News

I realise that it's been a long time since I gave you all an update. There's no news in regards to being pregnant, sorry if I got anyone excited.

The main news is about our referral, we went to the doctors in August and she referred us and explained that we should get our appointment through within a few weeks with the date being about 4 months from there which suited us fine.

We've since been asked for the day 3 and day 21 bloods to be re done. We did those and waited for our appointment letter. A couple of weeks later we get a letter, this time it's asking for my wife to have a chlamydia test.

By the time this letter arrived it had been 2 full months and our appointment still hadn't been made. To say I was pissed off is an understatement.

I decided to get on the phone to the fertility clinic to see if there's any other tests they need us to do before they make the appointment. I spoke to a woman at nurture fertility who was really helpful and explained what the process would entail from here. Basically, we'll go for testing to make sure her tubes are clear first then it would be on to make sure egg quality and womb health is there.

This was great for me to actually get some information which I then relayed back to my wife. The worrying thing about the conversation was the realistic waiting times for the tests on the NHS.

We're still as much as 4 months away from having the initial consultation and to top that off, the wait for the first test (to check her tubes are clear) is 18 weeks. That makes a 34 week wait to find out if her tubes are clear regardless of any other tests or treatments that are required after that. All in all, we're pretty upset about it.

Since then we've been focusing on trying to make it work before the appointment, first attempt being tonight. That was until our donor text us 20 minutes before we were meant to be picking us up saying that something urgent had come up and he couldn't make it tonight, or tomorrow. That now means that we're out for another month and it stinks of the same routine we've had time and time again before a donor has quit on us.

We text him to ask if he's still in it with us or if he's changed his mind and have yet to hear anything back. We know nothing for certain but we may well be on the search for D5.

Update...

As you guys all know, we've been at this a while now and things have just not been going to plan.

Two weeks ago we decided to go back to see my wife's doctor to get referred for more tests etc. She had no problem doing it at all, we completely updated her on where things are with us not currently having a donor. We also told her that we're trying to get that situation sorted and we all had a laugh about it.

From her letter going out, it takes 3-4 weeks to get the appointment letter then around 3 months for the actual appointment. That puts us somewhere near Christmas which is about where we thought we'd be.

Since then, we've been talking to a couple of guys. One seemed to be really lovely, quite outgoing and generally what we're looking for. The other guy was incredibly shy and only 20 which initially made us nervous.

Outgoing guy was great to talk to on the phone and we all suggested that the following weekend would be a really good to meet up. He said that he wasn't 100% sure which day would be best for him but would text us to arrange with 48 hours. That time came and went. We emailed and text him over a few days and didn't hear back until a week later.

This worried us for all the same reasons that we've had issues before. We pretty much gave up with him after that.

Shy guy is actually awesome. We spoke to him and got the impression that he's got his head screwed on (a big bonus with him being so young) and is generally looking to help. We arranged to meet on Saturday last week after i had finished work. In the end, that didn't work out as he had something come up. This worried us yet again because it felt like he might be getting cold feet.

On Sunday he text asking if we were still up for getting together for a chat. Huge sigh of relief from the both of us. We got it all sorted and he came over to the city where we live and we went for a drink in Starbucks.

First impressions, he is beyond shy! My wife is a very shy sort of person but he eclipsed her. After a little while, he opened up a little more and he's lovely. He'd already gone to the clinic to get tested (without us having to ask) and was awaiting the results.

We're both really pleased with him, we left on good terms and discussed things on the way home. Both of us really like him, the only thing we were waiting for was his results.

They came though last night, he's all healthy! We decided that we're both really happy to go ahead and asked him if he is too, he said he is.

We're going to sort out the awkward stuff this weekend, you know, the "do you need any encouragement material?" the shoot and leave thing (more difficult because he doesn't drive).

Fingers crossed though, D4 is our lucky charm! We're hoping that his stuff is even more awesome than we've had before because of his age.

Time will tell!

Out of the blue

We're in a bit of shock at the minute.

On Monday evening D3 emailed us saying that he thinks we need more than one donation each time and thats not something he's able to do. He then goes on to say that he doesn't know of anyone that could help us then wishes us luck and best wishes.

We emailed him back asking if this meant that he didn't want to be our donor anymore or what because we're confused. On Tuesday morning we got a reply from him confirming that he didn't want to be our donor anymore.

We are completely shocked. He said that if he agrees to be our donor then he makes a lifelong commitment to donating to us and supporting us throughout. No where in that statement did he say, "so long as it happens in the first 3 attempts."

We really thought we'd found a really good guy who was in this with us until it worked. So shocked and feel completely let down by him and (even though this is about to sound completely melodramatic) life. There, i said it. Life is being a bit of a bitch when it comes to us trying to have a family.

So, it's now back to trawling through the websites trying to find the one guy who lives close enough who isn't a freak.

Ugh.

18 months on...

All of a sudden, I'm losing hope. Even with the new donor with super sperm, I just don't feel like it's ever going to work. 

No one tells you just what it means when they say that it can take years to conceive and no one explains the emotional toll it takes on you on, it's gut wrenching!

I just don't understand why it's not working, we're timing it perfectly, we're doing everything right before, during and after insemination. My wife is healthy. We're doing absolutely everything we possibly can and yet it still doesn't work & stick. We're pretty convinced that we've had as many as 3 chemical pregnancies on top of the miscarriage and that's starting to worry me. If conception is happening but something isn't working after that, how the hell do we improve things to make it work??

We could go for treatment but we really can't afford the thousands of pounds that it would cost and then the chances of it working are no greater than doing what we currently are. There's very limited access to stuff on the NHS too which is fair but we don't meet the criteria for it.

We sat up last night talking about it all, my wife is blaming herself for everything. That really upsets me because it's just not her fault, she's been so wonderful throughout this whole process and so strong. I couldn't be more proud of her through all of this.

The thought that it may never happen for us is going through my mind more and more at the minute, I know that it's only because we've had another disappointment but no matter how many times people tell us that we're meant to be parents and no matter how much we want it, that doesn't and won't ever make it happen.

Giving up really isn't an option for either of us but finding the strength to go on is near impossible to find at the minute.

Confusion

Last month ended in disappointment after we started getting our hopes up because we thought my wife was having implantation bleeding after starting to spot 4 days before her expected period which confused the crap out of us because she's never spotted that early before.

Now we're 5 days before her expected period and 11dpo and she's spotting again. More confusion, more questions, more stress.

Do not know what to think, half of me is hoping for the best, the other half is trying not to be too disappointed.


This bloody process is torture!!

To my future babies..

I'm your Mummy (not your tummy Mummy though). We haven't managed to conceive you yet but i thought it might be nice to write you a little letter than one day you might even get to read.

We've been trying to make you for a long time now with 3 different people trying to help us, it's been really hard and we have both been really upset about it not happening just yet but we are adamant that it will happen when the time is right and that you're going to be our perfect son or daughter.

I want you to know that i love you so much. I know that sounds weird because you're barely a twinkle  in our eyes at the moment but i do. I've dreamt about you since i was about 13, i've thought about what i'd like to call you (although that's changed a bit over the years), what sort of person you might be and how i'd like to raise you.

Your other Mummy is pretty amazing, she's beautiful and so funny and clever! She makes me so incredibly happy and the fact that she's going to be giving half of your genes makes my heart swell, you're one (or hopefully more) very lucky kid! I dream about what you'll look like all of the time, i hope you've got your Mummy's brilliant blue eyes and her beautiful smile with that cute little dimple that is just perfect.

I'm looking forward to the day we get that positive and we start making real plans for you, decorating the back bedroom, seeing you in the scans, preparing for your arrival. I dream of the day i watch you smile, walk and say your first word. I can't wait to watch you grow, give you a sibling or two or three, and show you as much of the world as possible.

I can't promise you that things will always be perfect or easy growing up, i'm sure at times you'll be furious with me, your other Mummy and/or the world. I can only promise that i'll be there as much as i can possibly be there, you'll always have me to talk to in one way or another and i hope that i always make easy for you to come to me.

I hope more than anything that we get to start preparing for you so very soon.

Mummy loves you, never ever forget that xxx

5am and i can't sleep

I haven't done a post like this in a very long time, today is 16 dpo and my wife is due her period today but we both feel more optimistic than we have done for a long time about the possibility of her being pregnant. 

Basically she's had early spotting, 2 days earlier in her cycle than it has EVER been and it was very light. We're hoping that it was implantation bleeding but we wont be sure until we get a positive test result and that may be another week away yet unless we decide to test earlier (a decision i'm leaving completely up to her). 

I don't know what to think. I don't want to get my hopes up and have them dashed again, i don't want to be too pessimistic, i'm worried in case she is and we get the same thing happen as last time again. 

But at the same time i'm excited....

This could be it!

Change....

The interesting guy got even more interesting. We sent emails back and forth for a few days then decided to have the phonecall.

We were nervous as hell but got our questions sorted and waited for the call. We asked everything we wanted to and more, he answered everything to our satisfaction and asked us lots of questions too. 

Before the phone call he sent us a donor contract to read over that we must agree to before he meets us. We read through it all and are really happy with it, he's been a donor at a clinic for a while (for medical research) and has undergone all of the relevant counselling etc that prepares him for being a donor. The contract basically states that we will not come after him for anything, we will have healthy lifestyles in order to promote a healthy pregnancy and raise our child/children with their wellbeing in mind. 

We're really happy with him and a few days later asked him to be our donor with a view to having a donation at some point within the next week. 

In the end, he could only do Thursday or Friday because he had a commitment to another couple who are trying for a sibling with him and he wont donate to more than one couple/person within 48 hours. This wasn't ideal for us as my wife was looking at ovulating on Wednesday but we it could have worked. When it came down to it, the only night i had off work was Thursday and my wifes ovulation delayed itself until Thursday so it was perfect!

We're now on 13dpo and there's weird stuff going on, fingers crossed it's good weird stuff but we just don't know.

Some donors are great, others are just dicks.

Here we are again, you reading and me having a bit of a moan.

D2 has turned into a complete dick, the first month was great but we didn't get pregnant. The second month was not great.

In the few days running up to ovulation day we made sure we text him to keep him in the loop about when we were expecting it to finally happen and he was fine, mentioned nothing about not being able to make the probable date and even offered to arrange to come to us on the probable day without waiting for the positive test. We declined saying that we wanted to make sure it definitely was that day before arranging anything for certain.

The day came and we were right so we text him and left work in preparation for him coming over to us (he had wanted to arrange for coming over straight away). Almost 2 hours went by and we had heard nothing from him at all so we sent him another text. He replied saying (and i quote), 'Not thinking, i made an appointment for this afternoon. And then out for a meal with a friend. If i'm back fairly early, i'll let you know. Otherwise can we do it tomorrow? x"

We were so pissed off so text him saying that wasn't an option, we'd had time off work etc etc. In the end he came round 7 hours later than he had originally tried to arrange to come round. Pissed off was an understatement.

So that month doesn't work so we text and say so and get the 'better luck next time' text in reply. About 10 days later we text to say it's likely to be in about 6 days, do you have any issues with that? He texts back a couple of days later saying he was on holiday at the moment but will be in touch when he's back but he's already donating to someone the evening before we wanted one. Holiday!? What holiday?! First we've heard of it!

After that my wife ovulated 4 days earlier that expected and he wasn't back from holiday but D1 had offered to step in if we were ever in need and did so. He's so cool, we miss him a lot.

We didn't get pregnant again. We decided to email D2 just to check that we're on the same page and that the 'misunderstandings' of the last couple of months were just that. He responds saying that he doesn't believe that there have been any misunderstandings then goes on to say that because we've been trying with him for a while we should consider a 'different method'. FUMING. How can he not see that he's not only screwed us around but has also had some serious clashing going on and hasn't bother to mention it, it's not like it can mess up our chances of getting pregnant or anything! Dick.

After that we've emailed saying we're going to try and find someone else.

So we're back to square one and emailing endless men asking for a pot of extra fertile, do it in one, spunk.

30+ emails sent, 4 replies. 1 from a guy who is doing what i can only call an attempt at a sexy pose. 1 from someone on a site we can't see properly because we haven't paid the £30+ subscription fee. 1 from D2 but we've no idea which site we accidentally emailed him through!! The last one has come from a guy that is reminding us of D1 a lot, it's going to be interesting to see how this one turns out...TBC

10 things they don't tell you about being a lesbian and trying for a baby...

We're 2 years in from making the decision to start a family, almost 18 months since our first insemination and thought now would be a good time to do a list like this, keep it in mind that we're doing AI at home....

10) It can take what feels like FOREVER!! We've been at this for a while now and we're far from alone. When it takes more than 6 months you start to question how long it will take, whether or not it will ever even happen and it can really start to get you down.

9) Relaxation never truly happens. How many times have you heard people say, "if you stop trying and relax it'll happen, that's what we did." It doesn't necessarily work that way, it really doesn't. We now don't get anywhere near as anxious as we did in the beginning but we still do to a certain extent and that doesn't really have any say in whether or not we'll be having a baby in 9 months.

8) The comments from the 'smug' parents and parents to be. So many people we know have offered advice and made comments about what we can do to make sure we get pregnant. These comments have ranged from slagging off our first donor (completely infuriated me for the record) to the ever philosophical, "it'll happen when the time is right." Sometimes it's so hard to not tell people to shove their comments where the sun don't shine!

7) Cervical mucus enters into everyday conversation. Seriously, when getting towards ovulation day it's, "Has your plug come away yet? Is it stretchy?? Are we at egg white consistency yet?!?!" You name it, i've asked the question and/or inspected said mucus just to be sure. After doing this several times, i now know when i'm ovulating!

6) Pregnancy test companies do a hell of a lot of advertising. There's not a day that goes by where we don't see a TV ad for a pregnancy test or other....especially when aunt flow is about to show up!

5) What you have to do to put the stuff in place. Whether it's checking you've got the right place or depth perception or getting the angle right....it's a tricky (sometimes uncomfortable) business.

4) Donors aren't necessarily what they seem to be.... There's uber donors (as we have spoken about before), guys who say all the right things then expect something completely different in return, guys that think they can post their stuff (that one confused us too), guys that let you down, guys that don't want to meet up at all (they like to leave their stuff outside a locked hotel room or a parked empty car) and goodness knows how many other varieties. Make sure all sides know what they're letting themselves in for in full before going ahead with anything.

3) Once you start trying, 'romance' doesn't quite feel the same unless one of you has raised hips...totally feels like you forgot to do something.

2) You're asking someone to masterbate for you, in your own home, (in our case) our future children's bedroom. This last month our donor almost went into detail about why it had taken him longer than normal this time around....i almost ran away with my fingers shoved in my ears shouting "LALALALALALA!!!" Dude, we know you come round to our house to wank off...don't share the details!!

1) Sperm is rank. It's smelly, warm and looks a little like chinese sweetcorn soup without the sweetcorn.  If i accidentally get a whiff, it get's to my gag reflex instantly so i now have to cover my face before getting it in to make sure it doesn't happen. Vomiting before 'romance' doesn't go down too well (so i've been told).

13....unlucky for some??

So at long last we've done the deed and inseminated my wife For the 13th time in 15 months. It's been a really bizarre series of events in the lead up to it though.

I had the week from hell, starting in cancelling work for the day due to the crappy weather, then I had a car accident (not serious) and then the guy that needed to pass his test in order for me to get paid for my weeks work failed. Couple that lot with my wife getting a phone call at 10pm telling her she may need to go into the office because there's been a major screw up, all in all, a seriously shitty week!

Well on top of that my wife's ovulation was running really late (she usually ovulates between day 13 & 16) but surprisingly I ovulated which is weird because last year, I only ovulated 4 times. With ovulation being so late D2 couldn't do ovulation day so we had to go a day early.

He came round and it was really awkward because we don't really know each other. We checked his certificate and along with his driving license. Turns out, he has a really funny surname!

Anyway, we got everything into place and now it's hoping for the best, fingers crossed that in a few weeks time we'll be happily expecting.

New Year, New Start!

Last time i blogged, i mentioned that we were considering changing things up a bit and seeing how things go.

Well the new year has arrived and after talking to D1 (our first donor) we have decided that we're going to try someone else. He was lovely about it, so supportive and wants to keep in touch with us which suits us perfectly because over the last year or so we have developed a friendship with him. We're both upset about it because what we had with him was the perfect set up for us but we need to know if it's him or us and this is the simplest way to know.

We started looking on Co-Parentmatch.com and Prideangel.com last week and emailed a few people. We didn't really get any replies until we emailed a guy about 30 minutes away from us. He was happy to talk to us about things and suggested that we meet up.

We met this evening in a McDonalds and he seems lovely. We asked everything we needed to ask and he answered everything really well. He is quite shy which surprised us but that's not an issue, he's more than happy to donate for siblings in the future too. He has a few donor children, one couple had identical twin girls with him which is exciting as he and my wife have twins in the family....we've always fancied twins, lol!

One thing i have found really weird tonight though is that i feel guilty and almost like i was cheating on D1, it was weird that things with D2 were awkward at first too because we're so used to jumping into a conversation with D1 about anything and everything that it was just bizarre.

All in all we're excited and hoping that it works soon :)