Category Archive
The following is a list of all entries from the baby making category.
Surge!
The surge finally came on Thursday (CD20). I was glad I’d cancelled out of the training course but still went into work. It would have been agonising hanging around the house all day waiting for a call. I’d been to a yoga class in my lunch break and came out to find two missed calls from Buffy and a message to call her back. Because of the agreement for us to do two IUI’s, Dr Y&F wanted to do one at 5:30pm that evening and the other at 10am the next day (CD21). Lo was interstate for work, so I called her and she arranged an early flight back. I callled Wes, the acupuncturist, and got an appointment with him at 3pm that day and 11am the next, so my two IUIs would be bookended by acupunture. I went back to work and organised to leave early that day and take Friday morning off. I went and saw Wes and had an amazing session with him. At the end, he gave me this pep talk and told me to focus on the wonder of it all, not to forget that this was the moment where I could be about to become a mother, and not to get distracted by the periphery of the medical environment. That was really useful advice for me at that time. Then I had an hour or so free. Given that I hadn’t know it would be that day, I didn’t have time to go home and get changed, but didn’t really want to go in my work wear. So, I changed into some comfy clothes I had in my gym bag in the back of the car, sneakers, and a big warm fleece. I looked like I was coming from a session at the gym, but I knew I wanted to be comfortable, cocooned, cosy and not in my work persona. I had an hour or so free before Lo would arrive and we would need to go to the appointment, so I went down to a really pretty place by the lake and took a long, meditative, walk. I really grounded myself and thought about how I wanted the inseminations to go. I felt really good about the decisions we made. Then, I drove part way to the clinic, and met Lo from her taxi, and we drove to the clinic together. It was really nice, the clinic was entirely quiet and it was just us, Dr Y&F and nurse #3 (who has redeemed herself somewhat). They were in suits, rather than scrubs, and it was all rather informal. My cervix was wide open (I know thanks to the spec-o-cam monitoring that’s proven really useful) and the insemination was painless. Dr Y&F has an excellent bedside manner, calling me ’sweet’ and touching my leg in a really comforting way. I didn’t look at what they were doing , but focussed internally, on Lo, and focussed intently on a small sticker on the spotlight overhead that had ‘Dec 08′ written on it. We had worked out a good way for Lo to stay close to me, and she had tucked her hand under my jumper and had it over my left (ovulating) ovary. We stayed close. After the insemination, I lay there for a while, then we let ourselves out, went home via the video store and the supermarket, and settled in for a cosy night re-watching Juno and eating salmon and soba noodles. It was really really nice. I had no cramping and felt really enegetic afterwards, unlike last time, where I had really wanted to curl up straight after.
The next day, Lo and I went out for breakfast at our special cafe and then for another walk by the lake, and we went back into the clinic with me in a repeat of my cosy gym gear outfit. Due to delays, we had to wait over an hour, with the bad radio station blaring in the waiting room, and then finally went in. The second insemination felt less comfortable, I am pretty sure my cervix had started to close and Dr Y&F had trouble getting the catheter through there. But I was ok. It was so good doing two as it meant there was less pinned on the single experience and I had felt good about how the previous day had gone. After the insemination, I lay there briefly then we left and I dropped Lo off at work and I went and saw Wes for more good medicine. Then I ran some errands and went back to work. I could have taken the day off, but it was my boss’s last day and I wanted to go to his farewell drinks. It was weird to be back in the office, but I was glad I did, as it took my mind off it all. By Friday night, we were out for dinner with friends and back to life as normal.
So now we’re in the 2WW. And, because of the delayed ovulation, it will now be mid-when my parents are here on holiday with us that my period is due or we can expect a +ve home pregnancy test. So, that’s not the greatest timing. We have decided that we probably will just see if my period shows up and if it doesn’t, we’ll test on the day they depart, which is also my birthday. I don’t feel pregnant at the moment, but I feel so much more relaxed about it all. Lo said that with each insemination I am becoming more fertile, that we are opening ourselves up to the possibility of a baby coming when it’s ready. I think that’s true. I feel so much better at this than I did before. And I am finally finding that monitoring my own signs more carefully is really rewarding. The cervix analysis has been really powerful and instructive. And if future insems are like this month has been, then that’s something I can manage for a few more months. Of course, we’re ready for a BFP this month, but our October plan is a good one, and the future feels bright. Now, I just have to decide whether to order now the Preparing to Conceive CD vee has recommended me to arrive in time for use next month or whether that won’t be needed??? I don’t want to be planning for it not to be successful this time. But it won’t get here in time if I order it only when AF arrives. Perhaps I should take a bet each way and get the Pregnancy one and the TTC one. Either way, I’m feeling ok and have such a better grasp on this stuff than I did before. Lo thinks it’s something about grapefruit*.
* There was an article in our newspaper this weekend about research that shows that grapefruit distorts and badly increases the effects of drugs. I eat a grapefruit every day. Lo thinks this may be why I had such a bad reaction to the HCG shot last month. I also realised that on the Puregon my driving was really affected. I had so many small prangs and near misses that month, whereas now my driving is fine.
Blogger’s digest
Why I love the acupuncturist
I had never seen an acupuncturist before. A few months ago, a friend of mine raved about this guy, and I was tempted. I loved the blissed out experience he described when he left there, the intuitive hands, someone who can tell all that ails you from your pulse.
The acupuncturist is even better than my friend described. He is gorgeous. In a quirky, slightly camp, can’t quite tell if he’s gay, preppy, hippy, premature graying, delightful way. He’s so gentle and so beautiful. He runs this well-to-do acupuncture clinic with beautiful silk screens and lovely light. He has the most amazing touch and this lovely serene face. It’s so nice to come across such a beautiful human being. And he is so interested in lesbian conception. In fact, he’s buying the New Essential Guide to Lesbian Conception, Planning and Birth just so he’s up with it. So, I am loving seeing the acupuncturist. Loving it.
Why we hate the clinic right now
We’ve had a really hard time with the clinic lately. Trying to do things our way, rather than their way, has not been easy. While they at first agreed that we could do two inseminations on consecutive days, one vaginal and one IUI, saying there would likely be no charge, they then went on to tell us that it was going to cost an inordinate sum. None of which could be refundable for various bureaucratic reasons. Even though now I am no longer taking the drugs and not requiring such regular monitoring we are still paying the same price per month as we did last month.
Then, there’s been another issue with the blood test. Our donors made two donations, one on 25 January and one on 5 February. They were meant to be closer together, but the clinic ran out of liquid nitrogen. Yep, that’s right, ran out. So anyway, Dr Y&F told us that we needed to get a blood test done on, or after, the 25 July. We actually asked whether we needed a blood test six months after each donation and she said no, just after the first one. There is the three month window period in which HIV can be undetectable, with an extra three months to serve the legal cooling off requirement. So recently, she told us that the quality of DDX’s first deposit was not good and she would not be comfortable with us using it. So, this month, we were all expecting to inseminate with DDX (from the second batch) when we find out (as always, only by us asking plenty of questions) that the second batch can not be used until they get another blood test dated after 5 August i.e. six months after the deposit was made. With DDX overseas, each blood test costs us a couple of hundred dollars and them a lot of logistical stress. If we had known it was due on 5 August, we would have done it then, given we didn’t inseminate until mid August. (Although the clinic wouldn’t let us start at CD1 until they had the blood test results). This news came along with the massive price hike for the second insemination and left us feeling pretty angry with the clinic. They make the whole thing so difficult by not communicating with us about what is required, nor being flexible to our needs as fertile people wanting to access the services within a wellness model rather than just being on the medication rollercoaster. So we decided that we would draw a line at what we were prepared to pay, and that we would go ahead with an insemination this month (one IUI only) with DDX’s substandard sperm and meanwhile ask DDY (who is in town for work for a few months) if he was willing to do a couple of DIYs with us. We were committed to using DDX as we had agreed to alternate between them and we had used DDY last month. Combining the two means that who the bio dad is may be unknown until after the birth, but this was something we had all talked about as an option earlier on.
Why I am a crap fertility monitor
I have never been much good at fertility monitoring. I gave up on temperature charting. I tried, but it was just so tedious, and I found the results too hard to decipher, our digital thermometer too hard to use, and besides, because we knew we were going through a clinic, I didn’t feel a genuine need to keep close track. From the fertility clinic’s monitoring, I knew that I ovulated around CD18/19. I pay attention to cervical mucous. But given that we are now facing the prospect of DIY, I decided that we should be monitoring more closely. Once again, turning to Stephanie Brill’s advice, I decided we should begin cervical analysis with a speculum. A speculum is not an easy thing for a girl to lay her hands on in this town. After three calls to the local sexual health and family planning centre, and having to speak to three layers of management there, I finally convinced the senior nurse to give me one (I was happy to buy one but they wouldn’t sell it). She demanded explanations all about our family composition, the technique I was planning to use, then she left me a plastic speculum in a brown paper bag with my name on it behind the counter. And I raced over and picked it up in my lunch break. Not bad. We are yet to use it though. But I feel all the more virtuous for having it.
DDY goes DIY
The next step was to ask DDY whether he was interested in DIY. This was never in the plan. They were always going to be overseas and we had always been thinking in terms of the clinic. We all like the intermediary that the clinic played. We had plans to see DDY for dinner next weekend, but with the realization that, all going to plan, I will be ovulating early next week, we made this rushed approach, and I emailed him saying there was something that we needed to talk to him about and arranged for us to meet him for a drink after work yesterday. It was lovely to see him, as we hadn’t yet caught up with him since he’s been back. And we chatted so happily. I then explained to him about some of the troubles we were having with the clinic, and my decision to go off the drugs. This then led nicely into asking whether he was interested in helping us out, that if we continued with clinic inseminations with DDX and did DIYs with him. He paused, thought about it briefly, and then agreed. He said ‘sure, let’s discuss in more detail next weekend when we catch up for dinner.’ We then had to explain that it was a bit more pressing than that and that we were planning to inseminate early next week. He was happy about it, but a bit concerned it might be a little bit weird. But he’s got this wonderful ‘chalk it up to experience’ approach, so we all agreed that we’d try it and see how we felt about it and as always, an opt out option remained for us all if anyone felt uncomfortable. So, we are going to provide him with an appropriate jar (which Lo is going to give him at work on Monday as they work in the same district) and then we are going to collect it in the evenings after work and try and do inseminations over a few consecutive days, depending on my ovulation. So that’s exciting, but a whole new ball game and I’m having to re-read chapters of all my lesbian conception books that I never paid attention to before. And of course, Lo’s dad then contacts us saying that he’s going to be in town on the night we’re likely to do the first insem with DDY and can he stay at our place. There’s no way we can say no, so we resign ourselves to sneaking out to collect sperm and sneaking in to our bedroom to inseminate.
How artichokes come into all this
Lo and I both love Lesbiandad’s story of the donation being made in an artichoke jar and then when they were pregnant them taking an artichoke plant to the donor as a gift. (I think this is in Confessions of the Other Mother). I love this. So we decided that an artichoke jar would be best for us. I then discover Stephanie Brill also recommends this – I think something about its wide opening –so, now Lo and I are in search of artichoke jars. Not being big artichoke fans, it’s a whole foray into a new aisle of the supermarket and a bit like the pregnancy test, we need to find the perfect special jar of artichokes.
Meanwhile, drama returns
Just when everything starts lining up so well something strange happens. I gained a bit of weight last cycle, I think the combinations of the drugs (I am going to blame them for everything) and being afraid to exercise during the 2WW. So lately, I have been trying to pick up the pace on the exercise. I did a very high impact aerobics class on Tuesday, and again on Wednesday. On Wednesday (before the class) I noticed a very small amount of spotting. I thought it might have been the hard-core exercise dislodged something or caused a small tear. It is now Friday and it’s still coming. It’s less like spotting and more like a very very light period. I called Buffy about it this morning and she seemed to think it was fine. I am due in tomorrow for a blood test and ultrasound so we will see what that says. But it worries me. With Lo on the computer for her assignment all the time (I am typing this on our very old lap top that I will then transfer and upload to the other computer) I have not had much opportunity to ask Dr Google. (I did for a moment at work, but typing mid-cycle bleeding into your work computer is not always the best look). But it’s making me a bit worried about whether we can even go ahead this cycle, what this means, and whether it’s to do with the drugs from last month having stuffed up my cycle? I will probably have a better indication when the blood tests and ultrasound results come back.
But at least the clinic isn’t quite so bad anymore
Then this afternoon the regional manager of the infertility clinic company called me about our blood test issue and the cost of the second insemination. He said that Dr Y&F was happy for us not to need a second blood test to be done. He also said that she would waive her fee for the second insemination, thus reducing the inordinate cost by about half. Both of these are very good items of news. I took the opportunity to give him some feedback about our frustrations, reiterating that we were happy to comply with whatever their procedures were, but needed to have these communicated to us with enough time for us to implement them. I told him how hard it was to make decisions with no information. I told him that from a business perspective, there was a captive market of people like us, but that they did not make it easy for us. He was so receptive to my feedback and is actually attending a workshop with all the staff from the clinics this weekend about how to enhance the patient experience, where he said he would use this call as a case study. I took the opportunity to sing Buffy’s praises. He wished Lo and I all the very best for our cycle and was really very good with dealing with the issues which is just so refreshing.
And so
And so we are now with decent insemination prospects, excellent known donor arrangements, a free speculum in a bag with my name on it, a newfound appreciation for artichoke and then this weird spotting, period, mid-cycle bleeding episode to mess things around. Please think of me tomorrow with the blood test and ultrasound. It would be good to have some answers, and for this bleeding to stop.
Nearly at the start line
The sperm has passed its quarantine period with the all clear. The consent forms have been received. My period has arrived – the last period for a long time that won’t mean anything. Our donors are modelling a perfect combination of being whole-heartedly detached and supportive at the same time. Despite some silent panic from our side about them getting blood tests done and consent forms organised, they provided everything on time, as requested and so happily. Dr Young and Funky called me to check in and said ’see you at the insemination!’ (that was a weird conversation to be having at my desk at work). We have spoken to Buffy the Sperm Nurse who wants us to come in for ‘Nurse Chat’ on Friday morning (this involves ticking a box called ‘Nurse Chat’ on a clipboard when we arrive in the waiting room, parting with a large sum of cash, being given a truckload of drugs and some advice on injecting.) I start the injectibles on Saturday morning and she expects we’ll start the blood tests and monitoring next Wednesday.
It sounds very perfect and it generally is. It was a tough few weeks in the lead-up, and Lo & I got really worried that things might fall through, for no apparent reason, except our donors don’t provide us with regular update emails – they just do what we ask of them. Lo thinks that the fact that they are complicit, but slightly non-communicant on the email, is exactly what we want from a donor. She would be worried about what it indicated about their emotional stake in the process if they were donors that were writing updates about each stage of the process with utter excitement. I think she’s right. They both wrote perfect things on the consent forms about their reason for donating being wanting to help us become parents because they thought that we’d be wonderful.
I’m pretty impressed that we have pulled this off. That we asked them and they said yes, that we’ve managed it in crazy timeframes and over a long and difficult distance. I was so pleased to see Lo’s face when all the forms and tests rolled into our inbox. She looked like the cat that got the cream and I know that the known donor arrangement, especially with them, makes a huge difference to how she feels. I am feeling really comfortable about our choice too and do feel such gratitude for our donors and the seemingly ultra-healthy dynamic we’ve got going with them.
We both freaked out that we’re about to start. It’s such a wild proposition that we could be pregnant in less than a month, or that we could be starting on a very long and emotionally draining rollercoaster of ttc efforts that will span many months. Sitting equally open to both eventualities is a tough ask. But we’re excited. In her phone conversation, Dr Young & Funky said ‘boy, six months is up already? that passed fast!’
It hasn’t from our perspective. Not at all. But it’s been very good to have a pre-ttc sabbatical imposed on us. So long to read, think, plan, prepare, become ready.
We’re ready. Let’s go.
Revelations
It’s been a very good weekend. (Apart from the Saturday morning spent at work, but even that makes me feel like I am starting a very busy week on a firm footing, and I have been uber productive on the home/personal admin front for the rest of the weekend.) Lo & I had a really really good conversation yesterday afternoon, a long D&M most of which took place lying in our bed looking out to the gum trees and open sky outside our window. I feel like we have reached some peace on the parental relations:
- Lo realised that she misjudged her mother and the relationship they have when she decided to tell about our plans to ttc. She was doing it in a place of openness and intimacy, but the mother mistook it for permission-seeking. She’s been shocked by the revelation that her mum has not moved forward as much as she had thought she had on the gay acceptance stuff. The charade of acceptance was much easier to deal with than the honesty that came to light two weeks ago.
- We both realised that people (or at least the kind of people that constitute our families of origin) do not want to know the details of our reproductive life (i.e. that we have one) and will feel that they need to give their views if they are engaged on it. We have decided we would prefer not to hear their views.
- We will not tell my family or the rest of hers until the 3 month pregnant mark. Then we will tell the news in good faith and with excitement and let them deal with how they choose to respond. This has been standard practice in my family with the birth of my nieces and nephews. My mother is actually quite ambivalent about babies. We need to draw a line on our responsibility not give these people too much of a stake by engaging them in the process. We are married and so hopefully, at least for some, having a baby seems like a logical next step.
- However, I know that people will be surprised by the pregnancy, given my work situation (i.e. that I am going overseas to work for three years and will not be taken long maternity leave) I think they have tagged me as a career girl and that there’s a baby on board will come as a shock. I am sure that my mother will have something to say about me planning to take 12 weeks maternity leave and for Lo to stay home with the baby.
- But we’re learning that as mothers, women are always judged, and we’d better be prepared to face criticisms at this stage as I am sure they’ll follow once we have a baby. Everyone will always have something to say on our choices on work/family, breast/bottle, homebirth, co-sleeping, modern cloth nappies etc etc.
- My mother would probably prefer to deal with this privately, and with as little information as possible. My father will probably be supportive as we are close and he’s pretty low-key. My brothers and sister will probably not care very much either way. It’s very sad to me if this is going to cause my mum pain, but I need to draw a line.
- Lo’s mother has assumed all this power by being brought into our confidence. Which has been an expensive lesson that we’ve learnt the hard way. We don’t want to duplicate the situation with my family. Given that we’ve made up our minds, we don’t want to start a dialogue.
- Lo and I have both realised, and agreed, that we have a lot of work to do on our relationships with our respective mothers. A lot. (I am sure that you, dear reader, are saying ‘d’uh!’ right now, but this was a bit of a revelation to us).
So, in part, this is an adventure about faith in our own convictions. We had a lovely time in B.orders this morning where I read a good part of Knock Yourself Up: No Man, No Problem: A Tell-All Guide to Becoming a Single Mom. The author is a lesbian, but the book is geared to all single women contemplating single-parenthood. I am so desparate to get my hands on any queer-focussed ttc literature, that I devoured it in childrens literature section as story-time took place around me (and Lo read something on food and ethics and farmers markets next to me). There were some good chapters on donor sperm and known donor arrangements. The known donor arrangements profiled were all disastrous and fraught with custody battles. We still feel intuitively good about our donors, but open to other options if need be, and still a bit perplexed by the silence on the email. The sperm comes out of quarantine this Friday (I can’t believe it’s come round!) and they’ve said they’ll do their blood tests that day to get the results as quickly as possible. The test results; the consent forms; a period; and then lift-off. I am really glad we’ve reached some resolution on the parent-telling stuff. That feels like a big break-through and the best decision in the circumstances.
Buffy, the sperm nurse
We went for our orientation at the fertility clinic today. We’re this ridiculously zealous pre-inseminating couple. We’ve still got six weeks until the sperm can come out of storage, and probably about eight weeks until we do our first IUI. But, as we’ve been waiting since last December, we’re eager to be as prepared as we can. So off we went for our first glimpse of the place where our sperm is waiting and where we’ll be inseminating. It’s a pleasant clinic. Neutral tones. Down lights. Quite glamorous really. Although the room where we’ll be inseminating looks a bit like a kitchen with a set of stirrups in it. I am planning on taking Stephanie Brill’s advice and making it our own, bringing in our insemination playlist.
Our Nurse Coordinator’s name is Buffy. I love this and loved her instantly because of it. I was imagining a funky, young dyke, but she’s actually a kindly and delightful middle aged woman, who is so neutral and non-judgemental. (Lo later tells me that Buffy is a well-known shortening for Elizabeth, but I never knew this and am still captured by the novelty of my kindly sperm nurse Buffy.)
In our last appointment with Dr Young & Funky, we decided on starting with a stimulated IUI. You can read about my grappling with whether to use drugs here. Even though most of the advice we received from other tccing lesbians was to the contrary, Lo & I have decided to go straight to stimulated IUI. I noticed that most advocates of no-drugs IUI had ended up having to ramp up their attempts to using drugs and IVF after a few unsuccessful cycles, and because time is of the essence for us, with an overseas move at the end of the year, and our sperm is frozen, thanks to known donors who are in another country, we’ve decided to go straight to what we think will work best with limited intervention and less ethical complexity than IVF. We figure that we’re not trying to recreate heterosex and would like to give this the best chance, and shortest timeframe, as possible.
So we’re going to be using Puregon, at a very low dose (50), and then a trigger shot and then something for a few days after the insemination (possibly the trigger shot or the Puregon again?). There will be a regime of blood tests and ultrasounds. I have completed all the blood tests and ultrasounds that are required before starting treatment, and just need to have my HSG (I have been waiting until closer to the time, as apparently if it’s had close to the time of insemination it increases your chances.)
Reading other blogs out there, including Vee and Jay’s staggering running total, we’re so fortunate to live in a country where our Medicare system covers most of the costs involved in this whole process. There’s a lot we had been shelling out for earlier in the process (sperm analysis, sperm storage and a plethora of tests for our donors) but thanks to the system here we’ll probably only end up out of pocket about $300 per month for over $2000 worth of treatment. Perhaps less with our health insurance on top of that.
So we’re on our way. It’s finally coming into sight. And I am so excited. There’s still mountains of administrivia before we’re home. Such as discovering a whole bunch of consent forms the clinic was meant to get our donors to sign when they deposited were not given to them to sign, meaning we are now having to send them across the world for them to sign (and find a witness for – which will be tricky for them to explain) and return. We also have to arrange their final blood tests and ensure that a third world doctor’s testing and diagnostic procedures are reliable enough to satisfy our doctor. And we do all this just to get to the starting line…
So far, our donors could not be more perfect. Lo and I are both a besotted with them. As such decent human beings. As such wonderful men. They have been so willing to go through this process so openheartedly. And for that we are grateful. Originally, our first ob/gyn (who we saw for our first appointment) said that we had to choose from one or the other and we were a bit trapped in a cycle of weighing up attributes and sperm quality. But we have since decided and told the clinic that we want to alternate between the donors each month. This was a bit of a revelation, but works for us. Because we entered into this with them as a couple. Because we equally couldn’t decide between one or the other of them, nor did we want to. Because storing two types of sperm protected us from waiting six months to find out that the sperm didn’t work so well. Because ideally we’d like for Lo to have our next baby with the other of them’s sperm. Because having this concept of a donor-couple really waters down the biology of it all. It’s our baby, but our friends are helping us. And such wonderful friends they are.
Even though I had been the original proponent of using an anonymous donor, I am so glad about how this has worked out for us so far. With the right men, known donor arrangements can work so well. As we all know, with the wrong men, they can be disastrous. I think distance always helps.
So that is where we are on a Thursday evening in June. It’s so cold outside. Lo is out for the evening. I am listening to a wonderful CD by Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu and contemplating a pile of dishes.
And the countdown is on.
TDQ (The Donor Question)
The first appointment we can get with the specialist is for 8 February, almost three months away. When we first started planning our baby, I optimistically imagined that the whole project from locating a sperm donor to a wrapped up bundle of love could fit into a ten month timeframe. I am now discovering that it will take a lot longer and we’ll be lucky to be visibly pregnant by next Christmas. Suffice to say we are glad that we have decided to start while we’re relatively young .
The time from now until our appointment gives us three months to (a) relax and take a break after a year of having a wedding, buying a house and general craziness (b) save some cash which has been seriously depleted by the aforementioned pursuits but which will be required in bucketloads for the baby adventure and (c) solve The Donor Question (TDQ).
Lo and I are in a fortunate position (or as fortunate as we can be for two girls who can’t have a baby between us) in that under the relatively progressive local laws, we have a range of donor choices and insemination methods available to us. These include the choice of using an identified international or local donor or locating a known donor. We also can embark on a co-parenting arrangement.
These questions are not easy ones to answer and I struggle with my pendulous feelings, going from utter conviction in the benefits of two mums, no dad, and no interference from outside parties, thinking that a sperm donation is like a kidney donation, where I do not want to have to have a permanent life long relationship with a person on the base of my needs for a bodily part, nor do I want for our child to see that having two mums is not enough. I do not want Lo and I to have to negotiate a relationship with a man or for our child to be born into a fragmented family. Besides, we can provide lots of good male role models but they don’t necessarily need to be related to our family.
Then I go to singing the praises of a child knowing its biological origins, how nice it would be for it to know its father personally, and for us to know whose sperm is making our baby. We think about how we would like to avoid the cases of the pink district child care centres where the childcare workers can’t help but notice that a large number of the children look startlingly similar, soon working out that the neighbourhood lesbian mums had all inadvertently used the same donor.
So we go back to our address book and start flicking through for eligible bachelors …
Conception
Last night Lo and I started our family. In theory, perhaps, if not yet in egg-meets-sperm reality. We crept in late, through the side door, to our local fertility centre’s information night, a compulsory experience before you can make an appointment with a specialist.
As we entered, we exchanged cheeky smiles with the only other lesbians in the room, our friends S&L, and took our seat next to one of the many garden variety heterosexual couples (except I quickly realised that there was nothing garden variety about these people, given their reason for being here). A man with sweeping, grey hair was speaking about the clinic’s work to a set of powerpoint slides.
At first, I instinctively felt cynical and wary of this man and his patriarchal, heterosexual medical model approach to fertility – warning men not to wank before donating sperm and women to remain lying down after insemination – but then another doctor, a leggy blonde with a warm smile and classic chignon, with a name not dissimilar to Dr Heavenly, went on to introduce the next slides and, in doing so, apologised for the penis and vagina nature of some of the material outlining the centre’s commitment to working with same sex couples. From my seat, I beamed one of those ‘thank you’ smiles that we members of marginalised groups use to great effect, I guess when we’d rather be leaping to our feet in applause for someone who has acknowledged our existence but know we’d better not.
As the seminar progressed, I started to see Dr Heavenly and Dr Big Gray Hair and their contemporaries as the heros they were. If it were not for the brave, pioneering and radical work that they had done in the early days of fertility treatments, in the face of severe criticism and judgement, Lo & I would not have the options for starting a family that we do. When we left the centre, we felt validated and awash with the options before us. We floated on the emancipatory promise of science – the everyday miracle that fertility treatment offers us homo folk. There is something entirely pro-feminist and radical about the options available to us for designing our family. We know that men will have to be in there somewhere, either inserting the speculum or jacking off for our benefit in a privacy room but we also know that we hold such choice and options before us.
For us, by virtue of where we live, we will be able to have a child who has both parents’ names on its birth certificate. We will be able to retain our five star lesbian status without having ever to have to experience the feeling of warm sperm running down the insides of our leg. By starting our family, Lo and I are doing what we believe in, knowing that the road ahead will not be an easy one. Knowing that we will have to justify our decision to form our family intentionally, to a design that continues to be scrutinised. But knowing that we are doing a right and brave thing that has been done in so many different ways by the global community of GLBT families. And I am so excited about being part of that.
