Since I last wrote here, my life has been a whirlwind of events and emotions. Update: the post office never got back to me and I was unsuccessful in my attempts to get any cogent answer out of them about what had happened to my package of OPK's from early-pregnancy-tests.com. EPT.com was super understanding about all of it though, and sent me another package right away. I received it one day before I generally start testing (CD10, I usually start testing on CD11).
For someone so intent on getting pregnant and jumping through so many hoops and over so many hurdles, not to mention gone to great expense, to get pregnant, I have spent very few days leading up to this next/possibly last round of ICI charting my cycle. Since I wrote here last, I have been working full-time (technically 8am - 6pm, but usually more like 6:30pm) the entire week, and by the time I've gotten home at night, I've just been exhausted. So I gave my best efforts to packing up my apartment contents in preparation for the movers & having said contents shipped to Hong Kong. This resulted in either no sleep at all, or such small amounts of sleep at such varying intervals that charting any result was beyond my capability, and also would probably not have yielded any sort of interpretable string of data. The evening before the movers came, I slept from 10pm to 12:30am, and then took another nap from 6:30am - 7am. The rest of the time from when I arrived home from work at 9pm (after my last round-up trip to Target) until the movers rang the bell an hour after their scheduled start time at 9am, I spent frantically putting things in boxes, tossing unwanted/unneeded items off to the side somewhere, and breaking down and stacking my colossal Ikea Expedit bookshelf...all solo.
When the movers did arrive at 9am, I was still not ready. I was not ready to the tune of "can you just wait maybe 20mins or so? I have to make a path for you to get to everything and put the cat out of the way before anyone comes in..." And they were three really nice Russian guys (one from Kazakhstan who looked sort of Mongolian/Siberian/Chinesey and was a total sweetheart). So, I made a path from the door to the living room where I had most of the boxes packed and stacked. I put the cat in the bathroom (the one place in the house I generally try to keep him out of) with some food and water and a mini litter box in his vet-sized travel crate (the door of which was open). They came in and started doing their manly heavy lifting thing. I directed traffic as best I could while also trying to get a few more things here and there in boxes and ready to go. I think I did pretty well under the circumstances. Although, my apartment now looks like a junk bomb went off right in the middle. Full of stuff I don't plan on keeping which is at war with the stuff that I plan to pack up for my impending trips to France, back to NYC, and out again (this time to HK) with Precious Roy (the crazy hairless cat). I phoned my boss just before the movers pulled away and let him know they were headed in his direction (they move my stuff to my boss's place, and his team of international relocation experts handles everything from there). I wanted to take a shower and change before heading up there (I was still in yesterday's clothes and feeling pretty gross). He says I can shower there...His movers have come a day earlier than originally planned and his guy will need to know what's in all my boxes before he can load it up and sign off on it (for customs clearing purposes). So I throw my toothbrush, face wash, and moisturizer in my hand bag and call a car to take me to SoHo. As I'm sitting on the front steps waiting for the car, the letter carrier comes and hands me my package of OPK's from EPT.com!!! I quickly ran to toss it inside my apartment and did a little happy dance that now things must be looking up since the major hassle of moving was finally done.
That line of thinking was, in retrospect, adorable in its naiveté. On Friday, my box-o-cryotank was scanned in and officially received by the FedEx Kinkos facility down the street from the hotel where my work family is staying this week. I generally request that anything being sent via FedEx be held for me at a facility of my choosing (and I choose one that's across the street from where my work family lives; though this week they're in a hotel, so I chose the one closest to the hotel). I left work late by about an hour on Friday. They're flying out to France on Sunday, but I won't be following them there for another two weeks. So now that there is literally nothing in my apartment for me to do, I have two weeks of vacation to do it. Ironic, no? Anyway, I wanted to spend a little extra time with the kids since I won't get to see them for two weeks. When I left work, I went down the street to the bank to deposit the remainder of my pre-travel pay, and then happily almost-skipped over to the FedEx Kinkos. I was so happy for the week to be over and for my next shot at becoming a mother to begin!
When I walked up to the counter and presented my I.D., the guy checked inside a locked cage portion of shelving against the windows. Then he turned to me and said that there was no package for me there. He had three packages and none of them had my name on them. I immediately dialed The Bank. This is one of the occasions when my being on the East coast and them on the West worked out in my favor. It was 7:22pm EST, but only 4:22pm PST, so I actually got a human person on the phone. It was Andrea and she was not pleased to hear what I had to say. She put me on hold so that she could run a trace on the box. When she picked up the line again, she said that she would need to get in touch with FedEx directly to find out where my package was since it was being shown as "DELIVERED" at 9:30am that morning. I told her I was at the FedEx facility and asked how long I would have to wait to hear from her. She said, "Oh, not long. We go home at 5, so definitely within the next half hour..." I'm sure Andrea meant to sound reassuring, but what I heard was, "You may be completely screwed, but I'll call and let you know in about 30 minutes. Regardless, I'll be going home at 5, so....yeah, I hope it all shakes out okay! Buh-bye now!"
So I sat down and I waited. Angela rang me back about ten minutes later (it's always a bad sign when a new person is on the case to handle your problem at the 11th hour) and said she was getting conflicting information and she wanted to talk to someone else at FedEx before she gave me the scoop. I should stay at FedEx and keep my phone in my hand. She would call me again soon. So I waited. While I waited, I questioned the FedEx guy behind the counter. He went to all parts of the building to see if my box was laying around somewhere. He came back and told me that it wasn't. I looked behind the counter and had a gander at the locked cage portion of shelving where they keep the "HOLD AT FACILITY" boxes. The part under lock and key wasn't tall enough for my box as it is clearly labeled "MUST BE KEPT UPRIGHT" on all sides. I told him this and asked if there was anyplace a taller/larger box might be...uh-oh.
He said it may have been placed on the side of the cage. If that was the case, then it may have been taken in the last pick-up sweep at 6pm. If that was the case, I should go around the corner to the main FedEx shipping/receiving/sorting center...if another FedEx courier had taken my box, it may likely be there. I asked what time they do their last send-outs from the facility. 8pm. It was now 7:47pm.
I ran around the corner and strained my eyes to find a nondescript doorway with no label or sign on or near it. The only clue that it might be the place was someone with a rolling dolly wearing a purple shirt going inside. I followed him. I ran into a kind-faced older woman and explained about my box that should have been held at the FedEx Kinkos around the corner, but may have been picked up for send out again by mistake. She walked me into the main dispatcher, George's, office. He already had a print out of my info in front of him and had just gotten off the phone with Angela from The Bank. He looked up at me and very matter-of-factly told me that my box was already gone. It left on a truck not 15 minutes ago. The kind-faced woman said to me, "The way this works is, once it comes in here, it gets scanned and then it loads onto a conveyor belt and sorted onto a truck heading for the airport." NOOOOOOOOOO!!!! I literally said it like that: NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! And I began to break down. First one tear. Then my whole face crumpled. I cried. I cried ugly. I did an ugly cry in front of people I had never met before. And I didn't care. All I wanted was my box-o-cryotank and nothing else would console me.
George called up one of the other stops along the truck's route to the airport. He wasn't there. I couldn't tell if he'd been there and already gone, or if he hadn't arrived there yet. I was beside myself with emotion. I couldn't be still. I paced back and forth, back and forth outside George's small office. The kind-faced woman came out and told me that she was going to get in her truck and see if she could find the one with my box on it. Through tears and sobs, I thanked her and continued to pace. Someone else (another woman) came along a little while after and gave me a big swiveling office chair to sit in. I thanked her and started digging through my bag for something to wipe my face/blow my nose with. I came across a couple of unused napkins from when I'd taken the girls for ice cream the day before. With eyes and sinuses cleared, I sat down and went to my e-mail on my cell phone. I sent out a quick dispatch to Miss T explaining the situation and asking her to please pray for me 1) that FedEx was able to get my box back before it got on a plane to Memphis (of all places...), 2) that I was able to have it before my projected Ovulation day on Sunday, and 3) that my body didn't throw me a curve ball and ovulate a day early.
Just as I was wrapping up and sending the message to Miss T, my phone started ringing. It was The Bank. Angela explained that my box had been placed in the wrong area and taken for pick-up at 6pm. It was now in a truck on its way to the airport (which I already knew) and they were sending a truck after that truck to get my box-o-cryotank before it could make it there. AND that they put a hold on the box so that if it did make it to the airport, it would be red-flagged when they scanned it there, and sent back to the original sort facility. She apologized again and again and said that this had never happened before. She did a mini-rant tirade against FedEx and said that The Bank was filing a claim against FedEx for mis-handling my package. She said she'd spoken to George and told him, "This isn't her teapot sitting in a box somewhere. This is for a medical procedure and a life is hanging in the balance. You NEED to get that box!" I liked Angela's style, but all I could think of was the heartbreak and depression that would ensue if this, my last chance to make a baby for the foreseeable future, was sabotaged because of a stupid shipping error. Angela apologized some more and said that The Bank was refunding my shipping charges. No claim against FedEx, no amount of financial refund, no level of professional indignation was going to make this all better for me. This could be my last chance to make a family and that's the only thing I wanted.
I thanked Angela and hung up the phone. I called my cousin again who was as encouraging as she could be under the circumstances. She knows me well enough to know that no words would be enough to comfort me if I didn't get to ICI on this cycle. She tried to be as positive as was humanly possible that they would get my box and I would get to make babies. As we were talking, the kind-faced woman came in. She looked at me and smiled and I stood up from my swiveling office chair. She said they got the box. She pointed outside and said, "That young man there's the one who got your box." I thanked her....She asked if I would be alright now. I nodded and told her I may start crying again, but thank you. I was gonna be okay. The young man came in and handed me my upright box-o-cryotank. No lie: I hugged that box. I'm not ashamed to say it either. I gathered up my things and hugged my box-o-cryotank to my chest. I looked around the warehouse and thanked everyone within earshot for their help. George just nodded and went back to his work. The kind-faced woman yelled out from across the room, "You cry that last tear now! It's gonna be alright! Go on and enjoy your holiday now!" I waved to her and strode out into the night air to hail a taxi home with my PFC's hugged safely in my arms...
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