Oh, boy. All of the tropes about being a second child are totally true. There have been a million things we did during Finn’s first year of life that we failed to do for Elias (monthly photos, 365 days of DSLR pictures, etc.). We had the best intentions. But, you know: #secondchild.

Yet, today, Elias–our sweet, hungry, pudgy, happy-go-lucky baby–turns one, and I couldn’t let that go by without making him a video of his first year. After all, documenting our lives is my love language.

I’ll admit: after having Finn, I wasn’t sure my heart could love another baby boy quite as much, but I was so, so wrong.

Elias: I hope one day you’ll watch this video and know how very, very, very much you are loved. Happy birthday, my sweet baby boy. Thank you for being ours.

Tomorrow, Sona will be 13 weeks pregnant, which means she’ll have officially entered the 2nd trimester. Our baby, according to the What to Expect app, is the size of a plum. He’s nearing a full 3” long, he weighs about half of an ounce, and he’s starting to look more like an actual fetus and less like a gummy bear every single day. It’s a big milestone.

It’s also, as it happens, the time when most couples would finally feel comfortable sharing the news that they are expecting, as social norms dictate that couples (by which we really mean women) shouldn’t announce their pregnancies until the 1st trimester ends.

Sona and I played by those rules when we were pregnant with Finn, mostly. Of course, we told close friends and family members as soon as we found out, but we didn’t make our pregnancy “Facebook official” until week 13. (And, if you know me at all, you know I was absolutely busting at the seams by that point.)

(This is from our first babymoon, when no one knew that Sona was 2 months pregnant. We’d even written “babymoon” in the sand and edited it out.)

If Sona had her way, I think she might have done the same thing with baby #2, too. We certainly started the process of trying to conceive by keeping mum, and it wasn’t until we’d been actively trying for months that we both reached the point–me before her–that we didn’t mind whether people knew that we were trying to get pregnant. Most of the giddy excitement had worn off, by then, and it was strictly business.  That’s not to say that the prospect of being pregnant again wasn’t exciting. It’s just that the process of getting pregnant had become purely transactional. “Let’s just get this done,” we often thought.

And so, slowly, we started telling  people around us that we’d been trying–and still were. I started blogging about it, giving every excruciating detail.

For the most part, people seemed open to hearing our story. Our friends and family members’ reactions ranged from exuberantly supportive to not-so-secretly shocked and ashamed that we’d be sharing such personal information on the internet. Still, it was our story to tell–or not to–and we were  comfortable fielding questions and concerns.

Our primary audience has always been, as we’ve said numerous times, other same-sex couples similarly trying to conceive, as we so desperately sought that kind of community during the process. (And honestly, for what it is worth, I’m not sure we could have gotten through the process without the online tribe of mostly lesbian couples who have supported us, rooted for us, answered questions for us, and commiserated with us.)

But I’m getting off track, here. What I mean to be talking about is that, while most were okay with our sharing our path to conception, we met a good bit of cynicism when we decided to immediately share that we were, in fact, pregnant. Like 2 hours after we found out. When Sona had been pregnant for approx. 18 days. Weeks before it’s seen as socially acceptable to start spreading the news.

I’ve spent the past 3 months thinking about whether or not we were right to share so soon. Ultimately, we both still feel comfortable with the decision, although there have been several times when Sona has said to me, “Maybe we’ve shared too much. Should we pull back? What if something happens?”

It’s that last question that has had me reeling for months. I’ve been turning that question over and over in my head, thinking about how greatly it informs our social expectations about what is–and what isn’t–acceptable for women to share.

What if something did happen? Does that mean that we, as women, should be isolated in our grief (as we’re already expected to carry so many of our burdens in isolation, already)? Does that mean that, by sharing the news of the pregnancy, we somehow ushered in the bad juju? (Some relatives actually said this to us.) Does that mean we were–you know–asking for it?

I think that, if we’re being honest with ourselves, we have to admit that the social response to those questions is, often, “YES.” Maybe that “yes”  isn’t stated explicitly,  but it is certainly implied.

This is the implication: You, as a woman, are completely responsible–and, thusly, at fault–for what happens to your fetus. If the pregnancy fails, you are somehow to blame. And that failure? It’s shameful. So shameful, in fact, that you shouldn’t tell anyone you are pregnant, just in case you have to later inform them that the pregnancy wasn’t successful. That you weren’t successful. You wouldn’t want anyone to know that, would you?

When we pressure women to wait until the 2nd trimester to share the news of their pregnancy, we are denying them their tribe. We are expecting them to celebrate–and then, sometimes, to suffer–in silence. We are deepening the stigma and the shame that accompanies not only fertility struggles, but also pregnancy losses.

We are asking women to navigate one of the most difficult journeys of their lives in isolation. And we are shaming them for daring not to.

Look, I come from a Jewish family. I’m no stranger to superstition. My grandmother has heart palpitations at the thought of our bringing baby items into the house before the baby is born.

I’ve also known many women who have suffered through failed pregnancies, including someone I really love, who experienced a miscarriage in the past year. The more open Sona and I have been with our own story, the more we’ve been on the receiving end of stories from others. I can’t tell you how many women–our own doctors, UPS workers, waitresses, among them–have come to us and shared their own struggles with fertility and miscarriage. They were hungry to have someone hear them–and to have their own experiences met without judgement.

I’m not saying that all women should be forced to disclose their pregnancies or fertility struggles, of course. What I am saying is that this is a absolutely, unequivocally a choice that women should be able to make on their own, and we should support them in their decision.

Don’t pressure women to keep silent–and don’t pressure them to tell their stories. Use the language. Don’t stigmatize the words. “Infertility” and “miscarriage” are not obscenities. Don’t perpetuate the notion that women’s worth is defined by their ability to–or not to–bare children.

Part of our–albeit lofty–aim with this blog has been to normalize these conversations. It’s perfectly okay if you choose to keep your experience to yourself. Of course it is. But don’t ever let anyone tell you that there is shame in sharing your story–or shame in however that story ends. And let’s be a little more thoughtful about whether we want to continue to normalize women’s silence.

 

 

 

You guys, we’re having another boy!!!!!!!!!

We went ahead and did the full gamut of genetic testing, which also allowed us to find out the sex of the baby a few weeks early that we would have otherwise. Yesterday morning, I got this text from Sona:

We’d been waiting on the email for 10 days. At first, she suggested that we each just open the email–WHILE AT WORK–and text each other about the results. “ARE YOU INSANE?!?” I said. So, instead, we both got home a little earlier, looked at the results together, and then had a little coffee date, wherein we talked baby names for an hour.

This is something I know you’re not supposed to say, and we would’ve been happy either way, of course, but… we really, really, really wanted another boy! So, we are THRILLED.

Life is just funny. Before we had Finn, I was dead-set on having a girl. I was convinced that’s what we were going to have, and I’d already fantasized about everything that went along with mommy-ing a little lady. The day we found out that Finn was a boy, I was SO disappointed.

Now, I couldn’t imagine having it any other way. Not only will having another boy mean that, logistically, life will be a bit easier: we don’t have to buy new stuff, sharing a room makes a little more sense, it ain’t our first rodeo, etc.

But what’s more, for lots of reasons–some that are rational and some that are not–we really wanted another boy for Finn. I think that, if we’re being honest, we have some guilt associated with the internalized homophobia and misogyny that bites at us, reminding us that we’ve brought a son into the world without having a male figure in the house. I’m ashamed to even say this out loud, but it is something we think about. And while most of my brain knows that Finn will be a perfectly happy, well-adjusted child–even more well-adjusted than the children of hetero couples, according to some studies–there is a tiny part of my brain, hidden deep in the darkest place, that sometimes questions, “Will he resent us for not having a father?”

So, we’re pretty happy about the fact that Finn won’t have to feel isolated in a house full of women (as we think that being a sperm donor baby with same-sex biracial parents is likely enough for him to grapple with, already).

But we’re also just really excited to cuddle a little baby boy, again.

Considering that yesterday, on New Year’s  Day, Sona and I ditched our plans to go to the gym and eat healthfully to instead laze on the couch, take naps, and order takeout, I think it’s pretty safe to assume that we don’t take New Year ‘s resolutions very seriously around here.

Still, with all the craziness of the holidays, I think January provides a good time to reset, re-norm, and reevaluate our plans for the coming year.

(Writing this prompted me to look back through previous blog posts to see whether or not I’d blogged resolutions before. And, to my surprise, I had! Here is my post from 2016. Looking back through it now, it feels good to know that many of those goals were realized. And yet, there are many that we’re still trying to make happen.)

So, while I’ll stop short of calling these “resolutions,” when I take stock of what is to come in 2018, here are some goals–some more lofty than others–that I’d like to be mindful of in the coming months.

• • Yes, workout more. Yes, make healthier choices. Yes, this is cliche. But still, Sona and I have done a really, really bad job committing to any kind of fitness routine since having Finn. As I’ve written about a gazillion times, most days, we’re just trying to keep our heads above water. I’ve struggled with my weight been heavy most of my life. (For what it’s worth, even though that phrasing came to mind first, I don’t really identify with the word “struggle.” I have not, in any way, let my weight be life-defining, but that’s for another post.) So, for me, it’s really about trying to establish a realistic and maintainable routine that makes me feel better, gives me more energy, and helps keep my health in check. For Sona, it’s really more about feeling strong mentally, as she does when she is running routinely.
  • Get Finn out of the crib and onto a potty. Okay, those are actually two steps. But with his turning 3 at the end of this summer, I really hope that before we ring in 2019, he’s  in a “big boy bed” and out of diapers.
  • Be smarter with managing our money. In the past couple of years, we’ve bought a house and enrolled a toddler in a Chicago-priced daycare. Just those two things alone have increased our monthly expenses by about 40%. This year, we also had a lot of  fertility-related expenses, some unexpected home repairs that were necessary, and a bathroom reno. All of that means that we were under a bit more financial stress than typical, and we had to make some sacrifices as a result. We need to get it together, this year.
  • Adventure more. The biggest sacrifice we’ve had to make since buying our home is that we’ve been able to travel much less than we did before. We still managed to get in a few trips in 2017–Washington D.C., California, Tennessee, Italy, Grand Cayman–but Sona and I have a dream for our family’s future that involves a lot of adventuring. I know that, with a new baby on the way and the majority of Sona’s time off eaten up by maternity leave, we likely won’t be able to travel very much in 2018, but I hope we find ways to squeeze in little adventures where and when we can. My soul needs it.
  • Continue to prioritize our marriage. Oy vey. I’ve said a lot about this before, too. Keeping a marriage alive is hard work. Keeping a marriage alive while parenting little ones and maintain two full-time careers is really hard work. Sona and I are really good about developing marriage-maintenance game plans, but we are really awful at sticking to them. I hope we can take more tangible steps to put one another–and our relationship–first: more date nights, more meaningful conversations, less time spent on our (my) iPhone and more time giving attention to one another–more time paying attention.
  • Pay more attention to who and what I love. We recently saw the movie Lady Bird, which is FANTASTIC, and I highly recommend it. There’s a moment in the movie–and I can say this without spoiling anything for you–where the lead character is talking to one of the nuns at her Catholic school.  The lead, Lady Bird, says something like “I don’t know if I love it. I just pay attention.” And the nun replies, “Don’t you think they are the same thing?” That hit me hard. I’m not always the best at paying attention to the right things. That is,  when I feel the most bogged down by life, it’s usually because I’m paying attention to the wrong things. I did a lot of that this year. I paid attention to the little annoyances more than I should have, and in 2018, I want to work on turning my attention towards the people and things that bring me joy. Showing them my love. Focusing on what matters more. Giving 100% of my attention to the areas of my life that I want to nurture.
  • Meet–and really fully enjoy–what will very likely be our last baby. Having a baby that is due towards the last third of the year inevitably means that everything that precedes that due date will just go down in history as “the time spent waiting on the new baby.” Because let’s get real: every single memory from 2015 shrinks under the shadow of our having Finn, and I know that–down the road–2018 will also be remembered, almost entirely, as the year when we grew to a family of four. The first 6 months of Finn’s life were some of the best months of my own. Sure, we were exhausted and stressed and had no idea what we were doing, but I had taken a full semester off of work, and I threw my entire being into mothering that little boy. For those 6 months, I thought of virtually nothing else other than Finn, and it was glorious. Sona remembers that time differently. It was harder on her–harder on her body, at first, and much harder on her emotionally. She looks back on the photos of Finn as a newborn and frequently bemoans how little she remembers of–or let herself enjoy–that time. This time, we want to do it differently. She’s going to take more time off, and we are really hoping that–as hard as we know it will be (and we’re a little scared of that, too)–we can be completely present, focusing on nothing but our little family and slowing down time for as long as we possibly can. We want to pay attention.

 

 

 

Disclaimer: If you aren’t actively trying to conceive or immensely interested in fertility, you should probably stop reading right this second. If you choose to continue, I must apologize for the boredom–and for the onslaught of acronyms–that’s sure to follow.

Disclaimer #2: We’ve had a lot of questions about how we ended up with a successful pregnancy, mostly from other same-sex couples TTC (see, acronym). I want to provide answers to those questions because I know how hungry we were for similar answers during our own process. That said, it’s important to underscore something: Sona and I haven’t cracked the code of conception. Our answers may be helpful to some, but they aren’t meant to provide a step-by-step instructional for how to get pregnant, obvs.

Also, if this post shows you nothing else, I hope it shows you this: Pregnancy is a miracle, yes. But conception? Conception is science. Nothing but science. There is a bit of chance and luck involved, too–but it’s all about whether or not you are lucky enough to time the science correctly. Knowing this, for some reason, helped me cope. It prevented me from internalizing outcomes too much. It kept me from constantly asking, “But why? What does this mean?” If we didn’t get pregnant, I knew there was a very pragmatic reason why: We didn’t get the science right, that time.

So, let’s get to those numbers, shall we?

Before we zero in on how we conceived, I’ll go global. In the past year, leading to this pregnancy, we did a total of 8 IUIs over the span of 11 months.

We spent $8385.00 on donor specimen (sperm) and around $3500.00 on fertility clinic-related expenses (IUIs, ultrasounds, etc.). OUCH. Goodbye, vacation.

Sona took approximately 120 digital ovulation tests. We used these: Clearblue Digital Ovulation Test, 20 Ovulation Tests.

She also took about half as many cheap-y ovulation tests, once we realized that the CBE tests were sometimes inaccurate. I think that doing both of the tests alongside one another really helped us nail her ovulation timing. Here are the cheapies that we used: AccuMed® Combo 50 Ovulation (LH) & 25 Pregnancy (HCG) Test Strips Kit, Clear and Accurate Results, FDA Approved and Over 99% Accurate.

She took her temperature every single morning for nearly a year.

We did a single IUI for 4 cycles and we did two IUIs for 2 cycles, including the last one.

We saw 4 different doctors at 3 different practices: a women’s health center, an LGBTQ clinic, and, in the end, a specialty fertility clinic.

We got pregnant with the latter.

Sona was pretty religious about using Fertility Friend to track her cycles. It’s a really helpful app, and we strongly recommend it! Here are her charts from October and November, just so you can see the various patterns–and discrepancies.

 

She menstruated from October 26th-30th.

On October 30th, she got baseline bloodwork.

On November 2nd, she started taking 50 mg of Clomid, which she did for 5 days.

On the morning of Wednesday, November 8th, she went in for bloodwork and an ultrasound.  Her LH was 26.14 and her E2 was 522.

She had one 18mm follicle visible in the ultrasound.

That night, she did a 250 mcg HCG trigger shot at 6:45PM.

According to ovulation tests, she peaked the next morning, November 9th.

On that same day, she did her first IUI at 4PM.

The second IUI was at 7:15AM the following morning, on Friday, November 10th.

So, we did our IUIs roughly 21 and 37 hours after the trigger shot. We are pretty certain that she ovulated late Friday evening.

A week prior to inseminating, Sona’s progesterone level was 0.91. She started taking 200mg of progesterone each night, beginning on November 11th, which was the evening after the second IUI. Her levels immediately rose to 35 and have consistently hovered at around 41 since conception.

Currently, as of today, the fetus is measuring 6.5 weeks old, which puts our due date at around August 3, 2018–one week before Finn’s 3rd birthday.

And that’s all we’ve got, folks. If you made it this far, I’m impressed. I could barely get through half of this post in proofreading.

Still, I believe–as I’ve said many times–that knowledge is power. The more you know, the more empowered you are to make decisions for yourself, your body, and–hopefully–your baby. I hope this is helpful to some of you on your own journeys.

(Couldn’t resist.)

This morning, we all got up super early to make Sona’s first ultrasound appointment, which was scheduled for 6:50. Since she has to go to work after and wants to try to get there as close to her 7:00 start time as possible, she always nabs the first appointment.

I wanted to be with her, of course, but daycare doesn’t open until 7AM (Finn usually gets up at around 7:30-8:00 and doesn’t get to daycare until 9:00 on a normal day), we had to take Finn with us. At first, he wasn’t too happy about being roused so early, but he rallied later. (This is one of those days when it’d be realllllllly nice to have a grandparent nearby.)

To make matters worse, he woke up with a blaring case of pink eye: eye swollen shut, redness, a lot of yellow gunk. Needless to say, it wasn’t exactly a stress-free start to what we were hoping would be a special morning.

But it was nothing that a little medicine, a blueberry muffin, and Frozen on the iPad couldn’t fix. We were a sleepy and crusty caravan, but we made it to the clinic on time.

Once we got to the doctor, we had to wait about 5 minutes before Sona got called back for bloodwork. Luckily, they let Finn and I (and the iPad and the muffin and Monkey) tag along for all of it. Finn held Sona’s hand while they drew blood, which was the sweetest thing ever. She’ll get her progesterone levels tested for the next few weeks, apparently.

After that, it was time for the ultrasound. Since it is so early, they do a vaginal ultrasound, and they told us not to expect to see much, yet. I think Sona really just wanted confirmation that SOMETHING was there–and by “there,” I mean in the appropriate place.

Luckily, pretty much immediately, the ultrasound tech located the gestational sack, which is measuring exactly as it should be for 5 1/2 weeks, and right inside the sack, just as they hope to see, we got a clear view of a yolk sack.

It was all done in about 10 minutes, but it was actually really nice to have all three of us there. Finn was perfectly behaved the entire time (which is always a gamble, obvs), and we got yet another reassuring sign that things are progressing in a positive way.

As it stands, the due date for baby #2 is the first week of August–just a few days before Finn’s birthday.  It’s still very early, of course, but we continue to be cautiously excited.

For now, I have to go run and shower. I have a week and a half of classes to go before the end of the semester (insert praying hands emoji, here). Sona ended up having to take the day off to stay home with Finn and his crusty eye. We are getting a very tiny glimpse into what life with two kiddos will be like: even when you want to stop and revel in the glory of one, the other is going to be running around like a mad-man,  demanding your attention (and your antibiotics), and making sure every surface of the house has been contaminated.

We’ll take it.

That’s the acronym for BIG FAT POSITIVE in online fertility speak, which we’ve become pretty proficient in, lately.

Let me take a minute to have an appropriate freak-out: OMG!$l#@>$@#!!@! YOU GUYS! WE ARE ALMOST COMPLETELY SURE THAT SONA IS PREGNANT!!@#!@!#!

Okay, that’s better.

Here’s how it all went down:

Sona was inseminated on November 9th and again on November 10th. That meant that we could have done a reasonably reliable at-home pregnancy test as early as Thanksgiving–if not earlier. Her blood test at the fertility doc isn’t until tomorrow (20 days post IUI), and we knew we didn’t want to wait that long. However, we also didn’t want to ruin Thanksgiving with the news that she’s not pregnant, again, and we didn’t want to have to suffer through that news with family in town. So, we waited.

Then, unexpectedly, Sona’s grandmother passed away this past Wednesday. That meant that our plans to have Sona’s family come up for a Big Ole Family Holiday Weekend got cancelled, and Sona actually ended up taking the overnight Amtrak to Kentucky to be with her family, leaving a few hours after an early Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday.  It was another blow in what has already been a difficult year, and neither of us wanted to even think about doing a pregnancy test. Therefore, we planned to test when Sona got home on Sunday (yesterday).

I had a lot of anxiety about the test while Sona was gone. I was also worried that, with her traveling 16 hours in 3 days, getting relatively little sleep, and taking care of her family, she was going to push herself beyond her limit. I texted family to make sure that they kept an eye on her, and–she doesn’t know this (sorry, honey)–I also sent myself the contact info for on of the doctors she worked with, all with the plan to text her, plead our case, and beg for Sona to get an extra day off in lieu of the one she lost traveling for the funeral. I was a worried wife.

Yesterday, Sona got home at 9AM. We had brunch plans with friends who we only see once a year, as they live out of town. The babysitter came at 10:00. Sona was tired, and she hadn’t been home in a few days, but we wanted to push through with plans to see our friends, as we both needed some fun. I thought, for sure, that we would wait and do the test later in the evening–after brunch, after we’d rested a bit, and after Finn was in bed. I was hoping to push it off for as long as possible, scared of the result.

I was playing with Finn, trying to get him ready for the babysitter, when Sona got in the shower. Twenty minutes before the babysitter was set to arrive, I went into our bathroom to blow-dry my hair. I saw a cup of urine on the bathroom counter, and my heart stopped.

“You do it,” Sona said from inside of the shower. “Do what?!” I asked, knowing full-well what she meant.  “Do the pregnancy test. I didn’t want to do it without you.”

In my head, I was panicking. “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” I kept thinking. I wasn’t prepared, and I wasn’t ready to see Sona’s heart broken, again.

Still, I did it. I took the test, held it in the urine for 5 seconds (Sona made sure I read the directions, even though we’ve done this a thousand times, now), and I didn’t even get it out of the urine before the two dark pink lines appeared. Meanwhile, Sona was in the shower, expecting to wait a few minutes for the results.

So, I did exactly what I did when we tested for Finn. I coyly snuck away, pretending I was buying time, grabbed my phone, and came back in. I hid the phone behind my back, because I knew if she saw it, she’d know the test was positive.

Then, I put on my best sad face, lowered my tone, and said, disappointingly, “I’m sorry babe, it is negative. I knew we shouldn’t have tested. This is going to ruin the whole day.” “I knew it,” she said. “I figured it would be.”

This is what happened next:

(Trying to get a SFW video of your wife who is freaking out IN THE SHOWER is not easy,  people.)

As you can tell, I think, she totally fell for my prank.

She was elated. And relieved. And then, she just cried.

It was a special moment, and–you know me–I had to capture it. THERE WAS SO MUCH RELIEF, THERE.

Of course, we had to take a couple selfies, too, and I couldn’t love them more.

Yes, the lighting stinks. Yes, one of us is naked and half-covered in soap. Still, I can’t wait to show these two baby #2 someday and say, “See, this is how badly we wished for you.”

The funny thing is, this is almost exactly the week we found out we were pregnant with Finn, who was also a Thanksgiving baby. And, if all goes well, baby #2 will likely be due in August, too.

Of course, we have to be cautious. It’s early. VERY, very early. At first, too, we were worried about the chance of a false positive, as Sona did an HCG trigger shot. Those worries have been pretty much dispelled, though, as we’ve heard from several reliable sources that we are way beyond the window of concern.

But also, with Finn, we waited the requisite 3 months to announce widely. We waited about 3 minutes, this time. Is that risky? Of course. Are there superstitious folks out there, wagging fingers at us? For sure. Is there a chance that this pregnancy won’t stick? Sadly, yes.

But regardless of the outcome, we’ve committed to sharing our journey, and this is a huge part of it. Whatever comes next, we’re committed to sharing that, too. There is NO SHAME here, people. NONE. NO shame in trying to conceive. NO shame in being a same-sex couple, haphazardly navigating these often enigmatic waters. NO shame in fertility struggles. NO shame in whatever comes next.

Today, though, there is a lot of joy.  And that’s what we are choosing to focus on. Today, at the end of a very rough year, there’s joy–all thanks to the promise of another sweet, sweet soul.

Well, Sona is deep in the midst of night sweats. You know what that means: Cloooooooomiiiiiiiiiiiid! (In my head, I said that in Oprah’s voice.)

(photos from when we had our last getaway–to NOLA–before Finn was born)

She went in for a water ultrasound last Thursday. That was the one where they checked to ensure that there weren’t any physiological anomalies preventing pregnancy: scar tissue, polyps, etc. Luckily, everything looked good! So, the doc called in prescriptions for Clomid and Progesterone (Sona’s was a bit lower than they’d like to see).

We were a little stressed about the timing, per usual, because after asking around, it seemed like a lot of women had started Clomid much sooner. The general consensus was that most started between CD3 (cycle day)-CD5. Sona was on CD8. However, her cycles are irregular and generally longer than 28 days. Therefore, we’re hoping that her CD8 is kind of like other folk’s CD5. And the doc was still insistent that the timing is good, as Sona usually ovulates between CD 15-19.

Anyway, I went to Walgreens to pick up the prescriptions having NO idea what they would cost without insurance. I think we were both expecting a bill of around $200, but it was only $30. That may be the only time in this whole process when we’re surprised by how cheap something is.

Enter, our sperm bank order history:

That doesn’t even include our most recent order, which was placed on Sunday night. Two vials. $1900. I would total it up for you all, but then I might have to throw my laptop against the wall. So, you do the math.

I don’t know what our donor’s name is–and, of course, I feel like we owe him our lives–but I sure hope he’s out there somewhere, driving a Tesla, living his best life.

(If you are new to us and haven’t read about how we chose our donor, you can catch up on that story here.)

While we’re talking money, we also got our first bill from our fertility clinic. They waste NO time. I mean, I think they stamped that shit as we walked out the door. Ah, well. Can’t blame them. The hustle is real.

This is all to say that we are hopefully set for a couple of inseminations before the week ends. Tomorrow morning, Sona goes in for the ultrasound to see how her follicles are maturing and how large they are. Depending on what they find, she will do the HCG trigger shot tomorrow night, which should prompt ovulation.

(Remember, the doc wants to see at least one follicle that is 18mm. The bigger it is, the closer Sona is to ovulating. If it’s so big that it looks like she’s ready to go, they may have her trigger Wednesday morning, instead. If she has a few that are large, which happens with Clomid, they will let us know that there is a high risk for multiples and ask us whether, knowing that info, we want to move forward with insemination this month. After that, I’ll begin drinking. Like A LOT.)

The next question is: how soon after the trigger shot do we do insemination #1? Since we’ve basically been crowd sourcing this whole pregnancy, I asked that question on Instagram, trying to get a sense of what others did. We got lots of responses that generally ranged from 24-36 hours, but 36 hours seemed to be the more popular answer–and the one that resulted in a lot of pregnancies. That timing is our biggest source of stress, just as it was before we were working with the fertility clinic. What if Sona ovulates right away and we miss the window, essentially wasting $1200 worth of IUIs and $1900 worth of sperm? Sona is going to grill the doc about this at tomorrow’s ultrasound, and they will make the decision about when to trigger based on the status of the follicles.

So, we’ll do the first IUI within that 24-36 hour window and the other around 12 -24 hours later. I’m unclear about whether or not they do another ultrasound in that time period, but I don’t think they plan to. It just seems like it’d make sense to check to see whether ovulation has actually occurred before moving forward with the second IUI, but I’ll try to trust that the experts know what they are doing.

Everyone keeps reminding us that this isn’t an exact science and that, even with thousands of dollars worth of fertility clinic bills and ultrasounds galore and hormone-altering medications, it is still just a guessing game. That’s pretty infuriating. Nature: 1; Science: 0.

The truth is this: we are going all in on this month. We’re spending around $4,000 (after having already spent thousands more). We’re committing to numerous trips to the fertility clinic, making Sona late to work several days throughout the process. We’re doing two inseminations to increase our chances. We chose to jump straight to meds, even though we had the option not to. We are playing every single card.

Of course, what that also means is that we are 100x more invested in this month’s IUIs resulting in a successful pregnancy. We are terrified of it not working and of having to go through this indefinitely. We are well aware that, while our fertility clinic could afford to have us go through this process for months and months, our bank account and our hearts could not. There are some things that have definite boundaries and breaking points, and we are hoping that we won’t have to experience a breach.

The amount of stress and anxiety–most of which is internalized–can’t be quantified.  There some debts that haunt you in ways that financial troubles can’t. We are doing everything in our power to make our family of three a family of four. But only so much is in our power.

Dear Santa: all I want for Christmas are gift cards to the fertility clinic.

What I mean to say is: we had our first fertility consultation, today. It lasted nearly two hours. So, I don’t even know where to begin. I guess I’ll just start at the beginning.

This fertility doctor has come highly recommended by a ton of other lesbian couples in Chicago–and by the practitioner who did our last two rounds of IUI at the LGBTQ clinic. We always said that we would give unmedicated, unassisted IUIs a few months and, if they didn’t take, we’d move on to a fertility specialist to–hopefully–get the job done.

Part of that decision was motivated by the fact that, when they did labs at the LGBTQ clinic, Sona’s AMH (anti-mullerian hormone) levels came back “low.” The AMH level indicates how many eggs you’ve got left in your little ovarian bank. The older you get, the lower the number. Sona’s is 4.1, and we were told that was on the low end of normal, which worried us a bit. Of course, we consulted Google, and we found many (barely credible) sources that seemed to indicate the same thing: 4.1 is low for a 36 year old woman. Turns out, that’s wrong. (More on that in a bit.)

We’ve had today’s appointment for over a month, and we figured that if we happened to get preggo during this last cycle, we’d just cancel it. That didn’t happen.

So, today, we both left work early and met at the clinic, which happened to be right across the street from one of our favorite coffee shops (shout out: Wormhole) and next door to some of our favorite sushi burritos. That has to be good juju, right?!

The space is uber posh, but I guess when you are making thousands of dollars per client, you can afford some swanky furniture and a couple of potted orchids.

To their credit, I’ll say that they make a great first impression. Every single staff member greeted us warmly–and by name. They were exceedingly prompt and professional. We never felt rushed. It was an organized and well-orchestrated appointment, complete with a choreography of insurance experts and nurses and, finally, the doctor. And they had free snacks! (We might have stolen pretzels and a granola bar for daycare pick-up.)

The insurance expert was the opening act, and while they would probably argue that they want the financial aspect of the exchange to be transparent from the get-go, I would argue that they want to get the biggest blow out of the way quickly, allowing you plenty of time to faint, cry, or leave before they bother going through the rest of their performance.

We’d asked around, and we’d heard that most folks had gotten the majority of their IUI treatments mostly covered by their plans. Since I have BCBS PPO, I thought it wouldn’t be an issue, and we were modestly hopeful that we’d have a lot of the process covered. WRONG.

Turns out, employers get to decide how much fertility coverage they want to offer their employees, and my employer has elected to only cover “the diagnosis of infertility.” Basically, today’s consult and bloodwork SHOULD be covered in full. From here on out, every single thing will be paid for out of pocket.

It was not the best way to begin the consult, and Sona and I were panicking a little inside.

After that, we met with the nurse practitioner, who led most of the consult. We walked through everything: Sona’s labwork from a couple of months ago, our attempts to get pregnant this time, how we got pregnant with Finn, our goals for conception, etc. The NP was a great listener, and she helped us understand a lot of medically-relevant stuff that no one had bothered to explain before. It was the first time we felt like someone knew more about getting pregnant than we did.

For starters, they are THRILLED with Sona’s AMH level, which they actually classify as high for her age. Girl has eggs for days. Remember, she has a 4.1, and they ideally want clients trying to conceive to have a 1-3. So, when held to their standard, Sona is super fertile.

She also explained a lot of possible reasons why we may not have gotten pregnant so far: Sona may have a polyp or a fibroid that’s blocking the egg, there may be scar tissue from her previous pregnancy, her progesterone levels may be a tad low–and the list goes on. While there aren’t any glaring concerns right now, we are going to do what they call a water ultrasound to check and make sure the pipes are running clean. We’re also going to do another series of ultrasounds to see how many viable eggs she’s working with each cycle.

The biggest thing we have to decide is whether or not we want to do a medicated or unmedicated cycle to begin. Do we try to go au naturel, using bloodwork and ultrasounds to better time insemination? Or do we just say “Screw it! Let’s go all in.” and immediately begin using medication to better control timing?

There are three medications we could use:

1. Progesterone: The NP said that progesterone is the hormone that makes the uterus lining fuller and more sticky. “It’s like a fluffy pillow covered in honey,” she said. The stickiness makes it a little more likely that the embryo will, well, stick. It makes the uterine environment more desirable.
2. Clomid: This is a follicle stimulant. It would increase the chance of pregnancy by 10-15%, as Clomid better preps healthy eggs for ovulation. Of course, it could over-stimulate, and that might result in multiples (KILL ME NOW). Also, while it increases fertility for the first three months of use, research indicates that it begins decreasing fertility after that. So, it is not without side effects, including some crazy mood swings.
3. HCG: This is the pregnancy hormone, often called a “trigger shot.” Using it makes it much easier to time when ovulation is going to happen, as the shot actually triggers you to ovulate.

We can choose to use one, none, or any combination of the above drugs. Again, it’s important to note that, as of now, we aren’t actually “struggling with fertility.” Sona isn’t infertile; she’s overly fertile. We’re pretty sure that timing is the problem, as I’ve discussed at length in previous posts.

The other issue is, of course, cost. These things all cost money, and insurance won’t be helping out. An unmedicated IUI cycle, complete with ultrasounds and bloodwork, will run us $800 plus sperm. Either way, we’re likely going to do two vials of sperm each time, giving us better odds. That’s another $1800 a month.

A medicated cycle will cost around $1200. So, that’s really only a difference of $400.

$2600 for an unmedicated cycle or $3000 for a medicated one. PER MONTH. Either way, we’re looking at a 10-20% chance of pregnancy per cycle. (Either way, we are going to be broke as a joke.)

So, yeah. It’s going to be a tough haul financially, but we’re just crossing our fingers that it happens quickly, and we won’t have to do multiple months. Because truly, I don’t know how long we could do this for–financially, emotionally, or otherwise.

What I do realize, though, is that we are privileged that this is even an option we can entertain. And I wish that this were an option that insurance companies made available to a wider range of couples.

Still, we left feeling rejuvenated. I’m an academic and Sona is science-minded. To both of us, knowledge is power; we feel much more empowered, now.

Next steps: two appointments for ultrasounds and bloodwork next week!

(Our pre-appointment selfie.)

 

Today, it is cloudy with 0% chance of pregnancy. We are 14 DPO, and we just got a BFN (big fat negative) on a test, this morning.

We knew this was coming. The fact that we waited the full 14 days to test is testament to that. Usually, when we are excited/hopeful, we sneak a test in a few days early.

If you’re keeping track, you know that this is our fourth cycle attempt for this pregnancy. We tried for two months earlier in the year, two months just recently. We’ve had five inseminations, using five vials of sperm. We’ve taken probably 8-10 pregnancy tests–all negative. Sona has tested for ovulation nearly 50 times. We’re about $7,000.00-$8,000.00 in, so far.

So, yeah. We knew this was coming. We were pretty sure we weren’t pregnant. We figured the timing was off. We kept mum about the possibility of pregnancy for two weeks, barely saying a word about it to one another, figuring that the more we talked about it, the more it would sting when it didn’t come to fruition.

As anyone will tell you about anything sucky: just because you know it’s coming, doesn’t make it any easier. We have our first appointment with a fertility doctor on Wednesday, even though we’d both secretly hoped we would be able to cancel, calling to say, “Sorry! We got pregnant. No need to come in.” But I think we’re ready to get some answers, eliminate the guessing game, and just get this done.

We’re a little uncertain about what comes ahead: the costs, the stress, the time commitment of having to do daily ultrasounds and regular blood tests. (Sona is really stressed about how she’s going to juggle that and her work schedule, which is inflexible.) But we’re going to keep on moving, and we’ll keep you posted.

This morning, after testing, we took the train to a nearby farmer’s market. It was a crisp fall morning–my favorite. We bought 10lbs of apples, two croissants, and a couple of smoothies. We took Finn to the park. We ate biscuits and gravy as the rain, which we just missed, began.

On the platform earlier, as we waited for the train, an old lady watched Finn, commenting on how beautiful he was. “He needs a little sister,” she said. “She’d be beautiful, too.” Sona and I just looked at each other. We didn’t have to say anything. We both knew what the other was thinking.