Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
October 2, 2009 | By: Liz | Filed under: Uncategorized
Last night, after days of trying to unravel what appeared to be a case of identity fraud (one of the things that I think must truly be horrific to live through, putting your life back together after someone has stolen your credit-UGH) I discovered that a person at Citi Cards had made my pay-by-phone payment twice. This was not a small payment. I was paying the card balance off in full. This was a day of celebration. This was a day when my husband and I were to begin life anew. We were finally digging out from years of debt related to our infertility, adoptions, unemployment, and me putting every penny my business earned back into my business. Finally we were going to be on better financial ground and the world was rosy. Along with the payment to Citi Cards were payments to other cards and a lot of very nice people who had extended us credit or been very lenient with billing policies to my family. I have been very grateful to those people and they are the ones who had inspired me to give away free contracts to clients who can’t afford legal services, to discount all of my services etc. This was a good day. It was September 24th. Lots and lots of checks were written, lots and lots of bills were paid.
Unebownst to me, however, a woman at Citi Cards processed my payment twice. Now really, when you’re paying that much money to a credit card company there should be mechanisms in place to prevent errors (hey, honey, maybe you should pitch this as a business process idea to your current employer?). A way to make sure that the payment is made once and only once. But, sad for me there is no such mechanism in place currently at Citi Cards and she processed it twice, and that was on top of the payment I had made six days earlier so that my bill wouldn’t be late. For personal reasons I don’t feel comfortable sharing with you how much money was deducted from our bank account but suffice it to say that it covered all of those other checks and was an amount more than alot of people (including me) make in a year. I had a lovely credit on this Citi Card but I didn’t need it. And ironically, this was a card I had been arguing with DH over closing. The interest rate on the card is astronomical (as are all credit card interest rates these days), enough really to make it impossible to use the card without paying it off in full every month. I didn’t want to close the card because I read in one of Suze Orman’s (sp?) books that you shouldn’t close cards, especially cards that you’ve had for years and years (this one dates back to 1990) because it could negatively impact your credit score. So, instead, DH and I agreed that we would put the card away and leave the line open.
Imagine the scene now. A call from the American Bar Association alerted me to the fact that my business credit card was being declined when I was trying to pay for a conference I am speaking at next week. I am booking air travel for four upcoming business trips, and we’ve paid off people who have put our trust in us. I called my business banker who was unable to figure out what was going on. I started making calls to Citi Cards asking what was going on. It took them two days to tell me that a wire transfer to my business card had been rejected. Long story short, two days later, last night after a very LONG day at work, I went online to this particular Citi Card and discovered that it showed I had made this enormous payment. here is the following chain of events: Pause. refresh page. refresh page again. Get Twizzlers, Oreos, Diet Coke. refresh page again. Go online with all other credit cards we had paid on 9/24. Every single one is showing rejected payments or multiple attempts at submitting the payment. Check bank balances in our checking accounts. All were negative balances. Call banks for status check. Eat twizzlers, Oreos, Gulp Diet Coke, and take two Xanax. OMG. I knew this could be resolved. I knew this would be resolved. But seriously. OMG.
I called the Citi Card 800 number on the back of the card that had the multiple payments processed. I asked to speak to a supervisor. I speak with a lovely young woman named “C” who seemed very calm about this (she must have taken more Xanax than I had). I am thinking about potential causes of action I have against Citibank but I too stay calm (years of training as a litigator. The US Atty I worked for doesn’t call me Mighty Mouse without reason!). C seems to think that everything will be okay and they will put the money back into my account and credit me all the late charges and overdraft fees, penalties etc. I have incurred with other lenders and people. I ask how quickly the money will be returned to my account and she tells me 2-4 business days. And that my friends is when I lost it. There were not enough Twizzlers, Oreos, Diet Coke, or Xanax in the Universe to calm me down in that moment. I was not angry. I don’t know what I was.
I asked to speak with a supervisor. I still get 2-4 days. I ask to speak to another supervisor. And another. Finally, I get a very capable, professional, sympathetic vice president on the phone who immediately realizes that her bank made a gigantic mistake for which they could be facing some serious issues. We shall call her Angel (somewhat of an overstatement but it will do. Angel was human enough to tell me exactly what a big F-up this was and that the young woman who had processed the transaction had to be terminated because she was a “threat to the bank.” She told me a lot of other things too but somewhere during this call with Angel — who even gave me her internal Citibank identification number, her personal fax number, a direct dial phone number, spelled her first and last name, and the name of her boss (who is the head of card services — I started to cry. And cry. And cry. This didn’t seem to phase her one bit (I guess a lot of people must be crying on the phone with Angel these days) but more importantly, she heard every reason I was crying and she realized, one human being to another, what this transaction error had done to my life. I will see if the money is truly back in our account TODAY as she promised, but this one person restored my faith in Citibank (at least for a little while) and I am sure in a few days I will have everything corrected and the result we had intended to create on 9/24 will be our reality. And maybe I will even feel good again. Right now I am just horrified with the number of phone calls I have to make today and the number of phone calls I imagine Angel will be receiving from people who need her confirmation that this really happened and I am not making up an excuse like the dog ate my bank card.
I slept fitfully, and awoke to the usual morning chaos of getting little people off to school. My coffee was too strong, my back was killing me, and I realized that something in me had shifted last night. Why had it taken so much effort to correct this problem? Why had getting help from Angel made such a difference for me? Why had I lost it like that?
I looked around my house and realized what a disaster it is. There is clutter everywhere, our furniture doesn’t match, we can never find anything when we are looking for it. The only place in my life that is organized is my office and my knitting. I love both of those things so I pay attention to them. My business coach has helped me tremendously and my office is starting to run smoothly despite the fact that my right arm, Danielle, has taken a leave of absence. But my personal life needs a makeover. I am sad that I have neglected that which meant so much to me a few years ago. The balance has totally shifted and I realize perhaps it has shifted in the wrong direction. I have spent the last 5 years helping other people to the detriment of my family and my home. I know there is a way to find better balance. I know that I don’t have to live with cast off furniture from other people that clash. I can love my home as much as I love my office.
My children don’t lack for attention or love, of that I am sure. But in the process of becoming the Stork Lawyer, I lost ME. My marriage, my home, my financial life, they need a makeover. Do you think Oprah, Suze Orman and HGTV could help? Because as much as I want to restore the balance, I still have to help other people make their family. I am serious, I was watching HGTV a few years ago when I was nursing my daughter, HGTV has a ton of makeover shows right? Oprah may be a stretch but Suze Orman, doesn’t she have clients?? I need help to do this. This is more than I can do alone.
I want my life back. And I want that money back in our bank account today!!!!!!!
p.s. this was not proofed or edited due to time constraints. What was I saying about balance?
July 23, 2009 | By: Liz | Filed under: Uncategorized
I have to admit that I have been struggling to come up with a homework assignment for everyone, and for myself. I have my real homework to do from my coach, regular client work, drafting my eBook series (yes, I really am working on that!) and my new project (announcement very soon) . . . so finding time to figure out an assignment hasn’t been easy. Fortunately, someone else gave me the inspiration.
I am a knitter. We all know that. Anyone who read the Infertility Survival Handbook Knows that throughout my infertility and adoption journey I was knitting my little man’s lovey blanket. I couldn’t always knit, sometimes it was too painful, but I do believe that knitting that blanket opened my heart bit by bit to the possibility of motherhood. No, to the PROBABILITY of motherhood. I read knitting magazines now for fun, and I have about a half a dozen projects in the works. My very special clients usually get a hand knit baby gift about two years after their baby is born or comes home. It turns out, however, I am not the only knitter who went through infertility. Now what are the odds of that? In the current issue of Knit Simple Magazine, the “last stitch” (an article at the back of the magazine) is written by a former attorney now author of knitting books. In her article, entitled Happy Endings, she discusses how she knitted throughout her infertility and pregnancies. I showed my DH the article and he asked me: “you think she read your book?” It sure sounded like maybe she had, and if she hadn’t, we had definitely travelled similar paths. She too feels that her knitting opened her heart to motherhood and gave her a vision and hope for her future which included children.
Now I am not suggesting we all start a knitting or crochet project. But there are many things we can do, crafty or not, that tell the Universe (the All-That-Is, God, Allah, Buddha) that we are visualizing our family, making a space in our home and our hearts for our family. I don’t care what your favorite thing is, but your first assignment is to pick a project — any kind of project — and start working on it. You could knit a baby blanket, a baby layette, crochet a baby afghan, knit a baby hat, needlpoint a nursery rhyme, paint a picture, create a scrapbook of your infertility journey, paint the nursery walls, write and frame a letter to your baby, start an adoption diary. The only rules are it has to be related to putting infertility behind you and focusing on life on the other side, life with child. Make, create something for that baby or child.
And keep a pad of paper next to you. This is for homework assignment number 2. As you work on your project write down any thoughts that come up, good or bad, related to the baby, the experience, the needles, the paperwork for your adoption. If you feel like it’s all a joke and a waste of time, WRITE THAT DOWN. If you feel suddenly free, and excited, WRITE THAT DOWN. As you work, write little bits and pieces of the thoughts that pass through your consciousness. We’ll talk about them next time.
Happy Creating a New Life everyone!
July 14, 2009 | By: Liz | Filed under: Uncategorized
As some of you wait for me to post a visualization homework assignment I wanted to let you know why I haven’t done it. Well, the dog ate my homework! Okay, it didn’t work in 4th grade (even when the dog had eaten my homework) and it doesn’t work now. But like the rest of the world, I get caught up in life and I got majorly caught up in life these past two weeks. I have a lot going on which I plan to blog about but really, as many of you can understand, I got caught off guard when I realized that AF was 2w4d late.
I don’t think I have ever journeyed through time so fast as I did in the moment I realized that AF was beyond late and that I was in serious denial as to why. So I sat down with old homework assignments and faced the reality of the fact that she might be late for a reason. I sat down with those old homework assignments and dealt with how I felt about it. My life truly stopped in its tracks. Never mind that I had promised Robyn that I would work on my E-Book and have a draft ready for the graphic designer. Never mind that I had promised Robyn I would do my homework assignment for this week. Never mind the clients. Never mind the bills. NEVER MIND. AF WAS LATE. OMG. OMG. OMG.
I reverted to the days of toilet paper burn
I reverted to the days of wearing white pants daring her to show up
I reverted to emailing and texting my best friend every five minutes obsessing over when she might show
days passed.
NO AF.
And then, one evening she appeared. 3 weeks late and not a moment too soon. By that time I was having a nervous breakdown and was desperately behind on the laundry (what did the laundry matter, I was only wearing white jeans — who cares if the kids have clean clothes — AF was late!!) and returning client calls (you guys understand, that much I know).
How do I feel about all this? Those trusty old homework assignments helped. The visualizations helped. But honestly, aside from re-living a part of my life long since buried in my memory banks, visualizations and homework assignments aside, I am sad. I am sad about the promise that her disappearing act presented and the possibility that perhaps my dreams were being fulfilled. I am also relieved, because as much as I wanted what her absence meant, I also wasn’t ready for it. My family isn’t ready for it. My checkbook isn’t ready for it. As sad and depressed as I have been, I knew that she needed to be here now. I knew that her arrival was right and perfect. Was she late for a reason? Of course she was. But it wasn’t because I was PG (or maybe I was). It was perfect in the lessons I learned from it and the fact that I came face to face with long buried demons. I can now release those demons. For the first time ever in my life, thanks to my homework assignments and all those visualizations, sad or not for what I went through the past few weeks I now know in my heart, with a belief so strong that no demon, no memory, no homework assignment can shake it; I am a fertile woman. Thank you AF for being late because now I have a faith and belief in my body for the first time.
So when my family is ready, when my checkbook is ready, when the E-Book is done and when my next big adventure into the land of family building (which I am about to announce so stay tuned) is ready, I will hold my head high and walk through the doors of my fertility clinic ready to pick an egg donor and ready to show the world that I am finally, fearlessly, able to produce and bear life. I may be too old to use my own eggs but the rest of me works just fine. Finally. Healed.
So, I hope Robyn will forgive me for being a little late with my homework, and I hope tomorrow to spend some time on the E-Book and on my big adventure. And I hope you don’t mind the late emails. I had some demons to slay and some visualizations to attend to. AF was late, and I know the next time she’s late . . . it will be for real and it will stick . . . 
June 11, 2009 | By: Liz | Filed under: The Journey to Parenthood, Thinking Out Loud, Uncategorized
Having faith that good things really do happen has been a really big part of my life recently. I know I recently blogged about having faith. Times are hard and it’s hard to believe it can be different. Like everyone else affected by the economy, my husband and I have had a difficult (to say the least) year. On top of employment issues we had major issues with child care which prevented me from working as much as I would have liked (and needed to) earlier this year, I missed a major conference that I wanted to attend, my kids were in a car accident, and we had flu after flu after flu. It got to the point where I sometimes wondered how I was going to get through the day. Everything seemed so overwhelming. I longed to work because building families is truly my bliss and we were doing some fun things (I was in the process of doing something for a client that had never been succesfully attempted before in New York State and I was so close to actually getting it done . . . until a certain set of twins decided to make their preview two months early thereby stopping all the legal mumbo jumbo. But hey the babies were the point of the process, it was definitely not about me being the first to do something, so we did win!! It may sound silly or schmaltzy, but to me it is always a win when my clients become parents!). Even so there were too many days where the best I could do was return emails from my Black Berry.
As a New Year’s present to myself, I had hired a business/life coach and one of the things I talked to her about was feeling like the world was against us and how much it felt like it did when we were going through infertility. How was I supposed to finish my E-Book, I asked her, when I couldn’t even get an hour alone to write? She asked me about how I had gotten through my infertility. We spent an entire session talking about having faith and vision to see your dreams come true. If I was able to have that faith and vision that I would one day be a mother, she said, and now I am a mother (after 6 IUI cycles, 7 IVF cycles, 9 miscarriages, and three failed adoptions including one baby who went back to his birth mother after placement), then she said all my husband and I needed was a little faith and vision to get us through this tough time. Easier said than done I suspected. And I was beyond skeptical. I also was wrong! Completely and utterly wrong.
My homework for that week was to write out my vision for my law practice and my career (my homework for this week was to write out my vision for my life!!). It was an inspiring excerise. The following week, I had to fill in all the details and provide as vivid a narrative of my law practice and my career path as I could (I had to get as specific as writing down what pictures were on my desk and what my office looked like!!). Although I suspect he was just humoring me, my husband did the same thing and re-wrote his resume to include the title of his ideal job and a description of that job. And we’ve been thinking, talking, and reading about our vision every week. My coach also encouraged me to follow my inspiration. I carry around a notebook and jot things down about my vision, or ideas I have for work or my career in that notebook. If an idea comes up for my E-Book but I can’t write at the moment, I jot the idea down in the notebook.
Yesterday my husband got a job offer and the title of the position is word-for-word the job title on his new resume. Yes, the resume he redrafted after I suggested he write his “perfect job” in the Objectives section of his resume after I did that homework assignment with my coach. The job description is virtually the same as what is on his resume too! At first my mind was blown, but now it makes perfect sense.
I have realized as a result of the recent challenges we have faced as a family how much my faith and vision got me through my infertility and how much of a difference they are making and will continue to make in my life now. When we were going through treatment and our adoption, I knew in my heart that one day I was going to be a mom and I didn’t ever let go of that belief. Even on the really awful days (the no heartbeat on the ultrasound days), I focused on what I knew in my heart. I knew that I wouldn’t ever give up until I became a mom. I didn’t have the skills back then to create a vision of my family but I did knit that baby blanket that my son now sleeps with every night. My daughter has one too.
But this vision thing has really got me thinking and I am now inspired to do so many things. I was talking with a client the other day who is waiting to adopt. She is seriously considering starting a new business helping people make adoptive parent profiles because hers was so amazing and I offhandedly told her she did such a good job that could do it for money. It was that good! This new business idea came out of the fact that she was inspired by the project of making her adoptive parent profile and had a vision of exactly what she wanted it to look like. We talked about how I knitted my son’s blanket and thought about our baby with every stitch; she said she did the same thing about her birth mother as she made the profile. She literally envisioned the birth mother who would be reading her profile, what she looked like, what her situation was etc. Every time she sat down to work on the profile, she thought about a different birth mother. The point is that by making the profile she was mentally “making” herself a birth mother! When we were talking about this, she mentioned that she crochets. Years ago, I bought a crochet pattern for a beautiful baby blanket. I don’t crochet, so I thought maybe I would copy it and translate it into a knitting pattern or that I would have someone special to give the pattern to. As soon as I got off the phone (okay maybe it was a few days later!), I mailed the pattern to this client and put a note in that I thought she should start crocheting the blanket and start “visualizing” her life with their new baby (they are not matched yet), the way she envisioned birth mothers when she was making her profile.
I think that my knitting the blanket for my son opened a space in my heart and told the Universe that I was ready to be a mother. Although my son didn’t come home the day I finished the blanket — we actually got “the call” the day I finished my manuscript for The Infertility Survival Handbook — I know that blanket and my book were critical pieces of me visualizing my life as a mother. The book started my new career, you know the law practice and career that I am now spending time every day visualizing so that I have direction, focus and intent for making more families. But I digress.
What I am trying to say (and I am going to start a new category on this blog about this) is that even on those days where we don’t see a heartbeat on an ultrasound that we still have the power to visualize our families, our babies, our pregnant bellies (or someone else’s pregnant belly if you’re using a surrogate or adopting). We have the power to use visualization to manifest our dreams. We may not feel like we have a lot of faith to make it happen but that doesn’t really matter. It’s stating our intent and describing that intent to the universe that is the important part.
So, how’s it working out for me you might ask? Well . . . My husband got the exact job he listed on his resume (that totally freaks me out). My law practice and my career are moving in incredible new directions and I don’t feel overwhelmed anymore; it is too exciting!! My homework is so much fun. I know that what I write down as my vision is already happening and unfolding. I am finally writing my E-Books and I am thinking about taking the manuscript for another book I was writing and turning it into an E-Book too. My staff is excited. My child care problems are solved (yes another homework assignment to describe my ideal child care provider).
My client is crocheting that blanket and starting a new business. I have another client who started decorating their nursery. Another client started a novel (she’s a writer) about a woman going through infertility that finally has a baby and what it was like after the baby came home. The novel is a thinly disguised novel/autobiography about her life. She is living vicariously (or maybe not so viacriously) through her heroine. She says she doesn’t want to publish it, but it is helping her see the other side of her infertility and to focus on her goal of being a mother instead of her next ultrasound.
In The Infertility Survival Handbook, I wrote about having a care package for the two-week wait to find out if you’re pregnant. In The Ultimate Insider’s Guide to Adoption, I wrote about having a baby shower before your baby comes home (whether from Arkansas or Russia). On this blog, I want to start exploring the power of visualization. It’s so easy to get stuck, trapped, in the treatment in the ultrasounds. We forget at the other end there are bellies and babies and that we’re going to be parents. We forget to focus on our goal. I am not sure how I am going to do it yet (maybe by giving everyone homework assignments), but I want a space on this blog to get you into the space of thinking about your goal, what got you where you are today . . . the desire to have a family. And to remind you that you still have the power to create that family, no matter what that crappy ultrasound may have shown you today.
October 29, 2008 | By: Liz | Filed under: Uncategorized
As I am trying to move people over from our old blog to our new blog home, I discovered someone had posted a comment on donor compensation this week on the old site (I’ll move the post over soon, I promise). She was troubled at how expensive this all is. I hear you sister! It is all too expensive.
My office is trying to help (and I blogged about it somewhere) that we’re offering free legal services to people who are strapped and we’re offering discounts to people who get a postcard from our office from their doctor, clinic, psychologist or just from a huge mailing we’re doing . . . I’m trying to help. I’m trying to get people to give me a list of creative financing too. I want to hear how people are coming up with the money. Sharing information is the best way to help isn’t it? Angie Best Boss and Evelina Wideman are about to publish a book on Budgeting for Infertility. It’s a great resource. But there needs to be more.
And so I also am going to start a discussion about the Federal Adoption Tax Credit. I still don’t get how people don’t know about this huge resource for helping you afford adoption expenses. And I am going to keep a running list of tips and ideas that people share here.
But I do need everyone’s help. Whether it’s venting about your own financial situation or giving me a tip I can share with people who visit the site, I want to know how everyone is swinging this stuff. Cuz I know we’re all not trying to have babies to fill our new VW minivan. 
Liz
Tags: adoption, financing, tax credit
