This Is Really Gonna Jack Up My Gmail Ads

As some of you may remember in a previous post (I Like My Men Like I Like My Beer: Chilled and in a Six Pack) we talked about choosing our donor...

So we ordered our donor sperm today.

Now all I have to do is keep working out to get into the BMI safe zone.

Continue do every weird recommendation the web tells me to do to bring on ovulation.

And wait for the the next cycle to start Clomid.

The Great Debate: Only Child Syndrome v. Stop Touching Me!

Hey team.  So we may start encountering times where there may be some radio silence.  Either we are in a holding pattern waiting on something or ... well... that seems to be the general theme of this.  Right now we're waiting for "cycles to progress" and trying to "lose some of the girth of my equator"... ok, so I'm not the best at euphemisms or discreetness. Or spelling, grammar, awareness of my speaking voice decibel or when "enough cheese" is "enough". Anywho. While we wait  and have no real news to share, I wanted to tell you about an ongoing discussion Meg and I have been having.  Meg grew up as an only child, only gaining her step-siblings (yay! we love you!) when she was a teenager.  From my discussions with her she informs me that it is fan-freaking-tastic.  She never had to share.  She never had to...come to think of it...most of the benefits circle back to that.  I, on the other hand, grew up as the youngest of two children.  Now.  Note to parents- in no way are any of the statements directed at you, your rearing or anything else that you may take personally that I may have to apologize for.  It's merely observational and backed up by tons of research (note: research may have been done by me with fellow friends with muli-kid backgrounds while at happy hour).

Let's Start With Meg's Perspective As An Only Child Rooting For Us To Have 2 Kids
First of all I'd like to say that I'm not necessarily against having only 1 kid. I see the obvious advantages. I'm just not against have 2, either. I grew up an only child and as a kid I thought it was pretty great. I never had to vie for my parents attention, they were able to be at every recital, I was able to get a ride to every party...it was pretty sweet! I remember liking to play by myself, being very independent, and not wanting anyone to mess with my stuff. I got to go to whatever college I chose because, well, there's only 1 of me. Had there been another kids to put through college, it would have been a different story. Being an only child suited me. As an adult I can see there were some downsides.
For instance, I never properly learned how to share (sorry Kate). As a kid that meant I hated when my cousins came over and wanted to play with my toys. As an adult it means that if I buy 5 yogurts, I expect there to be one available to me every day of the work week. What do you mean I live with someone else who also likes yogurt? BUY YOUR OWN DAMN YOGURT! Ok, I'm usually not that bad. I work really hard not to be a total jerk about the sharing, but it's not something that comes naturally to me. There's just no substitute for sharing space, toys, food, resources, etc with siblings. Now, as mentioned above, I do have 2 wonderful step-siblings and Kate and I are basically obsessed with them and their families. They make me see what grown-up sibling relationships can be like. I look at my mom and her adult siblings and I'm envious of those relationships. I want to provide my children with the opportunity to have those bonds. Now, Kate and I know all too well that not everyone has a sunshine and roses relationship with their siblings. But I think most people would never trade their siblings in for the chance to be an only

child. Obviously we're just working on our first child now, so what the heck do we know? This process might be so hard, expensive and time consuming that we choose not to do it again. The baby might scream his little head off for the first year of his life, much like my parents looooove to tell me I did. Hey, now that I think of it, maybe that's why they only had one...

My Perspective Coming From a >1 Kid home Voting for Us to Have an Only

In a multi-child household you come to learn how politics works. Stay with me now... The learning experiences were often accompanied by a bruise and a side of 'go to your room.  Let me set the scene.  You're in your 1980 Dodge Minivan on a roadtrip to grandma's house and you and your sibling have to share the back seat.  No iPods, no Nintendo DS, no walkman, no tv, no A/C, and you have absolutely no control over the radio as you killed any future opportunity of DJing be playing "Raffi" for 10 hours straight on the last trip.  You most likely have a book and maybe a coloring book with old ass crayons that are starting to smell funny (fun fact: I detest the smell of crayons that have been stored in a plastic school supplies box).  It's hot because it's July in Virginia aka the 7th Circle of Hell.  And you are bored.  And so is your sibling.  You look out of the corner of your eye and your sibling is slowly

moving his/her hand across the seat with their pinkie outstretched.  They creep closer and closer until they are a millimeter away from your skin and then they stop.  That is when you feel the rage bubble up inside you and you scream, "MOM.  HE WON'T STOP TOUCHING ME!" to which your siblings says rationally, "But I'm not touching her!  SEE!."  This goes on for hours until you've said "STOP IT" to your sibling more

times than we've all said it to Miley Cyrus in the past month.  Then your parents turn around, look at you (the complainer) and yell a stream of unrecognizable words that you can only assume is Swahili (?).  You sibling will give you this shit eating grin of superiority and your jaw will be on the floor with the overwhelming feeling of unfairness. You're only choice it to fake sleep until you finally arrive at your destination, but it's safe to assume you'll get a spanking once you're out of the car.  

From this experience I kind of understand the history of the relationship between England and France.

Another thing.  Money.  Children be expensive.  Yes my sibling and I shared.  Clothing, in fact.  When I first came out to my mother she said her first reaction was that it was her fault for dressing me in my older brother's hand-me-down clothes.  Not how it works, but that was precious right?  There are times when you know money is tight and you 'need' the new Debbie Gibson cassette or there's a book fair and you have to buy those books because it feels good to buy things, but you know you'll never read them because of this:

Big Ups to BuzzFeed for these visuals.

Every parent wants to give their kids everything and we all know that it isn't possible.  I worry, particularly living in Massachusetts where our rent could be 2 home mortgage payments pretty much anywhere else in the country, that we would struggle and I don't want my children to feel the stress of that.  Besides, we know that no one can really understand stress until they have had to make this decision.

Nonetheless, there are other factors behind my feelings, but we don't have to make this decision right away and, who knows, maybe clomid will make the decision for us- you guys know I love a bargain.

So This Uterus Walks Into a Bar...

Well, today we got up and went in for my hysteroscopy (the doctor thought he saw something on my HSG scans and wanted to rule out anything that needed to be surgically removed before we try).  I don't do well with waiting.  Particularly with some of the bad news we have encountered on our journey so far.  The night before the test I had crazy nightmares (mostly of the zombie nature- I blame that on Walking Dead's season premiere) and then I got "nervous tummy" which sounds cuter than it is- I still want anyone reading this to be able to look me in the eye.  I also got tense.

This test was one of the last hoops we have to jump through to ensure the "pipes are working", the "foundation is strong", the "recipe includes nutella".

What I imagine a uterus looks like.

After the doctor  Jacques Cousteau-ed my uterus (they take a camera up there and play paparazzi) he says, "Everything looks great.  You've got a beautiful uterus.
Perfect for hosting a baby."  Guys.  I really needed to hear that.  So.  We will now start clomid on my next cycle in a couple weeks and try our first insemination attempt. #wut




In the meantime we have two goals.
1. I need to lose the last few pounds that put me in the safe BMI zone.  More are welcome to relocate- but no relocating from my thighs to my ass.  Thunder is for the skies, not the thighs.  <rim shot>




2. Narrow down our donor options and order sperm.  We are really looking for someone who is tall and thin- let's fight genetics together. And has a healthy family history.  From there we'll decide what other factors are important.  Does the expanded profile say whether or not he's a Chenoweth fan?  #requirement

Guys.  Things are happening! #holler

I Would Have Bought Your Donor's Voice Recording, But I Spent All my Money at the Whole Foods Salad Bar

We've previously talked about how we are picking the sperm donor, but the Boston Globe posted an article yesterday that makes things a little more complicated. Basically the article is introducing a new optional procedure to test for 600 genetic childhood diseases. Great right? Sure.  But like most of us going through this journey it isn't like we can drop Benjamins like Big Papi drops home runs (sorry, the Red Sox are in the ALCS.  Any other time and I would know nothing about sports).  I think what the woman in the article went through is terrible, but it does point out another option/resource presented to you in this process that you have to budget for.... or not.  Let me lay out the numbers for you.

Doctor Visits (primary care, gyno, reproductive doc, etc)       $30 copay each time
So much poking and prodding.  But at least they call you the next day. <heyoo>

Testing & Meds (HSG, sonogram, blood tests, hysteroscopy, clomid, etc)  between $30 - $4,000

 **These can vary based upon your insurance coverage.  Simply call your company and they will provide all the answers <sarcasm>






OPK Kits    $22 for a pack of 100 little testing sticks - $36 for a the digital

I'll be honest- if you don't know me I am pretty cheap.  Most of the time I'll take "quality" over QUALITY if it saves me $5.  I also don't test well.  Meaning when I took the SATs in high school I took them 5 times. I'm not dumb, I just rationalize every possible option in a multiple choice.  So when presented with a stick that has two lines and if the lines are remotely dark in comparison you're

ovulating I have a panic attack.  Seriously.  You need a Pantone color swatch book.  "Shit.  I think Line 2 is

Cyan	4
Magenta	82
Yellow	26
Black	0

But Line one has darker tones of magenta?!?!!?"  Save yourself some time, stress and a graphic design degree and get the freakin' digital one.  It's either a circle or a smiley.  Or what I call the remedial OPK testing option.

Donor Sperm     $350-$1,000
We're talking reputable sperm here, people.  Our center works with about 15 different sperm banks around the country.  Meg, being the A+ student of the household, researched all of them and we narrowed our choice to one that will remain nameless here. It has a good amount of options (particularity since my CMV negative status narrows our options) and the pricing is reasonable (I already looked and they don't do Groupons).  We discovered along the way that some places even have bargain bins.... though this time, and I know this is a shock, even I will skip the clearance rack.  Other places, <cough, California, cough> offer "ad-ons" that you (no surprise) have to pay extra for.  Also, check out their donor search button....

Donor Information - Downloadable A La Carte Items
Handwriting Analysis	$20
Express Yourself	$20
Facial Features Report	$20
Donor Voice Recording	$20
Childhood Photo(s)	$20

And then there's shipping  for the sperm     $125-$340     & Storage      $450-$2,550

Blood Pregnancy Test     $70 each month (remember when they made me do one a week ago?!?)

As I've mentioned before, Meg is the planner in our family and, luckily, she builds in our savings from our budget.  There are a lot of pieces of this where you will be faced with financial options from "do we get a donor who looks like Taye Diggs?" to "do we spend a little more for additional testing?".  As long as they don't put these options in a multiple choice format I think we're gonna get through this.

Visualization of your bank account after all of this.

Yeah, But... I'm Gay

What I imagine a uterus looks like. 

I have my hysteroscopy a week from tomorrow which will hopefully (cross fingers, toes, etc) be the last step before we start trying.  Because this procedure involves putting a tiny camera into my uterus, the reproductive center requires that I have a blood pregnancy test beforehand.  To test to see if I'm pregnant.  Hi. Lesbian here. If I'm pregnant, somebody better make space at the Inn because I'm the second Mary Mother of Jesus.

TOP 5 THINGS MORE LIKELY TO HAPPEN THAN THIS TEST BEING A POSITIVE

5. Miley Cyrus entering a convent.

4. Orange juice tasting good after brushing your teeth.

3. The MBTA functioning without a delay for 5 minutes.

2. Nutella becoming fat free.

1. Anyone ever finishing a game of Monopoly.

The Internet: Cheaper Than Therapy

So.  My latest test (testing my testosterone levels for PCOS- Testosterone-y, the Real San Francisco Treat) came back normal- YAY, but now we are waiting for the next test.  When I had my HSG test my doctor saw something he wants to double check.  So I'm scheduled to have a hysteroscopy a week from Friday.  While we play the waiting game Meg found this great blog (Mommy Loves Martinis <brill name right?!?!) where the author covered "Things I Wish I Knew Before Starting My Infertility Journey".  Portions from her credited post above are in bold because I believe in giving props where props are due.We've added our two cents.

1. Fertility treatment is a huge undertaking, and you’ll stay focused if you have a long-term plan of what types of treatments you’re willing to do, how long you’re willing to invest, and what you’ll do if a particular type of treatment is unsuccessful.
I can't stress how much you think about it all day.  "Should I eat that piece of chocolate? No, you need to keep working on your best pregnancy weight."  "Should we book that vacation next summer? Umm, will we be pregnant around that time?" "God, nobody look at my suggested Amazon items!  I bought a palate of ovulation kits and I blew the algorithm."

2. Plan for the long-haul.
I almost auto-corrected "long-haul" to "U-haul" (lesbian joke ya'll).  I think what has been hard on both of us is how long this takes, and we haven't even started trying yet! Just getting to the trying has taken us almost a year.  It feels like everyone around us is getting pregnant faster than a
batch of teens on prom night.  And we're still staring at a stick trying to read the hieroglyphics of a test result.

3. Don’t take setbacks as a sign that it’s not meant to be for you.
Easier said than done.  I know.  It's a hard lesson to learn and I feel like I have to say it like a mantra, but there are gonna be bumps in the road.  Just don't hit them so hard it skips your cd and blows your shocks.  There's a metaphor in there somewhere.

4. Don’t be a victim. It sucks to have to go to so much effort to have a child, when it comes so easily to others.
This is a common statement among lesbians. It's hard to believe that so many heterosexual people get accidentally pregnant, when we'll have to pay thousands of dollars and spend many months of our lives to achieve the same end. But, I'm a firm believer that things happen for a reason.  Now you will never hear me say that at a time when something shitty is happening to me as I'm either a hot mess of emotion or busy stringing together a line of expletives.  We will have a family when everything is meant to happen...or when we see three wise men who followed a star to find us.  Come to think of it.  That sounds a good sequel to "Xanadu".

5. Come up with your own mantra that you go back to again and again.
I haven't found one yet, but when I do it'll be like this.

6. Be stubborn. Allow yourself to grieve and feel that it’s “not fair”. Practice patience. If you mess up and break down, gather your shit together, and practice patience again.

I agree with everything she just said.





7. Allow yourself to have bad days. I may sound all chipper now, but I had many days where I sat outside, just staring out into the yard, wondering how all this would end.
We haven't even begun the insemination attempts yet so I'm just going to let her speak to this one.

8. Give and receive support. I found mine online at BabyCenter.com. Sharing your journey with others is validating. It makes your story real and makes you feel not alone. It also helps with feelings of jealousy, which is a messy, embarrassing thing to feel when you have friends and family who are pregnant, and you can’t feel happy for them.
Preach.  This is a big reason of why we're doing this blog.  It's therapeutic, it's a great way to get info to our family and friends (particularly when the news isn't great- who wants to repeat bad news over and over?), it's a resource for others and judging by the fact that we have readers from 26 countries I think we're doing something right.

9. Take a break when you need to. Fertility treatment is grueling. It’s all exhausting on your mind, body, and soul. If you push pause, it doesn’t mean you’re giving up. It means you’re gathering your strength. You’ll know when the time is right again. Remember, you’re in it for the long-haul.

I can already say that the basic meds I've been on- really just mild hormones- are causing me to have apocalyptic nightmares.  I also noticed that the horse pill sized progesterone pills they put me on instructed me to take them at night as they cause dizziness and make you foggy headed.

We're not so good at taking breaks (we're lesbians, we commit), but it's still early on.  We'll keep turning to great women like the ladies at Mommy Loves Martinis who went through this before us for advice. We have a plan and we'll keep trying until we build our family and if I get an SNL writing gig out of this blog that would be baller as well (hint hint, wink wink).

Why, Yes, I Would Like to Host a Parasite

Everyone asks who will carry our child and most people ask how we chose. It was pretty easy for us to decide, since one of us is interested in being pregnant and one of us is not entirely sure and usually leans towards "no thanks."

Meg says:
Anyone who knows me knows that I've long imagined adopting little Asian babies. Ever since I was a young teen, adopting seemed like something I would do. I'm not sure where the idea initially came from, because I'm not adopted and when I was young I didn't know anyone who was adopted. It just always felt right to me. I like to help others when I can and it seems like there are plenty of babies in the world who need parents. I'm confident I could provide them with a good home. And why Asian babies, you might ask? Well really, Asian babies are just the cutest babies around!

The idea of being pregnant has never appealed to me. I can barely get a paper cut without passing out, so all of the medical work-ups involved with being pregnant terrify me. I also have a fair amount of anxiety and I'm a bit of a hypochondriac, so I truly think being pregnant wouldn't be good for my mental health. And I know this blog is supposed to be funny (I'll let Kate take care of that later), but bear with me while I lay out some serious stuff for a minute. The fact that I can't combine my genes with the person I love and produce a child takes all the appeal out of it for me. I want to raise a baby (or two) with Kate, but I don't so much care where the baby comes from. Now, I reserve the right to change my mind. Maybe seeing Kate go through all of this will really make me want to go next....I doubt it, but I'm not ruling it out. (Sorry Mom!)

Some might wonder if I'm disappointed that we're not adopting. The answer is...maybe I was a little, at first. I had a very clear vision of how I'd someday make a family. But this is something Kate really wants to do, and gay married couples can't adopt from Asia (or mostly anywhere else) anymore anyways, so this is just a different path with the same result (a slightly less Asian result, that is).

Kate says:
If you had asked 17 year old Kate (or Katie at the time, I changed my name when I moved up to Massachusetts from Virginia... I'm still not entirely sure why) what she thought her future family would be like she probably would have said, "Oh, I'll meet a nice man who will support my budding stand-up career, we'll adopt kids and sing show tunes while we cook dinner".  Replace man with woman and it's not that far off (I see being an account manager as an opportunity to work on my budding stand-up career. You try making SEO not a snoozefest and tell me it doesn't take skills).
It wasn't until I was in my late 20s (and finally not a closeted homo) that I started to have maternal feelings. Those maternal feelings were fueled by my sister-in-law's two kids and our other sister-in-law having her first child and I had my first experience being an aunt in a child's life from birth.  Let me
tell you, once that flame is lit there's no putting it out.  I can't walk into a children's clothing section in a store without going full on female meltdown.  I emit sounds that only dogs can hear and I find myself rubbing fleece onsies on my cheek not realizing that sales clerks have a finger on the panic button on their headset.  I started having these images pop into my head of being pregnant and having that special feeling of a tiny being in there being forced to hear showtunes all day and the same jokes over and over again, but I know (s)he'll love me anyway, and hate me from age 11-14, then love me again.  Once we got the ball rolling (picking a fertility clinic) we then realized all the testing and tracking that had to be done (we're up to almost 10 months of it).  And then there's the odds.  The odds that we time the insemination just right and that it takes.

I can handle the physical part.  Meg almost passed out from getting blood drawn so I'd hate to see her reaction to a tiny being shooting out of her lady parts.  I'm not a "logistics" kind of girl.  I base half of my decisions on an array of factors ranging from: "is there going to be a gift bag at the end" to "can I post-date that check".  Meg is down with R&D.  It actually works out nicely.

Then my friends started popping up with FB pregnancy announcements every other day.  Seriously. Did none of y'all want to leave the comforts of your central A/C-ed homes the past few months?! And all these ladies (love you all) had incredibly creative ways of announcing.  I feel like I'm going to have to buy a billboard, trend a hashtag and twerk somebody to top the explosion of likes.

Kara & Tommy #brill

Sam & Joe #adorbs

Melissa & Jonathan #wthgirl,ain'tnobodygottimetocompetewiththis 

And don't get me wrong.  I am delighted to celebrate vicariously with these wonderful women, but (in all honesty) it makes me jealous. I know when it does happen for us it's gonna be swell... it'll be great... we're gonna have the whole world on a plate.  #musicaltheaterref #merman #gaybies