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@dreamingofconceiving-blog
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Update: her job just decided to fuck up our whole lives for no reason so now i guess, instead of making a baby in the next year, we will be moving to somewhere neither of us want to live, abandoning my new business and entire career and passion and not having children because obviously her job is more important than everything.
Tumblr just informed me this blog is 1 year old.
And we still haven’t even managed to start trying. So that’s depressing.
Result!(s)
We got the test results back, and neither of us carry the disease! Woo hoo!
We also got my wife’s AMH results back - she got tested because she had ovarian cancer when she was younger and now only has 2/3 of an ovary.
Her AMH is 10pmol/L, which we understand to be “the low end of normal”. Boo hoo.
Developments and updated timeline
Ok. It’s been a few months. Again. Turns out I’m not very good at this keeping a blog thing!
Last time I wrote, we had just had a conversation with one of my wife’s oldest girlfriends, in which she told us that one of my wife’s oldest guy friends (who shall henceforth by known as Donor) had been talking to her about how he would really love to help us.
At that point, the experience of asking the first friend and then spending 6 months of silence wondering whether we would even still be friends at the end of it had pretty much put us off asking another one - that’s why we had turned to the Pride Angels website. But hearing that one of our closest guy friends actually actively wanted to help - to the point that he was talking about it without us having brought it up - made us beyond happy. So the long and the short of it is that we had found a donor who we love and everything was awesome.
Until we found out that he has a sibling with a serious, life limiting and recessively inherited disease. To be quite honest, we fell apart - it was a deal breaker and a crisis. THEN we found out there was a test to see if you are a carrier - and if we’re not, then no problem.
THEN this week I got a job opportunity - not just any job, but the chance to build up my own business doing the job I just spent half our savings training for and am very passionate about.
So in the interests of (a) waiting for these test results, (b) giving myself enough time to get established before taking maternity leave and (c) rebuilding some of the savings I just demolished, our new plan is to start trying (test results allowing) in January. The extra wait isn’t what I want, but it’s what we both agree makes sense.
You guys.
I think this is it. I think we have a donor. I think he is at least as enthusiastic as we are. I think everything is perfect and This Is Actually Happening.
Hello, Square One.
This weekend we finally pinned down our friend and first choice of sperm donor, exactly 6 months after we asked him to do it, and got an actual answer. That answer was “sorry, I can’t” This weekend we got a decision from our second choice of sperm donor - a lovely gay guy on Pride Angels who was honestly a bit too perfect to be true - who has been deliberating since we contacted him over whether he wants to donate again, because he has already successfully helped one couple. His answer was “sorry, I can’t”
Sigh.
Talking To A Male Friend About Where We Are At The Moment....
He just said “Couldn’t you just sleep with a friend and do it that way?” Face. Palm.
One Step Back And Two Steps Forward
So, it is now mid April and our first choice of sperm donor still has not said so much as a word in response to us asking if he would help us. He has had over 5 months and honestly, we think at this point if he was going to say yes he would have at least indicated some sort of positive feeling about the whole idea. Instead, the friendship is getting a little strained and we're beginning to regret even asking him. In the mean time, my wife has reached the same state as me in terms of full blown, impatient as hell, baby rabies. So we had a long, long chat and we re-evaluated a lot of things. We decided that it's time to start finding a plan B, and we decided that none of our other friends we originally talked about asking are in fact close enough to us for such an ask - we have to admit we were clutching at straws. We also decided that going through a clinic would not be the awful experience we were originally so adamant we would avoid - but we agreed we still don't want to go directly to a clinic and choose a sperm donor from a catalogue because it's important to us to get to know the donor and have a feel for their personality and values. So we did two things this month. We joined Pride Angels and sent a few messages out to potentially promising sounding donors, and I began to get a handle on my fertility by temp charting and monitoring CM. We're both feeling so much more positive just because we're actually doing something, rather than just waiting around. Fingers crossed that this time, we've actually set some wheels in motion!
Today I Learned...
...That if you want to use a known sperm donor at a clinic, the law dictates they must “quarantine” the donated sperm for 6 months before you are allowed to use it.
If, however, you are using your male partner’s sperm, they can inseminate you with it the same day he provides it.
This makes absolutely no logical sense and is just unfairly disadvantaging us for being lesbians.
Today I also learned the full costs of going through a clinic with a known sperm donor. Even assuming we only need IUIs instead of actual IVF, we’re talking £3400 plus an extra £820 for each extra attempt and another £800 if our donor has to come in again because we’ve used up the initial 3 samples collected without success.
So if our prospective donor doesn’t agree to help us, we can’t afford to buy sperm from a bank, and if he agrees but only if we use a clinic, we can’t afford that either. I want to cry.
This Is Not An Update.
We’re still waiting.
We talked to our hopefully potential sperm donor about helping us out on November 6th and, despite a couple of very gentle prompts, have heard absolutely nothing since then. Not even an update on what they are thinking/what issues are worrying them etc. Not a word.
I know we can’t rush them, and I really want them to take as much time as they need to make this massive decision, but how long do we wait? I feel like we’ve already been waiting around, making no progress, for EVER.
I think they’re going to say no. I just wish they would get on with it so we can move on.
The First Hurdle
So, it’s been a while, because we haven’t even really started this whole process yet and we’re already hitting delays and plan changes left, right and centre! I guess we should get used to that.
Anyway, a couple weeks ago we finally sat down with who we hope will be our sperm donor and his girlfriend, and had The Conversation. Do you know how hard it is to start that conversation? “So....we want a baby....help pls?” Haha. Well, somehow we managed and it was uncomfortable and difficult but it helped that on some level, they knew this was coming - just probably not right now! We had a loooooong talk about every aspect of this whole thing that we could think of, and then we told them to take as much time as they need to think about it and give us a shout with any new questions/concerns/thoughts at all.
So now we’re giving them “as much time as they need”. It. Is. Excruciating.
The journey begins!
First Steps
So, a few weeks ago I decided I wanted to have a baby. Like, now. The last time my wife and I had discussed babies, we agreed we should wait until we had bought a house - which would also mean that she had finished her 3 year grad scheme and was no longer at risk of being relocated to a different city at the drop of a hat by her job.
Anyway, I talked to her about why I didn’t think we should wait: (a) I’ll be 29 by then (b) It’s probably going to take a while anyway (c) It’s not like we don’t actually have the money and (d) I just really don’t want to and as it turned out, she was totally on board!
So, now it all begins. We want to use a known donor and home insemination, we have decided on a friend to ask to be our donor and now we just have to get him and his girlfriend in a room with us and see what they think.
In the mean time I’m starting to track my cycle, think about my diet and just reading, reading, reading about everything on the internet. God help me - we didn’t even start yet and this is already all I can think about.