The Trip

We are back! The trip was a success...whoo hoo!! We planned to fly into Oakland but we got to the airport (no, we didn't check first!) and found that our flight was delayed 2-3 hours. We managed to get on a plane to San Francisco and rent a car and drive to the hotel in Oakland. It actually worked out pretty well. We were super early getting to Berkeley because I, as usual, was overanxious. We decided to go to a wonderful french restaurant we found a year or so ago and pick up some pastries for the staff of TSBC to go with the box of chocolates. It took forever but we were right on time. It is weird how you build something up in your head for so long and it is somewhat anticlimactic when it happens. It was another day at the office for everyone but we were very excited. They brought out the tank and took us in a room so that we could look at the vials (Taylor thought this was pretty cool as the liquid nitrogen vapor comes out of the tank...our own personal music video). For people who aren't in the know I think it is shocking that the vials are so small (especially as they cost so much). They are about an inch high and had a color, number, and ejaculation date on them. We drove them to California Cryobank and had a lovely lunch (bringing them even better chocolates!) with my old co-workers (I can't rave enough about how wonderful they all are) and filled out our paperwork. So the babies (or baby making materials) are now in their new home and are being well taken care of until we need them. We then had to drive back to Berkeley and return the tank. The rest of the weekend was great. We saw some friends...our friends April and Jake are in the process of trying to adopt and we are so excited for them. It was really interesting to discuss some of the parallels between their road to parenthood and ours. We ate a lot of bad for us food and spent some time in the city. We remembered why we love San Francisco and decided that we don't want to rule out the possibility of living there again some day. We are committed to being in Portland for the next four years and we really enjoy our current jobs but you never know! January is a month of doctor's appointments so I will keep you updated.

We are off....

We fly to California tonight to get the sperm for what has been dubbed "the great sperm transport of 2007". Wish us luck!!! :)

Reflections from Taylor

Megan and I recently celebrated our 7 year anniversary (!) at a vegan restaurant named Nutshell with my parents. We met my parents there after we both got off work and before going home. It was a very yummy dinner and we had a good time. We were there for a couple of hours and got home about 12 hours after we had left for work that morning. We have 2 very spoiled cats - they have an automatic litter box and automatic food dishes. We got them these things because we are a little bit lazy and have had a lot of evenings like the one on our anniversary. Staying out late without having to worry about feeding the cats relieves a lot of pressure for us. That time of our lives though, is changing. Part of me will mourn the loss of evenings like that once the baby is here (or, let's be realistic, once Megan is pregnant) though it feels like less of a loss to me now than it did a year ago. Megan and I have been through a lot of changes together during the course of our relationship - our last two years of undergrad, our respective graduate school programs, moving across the country twice, a couple of overseas vacations, and probably most challenging, surviving life in (and paying $1,000 rent a month for) a 250 squre foot stuido apartment in San Francisco with 2 cats. These big things, and countless little things, have made our relationship what it is. Of all our experiences, however, one of the most profound things for me, was helping to support our friends through the prenancy, birth, and loss of their first baby, Natalie. Being the youngest of three children and of my 15 cousins, I did not have many (if any) experiences with babies until I met Natalie. Over the course of her all too short life, I celebrated many 'firsts' with her. She is a very special person and I will always cherish her for many reasons including the one 'first' that I didn't know I was missing - the desire to parent. This desire has been reinforced even more over the last year and a half, since we moved back to Oregon. I have gotten to spend quite a bit of time with our neices, Brinsley and Brooklynn (two of the reasons we moved to Oregon) which has been quite enjoyable and served as a fabulous learning experience.

Megan and I are almost 3 years apart in age - not a very significant difference in most respects, but a huge one in regard to the lifespan milestones of our 20s. I was only 20 when we got together (Megan was 23) and did not know any close friends who had gotten married. Megan, on the other hand, was going through the last of a series of weddings of her friends, including the wedding of her cousin with whom she has a very close relationship. At the time, I didn't know the impact those weddings had on her, but looking back on it, I can say with a fair amount of confidence that it was a significant impact - but not as significant as when some of those friends started having babies 4 years ago. Our difference in age was never so apparent as it was at that point - something I felt a little bit guilty about at the time. Had we had access to sperm, I think she would probably have tried to convince me (and she might have even succeeded) to try to get pregnant then. I'm glad it didn't work out that way, though, because I know I was not personally ready to have children at that point - that I was still doing quite a bit of growing up myself. It was too soon for me to give up the lifestyle I so enjoyed and having my biggest worry be whether the cats food timer did not go off (something our cat Cleo tries to convince us of on a regular basis). That isn't to say that I consider myself a grown-up at this point, but I know I've come a long way in just the last couple of years and I'm ready to let go of that part of my life because I truly believe that parenting will be more fulfilling - something I couldn't have imagined just a short while ago.

The Big Purchase

We bought $2,670 worth of sperm on Friday. Yeah... Happy Solstice to us! Speaking of, we will be transporting the sperm from one bank to the other next Friday so wish us luck. I promise a much longer post this week!

And the winner is...

For some reason I thought that picking a donor would be easier; we managed to narrow it down to five and we ordered and received the long profiles. Here is where knowing too much becomes a problem. I expected the super investigated, genetic counselor reviewed, 30 plus page profiles that I was in charge of helping donors prepare and instead we got shorter, less complete, doctor reviewed perfectly adequate (and very similar to egg donor profiles that I have seen) profiles. Apparently I didn't realize that I was as stressed as I was because I basically had a panic attack wondering if I had picked the wrong bank, if we could find the right donor, and the enormity of picking a sperm donor was overwhelming. Taylor, as usual, helped calm me down by reminding me that there were very specific reasons we chose this bank (see earlier post on this) and that we are not perfect and can not expect the donor to be perfect. Typically, heterosexual couples do not research each others family health history before getting together, before having a baby. We have the challenge and the privilege of trying to select someone whose genetic material will help us expand our family. What we have realized through this process is that it is as important to us that we feel the donor would be a positive person for our child to meet as it is that they have a perfect health history. With all these factors in mind it was easier to narrow down the choices, two were easy to discard due to various factors (current drug use, immature responses etc.) of the final three we liked two best. Taylor was really drawn to one over the other because he made her laugh and the bank came through in providing really personal perspectives of the donors when I called, which confirmed our decision. I don't feel comfortable posting the donor number on the blog but if you are a friend or family member feel free to e-mail me directly and I promise to share. After making the decision the stress is greatly relieved and we are again focusing on the things we need/want to do before we start inseminations. Enjoy the picture of Taylor with the winning profile. :)

Thanksgiving

Hi all...an explanation of why I haven't posted since last week will be forthcoming but I thought that we should have more pictures! This is a picture that Taylor took of me, my mother, my uncle, and cousin at the vegan thanksgiving celebration at our house. I look oddly vampirish but all in all a nice picture. We had a great time and everyone was a good sport and tried new things. Happy Belated Thanksgiving.

The Final Five

We ordered long profiles for the final five!!! They are on their way and we hope to have the decision made by this weekend. Wish us luck. :) Also, thanks so much to all of you for your support, encouragement, and sarcastic comments it really means a lot!

Choices, Choices, Choices...

We keep getting questions about what criteria we used to select a sperm bank and what criteria we are using to select a donor....so Taylor suggested I write a blog entry about it! The selection of the bank was primarily mine, as I worked for almost two years as the Donor Program Coordinator for California Cryobank and know something (probably too much) about sperm banking and sperm donors. We would have used California Crybank because I think they do a fabulous job of screening the donors (they are the only bank I know of with Genetic Counselors on staff) and they offer a lot of information (for purchase) about the donors. However, I strongly felt that it would be morally and ethically wrong to use a donor that I knew as they were guaranteed anonymity and if we used a donor I didn't know my friends still there would be in a very awkward position of knowing who our donor was when we didn't. In addition, while California Cryobank has "open" donors who agree to one contact with an offspring when the offspring is 18 or older that contact does not have be identifying (it could be an e-mail, letter, phone call etc.). We really want our child to be able to have identifying contact with the donor if they would like.

The bank we selected, The Sperm Bank of California is the only non-profit sperm bank that I am aware of (I love the non-profits!), it started as a feminist women's health clinic, they are against and do not follow the FDA recommendation and American Association of Tissue Banks regulation that men who have had sex with men in the past five years not be accepted as donors, they pioneered the identity-release program wherein offspring can receive identifying information about their donors at age 18, they are proactive in terms of conducting research in the field, are a small bank and are willing to share more information about donors in personal interaction sense, and limit the number of families created per donor to 10 (some banks limit the number of vials and the number of families created can be much larger than 10).

In regard to our donor selection we have used a variety of factors. One factor related to Taylor wanting to minimize the history of addictive behaviors in the donor's family as that is a concern with my family history. Another factor was an arbitrary (we admit it!) limit of no donors under 18 or over 40. In factoring information about their medical history - we didn't pay too much attention as we know they are screened by the bank which usually includes the medical director and a contracted genetic counselor. We paid specific attention to their reasons for wanting to be an identity release donor (we didn't look at any who are not identity release donors). We were also really interested in all of their other answers which included information about their interests and personality. The next steps in choosing the donor are to buy their longer profiles which will also give us more questions and answers from the donors as well as overall sperm analysis (including whether their sperm has led to other pregnancies) and staff impressions.

We sent out our narrowed down list of ten donors (it has been further narrowed down at this point) to friends and family and it has been so interesting to see what criteria other people use. It has also been really interesting to see the issues that this has brought up for other people in terms of their comfort level around this process, ethnicity/race, and concerns about homophobia. We really appreciate all of you that have contributed to this process!!! :)

The Rising Cost of Sperm

So, we had planned out a fun relaxing trip to CA in January that would include picking up the sperm (from whatever donor we eventually decide on) and delivering it to the bank I used to work at (California Cryobank) for storage, visiting friends and revisiting all the places we love and miss in San Francisco. Then I checked the website for The Sperm Bank of California (where we are buying the sperm) last night and found good and bad news. Good news we don't have to be registered to buy the long profiles, medical charts, and staff impressions...this is good as our doctor is on maternity leave and we have to wait to get some of the information needed to register; Bad news is that the prices are going up $50 per vial as of the first of January which is kinda significant. We are now thinking that we should go in December over Solstice for the big buying and transferring extravaganza which is stressful but perhaps a precursor of the reality that not everything can be planned? Just as an FYI for all y'all not following the rising cost of sperm; a vial of IUI, Identity-Release sperm now goes for about $500 bucks; 2 per month and an average of 5 months to get pregnant...you do the math because I don't want to think about it! :)

Welcome to the blog!

Yes, I finally got around to setting it up and hope to post regularly about our journey to parenthood and eventually (hopefully) our adventures in parenting. This is mostly for friends and family to be able to keep updated on what we are doing but anyone is welcome to read. :) Taylor and I are so excited about becoming parents and get more and more excited everyday...although we also admit to moments of terror. When I started my new job we decided to give ourselves six months (which will be March 2008) to see how the job goes and to work on a list we generated of things we wanted to do both to prepare ourselves and my body for pregnancy. We planned a budget, started couples counseling, found a doctor to do the insemination, switched insurance, changed our diet, started getting rid of toxins in our environment, and of course started reviewing profiles of sperm donors from the bank we have chosen (don't worry I will have a whole post about the fun of that!). We certainly realize the challenges that we face as a queer couple bringing a child into the world and into our lives but more importantly we realize the love we have to give and the joy that we feel when thinking about expanding our family. Much love to you all! Megan