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.

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).

My Damn Ovaries, Not a 19th Century French Novel

I'm going to be honest, I could probably name off every book I've ever read cover to cover.  Not because I'm a bibliophile, but because I have a hard time reading.  I WANT to love to read, but unless it's a teen dystopian book, a series on symbols/catholic corruption or anything by Lois Lowry ("Number the

Artist Rendering of Kate Attempting
to Read This Damn Book

Stars" is the best book ever) I probably Cliff Noted the crap out of it.  I get distracted.  So, to explain the title of this post... I was supposed to read the most boring book known to man (Flaubert's "Madame Bovary") in high school, but couldn't get past the ISBN number page at the beginning.  I would only read this if placed in a situation where the options were: 1. Read this old long ass book or 2. Listen to Ann Coulter (which, by the way, the first options you get when you Google her name is "Ann Coulter racist", "Ann Coulter net worth").  So I 'Spark Notes'-ed it and gave it a witty new title- "My Damn Ovaries".  Little did I know how relevant the facetious title would become to my own life. This brings us to the next step in OBM (Operation Baby Makin').  I know I take a while to make a point, but the journey is fun and I get you there eventually so shut up.


So, we last left off with the final tests done and we had an appointment with our reproductive doctor on Tuesday.  The night before the appointment Meg and I were on a walk discussing what we thought we would cover in the appointment. After each test, the nurse or tech told me that everything looked good, so my guess was that we would get a ballpark date for our first insemination and get the form to order sperm. We both let our minds wander to the 'worse case' scenario which we thought would be the doctor requiring us to do a couple more months of tracking because my cycle is unpredictable. We couldn't imagine having to wait until month. Now, I know this blog was started for the purposes of providing information about same sex couples having a baby as well as a way to keep friends/family up-to-date (and for me to have an outlet for my wit so Meg doesn't have to hear the same jokes over and over again), but lez (see what I did there?) be honest- not everything is going to be rainbows, sunshine and Kristin Chenoweth.  Forgive me for not diving into some things as much as others- and I bet you're probably grateful for that when it comes to the biology parts.  Am I right, boys (wait- do we know any boys?)?

Here's the truth. Our appointment on Tuesday was hard to sit through.  We sat down with the doctor and he began to go over some of the tests.  It turns the techs and nurses were not quite telling us the whole truth. I do have a significant number of ovarian follicles (a good thing), but they were all around the outer area of the ovaries instead of in the center (a not so good thing).  We were told that this is a classic symptom of PCOS, or Polycystic ovary syndrome.  Other symptoms are difficulty losing weight and abnormal menstral cycles, both of which I experience.  Other symptoms (that I don't have) are diabetes, high cholesterol, etc.  Something like 1 in 10 women have PCOS, and plenty of them get pregnant, but there's no doubt that this makes things a little more...complicated.

The doctor took blood to test my hormone levels which will likely confirm the PCOS diagnosis.  As I write this I am staring at my phone waiting for them to call to tell us the results. Either way, there is a plan in place to move forward. I personally feel that this isn't a huge blow as I don't have the other 2 symptoms that are more risks to health and the doctor didn't seem to present it as a big deal.  However, and I'll try to keep this light, finding out there's yet another speed bump in our baby making journey (the most obvious being that we lack sperm!) I feel like this.

I was also told that there was a 'shadow'  found on my uterus during the HSG (aka medical medieval Pilates in your bathing suit area) so we will have to 'Innerspace' me. If you haven't seen this cinematic gem get thee to a $5 bargain bin at your local car wash to see Meg Ryan in rare form.

So.  In the next 3 weeks there will be some testing to make sure the 'foundation is solid'. This puts our first insemination off to at least November. We might post more about this in the coming days, but then again, we might not. It's hard, y'all.

But on a lighter note that means I get to enjoy the open bars to the fullest at the 3, count 'em, 3 same sex weddings we are attending in the next month.

Hysterosalpingogram: I'm Paying You to Do What?!?

Hey kids. Today I went to Newton-Wellesley Hospital for my Hysterosalpingogram or HSG for short. I had done a little research in advance, through friends who had experienced this as well as on the web.  And through my experience with this I want to tell any woman who is reading this to stop Googling.  It is nothing but a recipe for confusion and disaster- that is unless it brought you here to this blog, then Googling is the best choice you've ever made.  I had a myriad of experiential stories from friends from "meh, I went straight to work after" to "it will hurt like hell".  I also tried to

look up the procedure on the web to see how people prepare- they told me to take 600mg of Advil. Have you seen me?  I have more surgery scars on me than Michael Jackson (#toosoon).  600mg isn't going to touch me.  Then I wanted to see how medical websites describes the procedure.  Stop it.  I don't know who lets WebMD still continue to exist on the interwebs, but they are probably the same people who invented Candy Crush (why can't I quit you?) or the people that keep saying, "You know that Nicholas Sparks book?  Let's make that into a movie!".

So, I'll list here my experience, take it or leave it, but you know it's gonna have some good gifs so you might as well read on.  When you first get called in by a nurse, you strip from the waist down and put on a hospital gown.  Another of my favorite things- being naked from the waist down in a public

place. Not only that, they gave me one gown to put on where the ties are in the back and another to wear like a robe backwards so you don't have to walk around the halls pinching it closed like a dog chasing his tail.  But on the second gown, they hadn't buttoned the parts at the top that actually form the arm holes.  Now.  I'm not an idiot.  I have a degree from a solid college (that I'm still paying off and probably will until my own child goes to college) and work in a pretty challenging job.  I couldn't for the life of me figure out how they snap together.  I

ended up, in haste, throwing it around me like a matador.  And, of course, when I get nervous I get chatty and the nurse complimented my sandals.  I said, "Yeah, I wanted to wear something that complimented a hospital gown, but didn't say 'I'm trashy'". Then you go into an imaging room and climb up on a large X-ray bed.  Then they put what feels like a brick wrapped in a thin sheet at the very small of your back in order to tilt your pelvis backwards.  Then they tell you to put your feet on these little balls that kind of feel like stepping on a baseball directly on the arch of your foot.  Now the next part, I'm not going to go into great detail, but basically they "Jack Cousteau" you (artist's rendering below).  They dilate the cervix, insert a radio

active dye into your uterus and take xrays as they see it travel through to the fallopian tubes, which tells you that your baby makin' pipes are clear. Guys put on earmuffs for this part: The most painful part is the speculum.  It feels like they are recreating the Holland Tunnel inside your body.  The cramping from the dye being inserted into the uterus isn't that bad at all.  In total the procedure probably takes about 4 minutes (but in all honesty it will feel as long at this:)

and you will leave feeling ok, but honestly, you'll just want to go home, put on your big girl sweats and eat cheese puff balls.  Follow your instincts.  I went back to work- asshat.  The good news is that my parts are in working order.  The bad new is that I screamed an expletive during the procedure that would make George Carlin blush.

How Many Euphemisms Can I Use?Period

Posted by Kate

Hello!

If you have ever waited for a train when you're already running late, with an important presentation you are leading schedule to start in 10 minutes when your commute will take 20 minutes and you ate Indian food for breakfast before chugging a hot soda while also doing jumping jacks... that is the best way for me to convey the last 2 weeks.  What can I say? I'm a fan of painting a vivid picture.

The stage we were/are in of OBM (refresher: Operation Baby Makin') is the final tests before you actually "do the deed"- I can already see I'm going to try to find as many euphemisms for insemination as I can and contributions from the reading audience are welcome.  Previously, on Kate's TMI Journey:

We had blood test results saying we were disease free (high five!), discovered our blood types and CMV statuses.

We then had to wait for the... .... .... visit from Aunt Flo for the next tests.  My body decided to pull a "Miley at the VMAs" and go buck wild.  We waited and waited and Flo was a no-show.  The doc at RSC had me come in for a blood test (I am actually shocked I still have any blood left in my body after all the sticks) to test my hormone levels. They called me later that day and said that they needed to help the "crimson wave come to

shore". The doctor put me on Progesterone for 10 days, to be taken right before bed. Let me tell you, this may not be the same for anyone else that has been on the same pills, but I had some crazy ass dreams.  Take the plot of "Beatlejuice" add some characters from Walking Dead and random appearances of Steve Buscemi's teeth. So 10 nights of less sleep than what a Kate needs in order to ensure she doesn't speak in tongues the following morning.  Accounts online said that some people have seen the arrival of the "cotton pony" after a couple of days on the pills, but the true purpose of the medication is to build the lining on the uterine wall and then when you stop taking the meds, the lining sheds bringing on "your special friend".  The treatment started August 14th. Let me also add that we were scheduled to leave on a plane to California the morning of August 30th and the tests must be done on the 3rd day (possibly the 2nd if need be) of "your monthly visitor". So, to keep this from becoming a "2 trains left from separate stations" math formula:
Last pill would be taken on Friday, August 23rd

My body is expecting the hormone still on Saturday, August 24, but it doesn't get any.

Sunday, August 25th...we're getting terribly close to this all happening while we're in CA, which would mean we'd miss our chance to do these "Day 3" tests and have to wait another month. Talk about pressure.

Sunday came and I've never willed anything to come more in my entire life. My Google search history on my phone looking for ways to encourage the "Panty Shields Up, Captain!" officially will keep me from running for office.  I started to be a nervous wreck (if I was that bad, don't ask about Meg) and my hormones were more up and down that Charley Sheen.  I was taking 2,000mg of Vitamin C, oil of Primrose and any other thing the internet told me to do. Time was racing and our trip was approaching. I woke up Tuesday morning at 3:30 from another Rob Zombie-like nightmare and still nothing.  I laid back down in bed and willed myself to sleep. After using all of my lives in Candy Crush I gave up and just got ready for work.  Then it happened. Just in the nick of time. I immediately told Meg to which we high fived... It seemed appropriate.  Then called the clinic. Thursday morning I went in for an ultrasound (when I

walked in the song "Your Body is a Wonderland" by John Mayer came on- touché) to check the engine, look for oil leaks and check the spark plugs (I actually know ridiculously little about cars so that sentence may be a load of crap. They located my ovaries quickly, said everything looked to be in good shape (a tiny cyst on my left ovary, but that's common in most women and to be of no concern) and counted the follicles on each.  Average women with no issues have between 5-10 and I had 11 in one ovary and 13 in the other. They then took my blood to check E2, FSH, LH hormone levels and all was good.  Later that day I met with a new OBGYN, as currently my yearly exams are done by my Primary Care and as much as I love Marie at Davis Square Family Practice (if you live in the greater Somerville/Boston area and don't see her you need to reevaluate your life choices- she's amazing & sees everyone that has ever lived at 22 Thorndike aka Meg's old apt- it's a lot of damn people) she can't deliver babies. I chose an OBGYN at Mt Auburn Hospital Women's Center and later we'll be able to attend an open house to meet all of their doctors and Midwives. I honestly didn't know what a midwife was and I'm still not entirely sure, but to my understanding they can do almost everything an OB can do with the exception of emergency surgery.  Also, I envision midwives to be a little like your guidance counselor where they talk to you about feelings, teach you how to care for a baby and write a recommendation for your application to Undergrad.

So let's talk next steps.  Thursday I go into Newton-Welsley Hospital for an HSG (Hysterosalpingogram) test- bonus points if you use that word in a game of Words With Friends.  They inject contrast dye into your uterus and watch it come out your fallopian tubes to make sure the "pipes are free and clear".  I've been told that this can be painful so... awesome.  And as I am typing this I am on the way back from our 2nd Anniversary vaca in CA where I just did my first ovulation test in the bathroom of a JetBlue Airbus. At this point we are just testing to see how it fits into our basal body temp  charting to help plan for the first opportunity we will have to "try".  To answer the burning question I'm sure you all have on your mind, no they do not sell "Yay I'm ovulating!"  T-shirts in Sky Mall.