My love of Engineers

Oh how I love my engineer husband! Mr. he's-so-methodical-that-it-takes-him-months-to-decide-anything. Mr. Engineer husband-who-can-be-so-loving-yet-so-frustrating. Mr.Engineer-husband-with-the-slowest-processing-brain-of-all-time! Oh how I love thee!

If you can sense a tiny bit of sarcasm above, you are catching my drift. Meeting with B, the awesome DE Coordinator went as well as could be expected considering the hard head that was seated next to me in the chair. She explained that in the DE process it it almost always the husbands who have the most difficulty with the process. Most of the husbands want her to clone their wives (we don't have that problem). She explained why their program is completely anonymous, no pictures, etc. She explained that this baby will be ours, so why would we want an image of the donor in our minds. She explained that it's a matter of trust - that at some point Tarzan needs to trust that our clinic will choose the best donor for us based on our requirements. She explained how she tries to choose someone with very similar facial features to the wife, etc. She explained the scenario in which we may have frozen embryos (I've explained it to him as well a dozen times, but he constantly needs IVF refresher courses). She said a lot more that I'm just not getting down on this post, but I was very happy with her valiant attempt to reign Tarzan in.

Mr. Methodical asked questions, explained his position for wanting to see a picture, and then explained that he also wants to meet the donor and essentially interview her. I rolled my eyes several times. B tried to go back to the trust thing and explain that they have already done that with their donors so that we don't have to. Tarzan was not to be convinced. She did assure us that if we find an external donor they will be glad to work with that agency.

I need to learn to lower my expectations, because then I don't let his lengthy decision making process and his hard headedness get to me so much. I guess after a long week at work, and not a lot of sleep, my ability to be patient flew out the window yesterday. We left and I was pretty much fuming. He asked me why I was so quiet in the car and I told him because I was fantasizing about beating him up. I'm not proud of my thoughts and behavior, but my emotional reserves were pretty low yesterday. I cried a bit and told him that we would be talking tomorrow. I had to go to work at my store yesterday anyway and I couldn't wait to get out of town.

Now today after a good night of sleep and success on my practice turkey (post coming tomorrow to explain), we sat down and talked. I told him how I perceive all of his roadblocks as excuses - one after another - first he wanted an Italian donor when I'm not even frickin Italian (essentially he still does), then he wanted a picture, now he wants to meet the person, and then he was telling Becky yesterday about being uncertain on the timing because of the economy! Ugh!!!!!! I told him it comes across like he doesn't even want children! He laughed and then explained (dang I'm using that word way too much here), that the proof that he wants kids is the money and time spent on 2 IVFs, 1 IUI, etc. Okay fine you win on that point Tarzan. He agreed that he just can't trust some clinic that they are going to find a good donor when he can't verify everything. His logic is that on something as important as a child he wants to do his research, blah, blah, blah. Can you say "control freak"? Apparently he is willing to spend more money if we have to go through an agency. Okay then I want a deck, granite counter tops and tile back splash in my kitchen! Although I was nicer today, my patience is gone. Can you tell? He said that he would decide by the end of the week. What does that mean?

Well Tarzan says that by the end of the week he will have picked out a few possible donors for me to review their profiles (sans picture of course for me), and will look at all the costs of the various agencies and he will make a decision about going with one of these other donors versus an anonymous one from RMA. I told him that he needs to be careful about understanding all of the costs because when I looked at his research a few months ago he completely missed the "agency fees" and I had to point out the true cost to him. We'll see what next weekend brings as far as a resolution. I'm not betting my life savings on it.

I really am doing okay - I had a good day today, and I have plenty of work to keep me occupied this week as he finalizes his due diligence. Plus our 2nd anniversary is on Tuesday so I suppose I should concentrate on all of the happy and non-frustrating times over the first two years of our marriage. We really are happy most of the time, but it is obvious that we have completely different brains - one left dominant and one right. However I love my Tarzan the Engineer very much.