Today's Document
oozey mess
we're not kids anymore.
#extradirty
Love Begins
Cosimo Galluzzi
JVL
if i look back, i am lost
tumblr dot com
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occasionally subtle
izzy's playlists!
pixel skylines
Not today Justin
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Three Goblin Art
Sweet Seals For You, Always
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ojovivo
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@gonkey
Hey, nice to meet you! It's.... us!
This is, as I've mentioned, a biographical little diary comic that I (Monkey) am running. If you plan to shoot me an ask, please keep in mind that we're real people, not only cartoon characters.
thank you for making all this info accessible, and for sharing your experience! hope you and your baby are doing well.
also your designs for animal characters are so cute! i assume dragon is a reference to the expression "seahorse dad", but is there a deeper meaning behind the choice for monkey?
Thanks for your message!
Actually, the seahorse-dad reference is completely incidental.
All the animals, including us, are meant to just be animals from the various styles of the chinese zodiac! I'm year of the monkey, hence the monkey.
My husband is year of the dragon - and when I asked how he wanted to be drawn, he said he wanted to be a seahorse! So that's what we went with. :)
Did you make the snake protesting IVF the colors of the don't tread on me flag on purpose bc if you did it's genius and if not it's a beautiful coincidence
That was 100% on purpose. 👍😎
A year ago, I lived this. Today, I post the comic.
In this case, the ending was happy - but obviously, there was a lot more that happened before we got to that part.
I'm hoping to eventually do more comics regarding my experience with pregnancy (as a nonbinary person, and just in general...)
But for now - thanks for following along!
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IVF is one of those very personal and raw and at the same time very debated things. It makes it Not At All Easy to talk about - but I hope that by opening up and offering a real-life story it makes the process more digestible.
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So, this is the longest comic in the entire series, I believe! It's quite... personal. And yet, there is a lot that I still left out for the sake of making this flow smoothly.
One of those things I'd like to revisit again later - such as the tests I had asked our doctor to do to rule out various issues (blocked fallopian tubes).
Other things - such as the emotional toll that year of trying took on me - will probably never be explored in full depth. I've dedicated a mere page to it here. It was...more complex. But I think there is plenty of other media depictions of infertility that do it more justice.
I still hope this will be of some aid to someone, or that it is at least interesting to learn about.
Next up - IVF!
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This is a bit out of order chronologically - we initially did this stuff before actually choosing a sperm donor. I know in the US it's also typical to do genetic testing as well, but we didn't have much access to that where we live, so we decided to forgo this part of the process.
Sidenote: The doctor is depicted as a Kamoshika - a Japanese serow - which is a local animal that's quite famous where we live! :)
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A lot of details were left out of this comic, because it's already long enough. But I thought it was important to start here, since WE started here.
I elected not to discuss the details of our chosen donor, because ultimately I feel this is a private matter that affects our child. The important thing isn't that - it's the various things we had to consider when choosing them, as well as the complications of getting the actual vials to a different country.......and getting to actually use them.
This will be a series so - we've got more of these types of comics coming!
This comic was made back in 2022. Before we even bought a house, actually!
There's a lot that's happened since then. And I have a chance to do something here, so we're going to break the normal comics format a bit and do something different...something a bit more...info-graphic-y!
I hope you will appreciate it. :)
If society let me go barefoot all the time, I'd probably do it.
In a hilarious twist of fate, my Permanent Residency visa was granted... 3 months ahead of the promised timeline.... but AFTER we had already closed on the loan in Gon's name.
I'm not angry at all, the deal we got was good! But looking back, the timing was hilarious.
Disclaimer to those of you living in the Housing Hellscape That Is The USA: Keep in mind that the numbers above are converted into USD but locally they are... pretty standard. My salary in Japan is not comparable to what it would be in the states.
If you're shocked, then join my ranks. I was picking my jaw up off the floor when I first heard about this.
I don't know exactly how any loan agency would get their hands on someone's medical records - those are still private. But according to Gon, if you decided to lie and it later got out... that's grounds for kicking you off the loan and suing you for breach of contract. He was not about to risk that.
It was his loan process, and his decision in the long run. I still think the system is extremely biased... but this part of the rollercoaster is now behind us, so I'm a bit less angry.
Part 2 in our House Hunting journey!
Just a little background info:
Initially, I was working under an Educator visa when I came to Japan. A few years after getting married, I switched over to a Spouse Visa, since it offers more freedom in terms of job hunting - but it's annoying and has to be renewed every 1, 3, and then 5 years.
Permanent Residency in Japan is a bit more difficult. It doesn't mean changing your nationality - I still have my original citizenship - but it DOES mean you don't have to constantly re-apply and re-confirm that yes, you're still married, and yes, this is not a scam.
Originally, in order to even be considered for a PR visa, you had to have lived in Japan for at least 10 years. Apparently, they recently changed it. Now, IF you have a spouse visa, you can apply for PR much earlier. I didn't know that - I planned on thinking about that AFTER I had been here for a decade. This sped things up significantly.
This is the first part in what will be a 6-part saga describing our journey in buying our own house! It has been quite a rollercoaster ride...
Keep in mind, this all happened in the winter of 2023-2024, so it is all behind us. I sketched up many of these comics back when it was happening, and then drew them out in full later.
Anyone else's body constantly running like its trying to survive the Siberian winter?
