Hellobee

It’s been a while since I’ve written for Hellobee, and I have missed it so! I started blogging when my daughter, Ohana, was about seven months old. I had gone back to work and was feeling like I could do it all! Several months later, I was feeling overwhelmed and decided to drop some extracurricular activities so I wasn’t feeling so stressed. I have always been a loyal Hellobee reader, even when I stopped writing. It’s such a beautiful place to collect and share experiences.

Since then, it seems as though a lot has happened. By “a lot happening,” I mean Ohana has grown up and we started trying to conceive for a second. Ohana is two and a half years old and talking up a storm. I always heard every parent say that each stage is more fun than the previous, and I fully agree! She’s a lot of fun right now.

My Toddler!

In early Spring 2013, my wife Missus Scooter, and I decided we wanted to try for another baby. Ohana had just turned one so this was a little scary, but we liked the idea of having the kids close in age, and we are on the “older” side of having kids so we saw no reason to wait (except for being a bit terrified).

I previously blogged about our conception decisions since we had several choices, being a same-sex couple. We had flipped a coin about who was going to carry the first time and then we reversed our decision (I ended up carrying Ohana). So our plan has always been to have Missus Scooter try to conceive the second baby.

We had originally purchased ten vials of donor sperm from our Cryobank and used three to conceive Ohana, leaving seven vials to use for baby #2. We thought this would be more than enough and we even mused about having a third baby because we were sure there would be plenty left over.

In June 2013, Missus Scooter was all set for her first intrauterine insemination (IUI). She had always hated the fertility clinic and its impersonal feeling. We looked into home insemination and arranged for this. I was supportive because having her comfortable and happy with the process would be the most important factor above all else. I always knew in my gut that she would have no problem getting pregnant, so if she wanted to inseminate at home, who cares! Shortly after her first insemination, she looked at me while we were sitting on the couch and said, “I think it worked.” Of course, I thought so too! We were excited. When her period came two weeks later, we were very disappointed but of course reminded ourselves it was just the FIRST time, and it would have been crazy for it to happen that quickly.

The second month, we inseminated at home again. We think we had the timing off a bit so the procedure didn’t go very smoothly. It’s hard to not over-think every detail when you’re trying to conceive. I didn’t have a very good feeling about that month, but was telling myself that anything could happen. She got her period two weeks later.

At this point, I was starting to become a little nervous and I was really struggling with not being in control. The big joke is no one is in control of their fertility, but at least when it’s happening in YOUR body, you feel slightly more in empowered. I read Taking Charge of Your Fertility and began urging Missus Scooter to start charting. She was resistant but started doing it because I wanted her to.

We also decided that we would switch to inseminating at our fertility clinic instead of at home. There are a lot of factors with home inseminations that can be stressful. First, the Cryobank sends a huge tank to your house, but someone must be home to sign for it. Both times we shipped to our home, we had to subsequently go pick up the tank from a FedEx location. Also, the sperm will only survive in the tank for 72 hours in after it’s shipped. This is tricky with ovulation because you need to make sure the tank is there if you happen to ovulate early, but if you happen to ovulate late, you don’t want the tank there too early or you’re afraid the sperm might be compromised. Next, you heat up the vial by simply putting it next to your skin for 10 minutes or so (I always put it in my bra). But there is no way to verify the specimen and ensure everything is moving adequately and ready to go (like at a fertility clinic). Lastly, IUI can be tricky and it’s nice to have different instruments available. At a fertility clinic, they pretty much have everything they may need in the event of a pesky insemination. At home, you typically don’t have as many options.

Cryo Tank Delivered to our House

This decision set us back a month because Missus Scooter needed to undergo testing required by our fertility clinic. This was actually reassuring to do because then we would at least know whether there may be a physiological issue. Thankfully, everything with her testing looked great.

So the third insemination was very hopeful for us. We had conceived with Ohana on the third try and we thought maybe that would be the case with Baby #2. She’d undergone testing and we knew there were no problems. We were at the clinic and everything went great. Then she got her period.

We reminded ourselves this was still “normal” and three times was still very early. We were just starting to begin her chart and there was no reason to worry. To say this is how we actually felt, though, would be a lie. Every time she got her period was a huge letdown and caused a lot of anxiety for the both of us. Missus Scooter started going to a well-known fertility acupuncturist in our area. We had a $200 initial consultation and then scheduled $85 weekly sessions. They prescribed all kinds of herbs and supplements, at pretty steep price tags. We didn’t really mind…”this was all just part of our process” we said.

Missus Scooter Looking Happy on Insem Day

Insemination procedures four and five went great, as well, and with acupuncture under way, we felt we were removing barriers to conception. But neither was successful.

I was panicked. I found myself micromanaging Missus Scooter’s chart and if she would miss a day of temping I would be angry. After an insemination, I would watch her like a hawk and plead with her to skip the gym and watch what she was eating/drinking. I was becoming everything she hated about the fertility process. It was strange…I could see myself doing these things but yet could not stop. I pored over fertility books and I harbored resentment when she didn’t show an interest. This wasn’t exactly going as planned.

I was also on the hunt for more vials of our donor. This seemed like a nearly impossible task, but it gave me something to channel my energy on. With most Cryobanks, there is a limited supply of vials for sale from a particular donor. When you purchase, the Cryobank gives you an idea of how many vials are left. I remembered when we bought our ten vials in early 2011, this donor did not have many left. It was no surprise to me that when I went back in 2013 and searched on the donor number, there were no vials available.

I called the Cryobank and asked if they had a “secret stash” somewhere. I was willing to pay extra! No such luck. I pored over the Cryobank bulletin boards and found several threads from 2011 about our donor. I posted on each thread, hoping someone may have extra vials they did not intend on using. I did not get any responses.

Elusive Vials!

I also found a service offered by our Cryobank where you (as a parent) can list a child born from your donor. The service is anonymous, listing only the birth date and sex of the child. I logged in and saw there was one child (a girl) listed! I looked at the screen a very long time and thought, “my daughter had a half sister…” I looked at the username of the person who posted (who I presumed to be the child’s mother) and I thought maybe I could find her. I know, I know, I don’t need to be told that I was bordering on obsessive compulsive at this point. I put this woman’s username in Google and found nothing. I tried all the tricks I knew and came up with nada. This woman clearly made up a username, and that’s probably because THE SITE IS SUPPOSED TO BE ANONYMOUS and she wanted it to stay that way. I felt pretty low.

Missus Scooter was becoming more withdrawn and disenchanted with the whole process and I was becoming more controlling. It was December and she wanted to take the next month off to give herself a break and enjoy the holidays. I was against this, but I didn’t have a whole lot of say in it, since it was her body. During the break, we were out on a date and of course we found ourselves talking about it. I blurted out that we only had two vials left and I was really scared Ohana wouldn’t have a biological sibling and I felt like we should use those last two vials on me. Missus Scooter smiled broadly and said, “Oh my god! Yes! Let’s do it!” I couldn’t quite believe it. It felt sort of wrong and desperate, but after she reacted this way, I thought, hey, maybe this was exactly what we needed to do.

The next morning we woke up and she was very quiet, then finally said that she had been thinking about it and was really sad about how that happened. She was caught off guard and felt steamrolled. The decision felt too spur-of-the-moment. Besides, this wasn’t our plan. I totally agreed with her and felt terrible. Of course we would not switch to me. And if she did not get pregnant with the same donor as Ohana, it would be okay. The point was that we would have another baby, not genetics. We, of all couples, understood this! So we agreed. We would stay the course.

We planned that the last two inseminations from our original donor would be medicated: Missus Scooter would take clomid. Clomid is an oral medication used to increase the amount of hormones that support ovulation and release of an egg. Unfortunately, the clomid medication had terrible side effects for Missus Scooter, causing anxiety, trouble sleeping, and mood swings. She also developed a clomid-induced cyst after the sixth unsuccessful insemination. While this is quite common and not dangerous, it means you cannot use clomid again until the cyst has disappeared.  So we decided the last (seventh) insemination from our original donor would be un-medicated.

Not a Very Romantic Way to Make a Baby…

These last inseminations from our original donor were emotional for us. While we were okay with the idea that we may have to use another donor, we still had this one and we really really wanted her to get pregnant. When she did not we were prepared, but it was still a pretty intense moment. I will always remember the feeling when she got her period after the seventh try. It felt very final. The hope that our daughter would have a biological sibling was no more. And it was okay (really it was), but it was profound.

We found ourselves back to the Cryobank website searching for a new donor. We tried to match many of the characteristics of the first donor and found fairly limited results. But we found a donor and we told ourselves it was a good thing! Missus Scooter tried seven times with the first donor – clearly something wasn’t working and maybe something easy like changing the donor would work.

We bought three vials of Donor #2. We found ourselves optimistic and excited again. I was feeling lighter and not as controlling about the process. Missus Scooter had several months of acupuncture under her belt now and a brand new donor. But bad news prevailed after both the first and second rounds with Donor #2. We had been talking for some time about when she wanted to stop trying. She told me that if she did not get pregnant after the last try, she was ready to be done.

The last cycle, we decided to medicate again. The clomid-cyst was gone so we talked with the doctor about options and told her about the trouble Missus Scooter had with clomid. She recommended a gonadotropin injectable (Menopur) to stimulate the ovaries. This medication was supposed to be just as effective as clomid with much fewer side effects. With the injectable, however, came much more work, much more money and many more appointments: several ultrasounds; daily mixing of the medication and injections into Missus Scooter’s tummy; and a final trigger shot to induce ovulation.

The wait seemed longer than the others. And when Missus Scooter got her period, we found ourselves looking towards a whole new chapter to this journey. Missus Scooter was done trying. That meant it was my turn. I had been so wrapped up in what was happening with her, I barely had time to think about doing this again…