I Had Totally Put This Off

But today I finally called the sperm bank to tell them that their unfrozen caveman specimens had gotten the job done. Woo! Just hearing the recordings you have to wade through to get to a person made my palms sweat -- all the talk about ovulation, timing, scheduling inseminations and the extreme frustration (no relation to extreme doreetos) reminded me of how much fucking effort went into this pregancy. But that wasn't the only reason I called -- to relive the stress of ovulation, I also wanted to pay for a year of storage on the Man Seeds we have left over (yes, we got extremely lucky and didn't use all of the 8,000 vials we'd purchased in advance) and to just see how many vials are left, should we decide to have more kids.

Right now, I cannot for the life of me imagine going through this again. But a year from now, when I'm staring at Murray's cute little face and wondering how we ever lived without it? Who knows.

Apparently there's not a lot left, so if we want Murray to have a full sibling we'll have to stock up now. Except that sperm ain't cheap and we're feverishly stockpiling for Murray expenses. Shit.

I Had This Dream

At this point, we've still 26 weeks away from meeting Murray so all we have to go on are ultrasounds, the heartbeat on a doppler and dreams. I've only had 2 baby dreams so far but this weekend I had my first Girl Dream. Yep, Murray was a girl (in my dream, we still don't know in real life), she was GORGEOUS (naturally, the love child of Andrea and I should be nothing less don't you think?) and her name was something we would never ever choose like Adrianai (the i was totally there in the dream, who knows why?).

For some reason she was being kept in the nursery and I didn't get to see her right away. When I finally got there my dad was leaning over the crib, talking to her, I could barely get him to move so I could, at last, meet our daughter.

And when I held her gorgeous self in this dream, I cried tears of joy so real that I was in fact crying them in my sleep. When I got dressed in my maternity costume that day, I thought to myself, yes, this, I have waited my whole life for. Even though I have felt like crap for more than 2 months, the end result, that dream baby who will soon enough be a real baby, that baby is what I was put on this earth to do, to make and to love her (or him.)

And if you call me a sap I'll tell you it's the hormones, 100%.

You Probably Heard, But...

In case you haven't, Murray has been made. Our third try was the month we just stopped telling people (except my boss, who was wondering why I needed all those weird times off) and for the most part, stopped getting stressed out about whether or not it would work. All that assvice people hand out about 'JUST RELAX'ing was true for us. We just relaxed. And shut the hell up about what we were doing.

That cycle was totally weird. A mostly positive OPK 4 days early, my Tamagochi (aka Fertility Moonitor) went to "HIGH!" (but not "ALERT!") status on the same day so I thought, shit. Let's get up to the sperm bank RIGHT NOW. So we went that Tuesday and I had my first pain-free IUI. Here's the trick -- have a full bladder and take Advil about an hour before. I was so pain-free that when the NP had to thread the catheter through my not-really-open cervix, I couldn't feel it. My visualizations had also helped because the moment she got it in was when I finally connected that image with my body.

I know. I just talked about my parts and about visualization at the same time. Give me a break. We REALLY wanted this, I did whatever I needed to.

The monitor stayed on HIGH for several more days so we didn't go back in, much to the confusion of the receptionist at the sperm bank. I ran out of OPKs and bought a new box. Finally, on Friday, 3 days after the first attempt, I got the first and only positive OPK I ever saw during the 9 months we charted so back up we went. Friday and then Saturday, when the monitor FINALLY went to ALERT.

I'm pretty sure it worked that Saturday. The day where the place was packed with all sorts of folks, with seeing eye dogs and trendy dykes. We didn't linger afterwards, there was nothing magical about it. I was pretty sure my egg was coming on the right so I did lay on my right side afterwards. For like 5 seconds until they rushed us out since all of San Francisco was there waiting to do the deed.

We went to the hockey league picnic, we went to DisneyWorld the next week to finish out the two week wait. I did cheat and do an unsanctioned test at 9DPO (negative) but then we just went about our bidness in the Magic Kingdom. I skipped some rides but went on most things until 9/3/05, when I was so damn certain I was getting my period, I carried around protection all day, ate a soft cheese sandwich and drank all the coke I could stand.

And the next morning, when I was so sure my temp would dip, that I'd see blood, I didn't. My temp was even higher. So I busted out the pregancy test I'd packed and snuck off to the crapper to pee on a stick. And then, holy shit, we saw this: