Let me count the ways

Keely asked “Did you discuss in advance how far you would go with IUIs- how many, and when, if ever, you would consider IVF or other alternatives?”

Yes, we did discuss things in advance of beginning TTC.  I had been lurking in the lesbian TTC blog community for about 2 years and so I was somewhat aware of the bumps, twists, and turns that might lie ahead.  I am severely needle phobic and I knew that I would never agree to injectables or IVF.  I don’t think I ever decided about the possibility of needing a trigger shot.  Our long range plan was to do 6 unmedicated IUIs, then an HSG, then if all clear, 6 more tries with Clomid.  We also decided to switch up donors every 3 cycles.  At the end of 12 full cycles, we would take a break and reassess.  Our babymaking savings would certainly have been gone by that point as well.  Had we gotten to that point, Strawberry would have taken a turn in the stirrups after we had regrouped and perhaps saved a bit more funds.  Had we not been successful with Strawberry’s uterus, then I think we would have given up on TTC.

We feel incredibly fortunate that our journey was fairly easy.  Statistically, based on my age and other factors, we were led to believe that we had 75% chance of getting pregnant in 6 cycles and a 90% chance of getting pregnant in 9 cycles.  However, we have seen too many friends fall on the other side of these statistics to escape feeling just a tad guilty about how it played out.

Olive asked “When do you fit in blogging and commenting now that the wee one is here?”

We are both fortunate/cursed to have jobs where we sit in front of a computer most, if not all of the day. This means there is plenty of time between work to read and comment on blogs (or is it, plenty of time between reading and commenting on blogs to do work?) Curly also goes to sleep at 7pm, and since we don’t typically go to bed until 10 at the earliest, there is plenty of time for web surfing. It was definitely harder in the beginning though, when his needs were often and completely unpredictable, and we were very worn out. But we wanted to keep a good record of what we were going through, so we still pushed ourselves to blog about it. Finally, Strawberry has been on FMLA for the past 10 weeks, but Curly takes quite a few naps in the daytime so she’s able to be online a lot.