, early 40's, but in good health. I think this is why he isn't just donating to a sperm bank. They can pretty narrow on the age thing. For me age matters less. I always put the line at 50 because that is pretty standard. After that you really see a statistical spike in issues. He has kids, his youngest is about 6, so it hasn't been that long since he produced a kid.

Monkey and Author think this has an 80%-85% chance of working out. He doesn't live locally but is in our city every weekday and will happily commit to a schedule. He is very enthusiastic about this and very positive that this will work for us. I've decided to be hopeful.

So here is to hoping that next cycle I'll have a new donor and, hopefully, a positive pregnancy test not long after.