Making a Baby

GCCjr, Embryo Version

GCCjr, Embryo Version 1,2, & 3

Do we want to have a child?  We discussed this topic many times over the years.  For a long time we both thought the answer was no, but… then things like maturity, love, and a strong relationship happened

Like most people, we knew how to make a baby the old fashioned way.  But no matter how hard we tried (or how many times), it just wasn’t happening.  Perhaps this had something to do with the vasectomy I had about 12 years ago?

Determined to extend our family, we explored our options, comparing costs, success rates, and convenience factors.

Although we had health insurance at the beginning of our journey, it seldom (or never) covers the costs of infertility treatment, so cost efficiency was important.  Why pay more than we had to?

Here are the results of our path to pregnancy

(more…)

The $7,000 Baby

Somewhere in the deep recesses of childhood memory, I vaguely recall a fuzzy black & white Lee Majors sprinting across the television screen at incredible speed in the TV show The 6 Million Dollar Man.

We Can Rebuild Him

We Can Rebuild Him

For the unfamiliar, Majors played Steve Austin, an astronaut who was severely injured in a test flight of an experimental aircraft.   Rebuilt by the government with a bionic body, he had superhuman strength and speed, infrared and zoom vision, and the greatest in 1970’s fashion.

The total cost of this life-saving operation? 6 Million Dollars. That’s a lot of money to create one amazing human being. With inflation, that 1973 procedure would cost more than $33.5 million today. Or would it?

Over the past few months, using the latest in modern technology, we have managed to create an amazing little human of our own at an expense of slightly less than $7,000 (although certainly that is only the down payment)

That’s right, Winnie is pregnant!  We are both pretty excited

(more…)

A Taiwanese Dental Visit

It’s that time of year again, time to give the teeth a little tender love and care.

Taiwan is the 4th country in which I’ve visited a dental office, and this one looked much like the others.  The diploma on the wall from The New York University College of Dentistry could have been on the wall of any dental office in any town in the United States. The Chinese calligraphy too

Take a Seat Please

Take a Seat Please

The cleaning was quick and efficient, and personally taken care of by the dentist himself. He found a missing filling and another two 10-year-old fillings with small cracks in them. This was explained in perfect English, but a high-res camera let me see the cracks and the diagnosis clearly first-hand

A week later I had these 3 fillings replaced. It was quick and painless, both physically and financially

The total cost for a cleaning and the replacement of 3 fillings was less than the $250 my old US dentist charged just for a cleaning.

Until next year

$:
Office visit fee: 250 TWD ($8.50)
Cleaning fee: 800 TWD ($27)
Cost of each filling replacement (x3): 1200 TWD ($40)