1 In Vermillion

We’re experiencing rain of biblical proportions today.  Our poor chihuahua refused to go outside this morning.  Can’t say that I blame her, the puddle off of our front stoop would have been chest deep. 

Yesterday afternoon I left work to drive the 45 minutes to our county courthouse to take the next step in my name change.  I’m taking Strawberry’s last name and making my last name my middle name.  All of this is in preparation for adding a cupcake to our family and for all 3 of us to share a last name.

Two weeks ago I had made my first trip to the courthouse.  First let me say that the name “courthouse” is misleading.  It’s actually a huge sprawling campus of sorts with at least 15 different buildings, spanning the space of over 4 city blocks.  All plopped into a middle of nowhere farmland/ countryside/small town.  I had all of my paperwork printed out, filled out, and signed and I had the forms of ID that I’d need.  I had my checkbook. I knew the room number I was supposed to be at to drop these things off.  I parked in “short term parking” paid at the mini-meter and went off to complete my task.  Two metal detectors, 3 security guards, 1 helpful information desk, 2 buildings and a 15 minute walk later I was in the right place.  All my forms were submitted, my money was taken and I was back in my car another 15 mins later.  Piece of cake!!

Last week I got a bill in the mail from the newspaper that was running my name change petition.  Sent a check to pay it the same day.  And I saved the “notice of publication” since I would need to submit it at the courthouse.

So yesterday I decide to take the afternoon to submit the “notice of publication”.  I drive the 45 minutes over to the courthouse and park at a meter on the street close to the building I now know is the one that I need.  Thru security and up to the 4th floor I go where the clerk stamps my form and waves me on. 

“What happens next?” I ask.

“You’ll hear from us.” she replies.

“And about how long does that usually take?” I press.

“I don’t know. I’ll ask”

She asks the clerk next to her, who pulls my stamped form from the top of the pile and says “This doesn’t go to us.  What is it?”

I explain that it’s the “notice of publication” for my name change and she shakes her head.  Turns out, I will get something in the mail from the newspaper after they process my payment and the ad runs.  and that second piece of paper is the actual “notice of publication.”  I sigh, thinking I have now wasted a trip out here and that I’m going to have to do it all over again. 

“But wait” she says “What newspaper was it?”

I tell her. “Oh, their office is just over on Main Street.”  She tells me how to get there and off I go into the drizzle.

So, after a 10 minute walk I’m at the newspaper offices.  They are very busy but helpful and after another 10 minutes I’m back out in the drizzle with the form that I need.  Back thru security, back up 3 flights of stairs to the clerk.  I’m really feeling like a contestant on a reality TV show.   Running all over the place getting this thing here, that thing there, all in 20 minutes so that I don’t get a parking ticket.

This time, it seems like I’ve got what they need and it’s stamped in.  Now I just have to wait for the judicial decree and I’ll get my name change in the mail.  Now why do I doubt it’s actually going to be that simple?  Oh, and yeah, this part’s going to seem easy once I start changing my name with all the people and organizations I have to.  Sigh.

I have always been of the mindset “yeah…I’ll probably have a kid one day….maybe…I’m not sure….” which I think is a fine mindset for one to be in during their early to mid 20’s. Unfortunately, I’m not in my early to mid 20’s anymore, and finding myself in my late 20’s and married to a woman a couple years older than that whose biological alarm clock went off a while ago…no longer such a good mindset to be in.

I’m writing because a few months back when I still found myself in that mindset, and mentally resisting any ideas of parenthood, I felt pretty alone. All around me were lesbians having kids and trying to get pregnant and constantly talking the talk, and I just wanted to run away. Baby talk bored me to tears and, more than that, frightened me. I hadn’t even really held a baby in over a decade. And here I was, facing the very real, very soon prospect of my wife trying to conceive.

Every night I had anxiety dreams…ranging from being stuck taking care of babies to general anxiety dreams of drowning in tsumani-like waves. Good stuff. I talked to my friends, some who sympathized, some who said “you’ll come out of it….it’ll be different when you have one of your own.” I talked to my wife and probably made her very sad and confused when I kept saying over and over, “I’m not ready…I can’t see doing this….” She listened, but she wasn’t going to be veered off the motherhood course, and I knew it.

I kept waiting and waiting for my feelings to change, but they weren’t changing. I began to accept the fact that this whole baby thing was going to happen whether I wanted it to or not, and the choice I had to make was, was I going to be a part of it? Talk about scary.

I decided that yes, I was going to be a part of it. I loved my wife too much to not give it a shot. But how can you just “give parenthood a shot”? You can’t really….and so I kept waiting for my feelings of uncertainty to change.

We held a baby shower for friends in our neighborhood…lesbians who were due in a couple of weeks (we are lucky in that there really is no shortage of lesbian moms or moms-to-be in our area). While the baby shower was fun, it was still uncomfortable for me because I just didn’t want to imagine it happening in our near future. I couldn’t.

Our friends’ baby was born a week later and we went over to visit them and bring some food. There he was, the 6-day old, laying on one of his mom’s lap. She offered to let me hold him and I said “no, thanks.” She insisted, I resisted, but then I finally gave in and she placed him on my lap. The first thing I noticed was how tiny and perfect he was. Teeny tiny fingers and fingernails. A tiny little button nose. And a sense of peace pervaded the room, and me, as he slept snuggled warmly in the blanket. I kept staring at him, never having held an infant so new and so small before. And finally….finally my wall of resistance began to crumble.

I know if I were reading what I just wrote on someone else’s blog a few months ago, I would’ve probably rolled my eyes and thought, “that would never happen to me.” I can’t tell you how relieved I am that it did. When I sat there holding that infant and thought for the first time, this isn’t so bad….I can see this in my future….the sense of relief I felt was overwhelming.

No one wants to become a parent whose heart isn’t into it. I certainly didn’t. And there are still times I think about the immense changes that are going to take place and I get scared, but I think I can finally handle it. I think my desire to have a little one in our lives is now strong enough to take on that challenge and never, ever give up. And I think that’s how people need to feel…I’m glad that I finally do.

-Strawberry

I felt that we learned a lot at the Rainbow Families conference last weekend. Among the most interesting or important things follow, as well as the answer to at least one of my burning questions:

If anyone reading wants to add anything or had different experience with those issues, please let us know

-Strawberry

We bought sperm! 3 vials which are due to ship at the end of the week, to be stored at our fertility clinic until we need them.

Since it seems to be the thing to ‘name your donor’, we’re calling ours ‘Eagle Scout.’ It was either that, or ‘Frat Boy’, but since he seems much too wholesome to be called the latter, even though he is/was in a fraternity, we are calling him the former.

-Strawberry

This weekend we attended the Rainbow Families Conference in the DC area.  It was fantastic, we learned a lot and met some great people, including a few friends from blog-land.  Out of the over 40 session topics that were offered we went to:

Donor Insemination 101–  led by an RE and a woman who has a 10 month old son after a full year of insemination. It was very informative from a medical and procedural perspective and it was a great place for those of us at the beginning of the process.

Budgeting for Baby and Beyond — led by a financial planner. It turned out to be a session on general financial planning and we really only got 5 minutes of baby related financial education at the very end, because one of the participants asked her to address it in the time left. The entire session left me feeling like I was never going to get ahead financially and that I should just lock myself in my house and never leave.

and finally 2nd Parent Adoption — led by 2 lawyers from the top 2 firms in the DC area that do 2nd parent adoptions for same sex couples. It was very specific info, including time frames, pricing, documents required and it was excellent. It makes me really glad that I live in Maryland, where the process can take a little as 6 weeks after birth to finalize.

Overall, the conference was a huge success from my perspective and I am looking forward to it in the years to come. If I had to guess  I would say that there were about 200 people in attendance. There were families of all make-ups and identites.  One problem with the conference as it is currently being done is that there is a “Kids Camp” for children over the age of 2.5 years.  However, participants were asked not to bring any child over 6 months to the sessions.  This leaves a HUGE gap for familes that would like to participate but would need to find alternate childcare.  I really hope that someone steps up and finds a creative solution for next year.   It seems like there could easliy be programming that was inclusive of parents and children between 6 months and 2.5 years.  I know that there is a community that would love to join in and they are now excluded.

The RE’s office returned my message about sperm washing at 7:05am this morning. Thankfully our alarm goes off at 7:00, so we weren’t TOO startled. They charge WAY more than we are willing to spend and since our #1 choice of donor is only available “unwashed” we are now back to the catalogs. Good thing we still have 2 months before we need the stuff.

To sum it up thus far:
choice #1= unwashed only
choice #2= CMV+
choice #3= schizophrenia in the family history

Thank goodness for the Internet. I can’t imagine doing all of this by mail and phone!

*Strawberry adds: We do have 3 other possible donors, with long profiles for one or two so far. Fortunately we’re not ‘SOL’ at this point, but it’s unfortunate we can’t go with our top choices. Oh well.

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Here’s a meme for Olive over at Insert Metaphor

1. How many places have you lived in your life? Countries? 2 States? 5 Homes? 13

2. What’s the longest and shortest you’ve ever been in one place? Longest? 10 years in the townhouse with my parents. Shortest? 4 months in the flat in Oxford for my study abroad program

3. Which place did/do you like the most? I like my little row house now.  It’s the first place that I have owned and Strawberry and I have made it ours.  The least? I hated living in the house I shared with 2 people for about 6 months when I was in college.  And the apartment in Boston, although that was more a “grew to hate” situation because of bad roomates and pests.  I loved Boston, though.

4. How have you chosen the places you live? We fell in love with the small city we live in and it was in our price range and in an excellent location near our jobs and my family.  We lucked into our actual house because the sellers agent was an idiot and we knew to jump on a good deal when we saw one.

5. If you could live anywhere, where would it be, and why?  I would really love to live in NYC.  I’m a city girl at heart and NY is the one for me.  I love the pulse of it, the variety.  Who knows, someday perhaps.  Although Strawberry doesn’t ever want to live there, and I’d rather be where she is.

My OB called with the results from my CMV screen.  I’m negative for both the antibodies and the active virus.  She was a tad confused and asked me if I had been concerned about myself.  I explained that I needed it to help me choose a donor and that now I would be sure to pick someone that was also negative.  She said “Ah, well good luck then and I hope to see you soon!”  This is why I’m not going to her for help getting pregnant but really like her anyway.

These results mean that our  #2 donor is now out of the running.  So, it looks like Mr. “Strawberry if she’d been a boy” who’s juice has been on ice for a long time is the winner!  Now I’m off to call the RE to check the prices for “washing” since his samples are only available “unwashed”.

So we have in our possession:
1. The Ultimate Guide to Pregnancy for Lesbians: How to Stay Sane and Care For Yourself from Pre-Conception to Birth

2. The New Essential Guide to Lesbian Conception, Pregnancy, and Birth

The top one seems down-to-earth and very readable. The latter one seems too full of new age crap for my taste.

I’m just now looking through Amazon’s other listings for books related to lesbian pregnancy. Let’s see….

3. Baby Steps: How Lesbian Alternative Insemination is Changing the World. Yeah- recruit! recruit! recruit! Also, I love the first comment someone made on Amazon for this book: I think all women should be able to decide how to live their lives and raise their children, whether with another woman, a man, both, or neither. Baby steps provides an alternative way to get pregnant without being penetrated by a man’s [...]. Nice.

4. Confessions of the Other Mother: Non-Biological Lesbian Moms Tell All. This one sounds interesting, but I’m sure most of these stories do not apply to me.

5. My Miserable, Lonely, Lesbian Pregnancy. Sounds just as happy as The Well of Loneliness! It sounds good though: …reads like an intimate yet super funny, painfully true letter from my very best friend. Andrea is like a girl version of David Sedaris or Augusten Burroughs, mining perfect comedic moments from the very worst of life’s offerings. You don’t have to be miserable, lonely or a lesbian to completely relate to the hilarious journey that is Andrea’s life.”

And finally, Amazon thought I could use this product since I was looking at all these books:

Vaginal Speculums, metal, 3 sizes

Thanks, Amazon. Thanks a lot. *runs away in terror*

- Strawberry

Yep, me.  I am still a giant baby when it comes to needles.  Somehow over the years I have managed my phobia well enough to suffer thru tetanus boosters and flu shots with a minimum amount of fuss and hysterics.  But it has been at least 6 years since my last blood draw and I’m still as much of a wreck as I always have been.  My blood pressure drops and I get cold, my veins retreat, I get tingly extremities, my ears ring, and I have to concentrate very hard with my eyes squeezed shut on breathing deeply and not passing out.  And then once I’m given the “all done” I burst into tears.  Thereafter, a quickly administered small amount of chocolate boosts my blood sugar enough to counteract the drop in blood pressure.  I need about 10 minutes to recover enough to walk and my arm will be weak and almost useless for the rest of the day.    All of this for 1 tiny vial of blood.  Like I said, a giant baby.

But, I survived the blood draw for my CMV screening.  The phlebotomist was very quick and patient. Strawberry was there to hold me and reassure me and administer the chocolate.  She’s so good and kind and now she can commiserate with my mother over what a ninny I am.  It would be really great if this were the last time I needed blood drawn during the whole “have a baby” process, but I know that’s impossible.  I think I may explore the possibility of getting a prescription for a topical numbing cream, and I am going to request to lie down next time.

I don’t know when we’ll know the results, they will only release them to my OB, since she’s the one that did the lab order.  I guess I can call them starting on Monday.