Now what?

I know, it's been nearly 2 months since I last blogged.

Jen and I decided to take off the month of December from trying to get pregnant and things were busy. And we were busy with Christmas so although I wrote 3 or 4 blog posts in my head while falling asleep, I never quite got anything down on paper/pixels. ;) Then we decided to give the January cycle a try. I've written about the superstitions that you start to develop when you're trying to get pregnant and I decided that maybe it was time to give a try without baring everything for the Internet to see.

But I guess, ultimately, it didn't matter what I do or don't do. We did a two-insemination cycle and that didn't even make a difference. Got my period this morning.

So now what?

We've done six cycles over 8 months without getting pregnant. It doesn't mean anything is wrong. It could just mean that the timing hasn't worked out yet. Plus, as ridiculous as it may be, I am over thirty so it can take a little longer to get pregnant then and we don't have the luxury of being able to just have sex every day to try to get pregnant.

We have a few options:
1. keep trying the way we have been
2. switch donors and keep trying the way we have been
3. get a referral to a reproductive specialist and make sure everything is hunky-dory
4. enjoy our one son and get on with our lives

We are considering options 3 and 4.

If it didn't cost us anything, I'd probably do 1 or 2 for a little while longer. But every time we try, we have to pay for the vial of sperm (if you're really interested, go ahead and check out the prices for IUI specimens at a few different sperm banks) and if we do double insemination cycles, that's twice the price. Plus shipping (which runs from $110 to $225 per delivery). Thankfully my company's insurance considers same sex couples to be "infertile" and so the doctor fees are covered (donor sperm is rarely covered by any insurance) otherwise that would be an additional $250 per appointment (as it is we just pay the $10 copay).

We'll probably get the referral from my doc and go get everything checked out to make sure there's nothing funky going on. But seeing as my cycles are super regular (every 27-28 days) and that my pee turns an OPK positive (showing that I am, in fact, ovulating), it's probably just that the timing hasn't worked out yet. Since the testing will be covered by my insurance, we might as well go for it, but then regardless of those results, we may decide to just stick with our awesome only child.

The pros for that are numerous. We can save that money for other things that we'd like to do. Kids cost money (even if you don't have to pay to get pregnant). We can spend more time and money on Nate. When Jen gets a new job, we'll only have to pay for one child in daycare/preschool; only one kid to send to college down the line; Nate will be out of diapers soon so we won't have to pay for any more of those; we can keep our guest room; won't have to get up 3 or 4 times a night with a newborn ... you can go on and on with big and little pros. Cons ... well ... we won't get to go through the cute infant phase again; I won't get 4 1/2 months paid 100% off of work again; Nate would be an only child (also a pro?) ... it's tough.

My mom was pretty noncommittal, she pointed out all the same pros and cons we have already recognized. Uncle Doug thinks Nate needs a sibling. Jen and I see both sides. Nate says he wants another dog not a baby. (Today when we went for our weekly Sunday tea at Great Nana's his 9-month old cousin was pushing him -- she was really just trying to get his attention -- and he made me pick her up.) So, who knows. We're figuring things out. We'll do the doc's appointment and then we'll really need to make the decision. Right now I think I'm leaning towards enjoying a single child. :)

edited to add: Adoption is much more expensive that donor sperm. So a large part of our hesitation is cost, adoption is not a better option. We have, however, discussed being foster parents. We have talked about his even before considering not continuing to get pregnant with another biological child, so that's always going to be a possibility.

You all are bad finger-crossers.

Next time I'm not having you all cross your fingers for us. Obviously you didn't cross them hard enough or long enough. ;)

Another cycle gone. We're taking a month off. I don't want to have to think about this over the holidays. We'll try again in January. That will be cycle 6 and we're thinking about doing a two insemination cycle (so instead of going in the day after the OPK turns positive, which is what we've always done, we'll go in the day the OPK turns positive and the day after). Hopefully that'll do the trick.

If that one doesn't stick, then we'll see.

Nate's being even more of a monkey lately. His pronunciation of things sometimes cracks us up. And sometimes it's so cute. His "yessssh" is adorable and I don't know where he got "uh-uh" from but a two-year old saying "uh-uh" is pretty funny. He also likes to blame Ella for things. And the other night we went to see Christmas lights and kept saying "Oooooo, lights." Two-year olds are fun.

Fingers crossed!

I'm impatient. Ready for this one to take. :)

Cross your fingers, say a prayer, do a little dance, whatever it takes.

Nate kissed my tummy so a baby would grow. He says yes when we ask if he wants a baby in the house.

Unc Duh!

Nate loves his Uncle Doug. When Doug was here, he wanted nothing to do with poor Grandma as long as Uncle Doug was around. It doesn't hurt that Uncle Doug gave him a Thomas the Tank Engine wooden train set.

We had a really nice Thanksgiving with my mom and Doug staying with us for about 4-5 days and spending Thanksgiving day at Jen's parents' house. We always have a good time all together.

Nate has been fighting his nap lately and didn't take one on Thanksgiving (though of course, we were going over for dinner when he normally would have napped anyway). He did very well at Nana and Papa's house and waited until we were back at home for his major tired meltdown. :) I enjoyed waking up with Nate and Jen for 5 mornings in a row (Nate comes into our room when he wakes up). Jen and I don't have any days off together normally, so if I'm not going off to work, she is in the morning. It's always nice to wake up together without an alarm clock.

Nate seems to be back into taking his naps lately, which is good. He needs them. He's done three in a row now. :)

Here's a monkey on Thanksgiving.

From Thanksgiving 2010

It's cocktail time!

And if it's cocktail time, you know that means the latest cycle has come and gone without a baby. But that's okay. :) We're still within the 3-6 average cycles (that was our 4th cycle). We decided not to change donors and after a chat with the AI coordinator who has dealt with 100s (1000s?) of Lesbian couples or singles trying to get pregnant, I am confident that we are doing everything right and that we just need to be patient. I'm usually so good at that ...

Things have been very busy for us lately. Nate's 2nd birthday was on October 10 and we had a bunch of family over to enjoy the cutest Thomas cake ever.

Then the following weekend we went to Chicago for 3 days. Uncle Doug was able to come in from L.A. while we were there and he and Nate bonded over trains and cars.

Yes, Doug is growing a beard. I know. Don't worry, we told him.

We also decided not to enroll Nate in Early Intervention at the moment for 2 main reasons. The first is that he suddenly started talking more. He was repeating more things and finally was answering "What's your name" and "how are you?" His pronunciation isn't great, but he's speaking more and more words and finally referring to himself doing things. The second is that he technically wasn't eligible for EI anyway. The teachers who came said he passed but they could tell he would benefit from some help so they fudged the test so that he would be eligible. So he passed the test. That's what really did it for me. I probably would have still done it if it were truly free or low-cost the way it's supposed to be. However, they just raised the "fee" a ton. So a family in the top income bracket who used to pay $250/year for the services (and the guy who came to talk about the services said they didn't even always bother about collecting the fee) now has to pay $1500. Seriously? That's a lot of money, people.

Doug and Grandma are coming for Thanksgiving and we're looking forward to their visit. Yay! :)

A real Christmas baby?

Just a quick update. Jen and I are thinking about switching donors. Some people swear that switching to a new donor can do the trick to get pregnant, and in fact, we happened to do that the last time we were trying to get pregnant quite by accident. We had done 3 IUI cycles and then the donor we'd used was out! So we chose a new one and lo and behold, got pregnant on the first try. That was Jonathan (our miscarriage) but even the 2nd time around, it was the 2nd IUI cycle when we got pregnant with Nate (with that same donor, who unfortunately really is all out).

So, we've done 3 IUI cycles and are thinking about a new dude. Haven't made the decision yet. We may end up skipping this cycle since we need to wait for some more funds before we can purchase some more spermies, but that's fine. We'll try at the end of October/beginning of November or we'll try at the end of November. I looked ahead and I think if we're still trying in December, we'll probably have to skip that month because I think I'll be ovulating on Christmas Day. And as convenient as it would be to be able to drive right into the city and park right by the doctor, I'm not sure that's something I want to do on Christmas Day with my mom and brother in town. :)

On the other hand, I get so superstitious about these IUIs that maybe it would be good luck to do it on Christmas! Hehehe. As it stands, if we skip this month, I'm pretty sure the next time I ovulate would be the Sunday after Thanksgiving, so maybe my mom will get a chance to come to an IUI after all. (Weekend IUIs require a "buddy" because the office is not open for regular appointments).

Where's Nate?

There he is!

Another one bites the dust.

Still not pregnant. I guess getting inseminated the same day the cat got spayed wasn't good luck after all.