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.