Dominoes...

Nope not the pizza (although I could go for a loaded thin n' crispy pie from Dominoe's Pizza).  I'm talking about the dominoes you played with as a kid (or an adult).  I've never played a game with them, but I did always try to set them up carefully in twisting shapes so that when you tip that first domino the chain begins and all of the dominoes tumble one after the other neatly into place.  Well that sort of describes this point in the IVF process for us.  I thought that all of our dominoes were falling neatly into place until Monday night... 

I FINALLY received my confirmation from Attain (the company that approves the partial refund program that we've selected) on Monday afternoon.  Hooray!  We're officially approved!  Then a smack in the face - within the 14 page document that they send to me it states that full paymen ($20,600) is to be received a minimum of 2 weeks prior to the start of our injectibles...WHAT THE HECK????  We're scheduled to begin injectibles THIS WEEKEND and were told that we just had to pay by Friday.  So we launch into crisis mode trying to plan out what money to move where in order to overnight the check to them in hopes that we'll be ready to move forward as planned this weekend.  Crisis #1 averted (we hope - they said to be on the lookout for an e-receipt tomorrow afternoon to confirm that we are A-OK...fingers crossed). 

Then I talk to the folks at REACH this morning and they say that we have to have our completed (and notarized) consent forms turned in by Friday.  They won't administer any instructions unless these are on file.  Well this normally wouldn't be an issue, however the Italian travels and he travels a lot.  He's out of town all week and wasn't scheduled to be back until Friday evening.  UGH - I thought this was going to be drama free...so we rearrange the Italian's travel schedule so that he can be back on Friday before 5pm in order for us to sign the paperwork and get my instructions for the weekend.  Crisis #2 averted.  I have to say although I generally really like the folks at REACH, I was a little disappointed that they didn't help to avoid this stress.  I've been emailing them weekly for the past month just to check in to make sure that I'm keeping up with all of the steps.  I could have easily had this piece taken care of weeks ago if I knew that it was going to be such a crunch. 

Did I mention that this is all happening during our busiest month of the year at work, plus I'm in the midst of a 2 week sales blitz at work on top of my normal responsibilities, plus being a "single parent" to our beloved Chance (woof) and Sasha (meow)?????  No stress, no stress, no stress. 

So short story long...within a matter of hours there were two critical points in our chain of "dominoes" when we thought the whole chain was going to stop and that we'd have to regroup, stand all the dominoes back up and start over again, but we managed to barely round the curves and push the next little domino down so that we're moving forward (apparently) with plans to begin treatment this weekend.  Fingers crossed...I can handle another crisis, but would much prefer smooth sailing at this point.  The next couple of weeks are going to be crazy enough!