Cash Money

Whilst I wait for the verdict on whether or not I have trashed this cycle by being confused (stupid, stupid!), I figured I'd break down the financials of this whole thing.

*It cost us 16K to have Noah. We paid him off last month with our tax return and cashing out a small 401K from Chris' old job in FL. Yes, we essentially financed our son. No, he would not be repo'd if we defaulted on the loan. We settled with the loan company for 1,000 less than we originally financed. Thanks, bad economy, for helping us out!

*The actual thawing and re-implant will cost $1,700 on the day we show up.

*That cost does not include the cost of the medication. Including the birth control, we have paid $240 in drugs.

*The $1,700 also does not include the co-pays we pay for every office visit. Ironically, by the time we're finished, we will also have spent $240 on co-pays.

*That brings the total cost to $2,180.

*We pay the cost of the drugs and co-pays out of our savings account. The $1,700 will be paid from the remainder of our tax return.

*Another cost--We essentially pay rent to Duke to house our embryos. We have a lump sum of money saved, but the lab director has yet to issue bills for storage. (Yay!) As of January, he was on the D's. He still has some ground to cover before he gets to us. If we get them out before he bills us, we'll be able to reimburse our savings account for the co-pays and drugs.

So there's the reality in dollars and cents.

I have no idea what it's like to say casually, "Hey, Chris, let's have a baby." We didn't speak these words to each other until we knew that we knew that we knew we were "in."

There's nothing casual about this. It's business. It's planning. It's accounting. And yet it's intimately romantic . . . in its own way . . .