Family values?
Lo told her mother tonight. They went for dinner and I met them afterwards. I had been at another dinner and then a class at the gym. I had no idea what I was walking into when I went to meet them. Lo’s mother told me that Lo had told her our news and that there were three components of her response:
1. She was worried for the child – and how it would feel and be treated because it had lesbian parents
2. She was worried about our arrangement with our donors – while it might seem so great now, they could fall in love with the baby and try to gain custody
3. She did not want us to do it. Did not agree with it. Would prefer we didn’t do it. Would prefer we weren’t gay and were just really good friends. But has undertaken to not mention that again.
She was at pains to point out that she knew it was coming. She loves to come across like she knows what’s going on before we do. And, because she said all this in a calm tone with a smile on her face, this is meant to be a good outcome. There was no mention of being supportive, no mention of seeing the child as her grandchild (it would be her first), and she did not want to hear anything at all about the process (and felt it was inappropriate that Lo was volunteering this information). And she perceives that her harsh judgement of us would have no negative consequences to her (i.e. she can say these things to us without feeling like we will judge her or cut her off). I have so many feelings, which I think I will write about in coming posts, but basically Lo and I are pretty disappointed. . .And I am now thinking a letter would be a good way to go when it comes to telling my parents.
And, in case you’re wondering, Lo and I both separately responded to the mother’s points with the same arguments, which I am certain you, dear reader, are all too familiar with:
1. That the reason children of same sex parents get bullied is the fault of parents who bring up children who are homophobic bullies rather than gay people who bring up well-adjusted children. Research shows that children of same sex couples are no worse off than other kids, and generally more resilient and accepting of diversity.
2. We see our arrangement with our donors as a leap of faith, and feel open to how that might play out in the future. We support some contact between the children and the donors, and if somehow it turns out that there’s a shared custody arrangement, this wouldn’t be the worst outcome ever. We were conscious and intentional about wanting to facilitate contact and access to positive male role models and are open to how that might work out, knowing the risks, but also what we see as the advantages of a known donor arrangement. We trust our instincts and the good arrangement we have set up.
3. I am not even going to respond to that one. We agreed to put that one aside.
Tomorrow’s dye job
I have my HSG tomorrow at 1130. The clinic’s approach is that they make sure everything’s clear before starting. So they squirt some dye through my fallopian tubes and take an x-ray to check they’re not blocked. It’s meant to be a bit painful, but it also is meant to increase conception if done in the preceding three months before starting, which is why I left it until this point. I hope it goes ok. I am going to call in sick to work. I had thought about saying I had an appointment and taking the day off in advance on sick leave, but I thought it was just easier to call in and not explain. Lo will come along to the appointment. I do hope there’s not a fuss about her being there with me. You’re meant to bleed afterwards. Argh.
My mother, my self
I dreamt last night that I had a baby in a room of my parents’ house. I had still not told my parents that we were planning to have a baby. So I walked out into my parents’ kitchen and everyone was wondering where this new born baby, wrapped in a blanket in my arms, had come from. I explained that it was Lo and I’s, and my mother said ‘Oh my Gawd’ (as my Mum is quite a staunch Christian, I never hear her say Oh my God, but I remember once in my childhood, she said oh my Gawd at a point of absolute exasperation and I was so shocked) with a tone of exasperation and ‘what has my crazy daughter gone and done now’. A bit like when Lo and I were getting married and my mum kept saying ‘just remind me, why are you doing this again?’ as if, to her, who has been married 47 years, the idea of lifelong commitment was totally unfathomable.
But I digress, so this dream was so vivid, and really brought home the idea that it could easily get too late to tell them. So, they’re coming over to visit at the end of September. I subtly tried to steer their visit dates away from when we would be inseminating or testing or injecting etc. – which left some very narrow windows. I am still not sure how to broach it. Some advice is that if they’re not going to be supportive it is not useful to bring them into the loop too early, however, other advice is that telling them only once you’re pregnant doesn’t often give them time to process it – and they feel left out that you have not told them sooner. By the time they visit, we could be pregnant, or more possibly, in the midst of ttcing efforts.
I told Lo I was thinking about seeing a counsellor about it, or more usefully, calling the GLBT counselling line to get some GLBT specific advice. Lo suggested I call PFLAG and seek advice on how parents would have liked their GLBT children to have handled it, and advice they might have for us. In principle, this is a great idea, but, as I pointed out to A, the PFLAG parents are accepting people, whereas my parents have not been able to come to a point of wholehearted acceptance (despite well over 25 years of experience – as my much older sister is also lesbian).
Apart from the sexuality stuff, we have a great relationship, I speak to my parents at least once a week, often twice or more, with a great deal of warmth and fondness. So it’s complex. And, at the moment, it’s really hard talking about what’s going on in my life, without mentioning most of it. I feel duplicitous and deceitful.
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.
