The Sunday Curse

Lately I feel like the weekends are not relaxing because I can't seem to get well! Three weekends ago I developed a case of the stomach flu and missed Monday to spend some quality time in our bathroom. The weekend before last I got a nasty nasty cold which meant I missed a bunch of work that I can't afford to miss and this last weekend I was recovering from the cold still and got my period to round the weekend out. Although we did have a moment of "this might be the last period for awhile!!!".

To update; we did get to see my cervix. Kinda felt like we were in a 1970's self help group with a hand mirror but it was interesting. Even more interesting Taylor was excited once she was forced to look. :)

Everything still looks good to go for March, probably the week of the 10th!!! We are so so excited. Tomorrow we go to the doctor so that she can pass a uterine sound through the cervix as a trial.

We are realistically hopeful about the insemination and we will keep you updated. Thank you for all of your kind thoughts. :)

Damn Ovaries

So I ovulated early this month. Only by a day or two but still it is annoying. Very annoying. My body has been exceedingly predictable up until this point but of course this month, the month before the actual insemination, it does something funky. Especially annoying as I have an appointment on Tuesday for our doctor to check out what my cervix looks like when I am ovulating. Sigh. This has been a weird month at work in terms of getting people pregnant too, all the donor egg cycles seem to be a little off. Is there something in the air? Let's hope better things for next month! I feel like we are in countdown mode and I am excited and nervous and then nervous about being too nervous. As a side note, I would like to recommend the Clearblue Easy Digital Ovulation Kits with the smiley face. SOOOO much better than staring at two blue lines and trying to figure out if one is darker which invariably leads to you muttering in frustration at a stick you just peed on. Good times.

Legal Stuff

I thought I should write a post about all the fun legal stuff we are dealing with. Especially as our very good friend and future honorary uncle of our baby, Andy, keeps asking me for information. As some of you know there was a domestic partnership law (Oregon Family Fairness Act) that was to go into effect on 1/1/08. An out of state private christian special interest group (The Alliance Defense Fund) got an injunction that prevented it from going into effect until a judge ruled against them last Friday. Registration opened today but my understanding is that the Alliance Defense Fund will appeal the decision. Coincidentally, we had scheduled our first appointment with a lawyer for last week, the day after we went to a rally to support the domestic partnership law. The meeting with the lawyer was really good (she is queer and super nice) although spendy, we will meet with her two more times until it is all finalized. We are getting wills, health care directives, financial directives, and disposal of body directives ($1500) and our lawyer will be able to do the adoption as well once the baby is here ($1000). It is really frustrating and crazy making to realize that even if the domestic partnership law stays in effect we will still not be protected if we leave the state. Hence needing the health care directives in particular. The law is a wonderful step and when we are registered means that we have more protections and rights as a couple in the state but is not the same as marriage and does not equal marriage. The adoption aspect illustrates this as well. Taylor has to adopt our child. This has becoming increasingly stressful and sad as we are closer to being parents. Taylor really has been struggling with it lately as it is so insulting to plan our family together, select a donor together, to plan to be together for the insemination, pregnancy, birth, and parenthood but to be told that Taylor is not a legal parent until an adoption is finalized. If we were a married heterosexual couple using anonymous donor sperm the non biological parent (in this case the husband) would not have to adopt their child. We learned that we need to visit the lawyer when I am in my second trimester so that I can fill out an interim document that will state that my wishes are that Taylor is the parent of our child if something happens to me during pregnancy, during birth, or after birth until the adoption is finalized. It isn't 100% but since I have no family opposition it should allow Taylor to make decisions about the baby as well as me. As soon as the baby is born one of our first calls has to be to the lawyer so that she can come to where we are and have us sign papers to file. It then takes 1-2 months before the adoption is finalized. As much as I liked the lawyer I would rather be calling family and friends at that time! Good news is that the home study (where a social worker comes to your home and inspects it and you) can be waived as there is a biological parent retaining parental rights in the adoption. The bad news is that Taylor also has to have a criminal background check which seems like so much bullshit. At least we feel informed about the process and we feel all grown up having a lawyer. It also reinforces that much work still needs to be done to achieve equality for queer families.

Appointments

It was a week of appointments. I had a brief physical, pap smear, pelvic exam, and blood work (thyroid, CBC, cholesterol, rubella immunity, etc.) through my insurance primary care provider. Then we had a two hour counseling session, we do two hours every two weeks. I felt like we covered a lot of issues which was fabulous. I had my second (and since then my third) acupuncture appointment and then we had our first real appointment with our naturopath who will be doing the insemination. I don't know if I have posted about this but we are working with a naturopath who is going to do IUI (intrauterine insemination) at our home and also do some guided visualization exercises for relaxation and fertility. I had a full physical and medical health history and am to go in next month to have a vaginal exam so that she knows what my cervix looks like for the actual insemination. Good Times. Actually, it was rather exciting!! Having all of this done makes me feel like we are on our way. I wish that we could plan to start next month but work...in this case a conference...prevails. All the tests looked good (cholesterol is a little high but that is normal for me and not diet related apparently) and all the doctors/providers see no reason why I shouldn't be able to get pregnant which was reassuring. Now I just have to remember to relax. :)

Resolutions

We went to our friends' (Amelia and Sarah) house tonight for the season premiere party of The L Word (in case you are not a viewer this is a lesbian drama/soap opera on Showtime that varies from great to a guilty pleasure to really really bad but still a must see as it is pretty much the only lesbian option out there). I had this moment where I had to pause when talking about our baby plans in which I realized that we could be a couple weeks pregnant by the end of the season of the show. This has been happening more and more lately...Thanksgiving, Solstice all times where we pause and say..."we could have a baby or we could be pregnant this time next year." I know that it is common that everything becomes about the pregnancy, about having a baby when you are in the process of trying and it is starting to be true for us. I think we had mentioned in earlier blogs that we had a list of things we wanted to do to prepare for the pregnancy (probably the reason that we...mostly Taylor...made only one New Years resolution this year; we already have a bunch of them). We have been working on the list in the last couple of months; I have started acupuncture to optimize fertility, we are in couples counseling to improve communication prior to a baby and to have a therapeutic relationship in place if there are problems conceiving, we have improved our diet and exercise plans, we switched insurance, we are tracking my menstrual cycle, I have had blood work and am in the process of having several physical exams, I am on a prenatal vitamin, we bought and relocated sperm, and we are planning on making an appointment with a lawyer soon. All of this understandably focuses our attention on the baby making and yet I find myself trying to focus more on the steps to get there than the thought of being pregnant. I think that I am scared that if I think about actually getting pregnant that I will jinx it somehow. Silly, I know but when you want something so much and for so long it sometimes seems impossible that it could actually happen. Instead I work on the things I can control, the things that I can plan. Those of you that know me will know that this is nothing new and that planning actually calms me down from my usual anxious state of being. So feel free to ask me what daycare options are near my work or on average how many cycles it takes to get pregnant using frozen donor sperm but if you ask if I am excited about the insemination I am likely to look at you blankly and stammer...or better yet ask Taylor because she is on the excitement train and ready to go! If the combination of our different personalities works as well in parenthood as it does in a relationship, this baby will be very lucky. :)

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!!! :)