Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner!

Yesterday we had our appointment at the clinic to choose our donor. It was somewhat exciting and quite nerve wracking. Darling Kate' was full of nerves the night before and did not sleep too well. I was a bit worried we’d feel rushed, but it wasn't like that at all. Far from it. We spoke to Dr Sperm Lady about the cost, more legal things and also signed some more forms, before we were left alone in her office to go through the manila folders of donors.

The first donor we looked at we both liked straight away, so we put him in the ‘yes’ pile. Then we went through the others, had a bit of a giggle here and there at some of the profiles, and then put quite a few in the ‘no’ pile and two more donors in our ‘ yes’ pile. We had a top 3! I actually had read elsewhere that you needed to pick 3 in case your first pick didn’t come through for whatever reason, and then you would have backup. This wasn’t the case and we only needed to choose the one. Due to our top 3 all having great profiles, medical histories, etc, we decided in the end to go with our first donor that we both liked right from the start. It was a sign that he was right on top, the first to be seen and the one we compared the rest to. He would provide our little swimmers.

The next step now is to have our orientation day which is booked for the 19^th. And because my period came 4 days early this month, we will now begin our IVF cycle in the last week of April and will hopefully (cross fingers for us) be knocked up by mid May! 

Mardi Gras, A Birthday & Test Results

We’ve had a busy week and a half! Last weekend we had friends up from Melbourne for the Sydney Mardi Gras and this weekend we had Kate's parents up for the weekend for her birthday. But I’ll start with Mardi Gras..

Mardi Gras was……..good. Not great, but it was a fun night out. The weather was horrible, but regardless of the wind and downpour, the parade still went on. We threw on our plastic wet weather ponchos (we looked absolutely smashing!) and just sucked it up as we had front row seats due to arriving at the pub early for pre-parade beers and moving outside before the crowd arrived. Everyone lined along the parade route had umbrellas or were wearing ponchos as well, but the bright rainbow coloured flags, hats, balloons, clothes, etc, could still be seen and outnumbered the wet weather gear. The parade was bright and the participants still danced, walked, rode their way from start to finish through bouts of torrential rain..….what great sports! The only beef I have about the parade was the constant breaks between floats. Two or three floats would pass and then we’d be waiting for 10/15 minutes before more would arrive. This could have had something to do with the rain. Once the parade was over, it was off to the Mardi Gras party, which was PACKED. We stayed until Kylie Minogue performed at 2am and then headed for the exit doors of the RHI. We couldn’t get out of there quick enough due to too many people being crammed in the building. It was hot and sweaty and I’m surprised people weren’t dropping like flies. SO HOT! But Kylie put on a great performance, and overall Mardi Gras was a bunch of fun as usual.

On the Saturday (before Mardi Gras parade), I had my blood tests done and then the Friday just gone I had my internal ultrasound. That was nowhere near as awful as I thought it was going to be. It was actually quite interesting. Without going into too much detail, as the u/s lady did her thing, I could see on the screen my uterus, ovaries, lining and even the follicles in my ovaries clear as day. She pointed out 6 on each side, which is good, and measured the big one which would pop out the egg this month. She said everything looked great!

This weekend we had Kate's parents up for her birthday which is today….HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LOVELY! Yesterday we caught a ferry from Circular Quay to Watson’s Bay where we met my parents and a friend of Kate's for a nice lunch. It was the first time that all parentals were meeting each other. Happy to say it all went well and everyone came out unscathed. Then we caught the ferry back and had a few drinks at Opera Bar at the Opera House where we mingled in the lovely sunny weather…...pretty much the only hour of summer Sydney has seen.

Today we had our next appointment with our Doctor to go over our test results from the bloods and ultrasound. All looked great! She said she was very happy with it all. We signed consent forms and she went through which IVF process she thinks we should take. There are two….a short one and a long one. The doctor said she’d like us to do the short cycle one (Antagonist) which is around 15 days. Not only is it a shorter cycle, but it has less side effects and is less taxing on the body apparently. So the plan is, I’ll be due for my period on (or around) May 1^st and I should be getting knocked up around mid May and find out if it’s worked beginning of June. Tomorrow we’ll ring the fertility clinic and organise an appointment within the next week or two to choose our donor and organise our orientation to go over injections and the like.

So we’re very pleased with how things are turning out and at the pace it’s going!

"Are Your Parents Normal??" Our Counselling Session

Counsellor (who has an accent): “Are your periods normal?”

Me (shooting “M” a confused look): “huh? Parents?”

“M”: “Yeah, ya mum”

Me (looking back to counsellor): “Are my parents normal???” (thinking to myself….define normal)

Counsellor: “Are your PERIODS normal?”

Me: “OH! Yes, yes they’re normal”

Yesterday afternoon we had our mandatory counselling session for the baby-making process. I had been stressing about it for a week. What questions will they ask? Is there a right/wrong answer? Will she put a big red FAIL stamp next to our names? If so, can we resit the counselling test in 4 weeks? I was more nervous about this session than I was going for my driver’s licence…...for the second time (I failed the first time).

All that worrying wasn’t necessary. The purpose of the counselling session is to talk to couples using donor sperm about things that may arise within your family unit after having a child in a same sex family. She asked us questions like, what will you tell the child when he/she asks why “Johnny” has a mum & a dad & they don’t? How will you tell the child? She asked about our own family backgrounds and environments and also our relationship. We discussed our support systems, our family and friends. She also talked to us about using an unknown donor and all that it involves and why we decided on that route. We went over the legalities as well. There was really nothing to be nervous about. Everything we discussed in our counselling session, Kate and I had already talked about anyway, as I’m sure a lot of people going through this process will have done before getting to this stage.

We passed with flying colours and I couldn’t wait to get out of there. It felt like sitting in the boss’s office. We walked out with a sigh of relief that we could cross that step off our list and we were now one step closer to having a baby. Kate cracked a few funnies about my parents being normal and we headed home to make pizzas.

Now we just wait for my period to arrive so I can have my blood tests and ultrasound before our next scheduled Drs appointment. It’s the first time since getting my period at the age of 12 that I’m actually hanging for it to get here. It better not be late, dammit!

The closer we get, the MORE exciting it gets. This is really happening!

IVF appointment numero uno

Today was our first appointment to get the ball rolling. We saw a lovely Doctor (a Gynaecologist linked to the fertility clinic we’ll attend)  who went through the whole IVF process with us, how ovulating works, what the  injections do and she also gave me the blood test sheet that states what I need to get tested for. I have to get these blood tests on day 2, 3 or 4 of my next period due early March. They’ll be testing for STIs, my hormone levels, and about 20 other things that I can’t think of off the top of my head. The week after my period, I’ll go in for an internal ultrasound (fun times) to have a look at my ovaries and the like. Kate got her tests done there and then, also testing for STIs. She didn’t flinch when she had the blood drawn. It will be a different story with me. Something I better get over quick smart! Our results will be sent back to our Doc and our next appointment will be on the 12^th of March to go over them, sign consent forms, and go onto the next step….off to the fertility clinic to choose our anonymous international sperm donor and have orientation, where we’ll be shown how to use the injections and so forth.

After answering some questions about my medical history, period history, smoking, drinking, etc, the Doctor said she was really optimistic about us having success quite quickly. Obviously she can’t say she’s %100 sure it will happen, but again, quite optimistic. That was great to hear!

In the meantime, we’re booked in to have a counselling session in a week and a half, I assume to make sure we’re sane parenting material. If I thought today was nerve wracking, I have another thing coming. I’m imagining it will be like sitting in the principal’s office, getting quizzed on all things lesbian parenting and having to give the right answers. Is it a pass/fail thing? Will we be told we’re too cray-cray to parent a baby and be turned away? I’ll be sure to tell Kate not to make her “bug eyes” during the session, which she thinks is hilarious.

At this stage, we’re hoping to begin IVF mid May, but it could be June. Either way, we’re very excited and looking forward to what lies ahead for us!

Introduction

I’ve been rather excited about starting this blog for months and now I’m feeling nervous. Although immediate family have known about our TTC (trying to conceive) plans since the beginning, and have been more than supportive, I’m nervous about how other family and friends will react to the news of our plans to have a baby. As much as I want to share all the ups and downs of TTC with everyone, I’m nervous about that, too. I’ve been reading TTC blogs for about 6 months now, and just about everything I know about IVF and same sex couples trying to conceive, have come from these blogs. I want our blog to be a source of information for future couples preparing to embark on this journey, just like the great blogs I’ve been reading. It’s also cheap therapy! But most importantly, the purpose of this blog is to document everything in the hopes of showing it to our future child sometime down the track.

Kate, my loving other half, and I met via Twitter about 2 years ago and became firm friends. We met in person and then started a relationship just over a year ago and are now happily engaged and living in Sydney. My desire to have a baby has never been a secret and we started discussing in June/July last year when the right time to have a baby would be. We both decided to start sooner rather than later, after reading and hearing of stories where conceiving a baby has taken years. We organised our private health insurance, started saving, and attended a same sex baby making seminar at a fertility clinic. In December, I had my lady parts poked and prodded to make sure everything looked right to go and received our doctor’s referral for our VERY FIRST appointment to get the ball rolling, which will be in February. Then there’s a 3 month cooling off period (I’m pretty sure the last 7 months has been adequate enough) before we actually begin IVF, either at the end of May or the end of June. We’re very excited and a little scared.

Practice Post

This is just a dry run. I'm impatient and wanted to start playing with our blog, but we're not actually going to begin posting until the new year.

Watch this space!