Dollars and $ense of Family Building

Ack! I’m late with my post. Sunshine has the crud … again. By that I mean pink eye (in one eye) and an ear infection on the same side. So yesterday involved a trip to the pediatrician, a day off from work for mama, and fighting with a squirmy toddler over eye drops. Today my mother is watching her so I can go to work.

So here’s my post for Write Mind Open Heart’s and Baby Smiling’s blog carnival called The Dollars and $ense of Family Building.

How did finances play into my family building decisions? Well for many years I was without insurance. I was struggling financially, and without any insurance, attempting to have a child, particularly on my own, seemed impossible. I will admit to being “lax” about birth control in relationships during that time. But without insurance, I had no way of knowing I had a rather large polyp in my uterine lining. Nothing was going to stick with that there. On the other hand, I am glad I didn’t have a child with previous boyfriends. It may sound odd, but I’m glad for the obstacles on my journey to motherhood, because it brought me my daughter. I am so over the moon for HER. So I’m grateful for everything it took for me to have HER.

Once I had insurance, I learned that becoming a mom was not going to be a walk in the park. First I learned that at the advanced maternal age of 44, my chances of conceiving with my own eggs WITH IVF were in the neighborhood of 5%. Then I learned about the polyp. Having the polyp removed was actually one of the easiest parts of the journey. Totally covered by insurance, and back to normal two days later. I was very lucky in that I had fertility coverage as well. But there was a cap on the benefits. And at my age, the dosages of medication were so high, that they cost a fortune. Although covered by insurance, when a cycle’s worth of medication alone costs over $8,000, $20,000 worth of fertility coverage can be gone very, very quickly. I had one IVF cycle cancelled after 7 days of injections. That’s over $5,000 worth of meds. One evening I had an epic meltdown when a needle came loose on a syringe while I was mixing up my injection. Hundreds of dollars worth of hormones spilled onto my hands. Again, I was lucky in that I connected with a woman from an IVF message board who donated a full cycle’s worth of gonal-f to me. It enabled me to get through one complete IVF cycle. I didn’t get pregnant, but it helped me feel ready for the next step, embryo donation.

I feel so incredibly blessed to have connected with the woman who donated her extra embryos to me. As I’ve written about in the past, her IVF clinic would not treat me due to my unmarried state, so we moved the embryos to a clinic in Canada. Most of my fertility expenses were covered. Of course there were plenty of co-pays. My insurance company misinformed me about coverage for procedures in Canada. I was initially told that they would be treated as out of network bills, and I would be reimbursed 80%. After the fact I was told that only emergencies are covered out of the country. Still, embryo transfers alone are not that expensive. And at the time I went to Canada for my two transfers, the Canadian dollar was weak against the US dollar. I probably paid the Canadian clinic approximately $3,000 US for the initial consult, and the 2 thaws and transfers it took to become pregnant with Sunshine. Of course, there were the added expenses of two round trip airfares, two hotel stays, days off from work and other miscellaneous expenses. Price1ine helped with hotel costs, and for my second trip I flew up the morning of my transfer instead of the night before, even though it was more stressful, because the airfare was $200 less. My monitoring before and after the trips to Canada was fully covered by insurance. My donor very generously paid to have the embryos shipped to Canada. But still, compared to other methods, embryo donation was not at all cost prohibitive.

I’ve never added up the costs of becoming pregnant with Sunshine, but I know I got off relatively easy compared to others.

Now to the blog carnival questions:

1. Consider your now or future children as adults, and consider the fact that you had to spend money to either conceive them or make them part of your family. What effect do you think the latter will have on the former one day? What, do you think, your grown children might feel about the funds it took to create your family?

I hope it doesn’t matter to her at all. Hey, she might have cost less than the children conceived when their parents tried “relaxing and taking a vacation.” Other than our internet friends, we also have friends in our day to day life who have ART babies, donor egg babies, baby born with a gestational carrier, and adopted children. Sunshine will undoubtedly grow up knowing that sometimes family building is expensive.

2. How did/would you handle it if your child asks you, "Mom, how much did I cost?" How would you answer at age 7? At age 18?

I would probably truthfully say I didn’t know. Since I had insurance coverage, I did not have enough out of pocket expenses for a medical tax deduction, so I never added it all up. I might pull out the sharps container full of PIO needles I can’t seem to bring myself to get rid of and tell her she cost me an ouchy, lumpy butt. ;-)

3. When calculating the costs of your family building, what do you include? The direct costs are easy (such as RE fees for a cycle or homestudy fees), but what about fees that didn't directly lead to your child's existence in your life, such as cycles that didn't work, adoption outreach avenues that didn't work, failed adoptions, avenues that were explored (and that cost something) but not pursued, etc?

It all counts. The sperm donor profiles I paid for before my friend agreed to be my known donor count. The medical testing, semen analysis, and sperm cryo for my friend, even though we did not conceive together, counts. The first unsuccessful FET with donor embryos obviously counts as well.

4. If two children in a family "cost" different amounts, should that have any significance?

This is theoretical to me since I always planned on an only. I don’t think it should have any significance. It just is what it is. A blogger I met while in Canada for my first transfer (and also visited with on my second trip) has a daughter from an IUI, a son via IVF (after many failed IUIs), and now is pregnant with a freebie. I would imagine she feels that all her children are precious miracles.

5. To what extent have finances determined the family-building decisions you have made? How have you able to balance financial considerations against other factors such as medical, ethical, emotional...?

Finances are what led me to explore embryo donation. My BFF has a son via egg donation, and I knew that was not within my means. I also wasn’t sure that adoption was within my means either. And I really, really wanted to be pregnant. I wanted to be a mother most of all, but I wanted to experience pregnancy. I will never forget how it felt to feel Sunshine (aka in utero, my Rockette) doing high kicks before she was born. I grateful to have experienced that.

6. Has institutional and governmental support for certain family-building paths impacted your choices? For example, ART being covered by insurance, tax deductions for adoption expenses, etc.

Oh, yeah. As I’ve said, my insurance coverage was vital.

7. Have you considered having ART treatments abroad, either due to lower cost or due to certain methods being unavailable or illegal in your own country? In your decision-making, how did you balance the financial savings against issues like the unknowns of the country, perhaps not speaking the language, and medical practices that may differ from those of your home country? If you did travel abroad for treatments, what was your experience? Would you do it again?

Well, technically I did go to another country for treatment. But that was because, as I said above, the original US clinic wouldn’t treat me, and it was MUCH less complicated to move the embryos to Canada than another US clinic due to FDA guidelines regarding donor embryos.

I briefly considered overseas egg donation after my first FET failed. My donor offered to help finance a donor egg cycle after first FET. It was an incredible offer, and made me feel so supported and loved at a difficult time. But I just had a feeling there was a viable baby in the batch of embryos I received. Over and over again I looked at photos of my donor’s children, and imagined my own child with their coloring and features. Lately, Sunshine looks so much like her big brother, right down to the rosy cheeks he had at her age. Her hair color is smack in between the shades of her brother and sister’s hair. In other words, GORGEOUS!

Visit Write Mind Open Heart for more perspectives on the Dollars and $ense of Family Building and to add your own link to the blog hop by May 1, should you want to contribute your thoughts.

Guest Post: Stacy's Story, Can You Help?

I read a post today on one of my SMC Yahoo groups that made me want to reach out and try to help somehow. So I offered Stacy my space in the hope that someone will read it and help her in a concrete way. I have received so much from the ALI community, and once you start reading her story, you'll know that Stacy is one of us.

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My name is Stacy. I am almost 41 years old. I’ve been trying to have a child for over five years now. I have lost five babies of my own body and then had to have an emergency hysterectomy.

In 2009, I decided to pursue alternative methods to motherhood and hired a traditional surrogate (this means she is egg donor and carrier).

I used my Ex as the known (sperm) donor, with the intention that I would be a Single Mother by Choice.

Heather (the ‘surrogate’) and I drafted and signed notarized contracts outlining every detail of the arrangement. Ironically, in that contract, it states that if she defaults, she will pay for legal fees… (HA!). She also signed and notarized a Last Will and Testament, leaving me custody of her son Jason, in the event that anything happen to her during her pregnancy or delivery. I can see in retrospect that this was probably just a ruse to gain my trust.

When I first matched with Heather, she lived in another state. After we met and signed contracts, and had the occasion to talk almost every day, it became more and more clear to me how dire and volatile her living situation was. No heat for her son. Exposure to alcohol, drugs, and cigarettes for her and her son. Etcetera. Purely out of the goodness of my heart and concern for her, I opened my home to Heather and invited her to come stay with me for free until she got on her feet and got her own place. The plan all along was that I was going to give her a monthly payment during the pregnancy and pay the rest in a lump sum at the time of delivery. She was going to use the year that she was pregnant getting on her feet and getting job training and experience so that she could put herself through college and make a better life for her and her son. I took this agenda very much to heart and gave her every kind of support I could to improve her future.

After a month of living in my home, she expressed the desire to continue living with me through the entire surrogacy. We agreed that I would charge her a (well) below market rate for rent against her compensation. I also went out of my way in MANY ways to make her life as comfortable as possible during that year. All in all, Heather and Jason lived in my home for one year. I drove Heather and Jason to school and day care every day. I mentored Heather, counseled her, encouraged her, and gave in every way I could. I went with Heather to every doctor’s appointment she had for her or her son (not pregnancy related), to support her and advocate for her. I also loaned her other chunks of money throughout the year and counted only a small amount of them against her compensation. I also made it very clear to her that she was free to move out at any point and receive monthly cash payments against her compensation. I never coerced her into any part of our agreements. Everyone who witnessed us during this year could see very clearly that Heather was in charge and when she said “Jump” I answered “How High?” I was at her beck and call; after all, she was the angel who was making my baby dreams come true. Nothing was too much if it made her happy!

  

We attended child birth classes. I attended newborn care classes. I traded my sporty little car in for a wagon. I hired a live-in nanny. I shopped for baby gear and created the most beautiful baby’s room I could have ever imagined. I bought a Doppler and listened to my intended daughter’s heartbeat every few days. I took a picture of Heather every week as her belly expanded and gleefully posted them on Facebook, where all my many friends rejoiced with me that my dream was so close to coming true. I researched child rearing web sites every night, deciding on formulas, diaper choices, etc… I researched names endlessly and finally declared at my baby shower that my daughter would be called Selah Ruth; then all my sweet friends decorated onesies with that beautiful name on them.

On December 9, 2009, just three days after my baby shower, my world caved in on me when Heather instant messaged me to tell me she was keeping the baby. At my baby shower, she had stood in front all my family and friends and read a poem to me about the gift of motherhood. I had told attendees in the shower invitation to give her college money instead of gifts to me because I was already receiving the biggest gift I could ask for.

She never gave me an explanation for her sudden about-face. I still do not know whether she planned it all along or changed her mind at some point.

Heather never came home that night. I never saw Jason again; a child I had lived with for a year and had grown to love. She never even moved out of my house or disposed of her room full of belongings. She left all of that mess to me. Of course, she didn’t forget to take the cash gifts my friends and family had given her at the baby shower. She just disappeared and ignored all my attempts at mediation or discussion.

I crumbled that night. It might as well have been my daughter’s death. I was utterly heartbroken and it took every ounce of my strength to survive that loss. My friend came over that night to sit with me until my sister arrived from out of town. I just sat there, unable to speak, occasionally crying, trying to make sense of what had just blind-sided me. A few days later, my sweet 22 year old niece came to town to pack up the baby’s room while I was at work.

At first, I scrambled, for two months, thinking I could fight her. I called and emailed any attorney or district attorney or case worker I could. No one would help me for any amount of money that I could actually muster up. Social services had been told she was a refuge from a domestic violence situation (I never even threatened to hurt her, let alone actually hurt her… I do not have a violent bone in my body). Social services were also told that I was a potential adoptive mother, not an intended mother, who was trying to coerce her into giving up her baby. People closed ranks around ‘the poor sweet young thing’ and I could not make any headway.

In further vain attempts to turn this nightmare back into my dream, I married my Ex in a quick city hall ceremony in hopes of gaining more legal standing. We filed a petition to establish parentage without the guidance of a lawyer since we couldn’t afford one. Then, my Ex found out that filing such a petition might leave him vulnerable to child support demands and refused to show up for our court date. I have since finalized a divorce.

All I could afford to do was pay a lawyer to send her a demand letter but it went unacknowledged, like every other attempt I made to contact her, talk sense into her, mediate, discuss, or understand what the hell had happened.

For my own personal sanity, I made the decision to accept defeat, grieve the devastating loss, and move on. It was a long and painful year.

A year later, a summons was delivered to my house, for my Ex. It turns out Heather, Jason, and Baby Girl (that she named Lily) have been living off of public assistance and the county had decided to pursue my Ex for child support. Since my Ex has not lived in my house since long before Heather moved out, all I could do is call and inform him. But since he is unemployed, he decided to lay low and blow it off. There was nothing I could do to compel him to deal with the issue. There is a reason he is my Ex!

This past Friday evening, I came home to a summons with MY name on it. They have added me to the child support petition as a “Joinder” with the explanation, “DCSS was informed that Heather XX and Stacy XX entered into a surrogacy agreement regarding the minor child in this case. DCSS is requesting Stacy XX be joined so the issue of parentage can be resolved.” I called DCSS and they confirmed that it is possible that I could be ruled financially responsible for the child since it is in the best interest of the child to have financially responsible parties.

My court date is May 23. I need a Pro Bono or sliding scale lawyer who is knowledgeable in family law or child support or custody issues or surrogacy/third party reproduction issues, who can advise me how to proceed.

My finances are very limited, as I am still paying off the IVF I completed in a few months ago in the hopes of starting a new gestational surrogacy. Obviously, my dream of being a mother is now going to be further delayed. This nightmare just keeps coming back to life.

FAQs:

• Yes, I do have contracts! I have an abundance of evidence establishing me as intended mother. Without tens of thousands of dollars to give up front, I could not find someone willing to litigate this case. The landmark case in California Buzzanca v. Buzzanca would have been my best shot at winning custody but it might also be the thing that forces me to pay child support. See more about it at: Buzzanca v. Buzzanca: The Ruling and Ramifications (http://www.surrogacy.com/legals/jaycee/jayceesum.html)
• We tried to get Heather pregnant for four months; three of those months were doctor-assisted IUIs. The month we got pregnant was a home insemination.
• Her profile on SurrogateMother.com was advertising for new intended parents just four months after Baby Girl was born. It is possible she is already engaging in a new surrogacy agreement! 
• She has garnered a lot of support from strangers, case workers, etc, by being extremely dishonest about the facts of the case.
• She was living in a homeless shelter when she delivered the baby.
• I had already paid her 80% of her compensation by the time she defaulted. I have never seen any money back.
• Heather was using Legal Aid and Pro Bono Project services at some point (probably still is); they have confirmed that they cannot help me as it would be a conflict of interest and she was their client first.

 Thank you for listening. If you can help me in any way, I would very much appreciate it.

-Stacy (mushijune@yahoo.com)

Perfect Moment Monday: Catnap

I haven't participated in Lori's Perfect Moment Monday in quite a while. I've thought about it, I've certainly experienced many of those moments, but don't get around to putting my post together. I'm so grateful for it, because even though I may not get around to the post, it never hurts to have a reminder to appreciate these special moments. In case you don't know, "Perfect Moment Monday is about noticing a perfect moment rather than creating one. Perfect moments can be momentous or ordinary or somewhere in between."

Sunshine LOVES our cats. Obsessed might be more accurate. "Cat" is one of the words she says loud and clear, and did I mention, OFTEN! As far as she's concerned, if its got four legs and a tail, it's a cat. We'll be out and about, and see a dog and either she'll exclaim, "CAT!" or I'll say, "Look at the dog." and Sunshine will insist, "Cat, cat, cat!" She's got quite a gleam in her eyes and often laughs, so she knows, but she enjoys her own joke.

Yesterday she and our big cat took a nap together. The cat got the blankie first.

Don't forget to check out the other Perfect Moment Monday posts.

Life from Scratch Book Tour

Let me start by saying, I LOVED THIS BOOK! Life from Scratch by Melissa Ford is everything I hoped it would be and more. Reading it felt like hanging out with old friends in the coziest café. I love that Rachel’s BFF is a single mom by choice. And that she didn’t get there easily. “After 2 miscarriages, three fresh IVF transfers, four frozen IVF transfers, several months of daily Lovenox injections, a premature delivery, and a NICU stay, Arianna had Beckett” For me, it was five cancelled IVF cycles, one fresh IVF transfer, two donor frozen embryo transfers, six weeks of Lovenox injections, eight weeks of progesterone in oil injections, and a c-section, that I have my Sunshine. I felt a kinship with Arianna. It’s hard enough to decide to become a parent on your own, having trouble conceiving compounds that.

I loved hearing Melissa’s voice in novel form. Loved the little New York details, like when Rachel and Arianna decide not to stop for bagels at H&H when on the way to Zabars. You have to really know New York city to know that H&H has the BEST bagels, and that they're across the street from Zabars.

I hope I can do the book justice with this post. I’m really feeling the sleep deprivation these days. My very active, teething, not great at sleeping 15 month old, our two cats, and I have just moved into a new apartment. The process has been long, stressful, and isn’t quite over. (Lots of odds and ends to still bring over, and still have to figure out where everything should go.) So this post may not be all I’d like it to be.

Now on to the questions.

If you had a year to do what you wanted, what would you do?  Would you learn to cook or something different?

Ooooooh! Whatever I want?!?!?! I would travel! I love to travel, and really hope my daughter will love it, too. Ideally, I would have someone to deal with the luggage while I focus on wrangling Sunshine, and also to help with childcare so I could do things that you can’t do with a toddler in tow. I would love to take the opportunity to learn new things in different places. For instance, I know of a villa in Tuscany that offers workshops in Tuscan cooking. Maybe a glass blowing class in Venice. Show my daughter the world. See the world through her eyes. Watch her get covered in powdered sugar eating beignets at Café du Monde in New Orleans. Make sure she knows to “Mind the Gap” on the London Underground. Etc.

Rachel's blog Life from Scratch is itself a character in the story. Do you think non-bloggers will understand the details of blogging (blog awards, stats and stat counters, other true life blogs mentioned) and how does writing her blog tie into her story making it appeal to the mainstream?

I’m not really sure. I hope so. I am a mother, my daughter is here in the world, because of my blog. The generous woman who donated embryos to me found my blog through a mention on LFCA. A site maintained by Melissa Ford! It helps when people understand the blogging world when I tell our story. Although, I think even if non-bloggers understand the details of blogging, it’s really hard for outsiders to understand the kinship in the ALI community. We are there for each other through struggles, losses, and successes. It’s hard for outsiders to understand when I tell them I’ve received baby gifts from people I’ve never met face to face. That I sent a baby gift halfway around the world to a blogger I’ve never met in person. That a community is working together on a project for a blogger who’s suffered an unthinkable loss. That we send each other socks. Yes, socks. Because we know it makes it a tiny bit easier to put our feet in those damn stirrups when we see a pair of colorful socks that someone chose for us.

How would you react if your blog hit the big time -- if you had hundreds of thousands or even millions of readers hanging on your every word, if you won awards, if mainstream media wanted to interview and feature you? Are there aspects of blogging fame that you'd refuse? How would the content of your blog change?

Hmmmmm. Well, I just don’t think I’m that good a writer. I like being semi-anonymous with my blog. I use a pseudonym on here, but I’ve never hesitated to tell my fellow bloggers my real name via email. For a long time I didn’t post any identifiable photos. Since my daughter was born I’ve posted plenty of her, and a few of me. If my blog went viral, I might consider removing the photos and not posting any new ones of us. And regardless of my blog’s popularity, I’m sure I'll think harder about what I post about Sunshine as she gets older. I sure wouldn’t mind Heather Armstrong’s money, though. (And I'd be happy to review the iPad here if Apple wants to send me one! Hello, Apple Marketing Dept!) Fame is such an odd thing. I had a surreal moment at a friend’s baby shower/meet the baby party to celebrate the adoption of her son, when a woman came up to me and said, “I know you from your blog!” Wild! Turns out she’s another SMC blogger. We had no idea we had this mutual friend.

I love to hear that our story has inspired others. I had a long phone conversation with a blogger about our open embryo donation process. Since our conversation, she and her husband have donated their embryos. I received an email last year from a woman who said she passed my URL on to a friend who was single and struggling with the idea of winding up childless. I also recently found out that after meeting me and Sunshine at an SMC event last Summer and hearing our story, a woman donated several embryos to another woman she met at the same event. So, famous or not, we never really know when we tell our story, whose life we may change.

So, if you haven’t read it yet, hop over to Amazon.

Paperback

Kindle edition

To continue to the next leg of this book tour, please visit the main list at Write Mind Open Heart.

Our Bodies, Our Choices

This is a hard post to write. Not because I’m lacking in the strength of my convictions, but mostly because others have written so well on the issue of reproductive choice. I haven’t consciously shied away from controversial issues here, even though I may be in the minority as a donor embryo recipient regarding my pro-choice views. I have often commented in support of other pro-choice blog posts, but I’ve never written one. With what's going on right now in the Federal and various State Legislatures, I need to stand up and be heard.

For the details of all the craziness happening right now, read Keiko’s brilliant post. This is some scary shit! The attempt to de-fund Planned Parenthood is insane. Planned Parenthood uses NONE of the federal funds they receive for abortion services! In fact, just 3% of all they do is related to pregnancy termination. Read Cecily’s post for more information. In case you didn’t know, Cecily would likely not be alive if abortion was not a legal medical procedure in this country.

As our dear Mel said in a post last year, “Personally, I think it would behoove any person who wants the family building side of reproductive rights protected to also support termination, after all, if you don’t want your government making fertility treatments illegal, it would make sense to spread that protection to all aspects of reproductive rights.”

I don’t think it’s at all contradictory to be a pro-choice infertile. I encourage my pro-choice infertile sisters to speak out. For ourselves, for each other, for our children. I applaud my fellow bloggers who’ve spoken out on this issue. Who've bravely faced criticism so other women wouldn’t feel so alone. Like my friend Kristin, who posted about a termination that probably saved her life. Like the blogger who posted about her decision to reduce a multiple pregnancy. I KNOW that there will be women in crisis who will find those posts and find fellowship and comfort.

I’m going to quote from another post of Mel’s, because she says it so succinctly here. (And unlike me, she a professional writer. She’s had two books published, you know!) “But restricting access to abortion is just one step away from restricting access to fertility treatments, and I would like to retain control over what happens in my uterus.  I don’t believe we should get into grey areas deeming some abortions ethical and others not; stating that within certain situations, it’s merciful and in others, it’s irresponsible.  It’s a slippery slope once you step onto the rights of others, and anyone who favours outlawing or restricting abortion and is also infertile should consider how they would feel if the reach of the general public went into their body; went towards restricting assisted conception, making the use of fertility drugs illegal.”

Click here to sign a letter to Congress to protest the legislation to bar Planned Parenthood from federal funding.

There will be a Walk for Choice in many cities tomorrow. Please go if you can.

Will You Be Ours?

Our Valentine? Since I didn't get it together to send out holiday cards, Sunshine and I are sending out Valentine's Day cards. Would you like one? Email me your snail mail addy and I'll send one to you. Be warned, the cuteness is outa control!

Have loads to write, just not getting to it. I've been a terrible commenter, most often when I really have something meaningful to say. It's just easier to dash off a quick comment, then I feel bad when I don't leave a comment on someone's important post because it deserves more than a quickie. Please forgive me, I try to keep up on my blog reading, and I think of you all.

$70 For Me, And $70 For One Of My Lovely Readers! Thanks, CSN Stores!

Woohoo! Got a great giveaway coming up to tell you about! First, let me start by saying I wouldn’t do a sponsored post if I didn’t really like the company. I first discovered CSN Stores about 2 1/2 years ago when I was having my kitchen and bathroom painted and wanted to get new ceiling light fixtures for both rooms. CSN Stores has over 200 online stores where you can find everything from handbags, a bathroom vanity, great cookware, or unique light fixtures! The stock on CSN Stores website is so extensive that I was able to find exactly what I wanted at a great price. I was able to sort by type of fixture and price, and browse away until I found what I was looking for.

As I mentioned in my last post about CSN Stores, Sunshine and I are moving into a new apartment. Renovations are done, and I am currently sorting (purging) through our things and moving what I can before movers come for the big furniture. The 2 light fixtures I purchased previously have been moved into the new apartment, as well as 2 new ones I found on CSN Stores lighting site.  For my last post, CSN Stores provided me with a gift code to use on their website. I did not wind up getting either of the things I was originally contemplating, but I am very pleased with what I did get. I was quite practical about my purchases. I got a DVD player, as I was probably the last person around who didn’t have one (I could always play DVDs on my computer, and I <3 my DVR), I got a beautiful wall decal for Sunshine’s room, and a very cool closet organizer thingy.

Now CSN Stores is providing me with another opportunity to review an item from their websites. They are providing me with a $70 gift code for me, and a chance for my readers to win one as well. The actual giveaway post will be in a few weeks. You will have a chance to enter to win by commenting on that post, but for an extra entry, leave a comment on this post with a suggestion for what I should get with my gift code. Since I’m in the process of moving, I’m leaning towards something practical for the new apartment, but I also kind of think I deserve something indulgent just for me. Please do a little browsing and give me your suggestions. Your comment could win you $70 at CSNStores.com!