Long Overdue Update

We haven't been TTC these past few months. Cycles haven't met up with our KD's schedule and there was a lot going on with school & work. We did insem two days ago so we're 2 days into our 2nd official TWW. 12 days to go until we can test. We did an at home insem using fresh with our KD. R has been sick for the past two days. There was a virus going around when we were visiting family for Christmas & we think she may have brought it home with her. Fun for us!

Try #2 Postponed

We won't be having a TWW this month. Our donor can't make it to visit this weekend and we're pretty sure R ovulated today (4 days early). Donor will definitely be able to visit in October so that will be the last try for 2006. Class & work schedules for three people make it really difficult to find the time especially when you throw a cycle into the mix!
Never fear, this weekend won't go to waste. We're attending a doggy adoption fair hoping to meet a new friend for Hamlet. We started the adoption process a few weeks ago and are awaiting a home visit. We won't be getting pregnant but we will be getting a new furry child this month!

So no one gets jealous...the rest of the family

My best buddy Hamlet

















The regal first born, Silas













R and our recently departed Dexter

Try #2

On to try #2. Hopefully things will work this time. Our donor still hasn't gotten back to us to let us know if he can come visit this weekend. If he can't visit then we'll be driving to see him. It would be A LOT easier on us if he could come to PA. R & I both work Friday night and Sunday afternoon. If we have to drive to meet him it will mean leaving around 1am, getting there around 7am Saturday & insemming as soon as we got there. After a nap we'd insem again and then drive home. In one day we'd be on the road for 12 hours. If he comes to visit we can insem 3-4 times throughout the weekend & flood the gates so to speak.
This will probably be our last try this year. We're worried that our schedules will get too crazy near the end of the semester for us to meet up with our donor. Also, R has decided that she doesn't want to be due in July or August. If we don't get pregnant this time we'll start trying again in January. We're hoping that things go well this time and we don't have to try again until we're ready for kid #2.

Introducing Puck

This is a photo of Puck in action!











One of the rare times Puck is sitting still.

Newest Family Member

Dexter is sorely missed. Silas & R were really lonely so we got a new friend. His name is Puck and he's 3 months old. He's settling in to the family although he doesn't get along with Hamlet at all!

Our 1st 2WW is Over

So, I'm glad that's over with. We had a bit of hope because AF was 1 day late. R spotted last night & AF started this evening. E-mailed our donor & invited him to come visit us the weekend of September 8-10. Our next TWW will start again then.

This TWW Thing SUCKS!

OK, so I told myself going into this rollercoaster that it could take us a long time to get pregnant. I told myself that I wasn't going to get too excited the first time because I knew that it could be the first of many tries for our child. I told myself, especially after the debacle that was our first insemination, I would think of this as a trial run. We were figuring out how to use the speculum, insert the syringe, etc. That’s why we got more outside than in. If I prepared myself then why in the hell am I so upset!

R has been convinced that she is pregnant for the past few days (with no HPT confirmation). Her b00bs are sore, she is incredibly tired, her stomach is upset, and she's reeeeaaaaallllllyyyyy cranky. She says she knows her body & that this isn’t normal for her. I've known her for 8 years and have never experienced a bout of PMS like this. I was worried that she was seeing symptoms where there were none, until we measured her. We’ve been going to the gym all summer and measure ourselves once a week to track our progress. In the past week her chest measurement has gone up 1 inch. Could her b00bs really be bigger? They look a bit bigger, they feel a bit bigger, but are we seeing/feeling that because that’s what I want to see and feel?

When we inseminated we decided that we wouldn’t POAS until Friday, 10 dpo. We broke down and tested last night, and again today (more trial runs I keep telling myself). I wasn’t supposed to be so upset when the tests were negative, this was just supposed to be a trial, this could take us months…I’m really trying to convince myself. I’m scared that the tests will all be negative this month & AF will rear her ugly head this weekend.

To make matters worse, I’m sitting here having feelings of inadequacy. I’ve been included in this process by tracking R’s cycles, charting her temps, helping check CM & CP, recording the results of OPKs, doing the insemination. If this doesn’t work is it because my charting was off, were we inseminating at the right time, did I screw the insemination up in some way? I worry that if we get a BFN it's all my fault. Yet at the same time, I know that it's ridiculous to blame myself.

101 Reasons Our Donor Rocks: Round One

OK, I can't come up with 101 reasons right now. I'll just start the list & keep adding as we travel on our journey.

1. He came to us & offered his services.
2. We think he will make beautiful babies.
3. He's usually a partier (23 y.o. college student), has given up heavy drinking & all drugs for us.
4. He turned down sex because we were inseminating 2 days later.
5. He completely agreed with the first draft of our donor agreement.
6. He wasn't too shy to um...perform.

Long Time no Read/See/Hear

We're back in civilization! My family lives in the middle of nowhere and they are only able to get dial-up internet access. I didn't have the patience to try & post while I was down there. Here's a recap of our visit south of the Mason-Dixon line.
Sunday: R had to work, we headed south when she got home
Monday: We slept in and basically were lazy bums all day. Wanted to go over things with donor but didn't get around to it...bad timing & unexpected visitors, later met with our donor to go over the donor agreement, did our 1st insemination ever (amusing story to come later), went to bed dreaming baby dreams
Tuesday: Went to visit my family at work (easy to do when they all work together, aren't family businesses great), cooked dinner for my entire family (I wasn't warned that my fried chicken would have to pass my Granny's inspection)
Wednesday: R, my sister & I got haircuts, we went to visit my mom, Mom, sis & I got manicures & pedicures, R waited outside because she couldn't stand the smell of the nail salon, went to dinner at my Bama's, went out at midnight to celebrate my little sister's 21st birthday
Thursday: Spent time with my mommy while my sister moved into her new apartment at school (yay for not getting roped into moving furniture!), met my family at a restaurant for dinner, went out again to celebrate the fact that my sister can get now legally buy alcohol
Friday: Lazy bums again, hit the road to come home around 8pm

Loss in the Family

Our dear middle (furry) child Dexter passed away last night. He was the best cat ever and was R's best buddy. He had urinary problems over the past year and this past time was too much for him. The vet thinks he may have had tumors on his kidneys, possibly cancerous. We're very sad but still plan on going ahead with our insemination next week. Hopefully it will result in something happy so we can smile again.

But Enough about Me

On the baby makin' front: we have our supplies. They showed up 2 days ago. We've reviewed the KD contract and have sent it to our donor to look over. We'll sign it over a lovely dinner Sunday night. Then, as long as R's temps, CM & cervix are doing what they're supposed to (with verification of an OPK), we'll inseminate that night. We plan on doing at least 2 insems next week. Then we'll enter the TWW that I've heard such great things about ;)

We've talked about when to do a HPT if Auntie doesn't come to visit this month. I think we should wait until my birthday (Labor Day weekend). R says that she doesn't think I could wait that long. It might be a premature conversation to have anyway, but I think a BFP would make for the best birthday ever!

PCOS Sucks

I'm up way too late tonight. I have to work in less than 7 hours & really, I do know better than to stay up this late. I'm gearing up for the most fun of Dr's appointments. Yes, I know that R is the one that will be trying to carry our 1st child, but I'm headed to the OB/GYN tomorrow. My PCOS has gotten out of hand & I need to try some new meds. I've been on Provera for a few years and I'm getting tired of it. I don't think it's supposed to give me two periods per cycle, but it has. I also want to have the "I plan on trying to get pregnant in the next few years" talk. I know it's a little, ok...really, premature since I want to carry our 2nd child & we are still 1 week from our first time out of the gate for our 1st child, but my ovaries have a mind of their own. It may take at least 2 years of beating down on them with hormones before they even decide to release an egg. I figure if I get my cycles under control & get myself ovulating now it will be a lot easier in a few years to get pregnant. I've been doing some research on my own so I can be an informed consumer at the appointment tomorrow. R & I don't have the same doctor but we go to the same practice. She isn't comfortable with a male OB/GYN and sees a midwife instead. I really don't care and didn't really have a choice since I needed a PCOS specialist.

When did I get old?

Lately I've been feeling really old and by old I mean mature. It's hard to be surrounded by traditional college students all day and not forget that you're almost 10 years older than most of them. This old feeling might have happened gradually but I only started noticing it in the last few weeks.

Exhibit A: R and I were out for a friend's bachelorette party. It started tamely enough with dinner and then became a bar crawl. After the 6th bar we ended up in a night club, complete with LASER lights, smoke machines, and loud, booming music. We didn't stick around after that. We left because we were tired (it was shortly after midnight), it was too loud and the lights were giving me a headache.

Exhibit B: I was at a week long conference for our fraternity last week (Phi Sigma Pi). Once again I found myself surrounded by typical college students. They were out partying until the butt crack of dawn and I was in bed by 1am every night. Their main concern was the location of the liquor store (not too difficult because you can buy liquor in gas stations in Missouri!!!) while I was more concerned with finding a good restaurant and maybe a good bottle of wine.

Exhibit C: R and I are car shopping. She owns 2 cars and, technically, I don't have a car. Her Saab, Marty, is dying a terrible death and the treatment to heal one of his ailments would cost $2000. That doesn't repair the 500 other things that are wrong with the car (I exaggerate, but seriously the thing a lost cause). Those other things aren't a priority because they don't make the car a death trap. So needless to say Marty will be laid to rest, hopefully this weekend. R and I were car shopping last night. We had several discussions about how this decision would affect having a baby. We didn't want a new car because we don't want another car payment when R is on maternity leave, we wanted to make sure the car was big enough for a car seat and other baby gear (friends don't let friends drive mini-vans), we looked at safety features & gas mileage; we decided on 4 doors. I never would have done this a few years ago. I would have seen a car that I liked, driven it, and bought it. I never would have thought about any of that stuff....

I'm not sure if I miss being irresponsible and reckless but I do miss the idea of it.

pV=nRT

OK, if you haven't figured it out yet...I'm a big dork. I get excited over things like new graphing calculators. I'm not kidding. So of course, I think of things in equations, being a Chemistry major the ideal gas law comes to mind when thinking about all the pressure we're under.
If p = pressure, V = very excited family, T = time spent waiting, R = a constant (in this case, the love of my life) & n = the number of tries, then the external pressure increases as the time and number of tries increases. This pressure is shared by the number of very excited family members. Looking at the equation the pressure should be 0 because we haven't even started trying. But no!
I've been lurking on other lesbian TTC blogs & message boards for months. There are many couples who haven't told their families because they don't think they would approve. Lots of pronouns in that sentence, sorry. We have exactly the opposite problem. Our families, mine especially, have been pressuring us for years to start a family. I think mine is more excited that R's because I'm the oldest & R is the youngest. She has an older sibling that has already provided the 1st grandchild in her family. Being the oldest, there are no grandchildren to occupy my parents. I see the twinkle in my dad's eye when one of his friends brings out photos of his grandkids. At my dad's 50th birthday party he announced that he wanted grandchildren and the rest of the family started bugging me about it. Distant relatives that I hadn't seen in years wanted to know when I was starting a family, who would carry the 1st baby, etc. My mother keeps hinting that she really wants a granddaughter, even going so far as to say that she's jealous of her friends with grandkids. She also told me that our eggs weren't getting any younger and started spouting statistics about how much fertility decreases after age 30. The pressure isn't just coming from my parents. My siblings all want R & me to start a family first and fast. We're not the only ones being pressured. My step-sister is a few years older than me and she thinks if we would hurry up and provide the 1st grandchild it would take pressure off of her. My grandmother is the sweetest though. She's nearing 90 and knows that I want to name my first daughter after her. Last winter she took me aside and said that she was getting older, probably only had "10 or 15 good years left" and wanted me to hurry up so she could see Evelyn born. I was more impressed with the fact that she thinks she'll be around another 10-15 years. One of the many reasons that I want to honor her by naming my daughter after her; she has an incredibly positive outlook on life.
So long story short, our families don't know we're trying. We don't want to take them along on this rollercoaster. We also don't want constant calls to see if R has gotten her period this month, asking who the donor is (he wishes to remain anonymous until the child is old enough to ask questions), how many times we're trying, etc. The pressure we're getting is enough just as it is!

Your Health Teacher Lied to You

OK, so the most important thing 2 lesbians that are trying to get pregnant is the very same thing that you spent years avoiding: sperm. There were 2 ways we could get it: known or unknown, fresh or frozen. We knew we wanted to use fresh sperm from a known donor. There were numerous reasons this was a good idea for us:
1. With a known donor you are able to get an extensive family history and are able to ask questions later if something comes up.
2. We both wondered about the type of guy that would donate sperm for money. While we’re sure there are wonderful men out there that just want to help childless couples, we’re sure there are many more poor college students that just wanted a case of beer.
3. We wanted to spend less money trying to get pregnant so we would have more money when the baby comes.
4. Fresh sperm are more motile that frozen sperm.

There are 2 donors that we wanted to use. We selected one donor for me and another donor for R. We contacted her donor 2 months ago. We had discussed using his, um…stuff several years ago and he agreed. We just wanted to talk to him again because things could change over the years. It’s also a lot easier to say yes to a hypothetical question than it is so say yes when you know that this is starting in 2 months. He agreed & we came up with a donor agreement which we will be signing it at the first insemination attempt.

That brings be to the actual insemination. Remember that day in gym class when the boys were separated from the girls and you had sex ed? We were told horror stories about people that got pregnant their 1st time. Nameless girls that had gotten knocked up but were virgins...never supposed to let a boy ejaculate anywhere near you. They lied.
I thought I was a pretty smart girl. I paid attention in Biology classes, I know all about mitosis, meiosis, fertilization, etc. I managed to make it through 21 credits of Biology classes and never hear the phrase "fertile mucus." I didn't even know I had that. So, while you were told in Health Class that all you had to do was look at a guy with a hard-on to get pregnant, there’s really a lot more to it.

R and I have been tracking her cycles for what seems like forever. She’s been waking up at 8am everyday to take her temperature. We’ve been examining cervical mucus, position, and color. These are all changes that I didn’t even know occurred. We’ve pinpointed her ovulation days and have a plan for insemination. Today I bought supplies, another part of our deal. I am responsible for making sure we have everything we need for the insemination from the 23 chromosomes to the specimen cup. It’s frightening that you really can buy everything you need online, even the 23 chromosomes. We don't need those though, we'll be traveling to meet our donor in person. My credit card company is going to have fun with my purchases today: specimen cups, needless syringes, sperm friendly vaginal lubricant, plastic specula, and ovulation predictor test strips.

Our first attempt at inseminating will take place around 13 August, depending on R's cycle. She's been ovulating on day 18 for the past 4 months, hopefully the stress of an impending insemination won't change things. Our donor is 400 miles away and we're going to him this cycle & we plan to inseminate 2 times this trip. If we get pregnant our due date would be Monday 7 May 2007. What an incredible graduation present that would be!

First Things First

So....who am I and what am I up to? I am in my late 20s; I've been happily partnered to R for the past 8 years; I will forever be the perpetual student; I'm a dog lover with cats because R is a cat person; what else, I also have a biological clock that would put Big Ben to shame. R and I have discussed having kids many times over the past 8 years. I knew from the very beginning that I wanted to have a family with her. The talks about kids have gotten progressively more and more serious over the past few years. We picked out a donor, talked about who would get pregnant first, and picked out names but none of it seemed real. It was always something that we would do when we finally graduated from college, when we had better jobs, when we had a larger house. There was always something that we needed to accomplish before we could really start thinking about a family. I always told R that if we waited until everything was perfect, we'd never start a family because perfection didn't exist. She still wanted to wait a little longer. That all changed on 19 June 06. I had been out of town and was driving back to PA when R called to tell me that she was finally ready to start a family. I was so happy that I cried. I dove right in and started thinking about everything that we would need. Lots of reading, research, and shopping. Three of my favorite things!