I had a meltdown and bought a hot tub.
I knew a freak out was coming.
We decided to do IVF last March. With my specific physical situation and my age, trying a bunch of (not covered by insurance) IUIs and rounds of Clomid didn’t make sense. Always the practical one, I wanted to jump straight ahead to the option with the best chance of success. My friend Suzanne (who is pregnant with her second IVF baby as we speak) ultimately dropped the biggest scale-tipping logic bomb: Freezing embryos and having IVF means what while I get older, my eggs don’t. If we want to have more than one child (which we ideally do), we don’t have time to mess with months and years of treatments that won’t work, all while watching my eggs and body age. Doing this now creates more options for us later.
Since the February decision, I have been relatively blasé about our treatments. Our situation has been a bit unusual: Due to a spring Central America trip, we had to stop our treatments for several months. The CDC and then USAF recommend that men who have visited Zika countries wait 6 months before starting fertility treatments. This means that even though we started seeing our specialist in February, we couldn’t really start treatments until now.
In our “down time” the doctors did what they could to help prep me, as the recommended CDC wait period for women is only 8 weeks. I’ve been monitored, ultrasounded, needle-stuck and drugged. I’ve read every book about every option that exists. I’ve kept my cool the entire time, probably because September seemed so far away.
Before I address my meltdown, there have been a few benefits to this CDC-imposed hiatus.
1. We’ve had time to truly think about why we are doing this. Neither one of us wants infertility to consume our life, as we both believe that kids aren’t necessary for a happy life. A blessing, yes. An enhancement, absolutely. But do we need children to have a family? No. We are a family. We are two and done- that’s it. We will do this twice. If it doesn’t work, we are out. There are lots of other options, one of which is not having children at all. And that’s ok.
2. We’ve had time for us. We’ve taken (non Zika) trips. We’ve done work on our house. We’ve spent time with friends and family, relaxed, eaten and drank.
3. We’ve had time to financially prepare. This shit ain’t cheap. While I am still very bitter about the lack of fertility coverage, both in Missouri and with Tricare, we are lucky that we can financially support this decision. Of course, I still drop a “this would be covered if I were still in NYC” or “sure wish I could have just gotten drunk and knocked up for free” comment here and there, but I’m only human.
4. We have had time to mentally prepare. Or not. Which leads to the hot tub.
5. We’ve made stronger relationships in our life. Choosing to talk about this openly has brought friends and family closer. It’s also driven some people away, but that’s a topic for another day.
Now, the meltdown.
Yesterday was my baseline ultrasound appibtment, or day 1. At that appointment, shit got real. As our nurse handed me folder after folder, calendars, prescriptions and the financial paperwork, I felt the lump rising in the back of my throat. When she performed the ultrasound and saw that my left ovary is a bit twisted (new information), it finally hit me that this is happening.
I mentally knew that IVF would be invasive.
I knew it would be expensive.
I knew it would be exhausting and stressful, particularly since all of my doctors appointments are 160 miles round-trip from our house.
Seeing it all in paper and physically signing a receipt that was bigger than my first car really made it hit home. In an instant, my mind was racing:
This is all on me. It’s my body, my issues, my job to make sure this works. If it doesn’t work, that is also my fault. And yet I can’t control anything.
With any other problem in my life, I work harder and I fix it.
Stay up late, get it done.
Call an expert to do it for me.
Watch YouTube videos and replace the damn garbage disposal (which I did in Minneapolis and still very proud of)
I can’t control any of this, which is a giant middle finger to my type A personality.
BLERG.
I couldn’t keep the tears from falling as I walked to my car. To the old man who held the door for me at Olathe Medical Center, thanks for the head nod. He could tell I didn’t want to talk.
Upon leaving the doctor, I had lunch with my friend Kathryn. As I explained to her, I needed to do something for me. Enter the hot tub.
I have wanted one for YEARS. And because I am about to go through 100 Days of Shit, I fucking bought one.
I have researched. I have pinterested. I have looked at probably a dozen models and visited 3 — 4 stores. I have hot tub dealer named Melissa that emails me when models go on sale. When this house was being built a year ago, I made sure that the electrician added a junction box for it. This was not an impulse decision, but it was an impulse purchase.
Fortuitously, the hot tub store lies exactly halfway between the doctor and our house.
And in testament to how amazing my husband is, this was how it went down:

And that is the story of how September 7 will be the greatest day in the history of our house. I am ordering one of those Kylie Jenner swans and I’m going to float around in my 7x7 pool while drinking a (virgin) margarita.
Because I can.
It’s the last thing I can control for awhile.
*Not the actual hot tub. That one is ugly.
