In the Beginning, Part 1: Conception Story

From the very beginning our babymaking story wasn’t the one I had seen repeated in movies, TV shows, books, friends’ lives.  Collectively, these stories fused into a myth; I think we all know it:  Woman and Man have sex (presumably wild). Next month, woman runs from her desk job to vomit. Surprised but excited when the pee-test is positive, she tells the man who is also surprised but excited. She has a bit of morning sickness for approximately one episode, beyond which she is gloriously pregnant. She carries to term, but labor still comes as a comic, nervous surprise. She barely makes it to the hospital when out the baby pops!  Wipes brow and breastfeeds, etc.  The conception of this mythical baby happened in a blip, one spectacular moment. I suppose technically ours did too, though our Conception Story stretches from  October 2006 – August 2007.

October 2006 is when I decided it would be a Good Idea to take myself off my anti-depressants so that I might gracefully escort my unmedicated–and therefore more perfect–self into the romantic arena of babymaking.  (This ended up being Not A Good Idea.)  I was actively charting, with temperature-taking and ovulation-stick-peeing and cervix-feeling.

We were also figuring out where the necessary, and missing, ingredient of SPERM was going to come from.

That December, we confirmed that K would be our donor. He is a friend of W’s (Wife o’ mine) from undergrad, who now lives in Portland. Not too close and not to far from us in Seattle. We knew we really liked him, that he was a good person. He was the kind of person we could imagine doing this with: trustworthy, kind, thoughtful, gay, and seemingly in possession of good genes. We didn’t have the details completely worked out regarding how involved he would be in the baby’s life.  It wasn’t entirely clear to us how involved he wanted to be. We did make it clear, though, that he would not be the Dad; rather, this baby would have two Moms. We hoped he would want to be involved as a close Uncle. What we were asking of him was a completely selfless and huge gift. Being the type of person he is, he agreed.

Come ovulation time in January 2007, K visited us for a weekend for our first try at this. This process was more funny, awkward, and intimate than any of us could have imagined. We left the apartment while he did his thing, into a pink plastic tea cup. Then he left while we did our thing with a large needless syringe. Two weeks later, we discovered I hadn’t gotten pregnant.

For Februrary’s attempt, we went down to Portland and stayed nearly a week in a B & B, waiting for me to ovulate. These varied nights featured egg whites; a collective venture to a tupperware store for a better “collection” container; a spilled “sample”; what sounded like date-rapeish sex going on next door (very upsetting); and the three of us eating Ben & Jerry’s on the bed watching a movie afterwards.

Two weeks later, the pee stick had a big + !   The universe is showering us with kisses.  Are we really worthy?

One week later, the test at the doctor’s office was negative. I had miscarried. Heartbroken. It had been too good to be true.

This whole time I had been pretty deep in depression and anxiety. Realizing I couldn’t go on like this, I decided the imperfect me was allowed to get pregnant after all, and went back on anti-depressants. I tried several that were supposedly more pregnancy friendly, which had awful side effects and didn’t help. Finally I ended up with the one I had started with.

We took a break, and tried again in August. No charting, just a feeling that it was the right time. We went down to Portland just for the day. The whole process had gotten more familiar and a little less weird for the three of us; plus, it was so great to not be depressed and trying to start a new life at the same time. I have to say, I felt like we’d done it, like it had worked.

A week later, I was nauseus. One day I went swimming at this really beautiful park. I was walking back to the car, and looked up at this tree.

That’s when I knew I was pregnant. I burst into tears (of joy, of course) and sobbed my way back to the car.

A week later, the test was positive. We get this this time.