I last left off our TTC story facing the reality that I was going to start trying to conceive and Missus Scooter was going to stop. When this happened, it felt very sudden. Of course I had thought about it over the course of the year she was TTC, but I never fully embraced the idea because I literally didn’t contemplate a scenario where she did not end up pregnant.

One thing I knew for certain: I did not have to think about whether I wanted to try. There was never any doubt about this. But there were several factors that I had to get my mind around: namely pregnancy and labor! Truthfully, it was the 40+ weeks of pregnancy in particular that I was least interested in. With Ohana, I was sick the first trimester and uncomfortable the next two trimesters. I had been thinking about how lucky I was going to be to have a new baby without having to carry! No pregnancy sickness, bloating, weight gain, heartburn. Well, so much for that.

While this was all surface concern, I did have genuine sadness around the fact that Missus Scooter and I would not share this experience together. While pregnancy was annoying, it was a miracle. Feeling a baby in your tummy is unexplainable. Birthing a baby was one of the most empowering experiences of my life. I felt stronger and more confident than I ever have. I was grieving the fact that Missus Scooter likely would not get to experience this aspect of motherhood.

But now that the decision was actually made, I didn’t want to screw around. I was ready to do this. We decided to pick yet another new donor (Donor #3). We kept the same core characteristics the same as Ohana’s donor, but looked for a few things that may be more representative of Missus Scooter. We found a donor that we were really excited about. We saw a baby picture of Donor #3 and it resembled Missus Scooter so we took this as a sign. We ordered up three vials.

I detected my ovulation by charting, studying cervical fluid, and using ovulation prediction kits (OPK). I had been charting for several months and since having a baby, my cervical fluid was quite obvious around ovulation. I took an OPK it told me I was to be ovulating in the next 24 hours!

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Positive OPK: the smiley face really does make you feel hopeful!

We went in for my first insemination and things went well. The two week waiting period is always the hardest. However, having been through this before, I knew it was highly unlikely that I would have ANY identifiable symptoms during this time (cruel). Alas, I got my period two weeks later.

As we geared up for my second insemination, I took an OPK test and got the smiley face saying I’d better schedule an insemination the next day. We left a weekend birthday getaway in Santa Cruz early, but this was our top priority. On insemination morning, I woke up and dutifully took my temperature, expecting to see a large drop (as I had been seeing with my cycle for months). What I saw instead was a teeny dip. This didn’t feel quite right even though the other signs (CM and OPK) were right. Missus Scooter urged me not to overthink it and stick to the plan: temping is the least reliable form of ovulation prediction anyway. So we inseminated later that day. The next morning, I took my temperature and my temp dropped greatly. I didn’t know what to do. Inseminate again? Hope that the first insemination would be okay? All of the scenarios and facts began to swim around in my head and finally I decided to inseminate a second time. After all, the only downside was money – $695 for the vial, $100 shipping, and $65 insemination fee. No big deal (she says sarcastically).

The day after insemination #2, we hopped on a plane for a vacation to Hawaii. I was relieved for this trip for many reasons. Besides really needing a family getaway, it was a nice way to spend the dreaded 2-week waiting period. We had a wonderful time.

When we got back home from Hawaii, we had a couple days at home before I was due to get my period/take a pregnancy test. Several months prior, I had started to spot 2-4 days prior to the start of my period. I had never spotted before and I had convinced myself it was an early indication of menopause. When I started spotting the day after we got home from Hawaii, I was pretty upset but told myself optimistically it could be implantation bleeding. Then I started my period on a Sunday. I had convinced myself that by inseminating twice in this cycle then running off to paradise was a sure-fire recipe for making a baby. Missus Scooter was pretty sad too, and what I learned throughout our combined TTC process was it was not okay for both of us to be in a “funk” at the same time!

So I pulled it together and told her it was all right, we would just order more vials and keep trying! She got online and a few moments later I heard some loud expletives. I didn’t even want to ask. She told me that Donor #3  was sold out. We couldn’t believe it. This was a brand new donor and as far as we knew, we bought vials from his first release. How could this be? The Cryobank was closed on Sunday so we could not call and ask when another release would be coming.

I was so frustrated and for the first time in this entire process I felt pretty hopeless. I started cleaning the house because it’s what I do when I’m upset. Fighting back tears, I went over all of the possibilities in my head as I vigorously vacuumed. What can we do? What can we do? I stopped and jumped on the computer to check my Cryobank bulletin boards. No replies. I logged into the sibling registry website and was stunned to see another child had been listed since I last checked – another girl!

I looked at the username and it appeared to be a first initial with a last name. Should I do this? I popped it into Google before I could talk myself out of it. Information about this woman appeared and I was able to get what I thought was her email address. I sat for a very long time looking at it. Missus Scooter had gone to run errands so I was home by myself. I couldn’t get it out of my mind. The registry site was supposed to be anonymous. Would I be crossing a major line by reaching out?

I composed a brief email. Before I lost my nerve, I hit send and then went back to cleaning. Missus Scooter came home and I didn’t tell her what I’d done. I didn’t want to get her hopes up. The email could be old, wrong, or she simply could never reply. Also, I didn’t want Missus Scooter to know how crazy I was if this didn’t pan out (hah).

About 30 minutes later, I checked my email and she replied. OH MY GOODNESS THERE WAS A REPLY!!!