Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Trying to Get Pregnant, NGP* Style

[NB: I wrote this post about a month ago. We weren't pregnant and since then we've had a break for a cycle and we're about to head back into the fray again in two weeks or so.]

Well, we are at the end of another two week wait with a negative pregnancy test this morning (at 11 dpo), but no period yet, so there is always still a glimmer of hope, and I’m a real sucker for that hope. My wife and I are trying to get pregnant with baby #2 and it is proving to be a little tougher than baby #1. Still, we lucked out with the first one. I got pregnant on the second try, which is kind of amazing if you consider that we were using frozen sperm and doing inseminations at home.

Almost three years ago, I was trying to be the one getting pregnant. Today, I’m watching and waiting and talking as my wife, Lyn, goes through the same routine. We've tried twice at home (and missed trying one month due to non-ovulation), and now we’ve moved to trying at the doctor’s office doing IUI. And this cycle we jumped the gun on ovulation so that we inseminated 4 times instead of the usual 2 (so don’t even think about how much it cost us).

I can tell you that it’s very different being on the other side of the pee stick. For one thing, I’m not the one agonizing over every abdominal feeling. And I’m not the one for whom “success” would initiate months of nausea and fatigue. Those are the pluses. In the minus column, I can’t help but feeling so much more detached this time. I have to keep pushing myself to get involved and to feel involved. I have to navigate the balance between being there for Lyn – that is, being the “supportive partner” – and going through the TTC experience myself. And then beyond that lie all of those hazy NGP (“non-gestational parent”) worries – What if I don’t love the second as much as the first because I didn’t through pregnancy? What if Lyn doesn’t get pregnant? What if she does get pregnant? How will we fit a new kid into our family?

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

The Summary

We are a lesbian couple, Gail and Lyn, parenting our two-year-old daughter, Leigh. We are also trying to grow our family by one. Gail gave birth to Leigh in 6/06. Leigh was conceived on the second try, at home, with frozen, so I'm afraid we may owe the universe back for how easy it was the first time around.

It has taken over one year of acupuncture even to get me ovulating regularly. HSG and CD3 blood work prior to trying came back fine, though during the HSG the doctor wouldn't shut up about how tipped my uterus was, which I didn't particularly appreciate. We didn't even bother with the RE visit when trying for Leigh, but my history of irregular and painful periods prompted us to check. We did two rounds of ICI (2 vials per cycle) at home in the spring with no luck, and switched to IUI (no meds) at a women's clinic over the summer. We missed May due to travel messing up my ovulation, June due to travel, clinic IUI #1 was in July, and August is out due to travel again. We're sick of missing cycles so there will be no travel in the fall. I've already turned down a conference invitation and a speaking invitation for the fall, with extremely vague excuses.

For many reasons, some historical, some reasonable, and some not so reasonable, I have a strong aversion to doctors. It is extremely important to me to give my body a decent try at this without meds and fortunately, for now, available vials aren't an issue. It was a big step for me to even move from home to unmedicated IUI at a non-interventionist clinic, which we did primarily to get on the health insurance clock in case we need help down the road (our insurance doesn't count home tries with frozen no matter how impeccable the timing.)

I've been reading lesbian TTC and family blogs voraciously since we were expecting Leigh and I wanted desperately to find other moms like me. I remember calling Gail at the office the day I found Chicory at An Accident of Hope. Back then, I think there were like 2 or 3 blogs by non-bio-moms. Sassa was only 7 months old then. I've often commented as dlvc, sometimes recently as Lyn. Now we're finally jumping into the fray. Please bear with us though while we spruce things up around here.