I Took My Rant Down (and yes S ovulated today, yipee!) September 29, 2006

I wrote a long post describing the details of how I found out that FTW (Former The Wife) read my blog many many times after she agreed not to (after the first time she found it and read the.entire.thing without asking me or telling me she found it).

I discussed the injustice of it, how appalled I am.

But we spoke last night about it, and I gave it to her boy, and now I just feel sorry for her. She has some SERIOUS issues, and will be getting help for them. So I no longer want to rant about it. It’s just sad.

And lets just leave it at: I’m oh so happy that we have a Rocket Man and WTF. That situation is crazy in its own way, but crazy good. Crazy, lets do this crazy thing. Not crazy like, well, I’ll stop.

Oh, one last thing. WTF is FTW backward.

Yeah.

No Ovulation Today??? September 28, 2006

We went to sleep all happy and content last night about timing and everything (see post below).

Then this morning: NO TEMP SPIKE.

What’s up? Of course we chose not to spend the night, and not to do the “superfluous” morning after O, insem.

Now I don’t know what do do. Rocket Man is already at work, and they live 3 hours away, round trip. Should we go back tonight? Or assume that the swimmers can live until whatever point today when she ovulates (we hope).

Yikes! I hate it when eggs don’t cooperate. I hope to god she ovulates today. Damn. I was so thrilled to have a positive post for the day. I was purposely leaving out a very dramatic post so I could have just a happy one. Oh, well. Drama post tomorrow.

Now We Wait. September 28, 2006

This insem had some of the hilarity and fun that was missing from the IUI experience.

Rocket man got home about 5:30 pm. He was lookin’ pretty good, really. He was wearing cool jeans, and is rather handsome, we think. Great donor. Great person.

He had not seen his kids for 3 days, so we had to wait while he “kissed and hugged his kids.” The quotes around that indicate my eye rolling at my own impatience. I mean really. 3 days. They missed each other.

Right when WTF and Rocket Man should have headed upstairs, the pizza came. They left it up to us whether or not they would eat first or head to the bathroom to do “grownup things” as they told their 5 year old.

So mean old me asked them to forgo the hot pizza (WTF HATES soggy pizza), and they did. Bless them.

But they were interrupted TWICE.

Once by their five year old pressing himself against the bathroom door (they have one of those large spa bathrooms, the fuckers) asking “what are you doooooooing in there.”

The second time was by their 2 year old daughter who is the sassiest little chickadee you have EVER met. She talks louder than LM screams. She stomped her way into their room yelling “MAMA! MAMA! MAMA!”

I’m surprised they were able to finish the deed at all.

We managed to keep all the sperm in this time! Yay!

Then we finished dinner with them and had a nice evening.

As many of you now know, WTF is a very talk-about-anything person, so I feel comfortable talking to her about anything. Which is the kind of friend you need. We can talk about the consistency of our poop, then about our deepest fears, then make fun of someone we hate. And we did.

Not that they are not crazy, believe me they are. But in a good way. Nothing compared to our FPKD (former potential know donor) and FTW. But that is for another post.

Good times. Good sperm.

Now we wait.

And so do they. Oh, the drama of it all.

Peak Day September 26, 2006

Tomorrow is officially ovulation day.

Yay.

Using fresh sperm means the timing is so much less stressful.

10,000 lbs of wieght have been lifted off of us this cycle.

And it is free.

Oh, also, is it worth it to do another insem on Thursday morning, early at like 7am? I think some people still get pregnant this way, even though it is not ideal timing. It just means we stay the night there, which we might do anyway. Thoughts?

Fresh Sperm September 25, 2006

I have a fresh sperm question for those of you in the know about fresh sperm. Various sources say no lube, no spit. So what the heck is the man supposed to do? Does anyone know about olive oil, or if spit is ok as long as it is not dripping into the glass collection jar?

Insemination Station September 25, 2006

We drove to Rocket Man and WTF’s house in the afternoon, and the kids enjoyed some playtime then we had an early dinner. Yes, they gave us sperm AND cooked the following meal for us: ribs, mediteranian coucous, swiss chard, fresh corn, and a tamale for S who is vegetarian.

It was all very lovely. The only sucky part was the part where I pulled the sperm out of the vajayjay with the speculum.

I KNOW you are not supposed to use one. WE THOUGHT WE WERE PROS. We thought we, well I thought I, could get that thing out without pulling all the sperm out with it.

Why, you ask, would I think this nonsense? Clearly I am insane.

I am clutsy. I trip. I break things. Why would I ever think I could be a ninja inseminator?

I’m surprised the whole thing did not end up on the floor, with me trying to scrape off “just the top” like you would with a cheesecake that splatted on the floor.

We’ll consider this the practice run, since the timing is unlikely anyway.

They are great, and we left later that evening. Not weird at all. I keep expecting to feel like we are making a giant mistake, or get all freaked out that we are using Yuppie Rocket Man’s (his name is now Rocket Man, but I’ll add an adjective now and again) sperm, who we have known for so many years. But it just isn’t weird.

We go back on Wednesday, day of O, to try again.

The end.

Welcome whatthef*ck September 23, 2006

My very good friend in real life, we’ll call her WTF, has decided to start her own blog. Really, WTF just felt amazed by all of the support and honesty here in blogland. She has found no such support and realism by smart, sassy, interesting people elsewhere. Neither have I. Y’all ROCK. Hard.

She is going to talk about about her experiences TTC another baby after 3 dead ones (two 1st trimester miscarriages, one at 22 weeks, see my post about helping her through it). My experience with her was so profoundly sad for me that at the time I could barely even write about it.

I am telling all of you about her blog because whatthef*ck (yes that is the screen name she chose, you just have to love her right away) is funny and smart. She is one of the most honest people I have ever met.

But please, people, this is not a blog for the faint of heart.

She is brazen and honest, no pulled punches, ever.

And she is our new KD’s wife…is that weird or what?

You could read her side of donorship too, though the donorship issue is not such a giant deal to them. She probably won’t talk much about it, but who knows.

So I wanted to publicly welcome here here in blogland, even though she feels she does not belong. But she does! We are nothing if not a very diverse group of misfits who enjoy the humor in our fucked up attempts at babymaking and parenthood.

Project Baby #2 with Fresh Sperm From KD #5 September 23, 2006

People, we have officially decided to move forward with our new KD. This will be KD number FIVE, after TWO frozen donors.

Recent calculations indicate that S will have had 3 different men’s sperm in her in 3 months. That is some serious action. Maybe her eggs just like one night stands. The sluts.

We shall call him…I can’t think of anything good. I couldn’t with our last KD either. Any suggestions? He plays basketball. He’s smart, with a well paid corporate type of job. He loves wine and cheese. He is a mellow guy.

But of course there is a snag. There had to be one, right?

He will be out of town from Sunday night to Wednesday afternoon.

S ovulates on Wednesday.

Not ideal, really. We decided that we should drive over there on Sunday night and do the first insem, in case she ovulates early. Timing wise that means that by Tuesday night, the sperm will have been out for 48 hours…by Wednesday morning 2 1/2 days. This is still worth it right? Then the next insem will be on Wednesday at 6:00 pm.

Like wam bam please give us some junk and then drive yourself to the airport…then hi, please do not pause on your way to the bathroom (bedroom?) as soon as you walk in the door after a tiring business trip, and no self servicing in the mean time.

What can I say, we are demanding lesbians.

I am hoping this timing is not totally fucked up. I’m tempted to be really mean and bitchy to S, or have a fake meltdown so she gets stressed out and ovulates late.

Just kidding, mostly.

SCREEEEEECH **With Update** September 21, 2006

You ready?

Some friends of ours, a straight married couple with 2 kids, just offered to be our donor. They offered before, and all of us just decided no.

She offered again today. Why? Because she has been thinking about it a great deal, and then, she read my blog. I knew she might. I gave her a link to unwellness, because Bri is so fucking awesome I felt a duty to tell my friend who has had 3 miscarriages and had only found crazy religious stupid people in an online “loss group”. And said friend is funny and has a wicked dark sense of humor that I adore and she is a smart realist, so I knew she would dig Bri. Anyhoo, I digress.

Concerns:

1. This is the friend of mine who has had a few miscarriages. Yeah. Dead babies. What if she gets pregnant again at the same time as S and then her baby dies again? When I asked her, this is the gist of what she said was (in my words using Sacha’s analogy for a different purpose) if another baby dies it will suck so bad it will be a massive body of water of suck, and if [my husband] is the donor, it will only be adding a bucket of suck to the OCEAN of suck. Which makes sense to me. And I believe her.

2. The husband does not look like me (but he does have brown hair and eyes and his brother kinda looks like me).

3. Part of me thinks can’t handle another KD situation and all the potential drama that could ensue. I mean, my long time readers KNOW the depths of the drama we have experienced in our KD search.

On the other hand…

1. I have never felt right about using frozen sperm.

2. This situation doesn’t feel dramatic. It never has. There are not huge feelings on either side. But it is still a KD and that caould mean some complications later on, conceivably.

3. He is a great guy, kind, smart, a touch of the gay (you know - good taste in wine, clothes, he’s well groomed). And he knows what it means to be a father, to his own kids.

4. We could drive 1 1/2 hours next week to get fresh sperm. We trust them. We would sign a contract first but everything in the contract would be a non issue. They want nothing to do with raising the kid, they don’t even need to have an “uncle” relationship.

They want to give the sperm, straight up, no strings, no attachment…just here you go, have at.

Um. Fuck.

Do we have another KD?

Are we ready for this? Can we switch, AGAIN???

Fuck.

**Morning update: we are leaning towards saying yes. It just sounds very appealing. S, especially, is feeling pretty sure it is a good choice for us. S has no big internal dialogue about it…she feels like if we say yes, she won’t be all angsty and wondering if we made the right decision. I am leaning towards yes too, but I always have angst about my decisions. Also we have 2 vials purchased already. It is possible to sell them to another couple at the sperm bank if our donors waiting list gets full. What do you think people, have we gone mad? **

I hate try #3 already (WHICH HAPPENS NEXT WEEK). September 19, 2006

I’m so over it.

To save money, I will do the IUIs. Yes, you heard me. ME.

The whole thing is actually not complicated, and after last time with the tanaculum fiasco, well… we would rather me take an hour than do that again with Dr. Poor Social Skills. I know it is fairly standard, but the midwife told us that if you wiggle and try you can often do it without using a torture device. I think the western medical profession just hasn’t bothered to research anything else. I mean do you think that they would use a tanaculum on a man’s balls? HELLS NO.

Plus, it really is not that hard. I’m just gonna do it. I know about the whole sterile field and it may take me an hour, with beads sweat of sweat running down my forehead but hopefully not anywhere else.

Last time I did the second insem at home, and I got really hot (from the STUPID glaring light we use) and I brushed the STUPID catheter on S’s STUPID unwashed thumb, ruining the sterile field and forcing me to just do an ICI (intracervical instead of intrauterine). I didn’t want to risk infection by introducing a non strile object into the uterus.

I felt like giant dork, and it was an expensive mistake.

This time I will be all kinds of serious.

I will focus like a sperm wielding bisexual Ninja inseminator.