Category Archive
The following is a list of all entries from the Donors category.
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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.
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.
More courage
Lo’s mum’s response really hit us hard… I don’t think we quite realised it at the time, but for the past week we have been a bit thrown. It’s like our baby-making house was in order and then a huge storm came in and blew everything around and now we’re straightening the photo frames on the mantelpiece and clinging to the glassware and gathering things back together.
It certainly has stirred a lot up and resulted in a lot of misdirected anxiety. We are a bit worried about silence from the donors, the consent forms are yet to come back and we haven’t had an email in a week and a half. I know that they: a) are men and so do not know that a week and a half is a long time in the world of a focussed ttc woman; b) are super busy with crazy work commitments; c) are plagued by intermittent communications; and d) may well have sent and written back by snail mail and not thought to send an advance email advising of this. I hate that this process turns me into an obsessive person who is second guessing them and making excuses – and I do think this is one of the downsides of a known donor arrangement (or at least the arrangement we have) that we are negotiating a relationship with a man/ men on really unfamiliar terrain, and it’s hard not to let weird power stuff get in there. And trying to play it cool on top.
Last time we hadn’t heard from them (very early in the process when we were about to start the tests and deposits etc) I spent a few days in the depths of not knowing and obsession and then it worked out with a very plausible and reasonable explanation (which was all solved by a telephone call). Boy I was nervous then. It’s because THERE IS SO MUCH AT STAKE!
Lo’s mum’s response got me really worried about my parents’ response. I have had some very good news on work and study fronts lately, and when I have called my parents to tell them I have heard their voices full of pride, excitement and wonder that it is their daughter telling them this good news. It’s so nice to feel affirmed and appreciated. I just wish I would have that experience when I tell them I am pregnant, like straight women do. It’s so worrying to me that it won’t be that way. That it will need to be carefully and painfully managed. That there won’t be yelps of excitement. We saw our friends S&L on the weekend and L said that all parents were concerned about how they would explain it to their friends. Her mother had been trying to convince them to adopt as it would be much easier to explain to her friends that her single daughter had adopted rather than her daughter’s lesbian partner had given birth to a baby. The only reason L’s parents know that they are ttc is because S is totally upfront and unapologetic and has family dinner-table conversations with L’s sister in law, an obstetrician, about IVF methods and keeps trying to engage L’s parents on discussion of baby names. There’s probably something to be said for being that upfront.
I am still weighing up whether not to tell my parents anything until I am pregnant, whether to give them a hint (such as saying something like ‘Lo and I would like to have kids one day’ although I just can’t work out where that would fit into conversation) or whether to bring them into my confidence, and do the decent thing, by telling them in advance. I was wondering whether a letter might be a good idea. I was thinking that I could prepare a letter that sets the issue out, tells them how much I love them and how important this is to us, and has a FAQs section if they want to refer to it for more details, and perhaps attached some positive articles about GLBT families and even a wholesome book like ‘Families of Value’ or some other hetero focussed profile of GLBT families. As my parents live on the other side of the country, my dad often posts me packages of newspaper clippings – it’s his way of showing he cares and keeping connected – I am wondering whether I could reappropriate this idea. Or whether this is just too much information for my conservative and very English parents who would prefer not to discuss these things.
So I feel a bit stuck. I don’t think that we should tell the ‘how’ of it until the donor six month wait is over (July 25) as I just wouldn’t want to pre-empt it just in case things change. But that doesn’t leave much time before our first insemination around mid August. After which it’s possible I could be pregnant! But not if I keep up this stressing and obsessing. More yoga, more swimming, more clarity, more order, more certainty, more grace, more confidence, more acceptance of the way things are, more supportive voices for Lo & I, more strength and more courage. That is my prayer.
Tight timing
It all seems to be about time at the moment. Our sperm comes out of quarantine on the 25 July. The final requirement is another HIV, Hep C etc test for our donors before the clinic will allow us to inseminate. As I expect our insemination will probably be around the 17 August, I thought we had a decent window to get the tests done. But: the clinic wants the test results before we can even ‘book-on’ for our cycle that month – i.e. around 1 August. Which makes timing incredibly tight.
Our donors have been wonderful throughout the process and have been pretty complicit with all the administration required. But we have project-managed the process pretty carefully the whole way along: booking appointments, writing instructions, calling ahead to the clinic to ensure the bill is fixed up. We wanted to make sure there was as little impact on them as possible. When they undertook all the screening and depositing in January I wrote them up a little chart with each appointment, what to expect, where to go etc. Like most men, they loved being taken care of like this. But now they are overseas, we have a lot less control over arrangements, and hell, I have no idea where they should go for a blood test. They had said they would take care of it, and I have no doubt they will, but they had also expressed some doubt about the pathology services where they are and how quickly the could get results. Now that we have such a short timeframe (i.e. the 1 August one) my nerves have set in about we can get a blood test taken and pathology results in a developing country and faxed back to Australia in a 5-6 day timeframe.
(insert interlude) …. rather than writing about my problems, I decided to take matters into my own hands and, thanks to some good internet research, I have just called up the 24 hour private hospital there and got put through to one of the laboratory technicians, a delightful man called Jessie. I am sure getting a call from some random Australian was the highlight of his night shift. The good news is: they can do all the tests we need and have results ready in 24 hours! And it won’t cost a gazillion dollars. I am so glad. And the fact that it’s 24 hours means that our donors can go in on the Friday evening to get the tests done. Meaning, we should be able to go ahead for August! And I can relax. Almost. Just waiting on the final tranche of consent forms to come back from them. And sorting out our future.
So, Inshallah, we have one month until lift-off.
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.
You’ve got mail, Part 2
Which reminds me… Lo & I need to write this weekend to our faraway donors to tell them who’s sperm we’re using first. I think they’re being very conscious of not intruding in our process, but were secretly both so keen for us to pick their little swimmers to go first… It’s funny how much men like the idea of having little miniature thems running around in the world somewhere. Lo & I had never thought of having children as being about creating little ‘us’s’, but for them, it was their first thought. And perfect that there’s women out there who want to raise them. Our choice was ultimately an instinctual feeling, coupled with the advice of our ob/gyn, and we’re all committed to using the other donor for the next child (which we’re planning that Lo will have), or even swapping during the process. It’s a bit complicated, I will let you know how it goes…
