Tuesday, September 02, 2003

Quiet Long Weekend

After a weekend away, it's hard to get back into the blogging mode. Actually, it's just a busy period at work (deadlines for my regular magazine, getting together material for translation for édition francophone, and this contract publishing thing are all hitting at the same time), and I had to finish up some stuff before I could think about what all we did this weekend.

All in all it was a tame time; Evelin and I were both pretty tired from the preceding week (many of the same factors as this week), and so we didn't do much. We debated driving up to Ocean City, New Jersey, for the day on Saturday to visit friends, but that didn't happen. Mostly we just hung out, cleaned up the house some, and got some overdue yardwork done.

On Sunday, we went in for another beta hCG; this one was 155, so it isn't falling off at about the expected rate. We're going back next weekend and it should be back to baseline about midweek after that. Once we're at that point, we get to start figuring the timing for IVF. Evelin started looking at all the forms we have to sign over the weekend, and there's a stack of them: consents, agreements to pay should insurance not cover things, requests for referrals for the OR, decisions about what to do with embryos that aren't implanted, etc. PGD (preimlantation genetic diagnosis), which can help ID any major problems before the implantation part of IVF happens, may not be covered by insurance, so that's about $4,000 to add to the budget (we have to submit the claim directly to our insurer ourselves and then see what they say). As far as insurance goes, we have been really lucky thus far; Evelin's insurance coverage is quite good and Maryland is one of the few states to require insurers to provide coverage for infertility treatments, thankfully.

On Saturday, we ended up going to see Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over, which was a hoot. Richard Rodrigues is a fantastic director and he’s really taking kids’ movies to new levels with this franchise.

Monday, we took a short hike in Cedarville State Forest near Waldorf, Maryland. Only about four miles and most of it was tramping through pretty mucky trails. We did see some frogs, but that was about it as far as animals go. I got stung by a yellowjacket or something, otherwise no excitement.

And, while I was cutting the grass on Sunday, the neighbor with a generator flagged me down to let me know that no-one could stop him from running his generator because "Last time I checked this was still America and we aren't a communist country. I have a right to protect my property." Apparently, while I was out for a walk trying to get away from his noise during the blackout last week, the police stopped by and said there'd been a complaint about the noise and asked him to shut it off. He refused and the police (at least in his telling) went away, which is a bit disconcerting if the city has a noise ordinance. I can understand not wanting to push what's essentially a nuisance complaint, but if the law allows for a fine or something, a fine should be assessed. I told him that it was annoying and loud, but we hadn't called the police. I think he's mostly just selfish and even a fine or two isn't going to stop him ...

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