21: January Was Wild

Hello everybody, welcome to this week’s long overdue episode of the Backup Plan.

If you’re new here, my name is Meredith and I’m having a baby with Michael, who was my gay best friend in college and, hey, he’s still my gay best friend now and he’s offered up his little swimmers. We’re going to have a baby together. I’m going to raise it on my own with my mom. She’s going to be around too, so there’s going to be a little bit of multi-generational co-parenting. Everybody’s excited.

Now. My last episode was two weeks ago and man life got in the way, so let me give you a recap of like everything in the last two, three weeks? I can’t even keep up now, so we will start the week of January 15th. That was my birthday week, I turned 39 years old thankyouverymuch, and I had a really lovely birthday. I went out to dinner with some friends a couple of nights before I did a tennis lesson, I went skiing– right? I think we’ve talked about all of this. It was Meredith’s Old Money Weekend and I had a really great time.

And was coming home, getting settled, getting ready to do a little bit of travel at the end of the month, and because I hadn’t recorded with Michael in a while, I said to him like let’s set a date, let’s kind of go over where you’re at, how the holidays were, how you’re feeling, updates that we have. And we were all set to record…and something happened with his work or something where he had to work a little bit later. So he let me know that he couldn’t record until like 9pm, which is not optimal for me. I like to be in my jammies by then.

But you know, I said, whatever. I’ll suck it up. And I left my office and walked into my front room, which faces the street, and I’ve got like opaque windows, like, nobody can see through them. However, one of the windows when I moved in it was, y’know, see-through glass. So I bought a film to go over that and there is just the littlest, tiniest bit of an edge, where if you were to push your body up against the door, you’d be able to see in.

And that was what somebody was doing as I walked into my front room.

I was wondering if it was somebody I knew, if I had– or you know– Suddenly I’m going through my head, like, did I order dinner? Did I invite a friend over? Am I getting a delivery? Like, I couldn’t make contact with what was happening. As I’m trying to connect the dots in my head, this person goes, ‘She’s a skinny chick in a bra and she’s got two cats,’

So I’d taken off my shirt because I didn’t want to get cat fur all over it, because the moment I lay down the cats jump up on me and I just I didn’t want to record and have cat fur all over me. And it’s my own home. I don’t have to explain myself! I can wear whatever I want in my house.

That was when I realized I didn’t know who it was and when she stepped away from the window, I quickly closed the drapes, grabbed the cats, put them in my mom’s room – Because I was nervous about the cats! – and I called 911. I was fearful of calling 911, like, I thought I was overreacting, but like my fears were quickly allayed, or at least my fears of overreacting were allayed, other fears? Wildly rampant at this point.

So I’m on the phone with 911 and I hear the woman banging on the door and she I can tell she’s pressed herself up against the door and is like yelling through the crack. She yelled, ‘Boo, I’m getting ready to kill you,’.

So you know, I was just on the phone with 911 at the time and everything went blank. Like I wasn’t afraid I was just…I turned into an absolute robot. There’s footage of all this happening, because I have Nest cameras all over the place and there’s one inside my house poking out the window so you can hear what I’m saying, you can hear what she’s saying and I’m just like an absolute robot.

And a little after that, just a few more minutes, the cops arrived. There was a helicopter, there were three cop cars, a canine unit, and I really have to hand it to them; they did a really great job, like there was no excessive force used. The dog was not used. She was treated with more dignity and respect than I want to treat with her with in the moment.

But they came and they explained to me she had a warrant out for her arrest. They’d already dealt with her earlier in the night. I don’t know why they didn’t arrest her then, why they waited for her to come to my house, but that is a question for another day.

They asked me if she’d done any damage to my house or property and I told them I didn’t peek out and look because I was hiding. When they left and my friend Julian popped over, we went outside and I realized that she had stabbed my mom’s tires. So the two tires on the driver’s side were dead as a doornail, absolutely flat as could be, and they were like, one inch stab marks each. I don’t know what kind of weapon she had, so I called the police back up and asked about pressing charges, and asked about…attempted murder or threatening–? I’ve never had to file anything like this. So I don’t know. And they said well, did she have the weapon in her hand when she threatened you? And that’s really frustrating.

I don’t know what else to say about the whole thing.

What they did share was that she was moved from the city jail to the county prison. I think she’s still there. I don’t really know what other steps to take. That’s it. Needless to say, Michael and I did not record that night. I didn’t really have anything to say to anybody, really.

Krystina, who was on a couple episodes ago, she came over right away as well, which was just really sweet. I’m just really glad that I have the friends that I do and that I can rely on them. Even when I don’t ask for it, they come and call in.

So that was a really scary night and then after that I had so much to do. I had to call the insurance companies. I bought more security cameras to place outside in the corner where I couldn’t have seen this woman. I called a construction worker that I’d been in touch with about redoing the doors and windows in the house and said, hey, let’s get on that faster than I anticipated. So we’re going to have a new front door put in. That got started. It’s going to be sometime this next week that’s going to be installed. Very excited about that. Talked to Krystina’s husband, who’s a general contractor. We’re going to go ahead and get the whole front of the house gated in, because a lot of this has to do with some of the folks that live in my neighborhood. The woman who did this, she was staying in a neighbor’s house, and this neighbor tends to take people in, and there’s really nothing I can do about that except for fencing everything and put up security systems and just get real friendly with the Anaheim Police Department.

So that was a difficult couple of days and of course it was happening, like, right before I left for a bunch of travel that I had planned.

Michael and I ended up recording an episode together and it was great. It was really good quality content…and it recorded wrong. It only recorded my side of it. So I have a really spectacular conversation with myself. If anybody wants to see that…I’m guessing you probably don’t. So that was wildly upsetting and frustrating.

And then I left town and everything just got pushed back. There was just no way I could post a podcast in the meantime. So my deepest apologies, but life gets in the way.

And that’s all done! Now I’m home. So I did my travel. I flew to Orlando. I participated in something called PodFest, which Buzzsprout – who is my hosting platform for this lovely podcast – they offered me a ticket to go there and I got to sit in on a bunch of panels about how to add zip and pop to this podcast and how to…y’know, and a whole bunch of business stuff. How to market and how to get PR and all that kind of stuff. So it gave me a lot of really great ideas. I’m really excited about instituting some of the suggestions that they had. So get ready for some updates on this podcast! I’m really thrilled about it.

And then, from Orlando, my mom and I flew up to New York City to see Ariana in her Broadway debut as Roxie Hart in Chicago, and they just released this news, that it was the highest grossing non-holiday week for the show Chicago in its 27-year history.

Like what? That’s crazy. Like, this is amazing.

I’m so proud of my friend. She was so good and it’s wild to do theater with somebody in a crusty little black box and then see them on Broadway. You know, a theater is theater, that’s what’s great about it. And it’s still the same thing. It’s bigger venue, more spotlights and a much bigger budget than she and I ever had with any theater production we were ever in. But I was just so wildly, wildly proud of her.

And then and then I got to spend a little bit of time with friends in the city, not only Krystina, but Whitney as well, who’s been on the podcast (they were on together). And spent some time with Lala as well, who’s on Vanderpump with Ariana. And while we were up there, her article with Cosmopolitan about having an IUI on her own came out, and you know we’ve had a lot of conversations about that, since we’re kind of on similar paths.

So it was a really great weekend. It was terribly timed. I would have liked to have been much more prepared for it. But you know, it is what it is and I am so grateful to be home, even if it is raining so hard that I may float away.

I’m just happy to settle into things because it’s fertility time, guys, we’re getting ready to really actually do it.

So, fertility updates that I have for you: A lot of really good stuff has happened.

Michael did another sperm test, this time it was with Legacy. They’re a company that offers at-home sperm testing and that was facilitated to us through Kindbody. I’ll have him talk about his experience with it when he’s on, which should be soon (we’ll get to that in a second) but, he said that this Test was a lot easier than the fellow test. So if you are in the market for an at-home sperm test, it seems like Legacy is probably the way to go.

Everything went up. All of his results were fantastic. So, his total motile count was 13 million, the volume was 3.99, concentration was 11 million sperm per milliliter, their motility was at 31% and the morphology was at 6%. So, I mean, in the report everything’s green. We love to see that.

So I was absolutely thrilled to get that news. I got that news while I was in Disney World, eating at a space-themed restaurant and and it’s just a strange place to get that information.

Anyway very excited because when he did the test through Fellow, the results were suboptimal, they were subprime, they were not awesome and he was really stressed out at the time. He was moving, he was on an air mattress and it’s wild to really see how much your Environment and your stress levels, like, really truly affect what’s going on with your body. I know they tell us that all the time, those pesky doctors, but to actually see Hard numbers like it, it was just piled. So beyond that, I’ve signed my IVF paperwork. That’s really exciting. There was a lot of it through the kind body portal. It gave you a lot to read and it’s a lot of information. I already knew some of that. I scammed her a little bit, but when you get to the end there was a quiz which I was like, oh damn, okay, I better pay attention what I’m reading and I mean I think it was helpful, I think it was good, I’m glad it was there, but it was a bit of a surprise. And then I also had to get my day three labs done. This was something that the clinicians reached out to me at kind body and said you know, to go forward, we need to know where you’re at with these levels. And this is where I got a little bit of bad news. So in the past the original levels that I got checked at kind body In their RV in Newport Beach my AMH level was at 1.1 and my doctor said as long as it’s over one, I’m happy. My level dropped this time to point eight four, which seems like a pretty big drop, like I don’t understand how that could go down that fast. It was only like two months ago I took the other test and I don’t know. I asked her if stress had something to do with it, because you know I had to dealt with this break-in and all the travel, and she said not typically we can test you again if you want, and I don’t know that I’ll do that again. I mean, it’s just a simple blood test, but it’s got to be affected by stress, right, like it was a wild week, I’m not terribly worried. I’ve been eating much better than I had been, but that’s the only bad news I have is that the AMH level has dropped a little bit. You know, I’m just going to keep moving. I’m going to keep thinking positively. I’m going to keep eating well. I’ve been cooking a lot for myself, about a lot of healthy snacks at the grocery store. I’m taking the CoQ10 time, I’m taking my prenatals, so we’re just going to think positively there. Those are all the updates. That’s where we’re at. Our next step is for Michael to have his physical and to get FDA cleared and to come in a cup again so we can freeze his little swimmies. That will be happening next week. So my next steps are to buy Michael a plane ticket so he can come on down and I’ll take him to the Newport Beach location for a kind body early next week where he can get the physical and the blood work and his FDA clearance done, and then at the end of the week we’ll go up to the Santa Monica office, which is where they actually do the cryo preservation. The scheduling coordinator offered me I think she’s just offering me one date for cryo preservation, but I think they said something about him coming in a couple of times. So I just have to get that cleared up. But yeah, once those things are frozen, then it’s my turn to start stabbing myself with needles and hope for the best. I’ve been becoming increasingly more nervous. I think there’s so many things that can go wrong and I have no control over them so I can’t worry about it right. But I am a human and I can’t help but think about all the things that can go wrong along the way. So I think it’s just because I’m getting closer to it it’s becoming more real and that’s nerve wracking. I’m thinking about the ways that I’m going to need help from folks, like when I traveled up to New York and Orlando I got a cat sitter right and it occurred to me oh wait, I should maybe let her know I might need some local help, because if I am bedridden after some of these procedures, it will be very nice to have somebody become clean the cat litter and just make sure they have a little bit extra love. And thinking about who I should reach out to when I do my egg retrieval my mom is probably going to come back for that, but if she doesn’t need to, I’m just trying to think should I have somebody drive me there and drive me home, or should I stay with a friend closer to Santa Monica? I don’t know. Most of the time I’m pretty good at blocking out a lot of these thoughts and just kind of taking things one step at a time, but every once in a while it kind of starts to hit me. And then it kind of other stuff starts to hit me, where I’m like sad about my dad or I’m sad about my dog being gone both of them. Yeah, it’s just a really. It’s a big time and this is completely unscripted. This is stream of consciousness thoughts. I just want to get to the other side of it and the only way out is through. So those are all the updates. Thank you for hanging in there with me and, like I said, I’ve got some plans for the pod coming up. I’m definitely going to do more video content. I am going to be guest starring on another pod coming up. I’m going to have the host of that pod on here. I’m just lining things up and getting things planned and moving forward. So thank you for listening. Please, please, please, go on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and rate me five stars and leave a review that would be fantastic. And make sure you’re following on all of the accounts. And, hey, tell a friend about my podcast, why not? Surely you know somebody who’s done IVF or is witty and cool or is thinking about having a baby on their own, or has had a baby on their own, or hey, maybe you should have a baby on your own, why not? All the cool kids are doing it, right? Anyway, thanks for listening. If you’re in Los Angeles, stay dry and thank you guys, I’ll see you again next week. The Backup Plan is created, produced and hosted by me, meredith Kate. Julian Hagens is my co-producer. You can find us on social media at backupplanpod. The best place to get updates is to sign up for our newsletter at backupplanpodcom, where we also post all episodes, show notes and transcripts. Thank you for listening.