In Loco Parentis

We leave on Sunday for our vacation on the big gay boat.  I’ve still packed nothing, have no clothes, am badly in need of a pedicure.  Not going to happen.  At least the brief I’ve been drafting for the last week is finished, the dog and cats are taken care of, and we picked up our seasickness patches last night.  I can’t wait to blow this popsicle stand!!!

PS: We’ll be back in town on the 23rd.

In case you missed the action this morning over at Romancing the Stork, K and M are pregnant after almost two years!  Go over and congratulate them!

There is good news on our TTC front as well.  It’s been a gradual shift over the past month or so, but I am really starting to feel nothing but excitement about trying again.  No fear.  No anger.  No disappointment.  No guilt.  It’s gone, as quickly as it came.  Some examples:

• We bought a frog onesie on sale two weeks ago.
• When I got home with the onesie, I took out our BFP shopping spree items for the first time since the miscarriage and felt a glimmer of something optimistic.  Something like, “it won’t be long until we’ll be needing this stuff.”
•  We saw the LGBT family group at Pride and I said to my partner, “that’s going to be us next year” and felt 100% certain of the truth of that statement.
• I tried to remember my due date and couldn’t.  I mean, ultimately I remembered it, but in that moment, nothing.
• I started taking prenatal vitamins again last week.
• I asked my partner the other day if we should try in July, “just to see what happens.”  (Not going to happen because of the Cruise timing, but it’s the thought that counts).
• I looked at the Cryobank website last week to see if our donor is still available so we can buy “sibling samples” if we get pregnant using the four samples we have.  (He is).
• I was a little envious (and 150% thrilled) when K told me she and M are pregnant.  This is a positive development because feeling something is so much better than feeling nothing.  I was starting to get worried.

Truthfully, we are in a better space now, personally and emotionally, than the first time we got pregnant.  My partner is so much happier with her new job, I feel settled in mine, we’re making progress with our families, and there are so many reasons to feel proud of what we’ve accomplished over the last few months - I’ve lost ten pounds, we remodeled the bathroom, pulled up the asbestos tile in the basement, I had two 180 hour billable months, and she’s pulling in new grant funding hand over fist.  Not to mention, we leave for the Cruise in two weeks!  I can’t wait!

I know we all read each other’s blogs, so you’ve probably picked up on the fact that K and I are more than just IVP buddies.  In fact, we’ve known each other since the first week of my freshman year of college, which means that we’ve been friends for approximately a century in lesbian years, give or take.

As most of you also know, K and her partner M are getting ready to embark on a pretty exciting and scary journey - IVF.  I have never met two people who love each other more or who are more deserving of becoming parents, and so I am praying that K and M are nearing the end of their TTC journey and are getting ready to start down another, happier path. 

As an IVF “good luck charm” for K and M, and in celebration of all the wonderful things still to come for all of us, I would like to share with you a couple of stories about K and I from long before we were ever big-shot (well, little-shot) TTC bloggers. 

• I met K at a residence hall “meet and greet” thing at the beginning of my freshman year of college.  At that time, I was going through an angry, awkward stage and I think the introduction went something like, “Hi, I’m a lesbian.  Do you have a problem with that?!”  She did not (being a lesbian herself), but I missed the part where they told us to wait until the other person had finished talking before responding.  I mistook her active listening skills for homophobia and stomped off in my Doc Martens before she got a chance to make the “lesbian connection.” 
• Despite getting off on the wrong foot, K and I became great friends after we straightened out the little misunderstanding about her being homophobic.  We went through all the first love, first broken heart stuff at the same time.  We also discovered, at approximately the same time and with some embarassment, that other people were doing some things “down there” that we were not doing.  This discovery led to an unfortunate series of events that will forever be known as “Nair-gate.”
• Unlike most close friends who are also lesbians, K and I never dated each other.  We did, however, plan the wedding we would have should we never find decent partners.  It was not one of those, “If we’re 40 and single” discussions.  We picked our outfits, scouted locations, and decided where we would register.  Most of the details are sketchy, but we both remember that I was going to wear a white shirt, linen pants and (ack!) a denim vest with wooden buttons, and that we were going to register at Pier 1 for gifts.  My partner and I actually did register at Pier 1 when we got married, and K got a lot of mileage out of that one.
• Although K and I never dated, she did have a relationship in college with someone I had previously dated very briefly.  This would not have been a problem except for the fact that I had sort of exaggerated (read: completely made up) a few details about what that person and I had done in bed in an attempt to impress K.  I knew the jig was up when they started dating seriously, but K decided to spare me and never brought it up again.  It’s good thing that she took that approach too, because I’m sure if confronted I would have told more tall tales about my non-existent sex life, further compounding the humiliation I feel now.
• When K and I were in college, she was very “girly” - long hair, skirts, makeup, the whole bit.  My mother loved her and was relieved that I had at least one “straight” friend.  Rather than correcting my mother, I unilaterally decided that it would be to my benefit to keep K in the closet, because I could pretty much go anywhere or do anything with her and it would be a-ok with my parents, who were hoping she would be a good influence on me.  Poor K, who was with M even way back then, had to put up with years of my mother asking her about her boyfriend “Mark” (which was the first male “M” name I thought of when my mom asked me what K’s boyfriend’s name was).
• My sophomore year of college, I did a 575-mile charity bike ride that required a year of training.  When I rode across the finish line, I expected to see all of my “close” friends there to cheer me on.  Instead, my cheering section consisted of two people: K and my dad.  Everyone else was too busy, or too hung-over, or too whatever, to make the four-hour trip.  I’m not sure if I ever told her how much it meant to me that she came.
• At my wedding reception five years later (and on the other side of the country), I saw my parents scanning the crowd for a familiar face, and then literally melting with relief when they spotted K, who was there with M.  Hilariously enough, my parents fell in love with M, and my mom later informed me that she “never liked that Mark” and “never thought he was good enough for K” and that she thought K seemed “much happier” with M.
• One time while we were in grad school, K and I got talked into a game of Trivial Pursuit with some ”too cool for school” girls at the bar who were just dripping with arrogance.  It quickly became evident that they were no match for us, but instead of being gracious, we trounced them.  I think we may have actually “high-fived” when, in response to a question that started, “Name the European city that . . .” one of them answered “Isreal.”  Actually, we probably high-fived in the car on the way home, but it was still a victory for dorky smart kids everywhere.

There are a million more stories like this I could tell, but you get the idea.  K and M are the kindest, funniest people I know and I love them both dearly.  Please join me in crossing all of your fingers and toes for them (and, of course, for Vee and Jay) this week!

When I was a kid, there was this book that I loved about a little girl who documented all of the crazy/annoying things done by people around her in a notebook (I think it may have been “Harriet the Spy” but I can’t be sure).  I have often thought about doing the same thing with my law school peers and now my colleagues, as it would provide me an opportunity to vent without inappropriately running my mouth, as I have been known to do.  However, I was always afraid someone would find it, which is what happened to the little girl in the book.

So now I have this blog, and I’ve tried to keep work out of it, with varying degrees of success.   But the notebook idea has never really left me, and I’ve decided that I should use today’s entry to document “Annoying Statements People Make When You Tell Them You Are TTC.”  These are verbatim quotes that my partner and I have personally fielded, but I love a good collaboration, so feel free to add your own and I will update the list.

On Artificial Insemination

• “Have you ever thought of doing it the normal way?” - Straight College Friend
• “What about just once?” - Same Straight College Friend
• “But does the thought gross you out?  Because it can be beautiful.” - Co-worker
• “What about meeting someone in a bar and not asking his name?” - Straight College Friend
• “I have a friend/cousin/etc. who also did ‘in vitro’.” - Too Many People To Count (to clarify, I think it is insulting to people who have actually gone through IVF when people assume that IVF and IUI are the same thing - unlike J Lo, I have no problem with people assuming that we’ve done IVF).
• “Do you have sperm in you right NOW?” - Horrified Lesbian Friend
• “So does the doctor just turkey baster you in the office?”  - Lesbian Friend
• “Like how they did it on If These Walls Could Talk 2/The L Word?” - Too Many People To Count
• “So essentially, the plastic tube is the penis.” - Straight Friend
• “Could you hand me Dad, please?” - Doctor Performing Insemination
• “Mount Up.” - Doctor Performing Insemination
• “You have a lot of . . . mucus today (*stifling gag*).” - Same (very male, very gay) Doctor Performing Insemination
• From Dana: “So you guys are going to be like Jon and Kate Plus 8?” (I have also been the recipient of “do you know you will get pregnant with many babies?” comments - good one!)
• From Jay: “Enjoy the trying, because being pregnant is horrible.” - Straight Pregnant Friend
• From L. at Babypants: “Oh, it was a quickie.” - L’s Mom

On Our Unknown Donor

• “Don’t you think it would be better if you had a friend who could be the father?” - Too Many People To Count
• “How do you know your donor is not a serial killer/child molester?” - Lesbian Friend
• “You know it’s the same guys who are “donating” their plasma.” - Same Lesbian Friend (who was joking, but still).* 
• “What if there’s some error and your baby comes out [biracial]?  You can’t tell the race from the sample, can you?” - Shockingly, More Than One Person Is This Ignorant (for the record, we have never disclosed the race of our donor - presumably, this assumption is based on the fact that we are both white).
• From L. at Babypants: “So is your donor gay?” (We’ve heard this one too.  In fact, my mom once informed me that it would be a bad idea to use a gay donor “just in case” - I mean, she’s pretty sure it’s not genetic, but why risk it?)
• “What if your child needs a kidney?  Then what?” - Two People Who Don’t Know Very Much About Organ Donation
• “How will you fill the “hole” left by not having a father?” - Straight Male Friend
• “What about Father-Daughter dances?” - Co-worker/Former Debutante**
• “If you have a son, who will teach him to play sports?”  - Straight Friend Who Clearly Knows Nothing About My Partner

On The Fact That It’s Taking A While

• “Have you switched donors?” - People Who Cannot Seem To Remember That We Bought 12 Samples at $400/apiece
• “Maybe you should lose some weight.” - Co-worker
• “You were supposed to have a baby by now!” - Co-worker
• “My mom/friend/sister never quit drinking/smoking/etc., maybe you should try those things!” - Too Many People To Count
• “You should go on a cruise - everyone gets pregnant on cruises.” - Gay Male Friend
• “Have you thought about having your partner try?” - From People Who Must Think We’re Complete Morons (for the record, we are aware that my partner is female, and could, theoretically, carry our children instead of me).
• Along these same lines, from Travelher: “Why don’t you just have K get pregnant [because she's younger]?” (It blows my mind that people would suggest that one partner should give up wanting to become pregnant because it would be “easier” or “more convenient” for the other partner to have the baby, but it seems like this happens all the time).
• “Maybe you should buy fresh instead of frozen.  Vegetables lose their nutrients when you freeze them, so I would think the same would be true.” - Co-worker
• “Preggo yet?”  - Co-worker (every damn month!)
• “I never had ANY problems getting pregnant!” - Sister-in-law
• “I could get pregnant now, I’m sure of it!” - Post-Menopausal Family Member
• Have you thought about adoption/all the kids who need families? - Several People Who Would Never Ask Straight People This Question (for the record, it’s really hard for gay people to adopt children in our home state, but we have not ruled it out).

On Miscarriage

• “Is it because you were artificially inseminated?” - Straight Friend
• “At least you know you can get pregnant!” - Everyone (including us, but only once or twice in a vain attempt to find the silver lining)
• “You can never really completely move on, though.  I did my undergrad degree in social work, and we learned to always include miscarriages on women’s “life charts” along with their real children.  So it’s kind of on your permanent record now, like a DUI.”  - Co-worker (who never actually practiced social work and is now a corporate lawyer - I’ve been meaning to check with my favorite licensed social worker to find out what the hell a “life chart” is and whether I should be worried).
• “I’ll donate my eggs to you!”  (Not a serious offer). - Co-worker
• “I should be your surrogate, because we both know I have no problems getting pregnant! - Sister-in-law
• Don’t you think it’s kind of selfish to keep trying to get pregnant when there are so many kids who need families? - Co-worker (the “social worker”)

While it’s possible that our friends and family are especially clueless, I think this is probably not the case.  We actually have a really nice, supportive group of people in our lives who we love dearly, but who also happen to say completely idiotic things.  And now I get to share these things on my anonymous blog and none of them will be any the wiser.  Feel free to add to the list if you want.  It’s kind of fun.

* Some people were confused by this one.  Where we live, you can “donate” your plasma for $15 every other day.  There’s always a line of unsavory-looking characters lined up outside the plasma bank to provide this service.

** My only friend at work who knows of the blog, K, suggested that I may be wrong about this particular co-worker being a former debutante.  In fact, it is K (who would never ask such a question) who was the deb.  Now that she mentions it, I think I may be confused.   The co-worker is in the Junior League, though.  Maybe they have dances.

I’d like to interrupt my existential crisis to bring you this piece of not-so-breaking news: Clay Aiken has conceived a child with his best friend through AI (not American Idol, the “other” AI), and she’s due in August.  Seriously, it’s true - I read about it in this week’s People.  Seriously, People - first the J Lo “we didn’t do IVF” feature, and now this?  Are you trying to torture us?

Needless to say, I am completely icked out/irritated by this story.  Number one, it’s Clay Aiken.  The same person who said a while back, “I’m becoming a man, not just with my hair.”  Who has continually refused to answer questions about his sexuality in all sorts of weirdly homophobic, evasive ways.  Who once explained that he did not pursue therapy for his depression/anxiety because he was ’strong enough’ to ‘do it alone’ with the help of an SSRI.  Who is decidedly creepy, no matter whose bed he chooses to occupy.  You’re looking for a celebrity known donor, and you choose . . . CLAY AIKEN?  WTF?  I mean, even if he is your best friend.  Gak.

Second, I have to wonder about all those reports that Jaymes Foster was “artificially inseminated by Clay.”  This sentence, to me, suggests a laid-back, at home approach, or at least less intervention than would normally expected when the bio-mom is over 50.  But hey, I guess it could happen.

I won’t even go into the deeper issues here, like Clay’s virginity proclamations.  Or the fact that they are going to parent this child together in a way that roughly approximates a heterosexual family structure.  Or the issues that Clay’s fan base, aka the Claynation, undoubtedly has with reproductive medicine, non-traditional family structures, and choice.  All I can say is that I find all of it very aggravating.

I know, it’s been a while since I posted anything of any substance.  Sure, I can make excuses (I’ve been busy with work, we went to Florida for a long weekend), but the truth is, I just don’t feel like I have much to share right now.  I’m in a weird space, kind of, and I don’t know what to make of it, so I’ve been avoiding thinking or blogging about it.

The “preconception planning” or whatever the hell you call those months between reading everything you can get your hands on and your first insemination is totally different the second time around.  I’m not worried about timing (we’ve got that down), I’m not caffeine-free, I’m not dwelling in possibility or optimism.  Truth be told, I’m somewhere between feeling ambivalent about trying again in August and wishing I could push it back.  I do know that I don’t have the jealous, longing, “what-if you-get-pregnant-first” feelings right now.  Which, I’m sure you will agree, is a weird place for someone who was once CONSUMED by all things TTC.

So, yeah.  I feel like a sham.  I’ve reached a point where I feel sympathy, not empathy, when I read about the TWW, upcoming IVF attempts, and even miscarriages.  It’s sort of like racism - I get it, but I don’t GET it.  Not really.  Not like how you get it when it’s happening to you and not to your friends.  I walk by the baby clothes in our closet and I’m surprised by them, like I don’t know what they’re doing there or how they got there.  I have literally no emotional response to them.

I have a feeling that this detachment that I’m feeling is not “healthy perspective”.  It’s something else, something I can’t quantify.  It could be self-protection, or fear of getting too attached, but I’m not entirely sure of that either.  It could be cold feet, or second thoughts about how ready we really are.  It could be that the element of uncertainty, at least with respect to *getting* pregnant, is gone - I mean, I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to get pregnant.  How long it will take, or whether it will stick, are another story.  It could be all of these things, I guess.

I know you can’t try to box yourself in or expect yourself to feel how everyone else feels about these things.  Still, I’m feeling a little numb these days.  I’m just hoping that it passes.

It is 12:39 a.m.  I am writing an appellate brief that needs to be filed in approximately 23 hours.   The brief has the following problems: (1) Guilty. As. Charged. (2) Has admitted guilt.  (3) No hope of success on the merits.  (4) This seems to be the only area of the law where there’s no room for debate.  (5) I’ve stared at the screen for approximately an hour and have typed nothing.  (6) The cat just sneezed on the official hearing transcript.  (7) We’re out of Diet Coke.

And where the hell is Olivia Benson?  I keep waiting, but she never shows up.

I’m back from visiting my parents on the other side of the country.  It was a great visit, all things considered.  Those of you who know me in real life are shaking your heads in disbelief, I know.  But there has been startling progress at my parents’ house - there were pictures of us (as in, gay me and my gay partner, together, looking, you know, like gay people) up in the living room.  I almost fell over.  There are many more tales like this I could share - it’s like someone has reprogrammed my mother.  As is the case with most unexpected windfalls, I spent the whole trip waiting for the other shoe to drop.  But it never did.

Of course, the visit caused me to regress into my dangerous habit of trying to make sense of the miscarriage.  I know, I know, it’s biology - it has nothing to do with my (not quite so) homophobic family.  But even if it’s not the reason for the miscarriage, I can’t deny that it could be the silver lining.

Prior to this trip, the thought of telling my parents that we were pregnant mostly filled me with dread. But now I feel almost . . . hopeful?  Maybe my family will recognize us as equal parents.  Maybe some of the people who matter to my parents won’t think I’m a single parent.  Maybe we won’t spend visits quickly shuttling the baby from the closed garage to the house in order to avoid running into the neighbors (this became the pattern with us once they learned the hard way that I could not be counted on to keep my mouth shut).  Maybe everything will be ok after all.

One of the great lawyers I work with likes to say, “If you wait for the perfect, you miss the possible.”  I’m feeling, at least right now, that anything is possible.  It’s a good feeling.

Really weird big hair and a husband named Jim-Bob are certain to boost your fertility.  Seriously, can you believe these people are freaking pregnant again?  With kid number what?  19?

PS: Do not ever sign up for the Discovery Health Fitness Challenge.  Because if you do, you will receive email notification every time the Duggars are pregnant.

PPS: Does anyone else think their home looks strangely like the FLDS compound in Texas?