Good luck charms

We are spending this weekend doing a few things:
1. Watching these adorable babes, the bug and the bee, while their parents have an anniversary get away.
2. Inseminating for our fifth cycle

I’m hoping that my two favorite babies will give us some extra good baby luck. I like to think that the bug and the bee are rooting for us to be mamas just as much as their mom and dad are.

Not like I need any excuses to rub baby bellies…and it sure can’t hurt.

Dear All of You

I just got a big squishy feeling in my heart for all the really rad folks out there who follow my blog and those whose blogs I follow (a largely overlapping but not 100% the same list.) This shit is hard, and I’m really glad I have all of you – even though we don’t know one another in so many ways.

I’m kind of cynical about the internet/social networking. My experience with collective living and political action makes me a skeptical of if and how these kinds of networks can actually benefit us, instead of just making us feel more isolated. All y’all are proving to me the importance of these kinds of networks. And, I still hope that you all know that if you show up in Denver, La and I have a spare room for you to stay in, and by August we should have fresh eggs too.

Thank you for showing me there are many stories about how queer people parent, become parents and build families. Thank you for proving the stories I make up in my head aren’t the whole truth. Thank you for keeping track of my cycles and sending love at just the right moment. Thank you for sharing your stories so I have hope to hold on to even when my experience feels crummy. Thank you for opening your lives and worlds so I am reminded that my perspective is only one minuscule part of the whole.

Heart,

AL

A little something

I am so very glad to be back in Denver, where things run my speed and things are only occasionally visually overwhelming, where my dogs cuddle on my feet, where there is more quiet than not, where the best things are not for sale, where my home and life and beautiful partner all reside.

Which is not to say that Las Vegas was all bad. I saw a good show (Cirque’s Zumanity), I drank a very large frozen mudslide in a souvenir cup (something I haven’t done ever before but which you should probably do before you have a kid, right?), I won $500 playing a few different penny slots (my big wins were on Deal or NO Deal and Ghostbusters), I ate some really amazing food, I got to spend some good time with one of my besties. I also didn’t think about having a baby (well, much) for three whole days.

But its cycle day 10 and time to start peeing on sticks, time to be a little worried about the amount I second hand smoked in those damned casinos and the drinks I first hand drank all over Las Vegas, time to start planning when BFF will be here and how we will survive the wait.

Today we bought a grill with my winnings and made bread in the breadmaker and sat in the gorgeous yard we have created. Today I thought about having a baby, but it felt possible instead of hopeless.

Vascillation

I want to tell stories, but I don’t feel like I have a lot to say. Nothing worth the bandwidth this post will take up, anyway.

I’m a little more flatly sad than I would like to be, a week out from another failed try. This past weekend was all jagged crying and sinking, stabbing hearts. Now I feel dry and not-quite-hopeless but also not hopeful. It feels like this is just the ways things are right now . . . the pattern of wait-hope-wait-cry is just the cycle my life follows. For now. I have had other lousy looped tracks consume my life, and always they have changed. So while I can’t really believe in things getting better – in the sense of seeing the hope crest on a horizon – I also know they will. That’s the particular human contradiction I’m feeling right now.

But we all know there’s nothing that can cure a bout of lifeless sadness like the artifice of plastic american culture! Tomorrow, I head off to Vegas for two days with my high roller buddy. This friend, who I can’t help but feel a modicum of jealousy towards, has won three or four big jackpots at the local casino in the last 6 months. These jackpots altogether likely eclipse my annual income. For this reason, I do not have my usual guilt hang-up about the fact that she is paying for pretty much everything on this trip. Bring on the false reality, the craps games, the frozen drinks. I am due for something totally unreal.

In other news . . .

I made an appointment for myself, La and BFF to visit the OB/GYN practice that our friends recommended. I’m hoping the fact that the receptionist didn’t bat a (verbal) eye when I told her our situation will mean it will be smooth sailing for our alternative conception realness. Because these kinds of things never actually align they way they should, the appointment is scheduled for the day we will (likely) know whether our impending try works or not. That feels both auspicious and also just really dumb. What’re you gonna do, y’know?

A week after this poorly timed appointment/possible date of good news, La and I will finally go on our ‘honeymoon’ – which I guess is somewhat appropriate since our relationship only recently gained any sort of legal legitimacy. I am hoping to get all of the pregnancy no-nos out of the way BEFORE the trip to cancun so that I can be forced to drink virgin daiquiris and have miserable morning sickness. Just kidding. Sort of. I actually wouldn’t complain at all, since my understanding of the first trimester is that it will kind of generally suck no matter where you are – so why not have it suck in paradise?

Gawd. I’m sorry I’m so grumpy. Maybe it also has something to do with being trapped in a basement . . .er . . .”garden level” office when it is the one week in Colorado where it is not scorchingly hot but also not snowing. And the chickens are finally outside being all cute and chickeny in their run, and I’d really just rather be outside with them. Cletus gets it.

 

Be careful what you wish for

Andie: I think I’d rather get my period than a negative pregnancy test.
Uterus: ok, cool. I’ll have your period come early so that can happen.
Andie: fuck you, uterus. That’s not what I meant.
Uterus: shoulda been more specific . . .

That’s right friends, the red tide rolled up on the shore today. I took an HPT too. Why not? I have a stack if cheapies and after all, some minute percentage of women get a period when pregnant, right?

So we are on to try #5. BFF is going to get to a doctor sometime soonish to get the swim team checked out. The upsides to a negative this month:
– I can drink gin and tonics in Las Vegas next weekend
– I can go to Elitch Gardens, the local amusement park, and ride roller coasters before we get knocked up

The last couple of days we got to talk with some newish friends, one who conceived her son with an ex partner 12 years ago and is now a lawyer specializing in LGBT family law, and another couple who are trying to conceive the same way we are but have been working on it much longer. It was nice to have some conversations with people who get what we are experiencing and can give us some information and perspective. Best of all, we got a recommendation for an obgyn who is super down with the at home DIY inseminations and will also do some infertility testing and treatment if needed.

Thanks again for all the wishes, prayers, baby dust and good will. We will need them again in a few weeks.

Heart!

Holding out

I was planning not to post until after a full 14+ days had elapsed since ovulation. Why? Well, because there is nothing more obnoxious than listening to me try and spot symptoms when you and I both know that there are hardly ever symptoms to spot before an HPT is accurate. And now that I am becoming a somewhat old hat at this two week wait business, I’m so over telling anyone what’s going on with my ladybits in hope that they can magically predict what will become decidedly apparent in a few short (loooooong) days.

So, back up.
This past Monday I left Denver for Oakland, to participate in a training of trainers on a bad ass sexual health program called FLASH. As I may have mentioned, this made me nervous. Although maybe it shouldn’t. As it turns out, my bag never made it on the flight to Oakland, so I spent the first day wandering around Jack London square feeling sorry for myself and deciding if it was worth the BART ride out to target to get clean underwear or if I should just hold out for my bag. I are some BBQ and I enjoyed the magically Luke warm Bay Area weather and then I bought a toothbrush and went to bed. The next few days went quickly – full days of great training and dinner with colleagues and then with some friends who have moved to the bay.
Today was another day of training but this time it dragged. And now I’ve been sitting at the airport waiting for a flight ( my first was so delayed that I would have missed my connecting flight, so I was transferred to a later direct flight) and basically freaking out.

Today is 12DPO. For the last three tries, we have tested on this day, as the earliest day to get a pretty reliable result. This go around I decided I wanted to wait until the day my period was supposed to start, which is Sunday. I am quickly losing my resolve.

I have felt shockingly calm during this wait. I’ve also felt hopeful. I’m sure this is because we did new and different things and god knows how badly I want to be responsible for accomplishing this thing, even though I can’t be. Regardless, I’ve been hopeful. And it’s been really nice.

Today, I stuck my finger in my vag to check my cervical fluid and pulled out creamy type stuff tinged pink. To be clear, I rarely spot, although it has been known to happen. It’s usually really brown when it does, and it’s rare, like I said. So initially, I thought “maybe this is good news!”

However, subsequent trips to the loo have found me anxiously checking my fluid over and over and losing a little hope each time. And now, of course, I am feeling things that don’t feel hopeful – maybe some cramps, maybe some constipation, maybe feeling like I want to sob in the middle of terminal 1 because I’m so sad at how many babies there are everywhere and I have no ability to filter my feelings.

So now I don’t know if I can hold out. On the one hand, if I’m grasping at straws and this is “implantation bleeding” or some such nonsense, then tomorrow probably isn’t early enough to get a positive, right? On the other, omg I kind of need to have something substantial to hold on to right now and I don’t know if I can hold out. I figure I will have some clue tomorrow morning based on my temperature, which has always dropped the day before I bleed, in the year I have been tracking. If it doesn’t drop, I’m doing it. I’m peeing on a fucking stick.

I will happily take whatever advice, posi woo or general words of wisdom you have to impart. Sill hoping the fourth will be with us.

One more! Waiting outside to get into the City and County building!

Not the post I wanted to write

Ugh. I have really been wanting to post my experience from last Tuesday/Wednesday, when La and I went and got civil union #42 in the state of Colorado. It was magical and kind of overwhelming, and I really want to do it justice. I write the Spirituality and Religion feature for our local GLBT rag and will be putting my thoughts down for that in any case, and the blog seems like a good place to sort my thoughts. But I just can’t do it right now, y’all.

I am including some pictures (some which you could have also spied on NPR or the Denver Post (?!) because there was so much media. This is kind of fucking with my self esteem. But that’s another post, too. They follow the post!

My baby making anxiety is often quelled by writing about the experience, and reading about all of yours. So, in the interest of staying sane, I’m writing a brief TTC update instead of the lavish and lovely experience of finally having my relationship legally recognized in the state where I live and love. It’s a’comin!

• Its CD19 and looking likely to also be 2DPO. We did inseminations on CD11, CD13, CD15, CD16, CD17. All this according to the Sperm Meets Egg plan. That seems like we ought to have fully covered our bases, so let’s up the mightiest swimmers have intercepted the most beautiful egg and are happily dividing in my fallopian tube right now.
• The Advanced ClearBlue Easy Ovulation Prediction Kit SUCKS. I will be writing a more eloquent and comprehensive review on amazon.com, but for my readers who might feel inspired to go drop the $$ on one – don’t do it. Its confusing and doesn’t appear to line up with other fertility signs, including the regular CBE OPK.
• We upped our game on the acupuncture, and I went in for three days in a row during inseminations. This is only possible because of community acupuncture clinics, so I wanna give a shout out to Meeting Point and all the other community acupuncture places that put this kind of treatment in the reach of those of us who don’t have a lot of money.
• I’m on the post ovulation herbs and they are WAY more pungent than the pre O. It might be time to invest in some juice to chase that, because my hippie-woo ends when the herbs become nasty not just herby.
• We had dinner with La’s sister-in-law last night, who was in town briefly. Over Xmas, when we talked about making babies, she was weirdly quiet – not at all typical for her. We brought it up a few times last night and she was still quiet and unengaging, only saying ‘all in due time’ over and over again. La’s family is way more conservative than mine. She has two brothers – one who is a big dude on campus at a super duper conservative mega church in Indiana – and another who is awesome. This sister-in-law is the awesome brother’s wife. She has always been kind to me, and we can laugh and joke. Her kids are amazing and they recognize me fully as their aunt. I hit the mother-in-law jackpot with La’s mom, and even her 87 year old granpa is good to me. But there are some real assholes in the mix, too. I mention all of this because its really breaking my heart and making me angry that K (the sister in law) is being weird and cold about this, when she has otherwise been great. It feels confusing. It feels like she is ok with us being gay but not with involving a child, or that she is changing her mind, or something. I’d like to think she’s just squicked out about the actual baby making but she isn’t even response to benign things. I was shaking with anger last night, so its clearly under my skin.
• I head to Oakland next week for a training and I’m nervous about spending the second half of the wait alone. I’ll be busy and engaged, but I’ll also have some unstructured time without my usual support system around.

And now, some pictures! (with the new haircut, too – La’s in the bowtie)