He’s Armed and…

Dangerous?

Nope, not dangerous – but always heavily armed. One gun makes noise and lights up. The other gun….well it’s been stuffed full of dry cat food, so the best it can do is a weak rattle sound. Hardly intimidating.

He’s all boy.

Our honeymoon was to Disneyland. That’s me, the blushing bride, up there in that photo. My parents’ honeymoon was to Disneyland. Saying I’ve been looking forward to taking Robbie on his first Disneyland trip is a bit of an understatement.

But life has a way of, well, getting in the way. We had the budget lined up for it and other things came up. Again, and again this keeps happening. There’s something about us having money in a savings account that tempts fate.

So, I’m trying something new. Something not directly tied to my checking account (AKA, the drain plug). I’m trying a way of savings I’ve learned about through my work designing for a financial services company. It’s a service called SmartyPig and it makes savings a social endeavor by allowing the goal to be shared on Facebook and blogs. For those interested, it also allows people to donate to your goal, but that’s not my purpose (but don’t let me stop you if you’re determined).

I just thought that if we’re saving for the Happiest Place on Earth, it should be a fun experience and one that we can use to teach Robbie about savings. I don’t want to make it about sacrifice as much as its about creativity. Every time we save or earn some extra money we can add it to the account and watch the little indicator rise. Failing that, modest automatic deductions will be taken from our checking account every two weeks.

And really…what’s better to teach a kid about savings?  The tenuous concept of an invisible savings account or a happy pink pig we can watch “get full”?

The rain poncho really isn't doing it for me, is it?

We were scheduled for a genetic counseling session and arrived to meet a counselor that looked exactly like Jessie Eisenberg. I don’t know Jessie Eisenberg personally, but this counselor had all the mannerisms of Jessie’s character, Columbus from Zombieland.

If that wasn’t disconcerting enough, once we got into the conversation about this genetic scrambling Toby and I both had the same question but I was too afraid to ask; If we do have this, does this mean we’ve passed on some horrible hidden illness to our son? Is he going to hit puberty and sprout a face out of his left arm?

Thankfully, my husband asked. When the genetic counselor assured us that (since Robbie is obviously healthy) the worst we could have done was pass on the same problem (making it harder for him to have kids) I promptly burst into tears of relief.

If we have this disorder, the treatment is to either get a sperm donor or do in vitro fertilization to check for chromosome abnormalities and then put the good eggs back.  We’re not especially interested in either of these options, but you might as well have fun with it.

As we were about to get on the elevator to leave, I said to Toby “If we have this disorder, I’m totally going to play an April Fool’s joke on your dad.”

“What?”

“I’m going to try to keep a strait face while we tell your dad we need a little help and could he please contribute.”

“Have I ever told you you’re really sick?” he asked, and the full elevator started chuckling.

But the more I thought about it, the more I couldn’t stop laughing. I waited until the doors opened and we were a few feet away from the crowd and burst out with “your son could be your own brother!”

Robbie: Mom, if we have another child, I’ll share my pajamas with him.

Me: That’s really nice of you.

Robbie: And I’ll share my pancake. Even if there’s just one. She can share.

Me: How about if I just make you both one?

Robbie: Good idea!

Me: What if we get a baby that’s not from mom’s tummy? What if we adopt one – I mean bring one home that becomes your brother or sister.

Robbie: That would be cool.

Me: What if the baby didn’t really look like the rest of us? What about a black baby?

Robbie: That would be awesome!

We met the specialist Friday. Although the appointment had only been scheduled for a week, it felt like it had been years coming.

As it turns out, the specialist my doctor referred me to wasn’t covered under our insurance, so we were instead referred to the head of the maternal-fetal medicine department at the U of U medical center. I’ll have to remember to stop cursing my insurance company… so often.

Because of who I was seeing, I was expecting to be interviewed by a bored intern with a clipboard.  Instead, Toby and I spent about forty-five minutes sitting around a small table, discussing our reproductive history with the specialist himself. We’ll call him “Dr. Risky”, a moniker I am borrowing from Heather.

At no point did he check his watch, take a call, leave the room or let anyone interrupt. He repeatedly invited questions and answered them all.

In the seven years that we’ve been trying to have children we’ve sat around having a non-exam discussion with a doctor precisely once; at the initial consult the first time I was pregnant. It lasted about ten minutes, half of which was spent discussing the baseball camp my doctor had gone to. At the follow-up visit after my miscarriage, the only thing I can recall my doctor saying is “It looks like everything came out ok.” which was either a terrible choice of words or an unforgivably bad joke.

I am sure future visits with Dr. Risky will be much shorter. He’s further away than my original OB. I imagine he’ll be hard to get an appointment with at times.

I also think it’s all worth it, just to see someone who is really listening.