First tries

Well, the time finally came and we had our first of two tries at insemination for this month. Logistically, it was not as bad or oogie as we thought it would be. I guess it was a little weird for Teal to go pick it up from our donor. That has to be an awkward conversation! I am glad I was at home anxiously awaiting her arrival rather than having to pick up his "donation". He's very sweet about it though, and funny as always. Turns out he is rather excited about the outcome as well, which is cool. It's been a week since we tried and we have another week to wait to see if it worked. I am counting the days, but know it can be a range of two or three days that I should expect my period--and hopefully not get it! My friends and Mom, are waiting for good news as well. I sure hope to have good news for them all! We should know by the weekend.......

Any day now....

Any day now, it will be time. We're finally ready to actually start trying to conceive. Everyone keeps asking me if I am nervous, but I really don't think I am. I am more anxious about dealing with this new chapter in the friendship between us and our donor. It's a very strange thing to ask someone for. It's much more intimate than I ever thought I would be with someone who is not my wife. It's not physical intimacy of course, but it is pretty weird to talk about him giving us his sperm, the sterile cups he will put it in, him abstaining for 48 hours to provide the best donation, that sort of thing. He could not possibly be sweeter about the whole weird thing. He is such a wonderful guy! But it is just the slightest bit weird.

Teal and I are both very excited to get started. Only a few days away now. A few weeks from now, I could potentially be pregnant! I am not thinking it will definitely happen on our first try, though it is possible. It is really exciting to get started though. We have been together 9 years. We have built a wonderful life together and gotten to know each other much more than most people who decide to have children (or have them by accident) ever do. We truly believe we are ready, and we are both very excited for this new part of our lives.

For real this time.....

Ok, so we didn't actually get to have our first try in June. It turns out that we weren't quite on track with the temperature chart. I happen to have two temperature surges, and we off a bit on when I was actually ovulating. Good thing we have the ovulation monitor from our good friends Kim and Rose! I would highly recommend getting one to anyone trying to conceive!! The Clear Blue Easy Fertility monitor, a very worthy investment!!

So, our first try will actually be in a few weeks. It turns out it's better that way because our donor will be living back in the area by then anyway. A few friends have asked me if I am nervous about the first try. I'm not, yet. I don't know if I will be though. I am really super excited to get started. I have several friends who are pregnant, just had their baby, or are about to receive a baby through adoption. I desperately want to join that club!! I am so very jealous of all of them, though I am ecstatic for them all for sure! I was hoping to be pregnant for my birthday this year, but that would mean we would have to succeed on our first try. I am not counting that out because it is definitely possible, but I am also realistic and not getting my hopes up too much. I know that when it is meant to be, it will be. But, it sure would make a nice birthday present!!!! Here's hoping!!

Almost time!!

It's only a few more weeks before we start trying to conceive. We got some good news recently about several things. First, it turns out that our donor will be coming back to the area full time!! He will move back at the end of July, so we will only have to have his sperm shipped to us for the first try. Some really great friends gave us their fertility monitor to use and I have been using that to make sure I am on the right track to predict my most fertile days. We met with our lawyer and have set up all possible legal protections we can with our decision to try at home. Since our donor won't be legally considered a donor, we needed to put the most legal protections possible in place. Our initial donor agreement will be modified to show our intent as well as our donor's. When the baby is born, our donor will sign a relinquishment of parental rights, and Teal will apply for joint conservatorship over the baby. This should protect us, the baby, and our donor. We can't wait to get started trying for the baby!!

Better news

When we found out about the silly laws in Texas and the FDA recommendations, we were pretty upset and lost. For a few days, we were pretty distraught. We didn't know how we were going to accomplish getting pregnant. We really wanted to use our known donor, but weren't sure if that would now be possible. We wanted to make sure to have him as a donor and not a father, and he wants this too. So, we decided to go about it a different way. Despite Texas law, we thought that if he would be ok with us trying to conceive at home that we could draw up enough contracts and such to keep both parties safe. So, we decided to ask him if he would be ok with that, and if not we would go with an unknown donor from one of the many cryobanks in the U.S. that will ship anonymous donor sperm to hopeful couples. I did a lot of research in preparation for a negative answer from our donor, and found many excellent resources. I am, however, very happy to report that our donor is open to trying at home and we plan to start trying in early July!! Our donor is working out of state quite a bit these days, so we have found a way that he can ship his donations to us. We have calls in to our lawyer to make sure and draw up the proper protections for us all. We can't wait to get started!!

Texas Law (is lame).

Just wanted to include some background on the Texas law issues that we ran into, forcing us to change our plans, in case anyone runs into the same issues.

Texas law says that in order for a known donor to be legally considered a donor and not a father (with all the rights of a father), the insemination must be done by a physician. The problem with this is that the FDA prevents physicians from using fresh donor sperm. They don't outlaw it completely, you just have to get the sperm tested for diseases two weeks ahead of time and sign a contract saying that you know the risks of doing so (which are that some diseases can be present but not detectable yet). That is IF you can find a doctor willing to perform the procedure that way. Otherwise, as the FDA recommends, you must have the donor make several donations, test it, freeze it for SIX MONTHS, and then test it again before use. IF the donor's semen survived the freezing process, which apparently 1 in 6 men's sperm will not do. Another problem in Texas is being able to find a cryobank that is willing to work with known donors. There are several out of state, but the closest one to Texas is in Colorado.

Are we surprised that things are so difficult in Texas? Well, in the end I guess not. At first we were surprised and upset but now that we know, and can share this information with others, we are on to better things.

It's still gonna happen...

So, though it was quite a blow to not be able to do things the way we were planning, we have moved on. After kind of a rough few days, we started thinking about other options and ideas. And now we have a few new directions in which to head toward. We're not exactly sure which way will work out, but we know that one of them will for sure. We need to talk with our donor about some things, and if things don't work out that way, we have another plan. It will all be ok. We have been buying diapers in early preparation for our baby, and we bought some more today. As we loaded them into the car, Teal said "I love that we buy diapers, I feel like it's our way of saying to the universe 'This is going to happen one way or another". I loved it! It sums it all up perfectly. It may not be the way we had planned initially, but we are going to have a baby!

Setbacks

So, we had our first appointment with the doctor we were going to use on Tuesday. I had spoken to them four separate times, making sure to ask if the work with known donors and if there was any kind of wait to use the donor sperm. They said no problem. We got to the doctor, waited for entirely too long just to have them come out and say that they weren't aware we had a known donor. They said that they don't really work with known donors. They said they might consider it if the sperm could be frozed and stored at a cryobank for 6 months while it was tested. They weren't sure if there is a cryobank in the area that would do this however. They say it's all to do with the FDA. It doesn't really matter the reasoning though, our dreams to start a family were just pushed back another half year.

We were heartbroken. We thought we were all ready to go, ready to start trying to have a baby in the next month! Now, we are nothing short of extremely conflicted. Do we try to find a cryobank that will help us, and if one exists, wait the six months? Do we give up on using our known donor and go with an unknown frozed donor from out of state? It's been a rough week and we have some thinking to do for sure!

More history and such

We met with our wonderful donor once again to get some more history on him and talk about our next steps. We were able to see his baby book, home videos, and pictures of him growing up. We got to read and hear stories about him as a youngster, and even got to see his school grades and awards. This is just the kind of thing we would not have been able to see on an anonymous donor. It was great to be able to see what he and even his sister looked like as children, as well as get some background on him and the rest of his family. We even found out that he was 10lbs, 10oz when he was born!!

Upon seeing a regular ob/gyn to discuss our plans, they had us take a specimen cup to our donor for him to have a semenalysis. We gave him that information and he was able to get an appointment set to drop off his sample. Things were moving right along!

Waiting for an answer

Our chosen donor is a thinker. He thinks through ALL decisions, evaluating every possible option, ultimately making the best possible choice. This is an fantastic quality for a person to have, especially a person with whom you are making a life-altering decision. HOWEVER, it is a rather long process when the fate of your future rests in this person's hands. It was a looong wait, very long. He asked a few questions, we got him answers. He thought and researched, asked opinions of family and friends, and thought some more. Finally, we got the answer we had been waiting for. He said YES!!! And we made plans to meet and discuss more logistics.

Finding a donor

Teal and I felt pretty strongly about having a known donor. We wanted our children to be able to see the person who had helped bring them into the world. We did not want him to be a father, rather on the contrary, we did not want him to have any rights to the children at all. We just wanted him to be available in case our kids had any questions about where they came from. We wanted him to be there so they could look at him and say that he helped to give them life. We didn't want our donor to be some random, anonymous guy out in the world that we and our children had to imagine.
We thought of all the guys we know who might be possibilities and eliminated them one by one. At the end, we had come to the best option, a really great guy we have known for 8 years. Because we didn't want to spring it on him at random, we emailed him first to bring up the question. "What would you think about donating sperm?" We then met for lunch to discuss it. We asked each other a lot of questions, from family history to logistics to the child's future. We set a date for him to make his decision and left him to think about our request.....

Starting out

I realize blogging has been out for a while, but I have never had anything very interesting to write about. My partner, Teal, and I have always planned to have a baby together, and the time is right for us to start that process. Finding good information about this process, however, was much more difficult that we had imagined. So, we thought we would share our journey with others in hopes to possibly help other couples like us looking for the same answers. This is our story of the trials and tribulations of attempting to conceive a baby with a known sperm donor in the state of Texas.