I appreciate that you are so kind as to let me "claim" my daughters on my income tax this (although, frankly, I think it blows that you don't extend the same courtesy to mothers who children were born still). But I am wondering why you need the social security numbers of Iso.bel and Jo.vita? I am wondering what about that big, all caps "DEAD" where their SS# should be on my eFile (thanks for the auto-fill HR Blo.ck) makes additional information necessary? You must be sticklers for it, because after hours of chronicling my medical receipts and donations, it seems that I can no longer continue any further with my return. At least not with the program I am currently using.
Sigh.
So, off I go to the Social Security office on Monday to inquire nicely where the cards we requested 8 weeks ago today are. Did someone make a decision not to send them, so as not to offend the grieving parents? Goddess forbid someone acknowledge their existence without prompting. Did they somehow get lost therefore explaining why they haven't appeared after the usual 3 week processing period in my state? Or is this more like the situation with the birth certificates where things usually processed automatically require my actually asking for them, you know, to make sure we really, REALLY want them? I guess we'll see.
But the trip to the SS office on Monday will have to wait until after a more pressing issue: first, I need to schedule some surgery to get this chunk of something out of my uterus.
Yesterday's HSG, while far less painful than the first one way back when (something about childbirth loosens things up down there), didn't exactly give me the pictures I wanted. There is a pretty large (think a good 25% size of my uterus) mass in there that could be:
- scarring from the D&C needed to remove the placentas after the pre-term delivery,
- "retained tissue" - as in, pieces of placenta that never got removed (my doc's guess), or
- a combination of the above.
The procedure is minor, the same process (more or less) for any of the options. Outpatient surgery. I get to walk around with an inflated balloon up my cooch for about a week (to maximize healing and give everything space to get better) and then follow everything up with 4 weeks of estrogen. After a flush of that new post-op lining (read: a period to rival all others) and a quick scan to see what's what, if everything is clear, we'll go for IVF#4 (FET#3).
I don't mind prolonging our next attempt if it means taking the time to make sure everything is as good as it can possibly be before we unfreeze any embryos. But this complication does feel a bit like a kick in the gut.
My acupuncturist said to me this morning - don't see this as a delay; see it as giving your body more time to heal. Why do you forget that you only recently gave birth? Give things time to get back into their rightful places. Give you mind more time to be peaceful.
Ok. I will try to be peaceful.
After I give the social security office a piece of my mind.
