Round 4: Anniversary Edition

As predicted we headed to Boston on our anniversary for our fourth iui. When we left it was pouring rain outside, we left early because the Sox were playing at 1, and we thought maybe we could beat the fans to the neighborhood. On the weekends we don't have appointments, the practitioner who is on that weekend calls at some point in the morning to set a time to meet. We were already on the road when she called, and she was grateful, since she only needs to see a couple of patients, and when we are done, she can go home and enjoy her Saturday.

We ended up getting there around 9:30, and the parking spots were taken by crazed fans who showed up to the game 3.5 hours early to roam the streets. We parked illegally in the patient drop off zone, figuring we were the only patients there, since the clinic wasn't open...the nice lady who did our insemination claimed that she'd write an "official" looking note for our windshield, it ended up looking more like a first grade art project, but we didn't get ticketed so it seems fine to me.

Everything went off without a hitch in inseminationland. There were signs that the timing was just right. There was no poking or proding. It all seemed pretty routine. So routine, I would prefer to never do it again, or at least not for a couple of years.

We are now 9 days into our two week wait. Things have been pretty uneventful around here in the pregnancy symptoms department. We are keeping ourselves busy with packing, getting ready for the big move. Also, Ali got a promotion, which she totally deserves because she is smart, and she works hard, and she has mad skills. Around here we like to do lots of life transitions all at the same time, so we should probably just add pregnancy to the mix. WAHOO!

2 More Tries

We are now the proud owners of two more vials of swimmers. Before last weeks official confirmation that we were not pregnant we decided that if we made a plan we might feel better about what happened next, (since we were out of sperm.) So we decided that we would go ahead and buy more.  We had enough saved for exactly 2 vials plus shipping ($1500). It is important to both of us that we keep paying cash for baby making expenses. We are working hard to pay down debt so we can buy a house some day soon, and not have to worry about all of that haunting us forever. So we spent our savings on exactly 1ml of little sperm.

We decided to keep the same donor, at least for the next two rounds. The first and the third insemination the nurse and PA both commented about how good the specimen looked (they always check them under a microscope.) So we figured it probably isn't their fault that we weren't pregnant yet. Plus, we really liked his profile....so we'll give him a couple more shots.

We start ovulation testing again next Tuesday, with our earliest likely appointment being Thursday. Our swimmers should be in Boston on Tuesday. We had talked briefly about taking a hiatus in August to relax from the emotional ickiness of all of this, but in the end we'd rather be waiting with a purpose. We are on a roll now, we've got any possible mishaps out of the way....Let's make a baby.

As Good As It Gets

 We spent the last week at a beautiful state park on a magical lake not far from our house. It was wonderful; swimming, sailing, sea dooing, reading, playing backgammon, painting, roasting marshmallows...all my favorite things. Of course, as luck would have it it was time for ovulation testing while we were there. We'll add Sebago Lake State Park to the list of interesting places we have tested (including bus stations, airports, many friends and relatives homes etc.) Anyway, the test turned positive Monday morning, which meant we'd be heading to Boston on Tuesday morning. We were slightly frustrated with the timing because...we were on vacation, I tried to tell Ali that we didn't have to go, but in the end we decided to take a road trip.

We decided to sleep at home Monday night, which turned our almost 3 hour drive into a less than two hour drive one way. (Good thing too, because it poured all night and flooded our tent!) It was the first time we had been to the clinic for insemination on a week day. I wasn't thrilled about this idea, since we'd always been there on a Sunday, and Amy had always done our inseminations. Ali pointed out that it hadn't worked the last two times, so maybe a new approach was a good thing.

Kenny helped us with our paperwork. He was an awesome sort-of-flamboyant little guy, with long black hair, whose tee-shirt barely met his scrub pants. He made sure we had the right swimmers and was generally friendly while we waited in the waiting room. We hadn't spend much time in the waiting room before...but it was kind of cool, full of gays and lesbians. We don't spend too much time with other queer people, but it's sort of reassuring to know that there are more of them (us) in the world.

Jerry, an older PA, did our insemination. He said that our swimmers might be the best batch he's ever seen (good news!)...AND they were donated on my mom's birthday. She's quite fertile, so it must be a good sign! Jerry had a very slow and steady approach to getting the swimmers in, and instructed me to push the plunger a TINY bit (we're talking 1/2 ml total here, so it really was tiny) wait ten seconds, then plunge again. The procedure was the easiest it had been, and clearly done at the right time (I'll spare you the details).

He left and we had some beautiful family time, so happy that we finally thought that this could work. Then we went back to the lake for 5 more nights of relaxing.

That happened on the 23rd, so we're about 9 days post iui.....and I'm going a tiny bit crazy. I can't help but wonder: HOW IN THE WORLD CAN SOMEONE BE GROWING A HUMAN INSIDE THEM AND NOT KNOW ABOUT IT?? Seriously, I know, if there is something in there it's just a bunch of cells, but it seems as though you should feel SOMETHING. Supposedly people go through there entire pregnancies without ever knowing it, so why should my wife feel anything after 9 days? I keep remembering that after the last two iui's Ali had symptoms -- cramps, fatigue, nausea (sometimes extreme) ....but this time, almost nothing of note. I have to keep reminding myself that those times when she had "symptoms" she was not pregnant. Yesterday I read a study that said that 50% of women experience no symptoms at 5 weeks. I guess since IF we were pregnant we'd only be 3 weeks along I should just chill out for a few more days and see what happens.

I'm hoping for an awesome outcome because otherwise we are out of swimmers and will need to make a plan about how to proceed. That involves lots of decisions, in a short period of time....WOO! We are on a wild ride friends. Send good thoughts our way!

2 Weeks and a Dozen Emotions

If you've been here, then you know. The time between insemination and either confirming or denying your pregnancy is treacherous. Since our second insemination on the 16th between Ali and I I'm pretty sure we've experienced a full gamut of emotions.

We tested positive on the 15th, a bit late in the cycle (day 24ish), but doable in terms of our schedule, and not the latest it has ever been.

Relief.

We were finally trying again! and this time it seemed clear that this really was the right time.

Excitement.

We get the call that our favorite nurse is going to be doing the insemination.

Delight.

We got to the clinic to realize that they had double booked our appointment.

Annoyance, but only slight.

There were a couple of babies in the office, signs that maybe the clinic was doing something right.

Hope.

The nurse had a hard time getting the catheter where it needed to go (the uterus). She left the room to get another catheter, one that was more bendy. She came back to describe that when she was testing he catheter to see if they should buy more the tip fell off and the water they were inseminating into the rubber vagina squirted all over her. I see something dripping from the catheter and it's not water, it's our $1300 an mL sperm. She attempts to fix the catheter and I push the plunger.

Worry.

We head for home, over the next few days Ali experiences signs of ovulation, signs that may indicate we did this at the wrong time....again. (Though looking over old charts we discover that maybe it's just what her body does.) In the mean time, I can't help but wonder if all the swimmers were squirted onto the paper sheet instead of into my wife's uterus. I wonder why this can't just go smoothly, why we can't leave the clinic thinking that there is a chance. Weezer comes on my Pandora station at work (our donor supposedly looks like the lead singer of Weezer). I see his face and start to cry, at work, over Weezer.

Anger.

The middle time always seems to be the easiest for us. Ali's birthday is on the 19th. We celebrated. We manage to fall back into a routine realizing that there is little we can do to make it or break it. We eat organic produce and go to the beach.

Content.

Then we woke up today, and my sweet wife (who we desperately wish was pregnant) was nauseous and slightly crampy, and you can't help but wonder if it's an early sign of pregnancy, or if it's because she ate too much guacamole last night, or if it's all some psychological trick her body is playing on us.

Anxious. Cautiously Excited. Hopeful.

We are under no false illusions that this is really meaningful. But it does remind me that anything is possible. In the next few days we COULD find out there's a tiny human growing in there. Or we could find out that we have to do this all again. Either way, we're moving forward. Either way we're going to keep trying, and keep being thankful that we have each other, and some (very limited) resources to make this happen.

Love.

Missed Opportunity

Our insemination appointments this month were schedule May 9th through the 23rd. We have a BIG window of appointments each month, due to varying cycle lengths, but ovulation is most likely to fall during the first week. We made appointments knowing that from May 10-13th we'd be in Memphis for Ali's sisters college graduation...AKA 1400 miles away from our sperm. That made ovulation testing extra fun. On the first day we expected negative results. Then we started hoping for a negative result (which is not something people trying to conceive hope for.) We were counting down how many negative tests we needed to get before we would be excited for a positive. The magic number was 6. As we approached the 4th test we were getting hopeful. But instead, in the Memphis Airport bathroom we got a positive ovulation test. Which meant that we couldn't inseminate this month. We were disappointed because we had just spent the whole day in Boston and if the positive test had come one day sooner we could have snuck in a trip to the clinic. If the positive came 36 hours later we could have made it to our appointment late Monday after our flight landed in Maine.

The good news is this seemed to be an ordinary cycle. It's good after the last two which seemed a bit off (one very long, one with a random positive ovulation test too early.) I feel strangely ok with missing this cycle. Don't get me wrong, I was disappointed at first, I want a baby so bad that sometimes I actually physically ache for it. But the body is something that we can't really control, and I feel like this weekend we were exactly where we needed to be...it's hard to feel regret for that.

Maybe I'm guarding myself from disappointment. Or maybe I'm just going with the flow. Either way I can't help but think that this extra month means that I'll have more vacation time saved for when a baby arrives. Also, we'll have more money saved, in case we need to buy more swimmers, or lots of cute baby things.

Meanwhile, the clock keeps ticking and in just 10 days we'll be making more appointments and preparing to try again.

Two Rounds Are Better Than One

We are officially not pregnant. Based on the timing of when the next cycle started it seems like the first iui did not occur at the right time. It's slightly frustrating because we paid all of that money, and told them we didn't think it was the right time, and they told us to go get inseminated anyway. Oh well, we learned to be slightly more cautious of the Ovulation Predictor Kit, when not paired with all the other symptoms she usually experiences. It's also a bit of a relief that it seems likely that the timing was off. It makes us think that there was nothing really wrong, it was just that we didn't inseminate on the right day.

On to round two. It's a bit hard to get excited about round two. Last month everything was new, and we were full of hope, it's amazing how just one failed cycle can make you a little skeptical about the whole process. Though, in a way it's less stressful this way. We're not counting everyday like we were last month, we're just sort of living life knowing that in a couple weeks we'll start testing again, but it's not occupying everything we are doing.

On the plus side: this means we will not have a Christmas baby. Everyone I know who has a December birthday complains about it.....glad we dodged that one ;-)

On the not-so-plus side: We are headed to Tennessee for a few days right at the start of when we might possibly need to inseminate. I REALLY hope we don't miss the window.

In other news: In my brain, since before we even bought sperm, we would get pregnant on the second try. Sometimes my brain is right. I hope it is this time!

This Roller Coaster Ride We Are On

Saturday morning we work up to this.

We were shocked. Last month we didn't get a positive ovulation test until day 29. Saturday was only day 16. To say we were excited would be an understatement. Ali reacted as I would imagine she would if someone told her we had just won the lottery without even playing. Except it was better, because it meant this making a baby thing was becoming real. We were really going to do this. A positive test on Saturday would mean that our first IUI would be on Sunday. This was PERFECT. The Red Sox weren't playing, so we would be able to find parking in Boston. We wouldn't have to miss a work day. We'd have it done before going away for our mini-adventure next weekend. It was great.

Then we did the thing that you're not supposed to do after you have a positive ovulation test. We tested again. Only 2 hours later (they are supposed to be at least 4 hours apart). It was negative. We proceeded to test 3 more times, 4 hours apart, all negative.

So we panicked.

This maybe TMI but ovulation generally comes what they call egg white cervical mucus. There was none. So that paired with the negative tests lead us to google, and to thinking that perhaps we had a false positive test. We were pretty stressed most of the day, and even went as far as doing an at home cervical exam (which didn't tell us much of anything, since I'm not a trained medical professional  and all the you-tube videos in the world can't teach you that).

So we did what any self respecting women who really wanted a baby would do. We bought a microscope. We heard that when you were ovulating your saliva looked like ferns. So we bought it, and we checked Ali's saliva, and sure enough. Ferns. We got a bit of our excitement back...but still weren't totally convinced that this was the right time.

We called the health center and asked them to call us back regarding our appointment. The nurse who called back asked all the right questions and consulted with the medical director of the program and called back and said that the program was designed around positive tests, and if we had one we should inseminate.

So we made an appointment and headed to Boston, with a mix of emotions. Wondering if this was the right decision. If we were wrong, we were out $1000. If we were right, well....we may have made a baby.

We got to the health center and the nurse was incredible. She was amazing at explaining every detail to us as it was happening. She looked at some of our swimmers under the microscope (we assume a better one than the $14.99 version we bought at Toys R Us the previous night) and said it was a really good sample. (AND it was donated on my birthday, which can't be a bad sign!) When preparing for the insemination she said it looked like it was actually a good time to inseminate. She made us feel hopeful, which was great. Once she got everything set up she asked if I wanted to push the syringe. That was pretty exciting, and Ali says that now when she's in labor she can yell "YOU DID THIS TO ME!" and it will be true.

The nurse left the room and told us to enjoy some family time, and we did. Including reading this great book recommended from another blogist. It's about a little boy who plants seeds and then there is a lot of waiting and hoping and wishing, and wondering what is going on underground where you can't see it. It was pretty fantastic.

Then we ate at this great little Thai place that we found near the clinic, that we have eaten at every time we've been down there.

On our way home we MAY have stopped at Target to buy a pregnancy test (or 5). You can never be too prepared.

And now we wait. Waiting, I'm positive is the hardest part.

How it All Works or Lesbian Baby Making 101

We've had lots of questions from our friends and family about how to make a baby when both parents are women. Keep in mind that this varies based on age, geography and certain motherly preferences , but I'll share with you our process.

We decided early on to go on this adventure with the help of a well known health center in Boston that has been doing the work of getting lesbians and single women pregnant for decades. It's an expensive and potentially emotionally draining process so we thought that leaving it to the experts would be wise. We think this will give us the best chance of success.

Steps we've already taken:

• In October we went to an orientation at the health center, that outlined lots of things about what to expect and how the process works. 
• We began tracking Ali's basal body temperature first thing every morning for the last 6 months, supposedly before she moves or talks. (Which is impossible because she needs to move to get the thermometer....but you get the point.) We've learned lots of fascinating things about how hormones change throughout your menstrual cycle, and that causes your temperature to change. Your temperature rises after you ovulate, and drops back down right be for you menstruate. 
• We've been practicing with the ovulation predictor kits. Basically works like a pregnancy test, but measures the hormone that increases at ovulation. When the hormone spikes we see a little smiley face. It's cute. 
• Ali had a complete physical and a ton of tests to make sure that she was healthy to carry a cute little baby. 
• We had our enrollment and medical visits at the health center. They gave us more details about scheduling appointments etc. The nurse practitioner reviewed some dos and don'ts and cleared us to go buy sperm. 
• We own sperm! It's waiting for us in Boston in it's cute little nitrogen tank. We have enough sperm for 3 cycles. Hopefully it won't take more than that because those little bottles run $650 for .5ml. I'm pretty sure that's more expensive than gold. 
• We've made appointments for our first IUI. On the first day of the menstrual cycle we call the clinic and set up appointments for every day that you might ovulate. Because my wife's cycles fluctuate somewhere between 32 and 45 days we have appointments set everyday for 14 days. Each night we have to either cancel or confirm the appointment for the next day. 

So we are in full swing now. Any day now we could be packing up and driving south for our first shot at growing our little family. Then we wait a couple of weeks to do the pregnancy test. Then if it's negative we wait a couple more weeks to try again. I'm practicing patience. 

Choosing a Sperm Donor

 Choosing sperm donor a fascinating and bizarre experience.

We went to the health center for our enrollment and medical clearance appointments and decided to browse through some donor profiles while we were there. There were a few things going into this process that we were pretty sure of. 

1. We wanted a donor the same race as us. In my brain if we were adopting a baby I felt like it wouldn’t matter what the babies race was. However, my wife giving birth to a baby who didn’t look like either of us seemed strange to me.

2. We wanted an identity release donor. Donors in the identity release program agree to be contacted by a child conceived by their sperm after that child reaches the age of 18. It was really important to us that our child had the option to contact the donor, if they decided to. We didn’t want to make that decision for our child.

After that we were slightly overwhelmed at picking a donor. What’s important? What isn’t important? How do you decide? What about the age-old nature vs. nurture debate?

We started just reading through donor profiles and getting a feel for the person. If one of us thought they were ok the other of us would read it.  If we both thought they were ok we kept it in the running. If either of us got weird vibes from the dude, we got rid of him, no questions asked.

Family health history played a factor in our decision-making.  There was one guy we liked but he reported that his parents and three of his grandparents had all died before they were 60 of various causes. It could be some strange coincidence, or it could be something funky in his genes. Either way, we had enough choices, so we didn’t have to risk it.

We fairly quickly narrowed our selections down to seven potential donors. Of that seven we eliminate three more fairly quickly.  Once we eliminated someone because of physical characteristics that we weren’t totally thrilled with.  (Hey, if we get to choose!) Mostly we got rid of people in that round because they seemed to lack passion about anything. They sounded like a totally fine guys, smart, kind…but they lacked anything that made us think that they were excited about ANYTHING in the world.

When we had the top three my wife and I both ranked them separately, and ended up with the same guy in our #1 spot. Probably the biggest seller for us (aside from his good health, and general good guy vibe) was his use of exclamation points. He could answer serious questions seriously, but also, even in his paperwork he seemed to be having fun. He wrote things like “My sperm is awesome!!” He studied musical theatre and philosophy. His donor number matches my birthday (and coincidentally my wife’s favorite number). His celebrity lookalikes are handsome (even if in a dorky sort of way). 

In the end we decided that there weren't really right or wrong answers as to how to pick the right donor, as long as we both feel comfortable and happy with it, then we're golden. We’re excited about our choice, and even more excited to put it to good use soon.