Ah-choo! Oh, sorry, I don't think the fancy drug samples I got from the allergist are working. I'll give them a little while - maybe they need to build up in your system. You know... like nicotine or crack. I've got a giant bag full of little packets with one pill in each packet. You are supposed to take one each night just before going to sleep and they last all day. I woke up this morning sneezy and itchy and yuck. Before I get too far into this, I'd like to point out that I was actually kinda impressed with my visit. It didn't help me much, but it told me what I wanted to know and the allergist seemed very eager to help me out. A little too eager, actually. Have you ever noticed that often, your doctor has a different goal out of your appointment than you do? I have three examples to share.

1) I went to a dermatologist to find out if there was anything I could do (ie laser skin treatments covered by my insurance) to get rid of the red rosacea on my face. It isn't bad but it can be if I get warm or, ya know, drunk. There is nothing better than having a 'This one is sloshed' signal right there on my face. He answered my question right away about the laser treatments - not gonna happen under insurance. He also told me it was probably not going to get a whole lot worse which was my other question. At that point, I was done. Ready to go home and get drunk and read about interesting new ways to serve kid-friendly tofu. My doctor, however, was just getting started. He was handing out sample skin creams and talking about ways to reduce the chances of my face getting redder (something about not drinking) and making a regular set of appointments for me to come in and chat about how well the lotions were working. He was ready to find ways to fix the problem while I was just interested in more information - I was managing to deal with the issue on my own otherwise, thank you very much.

2) I saw a sports medicine doc about my knees hurting from running. I wanted to know if I was permanently damaging them or not. Would they get better if I kept training or would they get worse? He answered that right away. From the X-rays, he could tell me I was not permanently damaging them and that I just needed to build up the muscles around there. Ok, awesome. Thanks doc! But alas, he was just getting started. Braces, taping, lining up therapy sessions... everything. I have to admit, some of it did help. Ultimately though, he was interested in FIXING the problem while I just wanted to know more about it. I could deal with the pain as long as I knew it would get better and not worse.

3) These allergies. I've been living with them for 20 years. Since I was born Since I was in high school. (Fine, I'm not 20.) I was interested in finding out if there was a simple thing that I could do that did not involve taking pills all day long or eye drops. Maybe in those 20 years medical science has found a miracle allergy shot that you take once and are done with allergies for the season. Granted, some quality time with Google would've told me that, but I was going to go through the old fashioned way of talking to the allergist. Turns out, there is no such thing as a one-time shot for the season. Instead, people that are not in the process of becoming surrogates or going through IVF can sign up for a series of weekly, then monthly, then.. I don't know I stopped listening.. shots. I asked if I could give myself the shots because, ya know, I'm now qualified to shoot up with the best of them. She said no because of the risk of anaphylaxis shock. She also said that if you get pregnant, they stop the treatments and the weekly ones have to go for about 6-8 weeks so I'm pretty much SOL for starting that now anyway. That was pretty much it. I was ready to go home. She was ready to have me lay on the exam table and put all sorts of questionable solutions on my back and make little pin pricks to let it seep into my skin. SHE wanted to FIX it. Find the right drug, keep trying different ones, etc. From my perspective, she has done what I went there for. From her perspective, I'm an ongoing client that she will see back some day. Unfortunately, I'm shockingly meek when it comes to making a stand at the spur of the moment so when they had me lay on the bed thing for the allergy tests, I did it. (Also, just so you know, I did NOT hide my very attractive periwinkle blue bra under my shirt on the chair. I hung it on the lamp.)

After the test, I got the sheet of all the things they tested me for. Turns out, I'm allergic to willow, oak, birch, all kinds of grass, ragweed, and all dust of any variety. This is fine - but the things I'm NOT allergic to were quite alarming. Not because I'm not allergic to them, but because WHAT, exactly, did they just expose me to to find out that I'm not allergic to them??? The list of molds included cockroach. Cockroach mold. Let's imagine, for a moment, what one might do to get a solution that you could put on someone's skin and scratch the skin to find out if they are allergic to cockroaches. Hmm. I just have to say, I didn't sign any waivers for this test and I seriously think I should've been asked before they did this. I mean, gross. Oh, and after the test on my back didn't produce any results for a certain small list of things they figured I was actually allergic to, they took a more concentrated solution of that and used very small needles to actually inject it under the skin on my arm. Three of those are now basically very small bug bites and the other 4 did nothing other than make little blood blisters from the needle. They evidently thought my little bug bite ones were nothing and crossed off those items from my allergy list. It was cute when the girl asked me if needles bothered me. I looked at the little things she was using and laughed. Those are needles? LOL!

As of this morning, I am 6 miles into my 15 mile week for running. Not much more to say about it - pretty boring, typical workout. I'm a little irked that I'm still at 160 after a decent day yesterday but oh well.

I found out today finally some more surrogacy information. Since the egg donor is still not cycling, we have at least 7 weeks out before any transfer. That 7 weeks moves out for each day she doesn't get her period. We're now looking at June 24th at the earliest. I have a lot of feelings about how long this has been taking but since I don't believe MY frustrations and irritations can compare to Paul and James's - I'm not going to blog in length about them. It is what it is and I will just keep waiting. This news does mean that I can finally plan the end of May and the birthdays for Asher and Jessie. It also means Gavin won't be in school anymore when I go for the transfer so that might make childcare easier. Oh, one more thing... when I asked the allergist about the shots and doing IVF, well, in the course of the conversation she said a number of stupid things to me. Well, probably stupid is the wrong word. I just didn't appreciate them although I know she was just trying to be nice. Because I knew that, I just smiled politely. She commented on how darn many kids I have and that always makes me want to say that I REALLY have 4 kids. She said something about how I have 3 kids so I must just be such a star at pregnancy and never had a problem to go and do it for someone else. Um, where do I start? She also asked if I knew the people I was being a surrogate for or if it was a 'womb for rent' (yes, she ACTUALLY said that.) Being more offended than I've been in a long time I just said I knew the people. She said 'Oh, that's good.' Ha, small talk... isn't it fun? Had I been feeling snarkier I'd have said "No, I don't know them but I've always had a fantasy of getting knocked up by two gay guys." Alas, I was too busy trying to unhook my bra off the drop ceiling frame where I had tossed it after the allergy test.