Becoming pregnant, as everyone reading this blog knows, is one of the biggest decisions in your life.  And while there is such commonality we share in this process, each couple’s journey conceiving is individual and distinctive.

Ours was no exception.

As you know, Missus Scooter and I are in a same-sex marriage so our conception journey started with choosing a donor. Do we go with someone we know or choose an anonymous donor? Missus Scooter really wanted to choose someone we knew. Before becoming a stay at home mom, she was a police officer and a former member (the only female member) of the SWAT Team. So yah, it was important to her to have a “tactile” experience. She wanted to be able to look him in the eye, shake his hand, hang out with him, get a sense of who he was — not just statistics on a piece of paper. I understood. But when we started to unwind the mechanics of finding Mr. Wonderful in real life, we were left a little stumped. There were way too many variables, unknowns, and fears about the future. Plus actually knowing someone who fit all the physical and personality criteria we were looking for who was also willing to be a donor? This just seemed impossible. So we started our research online for a good cryobank.


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We chose a cryobank that was very popular, well established, and came with several personal recommendations. In addition, it was important that the bank was accredited by the American Association of Tissue Banks, physician owned and operated,  employed genetic counselors, had rigorous screening practices, offered incredible shipping and storage options, and gave many options for the type of relationship we may/may not have wanted to have with the donor.

It was easier than ordering a pizza. We’ll take a 6’2” athletic build with a side of hazel eyes, hold the straight hair. Sounds a little cheeky, but really, it’s kind of like that.

We decided to buy 10 vials because we knew it would likely take several tries and we also wanted to have enough to have another baby with the same donor. At $650 per vial, it wasn’t cheap. Gulp.

Next decision… who would carry? This was kind of fun. Having a choice about who would carry the baby is one of the perks of having a female partner. We were both open to being pregnant and neither one of us had any health issues that we knew about which would have caused a concern, so we made the decision scientifically. We flipped a coin.

Really. We did.

Now that Missus Scooter was all set to carry the baby, we tackled the next question about how to inseminate. Do we seek out a specialized fertility clinic? Do we go through our healthcare provider? Or could we do it ourselves at home? To help us make this decision, we started with a consultation at a well known fertility clinic in town. The discussion was very informative and quite technical. Because these folks are in the business of making babies (thankfully!!), they have all kinds of information ranging from tips and tricks to all-out mandates. About half way through our meeting, I noticed I’d lost Missus Scooter. She stopped asking questions. She shrank back in her chair. She glazed over. I reached over to grab her hand but it was a little lifeless. Uh oh.

I muscled my way through the rest of the consultation, making sure I understood everything we needed to know before we left. We paid a lot of money for this consultation so I wanted to squeeze as much information as I could. When we were done and walked out to the car, I didn’t even have to ask what was wrong before she burst into tears. It was too much. She was overloaded with the statistics, special diets, cycle tracking, ovulation prediction kits, increasing your odds, all the things that could go wrong, hlomid, basal temperatures, HcG, and and and…

“Don’t cry! I’ll carry the baby!” I said. Scientific decision reversal is just that easy.

We ultimately ended up choosing to inseminate through our existing healthcare provider. We felt going to the specialized fertility clinic was overkill since we didn’t know if we had “fertility problems” and the specialized clinic came with a specialized price tag. We ruled out do-it-yourself insemination (much to Missus Scooter’s chagrin) because the sperm bank wouldn’t ship directly to our home and we didn’t feel very comfortable that we would know what we were doing. Obviously we didn’t want to take any chances that we would do it wrong because we had no experience. Our healthcare provider seemed to be the solid choice: they had fertility coverage, they were flexible, and the insemination process was was 100% covered (I was double covered through my insurance and Missus Scooter’s).

Our practitioner wanted to start off with as few interventions as possible, since there was no known infertility issues. She suggested no drugs or hormones, just an ovulation prediction test. I had already been tracking my cycles for months and I could tell when I ovulated by paying attention to my cervical mucus. Using the ovulation predictor test was great because it was more data-driven and narrowed the window for ovulation.  Available at drugstores and without a prescription, ovulation predictor tests detect the surge in luteinizing hormone (LH) in urine just before ovulation, typically 12-36 hours in advance. I read somewhere to use your test on a urine sample after 1pm, making the results more reliable so that’s what I did. The test I used was digital so I didn’t have to worry about reading the results right or wrong. I would suggest spending the extra few dollars for a digital test. A little smiley face was waiting when my LH surge was spiking.

After an LH surge was detected, I called my healthcare practitioner and they scheduled an appointment to inseminate the next day. Even on weekend and holidays. It was really easy.

We did intrauterine insemination (aka IUI), meaning the practitioner used a catheter to place the sperm directly into my uterus. The goal of IUI is to increase the number of sperm that reach the fallopian tubes, thus increasing the chance of fertilization.

Being yogis, mind-body connection is really powerful for us. I knew that my attitude, mental outlook, and physical body were all connected so we really wanted to be relaxed and at peace during the insemination process. I went for a maya massage the night before and did warm castor oil packs on my belly leading up to each insemination. On the day of, Missus Scooter and I dimmed the lights in the medical office (candles would have been preferred, but this was not an option). We played soothing music, held hands, and she was even able to be an active part of the insemination process. I practiced yoga afterward, drank tons of water and watched a lot of Real Housewives (don’t judge me).

And on the third try, it worked.

When I look back on our conception story, it really is unique, but then again, it’s not. It started with two people who love each other and who wanted to expand their bond by bringing a baby into the world. They had to do their fair share of work to conceive, but in the end managed to make a miracle with relatively little difficulty and stress. When I put it this way, it was quite typical.

What was the story of your conception journey?