Ok, technically, not the START of my journey, it's the second month.
But let's start at the beginning, and come up to now.
After having discussed it and looked into our options for a fair few months, my amazing partner and I decided to jump into the deep end and just start trying. I guess leading up to that point there were so many options - IVF or home based AI? My partners egg in my womb, or mine? When we finally decided to go with the easiest option of home-based AI (AI is artificial insemination, by the way, so anything other than natural insemination, or "when a cis-man and a cis-woman love eachother very much..." the good ol' turkey baster = AI), we then had to look at who would be a donor for us.
We were both adamant that we want a donor who would not be involved, it's important to both of us that our children are OURS, not mine and some guys and my partner is just someone who helps me raise them, OURS. We didn't want someone who wanted to be an uncle, someone who wanted to see the kid regularly, all we wanted was some sperm in a cup.
Initially we asked a couple of friends, I may tell that story some day but for now, let's just say it was a bit of a bust.
So in the end we went with the idea of finding a donor we didn't know through one of what I like to call the "Donor Dating Website", because they're like dating websites except all the single men are looking to give their sperm to someone, and most of the women already have partners...
Finding the right donor
We had some basic criteria our potential donor should meet. Firstly they needed to be tall. Why? Because I'm not, I'm 5'3" and getting a tall donor would give our kid the best possible chance of being not as short as me. My partner is also quite tall so the child would be like them in that way.
Secondly they needed to want a closed donation, no "Uncle with a secret", no "tell me when you've given birth" no "send me drawings they've done at school", just do your thing in the receptacle provided. No rights, no responsibilities.
Thirdly, they have to be smart. My partner and I are both incredibly intelligent (yup, modesty doesn't suit those of us who are this clever...), and let's face it, no one would wish to have a child who is a dullard.
So we started trawling the "dating" site, narrowing our search to people 5'10" and above, giving preference to men with beards because, well, we like beard and even though that's not a genetic trait, well, they just make us smile.
Some of the people we contacted didn't reply, others weren't suitable.
We gave it a rest for a couple of months, christmas and new year gave us enough to think about, then whilst visit my partner's two young nephews we decided to just throw ourselves into it. We re-trawled the site, found a tall bearded man and sent a message. He responded nearly straight away.
I had been tracking my cycle to a certain extent so knew it was just about ovulation time and when we got home I peed on a stick (little did I know how routine peeing on sticks would become...). Sure enough the little line that signals ovulation appeared and we asked him to come around that night.
Although that night was 'technically" the start of the journey, it really started before then, there's so much preparation that goes into it.
Prenatal vitamins (which are the MASSIVE, and you have to take two different pills a day, ugh ugh ugh), peeing on sticks to track ovulation, and all the emotional preparation, the talks, the looks, the crying every time you see your partner holding a baby (in private... mostly)
Next post I will give you all the wonderful and hilarious details of our first donor experience, until then, in the words of TTC bloggers everywhere ***BABY DUST ***
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