Feeling accomplished

So of the two things I had to get done prior to going under on Thursday or Friday, I’ve managed to get one completely done and the other negotiated and an expected date of arrival.

Thing 1: Psych Evals- Results sent to the clinic nurse yesterday afternoon.

Thing 2: Embryo contract thingamajig- a little more complicated. We called the lawyer that will be doing our second parent adoption for help on this one. She hasn’t done anything similar in multiple years so was seeking templates from her peers/NCLR/professors whatever. Our conversation came down to- if we wait to make sure that she has every i dotted and t crossed from a case law perspective, we won’t have anything before the egg retrieval. I asked her if Janet and I should simply draft something basic and have it notarized. We went back and forth on the idea and compromised that she would draft what she was fairly certain would do the job and then make any last minute amendments if she received something from her lawyer posse (my words, not hers). I respect her ultra diligence- but knowing that this is more so that the clinic can check a box versus protection for us- I’m thankful for the compromise.

I’ve seen a lot of grateful for lists lately, so I’ll make a shout out to the universe here:

• I’m grateful to our lawyer, who has fought for the rights to LGBT families since starting her career. I’m thankful that she understands how income taxing this entire process can be and charges very very low fees for documents that could be so meaningful.

Because I’m a process improvement person, I can’t help but wonder- is the clinic learning anything from our situation? Will they keep our documents/service providers on file so that if another lesbian couple comes in wanting to do the same thing, they won’t get the crap template and recommendations that we did? Every time I walk into the clinic I am thankful that the staff is so supportive and kind- but I truly hope the administrative details of all of this can be easier for anyone else after us.

Psych Evals aren’t so scary Part 1

So ARCC expects people going through IVF to have a psychological evaluation. I’m not sure if it’s all couples going through IVF, or just those using known egg donors- but I know we had to. They didn’t tell us we had to get the evals until right before I was going to start stims. The nurse is just like “have you gotten your eval yet?”. Um, big fat no. I didn’t know I had to have one/didn’t budget for it/and am a little pissed off at the insinuation…

So I get over all of that and go back into logical, “treat this like a project” mode. First she gave us a referral to an infertility therapist. We called, got the price estimate- holy hell people it was out of control. After crossing that option off the list I called and asked for an example of what they were looking for so that I could procure another therapist. The question list was even more offensive to me.

Example: Candidate reports having no emotional attachment to her donated genetics or the child to be. ___Yes ___No

Needless to say, I emailed the nurse that sent the questions over and politely went off. Per these questions, I’m definitely not a fit egg donor. The questions also go against the legalities we will establish when we move towards a second parent adoption… :::proceeds to rant aimlessly:::

So anyway, the nurse email’s me back and says that whomever we go to can customize the evaluations to our situation. At this point Janet’s called a few people, I’ve called a few people. Responses were either non existent, or they couldn’t get us in for weeks. I luckily turned to the Family Equality Council Dallas yahoo group for a referral and got a response within 24 hours. It turns out that De’An Olson is part of the aforementioned group- and not only could she perform the evals and get them completed on time, but she also works with the lawyer we will be using for our second parent adoption. She performs the home studies and evaluations for those. So, not only did she work us in within a week, so also made a deal with us by which the amount we spent on our evals can count towards her eval/home study fees when I adopt baby(ies) Gabber.

For anyone else in the DFW area needing a same sex or non traditional family fertility psychological eval, second parent adoption home study, or general therapy, I highly recommend her!
De’An Olson, LCSW
(214)-676-7920

Tomorrow- more thoughts on the eval itself.