Sunday, July 1, 2012

Number 3, and Buyer Beware


I got an email from my friendly neighborhood cryobank the other day letting me know that my storage contract was set to expire on *insert date one week prior to the date the email was sent*.  Thanks for the warning cryobank!  We're still unsure about # 3 so naturally I panicked, and immediately signed up for another year of sperm storage hoping that it would be enough time to make a decision.  

Before we had kids, my partner and I had such a clear plan of how things would work.  I'd have our first baby, and then roughly 2 years later she'd get pregnant with our second.   But then we had twins.  And we've had to re-think things.  Did we want two kids, or two pregnancies?  We both have younger brothers, so the idea of an older sibling / younger sibling dynamic has always had appeal.  And there is something so exciting about pregnancy, and meeting a new baby for the first time.  It makes me sad to think that I might not get to experience that again.  I love being a parent to twins, but sometimes it's hard to know that my baby days might be done, that I got it all over in one shot. 

I am not ready to call it quits yet, but we have no immediate plans for a third.  For starters, we don't even know who'd carry our third child.  As time goes by, Elizabeth has less and less interest in being pregnant and says that she'd be more likely to have me get pregnant again.  I'm okay with that since I had a really easy pregnancy and delivery, but I worry that she'd change her mind a few years down the line and we'd end up going for #4.  And then there are the logistics of it all.  How the hell would I go for morning monitoring (my clinic does monitoring from 6-8am) with 2 kids in tow?  It will definitely be different the second time around.  If there is a second time.

And just as the panic of making a decision wore off, I looked at my credit card statement.  The cryobank had charged me TWICE for the storage.  When I was finally able to get ahold of someone about the charge, they confirmed that the second charge was accidental.  When they discovered that they had charged my card twice, they credited my account with them.  They didn't put the money back on my credit card, they just gave me a $450 credit to spend with them.  Money that I'm not sure I would ever want to spend.  

Yes, I eventually got the charge thing straightened out, but if you use a certain sperm bank-C.a.l.i.f.o.r.n.i.a C.r.y.o.b.a.n.k, make sure you pay close attention to the charges!  

7 comments:

jessie said...

It feels like they should have refunded your card, especially since it was their mistake. Sheesh.

Good luck deciding. I'm all over about # 3

Bionic said...

Sounds like our house about #2. Slightly different in that we are pretty sure the big answer is yes, but the when/who questions..... And the $ keeps rolling out for sperm and embryo storage.

Allison said...

I can imagine that deciding on a third could be pretty difficult. Sounds like you guys have some time to figure that out now though. I don't know what we would have done had our first pregnancy been with twins. (Probably gone for a third, since I wanted to experience being pregnant too.)

Glad you got things figured out with the cryobank.

AdventuresInBabyMaking said...

omg I could’ve written so much of this. I’m so torn. I don’t really feel the need to be pregnant, but I can’t help but be curious, sometimes, what half of me and half of the babies (from the donor) would be like. And I’m sad that all the tiny baby stuff is behind me, and that it went so fast. V doesn’t feel that way at all (“so hold other people’s babies”) but I miss it. I can’t imagine us having a third, but I am not ready to say that it won’t happen.

Glad to see you back.

anofferingoflove said...

good luck with your decision. we faced similar questions when our second pregnancy resulted in twins (as we'd planned on three pregnancies). here's hoping you figure out what is right for your family.

[and that's b.s. they wouldn't refund your money; i think that is worth a call to your credit card company. surely that's not permitted!!]

Lex said...

Lots to think about.. I'm interested to hear how it all works out.

And I too think it's BS about the charge - their mistake, you shouldn't be out any money. Not good business!

Pomegranate said...

i'm pretty sure what the cryobank did is illegal. definitely contest the charges!