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We are currently on holiday.
Normal service will resume next week.

or……

This month is a bust as well – they (KD couple) didn’t make it back from hols in time for us to try this month (as we thought), so we’ve made a last minute decision to go away for a week and have some “us” time.

PKD will be coming round for dinner when get back, to give us his answer. We’re not hopeful.

Nothing to report

Ain’t nothing happening here.
Just waiting.
And wallowing.

We’re both feeling quite down and pessimistic about the whole baby thing at the moment. Being forced to re-evaluate our plans means possibly letting go of some of our wishes about how we wanted this thing to happen. So, what, big deal, not like we’re the first. But it feels crappy. And having all this time to dwell on it feels crappy too.

I’m still reading the boards and stalking the blogs, but I haven’t got any happiness to spread and I haven’t got anything to say. It all feels so distant; I don’t feel involved at the moment. In fact, I don’t feel anything much, other than tearful.

So we sit and wait for KD and PKD to return from their holidays (oh yeah, that’s another thing – WE want a holiday. Fat chance!). We’re half expecting one to arrive back too late for our next ovulation and the other to return bearing bad news. And in the mean time I’ll probably continue fret about the UK sperm donor crisis, eat crap, drink too much and feel guilty.

And I swear, if one more well meaning (straight) friend tells me that they know it will happen for us soon, I may do something that I’ll regret at Her Majesty’s pleasure. It ISN’T “just going to happen” for us; it ISN’T “going to happen one day”, no matter how sure you are; it ISN’T “going to happen when we aren’t really expecting it”; it ISN’T “going to happen if we just relax a bit about the whole thing”. GET THIS – IT ISN’T GOING TO HAPPEN AT ALL UNLESS WE CAN GET SOME FUCKING SPERM!!!!!!!!

While We Wait…

After continuing to mope a bit, and deciding it wasn’t much fun, Vee and I opened some wine instead. After one of our Epic Chats, it became obvious to us that we’re not really banking on our mate to say yes, but we’re not quite ready to give up on men and go down the clinic route either.

So, rather flippantly, we thought we’d look for the list of men we wrote down last year when we were originally only *contemplating* TTC, just to see what it said, and if there was anything we had missed. (Can I just add here that it was a list of random men that we knew, with no aims or objectives, just so that er, we had a list-type thing to hand to help us think!)

Anyway after discovering – with mild horror – that we had lost the aforementioned list, we decided to compile a new one. Unlike last year’s casually thrown together list, this one was much shorter, and thoughtfully we added a pro or con beside each name. The wine helped, and we feel so much better now, simply cos we are Doing Something, rather than sitting and waiting for the verdict, even though what we are doing probably isn’t very useful…. after all, the ‘con’ next to one of the names on our list states “She’s a lady.” …!

Obviously we are hoping our list of men (and woman!) won’t be needed, either because we quickly get pregnant by KD#1 before he disappears again, or because our gay friend will say he gets it, and he didn’t really want kids anyway because he hates them really and doesn’t know what he was thinking in the first place, and we can all talk about it and there will be no problem and everyone will be happy. But that all seems too impossible and perfect, so while we wait, we’re on the wine and the lists.

Rather understandably, I would say!?

- jay x

How did we get HERE?

The comments some of you so kindly left on my last post made me realise that I don’t think we’ve ever explained on here about why and how we came to choose the KD route, or why we’ve asked the people we have, so I thought I’d try and set that to rights.

Way back when, before we’d really started talking about having a child in any depth, a very dear (straight, older) friend told us that, many years ago, he’d had some of his swimmers put on ice before having the snip, on the offchance that he’d meet someone he wanted to have a family with. He never did meet that special person, which is kind of sad, but he is much loved by those around him and is now well past the time in his life when fatherhood may have seemed like something to wish for. He offered them to us and his offer came with no strings.

This seemed like the perfect opportunity. Oh, those heady days of knowing nothing about the legalities and complexities of the fertility clinic industry!! By the time we’d figured out that for this to happen all three of us were going to have to be subjected to lengthy (and expensive) counselling, that the swim team would have to be moved half way across the country to a clinic that actually took lesbians onto their books, that we’d need a second mortgage to pay for all this and that the sample motility count was rather feeble and probably not worth it anyway, we were utterly committed to the idea of starting a family.

At this point we took a step back and started to think about the options open to us now. Our “frozen donor” was so supportive of us finding another way to do this and remains excited about our TTC. I did a lot of reading, as is my wont, and Jay did a lot of listening, as I proudly displayed my new found knowledge. And we did A LOT OF TALKING!

We eventually concluded that, if at all possible, we would like to conceive our child without medical intervention and that we wanted to be able to tell the child who it was that had helped us make them, and that that person should be (again, if possible) someone we knew, someone who was in our lives and had helped us specifically, because they wanted US to be mummies. We were also sure that we did not want a third parent. Absolutely no disrespect to others who have made different choices, this is just what we felt would work for us.

With that tall order all wrapped up, we set about making The List. Believe me, it didn’t take long! I mean, we didn’t really know that many blokes who either had their own family already, or who didn’t want/were past wanting to be fathers and who also thought we’d be good parents and cared enough to help us get there. (Oh yeah, and who hadn’t had the snip – that was 2 out for starters!)

Our first KD (straight couple) fit this bill pretty much to a tee, or so we thought. But what we didn’t factor in and are now fast discovering is that, actually, there’s not much in it for them and I guess it’s only natural that would have an impact on their level of commitment. To be honest, I’ve been so wrapped up in what this process means to us that it’s come as a rude awakening to discover that others aren’t equally obsessed by it!

Anyhow, our decision to ask this other (gay) guy was based on the same criteria. We genuinely assumed he didn’t want kids. I mean, we’ve known him for a total of 15 years between us and never once has he mentioned it, not once. Even in passing. Shit!

If he says yes, it will of course only be a yes to the possibility that he feels he might be able to do it. I suspect further, deeper conversations will lead to an impasse and he’ll need to withdraw the offer. We were upfront with him. We did say we want a donor not a dad, but I’m not sure how much he took in – he just looked a bit shell-shocked. Whatever hard things we, as lesbians, have to contend with in this crazy journey to parenthood, it’s nothing really to where gay men are at. Sperm is a hell of a lot easier to come by than a uterus.

Jay and I are not in the happiest of places right now. On top of worrying that we have just seriously fucked up one of our good friends, we’re realising that parts of our dream might need to be compromised and that we need to adjust our expectations accordingly. On the plus side, it’s not the first time we’ve had to reassess and we’ve got through it ok before.

Next stop – the GP’s office, to ask for a clinic referral.
vee

Can of worms

Well, we did it.
He came over and we asked him.
Actually, it went really well – we had a full and frank discussion and he’s gone away to think about it.

The moment he left, Jay and I just looked at each other and shook our heads. Neither of us can see it happening. Even if he says yes, I think we’re going to have to decline.

Why?

Because honestly, we don’t think we could do it to him.

This guy has been a good friend to Jay for over 10 years and I’ve known him for at least 5 of those. He’s good looking, funny, healthy, trustworthy – all you could ask for in a friend or a donor. But in all of that time, he’s never mentioned wanting kids himself. Until last night.

Until last night I think he was happy with the fantasy in his head that one day he would find a lesbian from the same minority community as him that would want to produce and bring up those 3 little boy dream children with him. Was this going to happen before or after he came out to his family? We were taken aback by that revelation to say the least. Last night I think we shattered his dream with reality. By asking him, we forced him to face all the barriers between him and his dream family.

We feel sad for us, but we feel gutted for him. And guilty too.

Sigh.

vee

Plan B?

Ok, I’ve stopped sulking now. I’m “moving on”.

I’ve been so pissed off about our little let down this month that I haven’t been able to face blogging. In fact, I haven’t been able to face much at all except bad food, alcohol and kleenex. Ok, that’s an exaggeration, but seriously, this little incident got me far more worked up than another BFN would have. I mean, what a waste of all that beautiful mucus and an undoubtedly ready to roll egg!. T

Truth be told, i’m I’m a bit of a control freak and I don’t like people messing with my plans. Perhaps that’s something I should work on. But in the mean time, we have something far more exciting to work on – Plan B!

Jay and I have done a lot of talking since we got That Text. We’ve had to acknowledge that our donors are not as committed to this as we are. Of course they’re bloody well not! How naive of us to think so. We (hopefully) get the baby we so vervently desire out of this process, and they get….a dirty yogurt pot and some warm fuzzies. That’s the way we want it, but I can see why they perhaps don’t have the same kind of zeal about this mission!

So we’ve come to the conclusion that we’re going to need at least a Plan B, if not Plans C, D and E as well. (I’m a belt and braces kind of girl!)

We realised that after the seemingly endless effort to get us to where we are currently it wouldn’t actually be that much more difficult. So we’re now exploring two options –

Firstly, we could try to persuade our donor to have some of his goods put on ice for us. All we have to do is find a clinic that will play and re-mortgage the house. Oh yeah, and persuade him to find his way to a clinic, undergo more tests and do his duty (this may be the trickiest part)! Then, next time they shoot off on holiday or decide to leave the country for several months, we won’t be forced to endure a “break”.

The second option we though of was to approach someone else to be a second or back up donor. We could then try with both each month or fall back on one when the other couldn’t make it. Amazingly, we’ve even come up with someone we’d like to ask (in fact neither of us can remember why he didn’t get asked in the first place).

Not being ones to hang around (can you hear that ticking? That’s my biological clock. Loud, isn’t it?), we’ve invited him round for dinner. Tomorrow.

TOMORROW!! Oh shit! I’m so looking forward to having “that” conversation again!! Not.

Anyhow, wish us luck.
vee