Jealousy

A & C and baby K came over for dinner last night. K was in his carrier and our dog Angel didn't bother him. Then he started crying and she bolted over to him to investigate. I don't think she knew there was a person in there. Later in the evening I was sitting on the futon holding a sleeping K and Angel tried to push in between us. She seemed pretty jealous. I don't think she's ever seem me hold anything except her. She's going to have to get used to that one. It was very cute.

C gave us a sanddollar and told us to set up a fertility altar. She said they had an altar and it gave her peace, like even when she wasn't doing anything about her fertility, things were happening. Something worked because they got pregnant on the first try. K liked the idea. C said the sand dollar reminded her of a womb because it is a circle and when you break it open, small doves fall out. We added it to our fertility goddess that I gave to K years ago becuase the body shape reminded me of hers. Also on the altar- Buddha, Gannesh (the god of the beginnings of things and the remover of obstacles), and the Hindu goddess we took our last name from. I read that meditation increases your fertility, but I'm not really a meditator. But now at least we have the altar.

Blood scares and fire alarms

When we bought our home, we got life insurance to big enough to cover our mortgage. But we thought we needed to increase the coverage if we are going to have kids, and our insurance advisor said we better get it before I get pregnant or they will charge a much higher premium or maybe not even insure me.

So last night we had to get a physical. The nurse comes over to draw our blood and collect a urine sample. A urine sample?! I didn't know about that. I've chronicled here previously how bad I am at peeing on command. So I drank two entire bottles of water as we spoke and I was able pee enough, thank god. She asked what medicines I took today - clariten, echinacea, and prenatal vitamins. When I said prenatal vitamins, her head popped up so quickly, and I quickly responded "I'm not pregnant!" She looked at me suspiciously - "Then why are you taking the vitamins?" Then she said to K, "so, um, are you two sisters or something?" Nope, we're life partners.

When she drew K's blood, K said that her veins are deep and nurses have had trouble in the past. The nurse goes on and on about people passing out. Was she trying to make K nervous? I kept trying to change the subject, but the woman was relentless. So then she decides that K needs to have blood drawn from her hand. K gets pale and begs her not to draw from her hand. Then she decides to draw blood from K's forearm. It was ridiculous - K has had blood drawn from her elbow many times - but the nurse wouldn't even try. So now K is super nervous, and she starts to draw blood and K starts feeling tingly and light-headed. Then she starts sweating. Basically she almost passes out. She's never done this before and I completely blame that nurse. She did everything she could to make an already nervous person more nervous! K is fine and the event was marked by the most beautiful and bright double rainbow outside. There's a picture above.

We went to bed. Then at 2am there was a fire alarm in our condo. We quickly threw our clothes went outside and stood around with our neighbors for a while, and then went back to bed. This morning I woke with a headache. The start of a very busy week. What happened to one activity each week?

We are good role models

“Heterosexual couples can learn from gay couples about sharing housework and child care,” says Esther D. Rothblum, a professor in the women’s studies department of San Diego State University whose comparative study of the relationships of 342 couples — lesbian, gay, heterosexual — was published in the journal Developmental Psychology in January. “They are good role models.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/15/magazine/15parenting-t.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5070&en=1743a630cf3203a5&ex=1214366400&emc=eta1

Fresh start

Got my period today. That certainly explains all of my emotions yesterday, doesn't it?

I'm a fuck up

Here's a list of things I've fucked up recently:

1. Our first month to try to become pregnant and I use the cheap OPKs. Miss the ovulation. Miss our chance.

2. Didn't pay enough attention to detail at work. Keep making mistakes. Everyone's working harder to meet this deadline because of me.

3. Dropped Ibuprofen on the floor last night. Didn't realize it and went to bed. This morning my small little pug ate an Ibuprofen. She is at the vet getting her stomach pumped.

4. I got two of our bowls stuck together because I didn't dry our dishes before putting them away. One broke. It was a wedding present. I've done this many times with K pint glass collection as well.

So it's official. I am a complete and total fuck up in all aspects of my life. K puts up with me because she is a wonderful woman. People at work are dealing because what choice do they have. But everyone is annoyed. I can see it when they look at me. And K is very upset with me, as she should be. And I just want to go home and take care of my dog, but I am stuck at work fixing my mistakes while she is at the vet throwing up.

CA Marriage

Every time I about Del Martin and Phyllis Lyons getting married after 55 years, I cry. They have been through so much in their lives - from being complete outcasts of society 55 years ago to being fully married yesterday. I'm sure they didn't even dream of marriage 55 years ago, and I'm sure they can't believe that they are married. I can't believe they are married. I am full of so much hope, and I am just so happy for them.

K and I talked last night about running off to CA to get married. We had our wedding ceremony here in MD in 2005. We've had all of our wills and power of attorneys and all of that since 2001. But we're not married. We want to be married. But then, what does it matter? We don't live in CA, so it won't really affect our lives at all. If we run off to CA, it would just be us, none of our friends would be there. And we would miss out on the big celebration and mass weddings when MD finally recognizes marriage. But we would be married, legally married, at least it would be legal some places - CA, MA, NY, maybe RI. K would be my wife, legally. How exciting is that possibility?

Support

Last night was our first meeting with the DI support group. It was nice - about 5 couples. Most of them were much earlier in their trying stage than we are - like just picking sperm. One couple said all they had managed was watching If These Walls Could Talk 2 and Chutney Popcorn, so they really new nothing. K was happy that the only other nonwhite person there was Indian. We were both happy that it ends at 8:30, nice and early.

We got home in time to go to the gym. We're finally back on the losing weight track. In the past two weeks, I've lost 3 pounds. It feels good. Then we tried to be bad girls and stay up late watching our netflix movie Darfur Now. But it's a very heavy topic and has a lot of subtitles. It was really interesting but I couldn't keep my eyes open. I guess I'm not very good at being bad. So we went to bed around 11:30. Good thing because today was a crazy work day that I've barely survived. And I haven't told K yet but I may have to come in tomorrow. She'll think I'm just trying to get out of spring cleaning.

Gay Unions Shed Light on Gender in Marriage

From the NYTimes: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/10/health/10well.html?_r=2&sq=gay&st=nyt&scp=3&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

"Notably, same-sex relationships, whether between men or women, were far more egalitarian than heterosexual ones. In heterosexual couples, women did far more of the housework; men were more likely to have the financial responsibility; and men were more likely to initiate sex, while women were more likely to refuse it or to start a conversation about problems in the relationship. With same-sex couples, of course, none of these dichotomies were possible, and the partners tended to share the burdens far more equally.

While the gay and lesbian couples had about the same rate of conflict as the heterosexual ones, they appeared to have more relationship satisfaction, suggesting that the inequality of opposite-sex relationships can take a toll.

“Heterosexual married women live with a lot of anger about having to do the tasks not only in the house but in the relationship,” said Esther D. Rothblum, a professor of women’s studies at San Diego State University. “That’s very different than what same-sex couples and heterosexual men live with.”

Other studies show that what couples argue about is far less important than how they argue. The egalitarian nature of same-sex relationships appears to spill over into how those couples resolve conflict."



K and I have always felt this. Even our most feminist of married friends fall into such gendered roles. It's nice that when we fight, we don't say "You're treating me like this because I'm a woman". And K and I both always feel that the other is doing more around the house, which keeps us motivated to keep up. There's no one who automatically dusts the living room or does the laundry. I cook because I want to, she vacuums because she wants to, and the rest we just divide up. Lots of people will say hetero relationships can be this way too, if they try, and I do believe that's true. But I think it's too easy to fall into roles that were spelled out long before. And just like this article says, the women in these relationships are bitter and resentful, but resigned because what choice do they have? And the men that we know are tired and stressed from having to make the financial decisions, and from working so many hours. I asked one friend why he felt the pressure to make all of the financial decisions himself, and he said he didn't want to bother his wife - she doesn't like finances. Well, I don't like finances either, but what choice do we have? With K and I, it's our life and we will make every single decision together. Every few months, after observing some of our hetero married friends, we say, "Thank god we're a same-sex couple..."

And we're out!

We're out this month. Before we even got started. We bought cheap OPKs on the internet. All week I've been peeing on these cheap sticks and seeing inconclusive lines. On Saturday, I peed on a stick, showed it to K, and we agreed that it was inconclusive. I marched downstairs to the very convenient pharmacy in our building and bought a different brand of OPKs. I waited to work up a strong enough pee, and this time saw a light line. I tried again on Sunday and saw a lighter line. I'll try one more time today, but most likely we missed the surge sometime last week. K was depressed, I was more calm about it. I don't know why. We've certainly learned a lesson. We went to Safeway yesterday and bought the name brand Clear Blue Easy OPKs. No more internet cheapies. We're all set for next month. I guess now we have a story to tell at our first meeting of our Donor Insemination support group on Thursday.

Here we go!

Today we finally bought sperm - two vials of ICI ready sperm and 6 vials of IUI ready sperm. Enough for about 4 months of trying. We always take forever to make important decisions, pushing everything until the last minute. I remember when we had to make a decision about grad school. We couldn't decide between two schools - the one I like and the one K liked. The deadline for making decisions was April 15. On a tear-filled April 14, we made the decision and called the respective schools. This sperm thing is like that, though less tears were involved (notice I didn't say there weren't any tears...). We predicted an ovulation on Monday. The last possible day to order sperm and have it arrive in time was today, and that's when I ordered the sperm, on the last possible day. I'm not sure exactly what the hold-up was. Which sperm, how much to order, ICI or IUI, researching ICI to see if we really want to try it - for some reason all of these decisions took too long. Let's blame our trip to Australia.

But then, surprise, I got an unclear reading on my OPK this morning. Thinking I wouldn't ovulate until Monday, I waited until today to begin testing. Well, today I saw two pink lines. The test line was slightly less dark, but not by much. I would think I'm either ovulating today or tomorrow. We don't even have the sperm yet! This must be why the first try is considered practice. Next month I will definitely start testing early. And the sperm will be waiting for us whenever we need it. We won't expect much from this cycle for sure.

Getting ready

We are preparing for an insemination in less than a week, and here's what's going on:

1. We should have better prepared for ordering sperm before we left. Since we have to get the authorization signed by the RE, and she's out of town, this is taking longer than anticipated. They say they can deliver the next day, so hopefully we'll have sperm in time.

2. As a nice daughter-in-law, sometimes I chat with K's mom when she calls before handing the phone over to K. I always regret it. I told her we picked a sperm donor, a nice dark-skinned Indian. She said two crazy things. First, we should have picked Afghan sperm because someone way back on K's father's side was Afghan. At Christmas, didn't she sayPakistani? I'm sure she's basing this solely on looks. I said, "Wouldn't you agree that K is mostly Indian?" and she agreed. Then she said "Oh no, don't get dark-skinned sperm. You don't want a dark-skinned baby!" She wanted us to choose somebody with light skin. I pointed out that a light skinned Indian mixed with white will just look white, and that K, her mom, and her dad are all medium to dark. She agreed that they were (K and her dad) but argued that she had the whitest legs and hoped her grandchild would also have white legs too. I handed the phone to K at this point, and her mom continued to beg K not to use dark skinned sperm. K pointed out that her mom's legs were not white, they were yellow, and probably needed to see more sun.

3. I am bigger than ever. Not sure what happened to the plan to lose weight before starting, but now here we are starting the inseminations, and I've gained weight.

4. We have a new household rule. We can only commit to one activity during the week and one on the weekend. No matter what. No matter how much fun it sounds, no matter how much we like the people. Just say no. We tried this weekend with the new rule, and ended up with four commitments (dinner with A&C, taking care of C&D's cat, volunteering at the nursury at church, and the annual church picnic) but we were much more relaxed than in the past, finally caught up on our vacation laundry, and even had time for a nap. Hopefully this rule will help with reducing the stress in our lives while trying to conceive.

5. We visited A&C and the 6-week-old K on Saturday. We asked for syringes for insemination at home. We weren't planning to do at home insemination so we are very ill-prepared. But now we have syringes. Baby-K is cute and quite big. We haven't seen him in over a month, and that's a long time in terms of baby growth.

6. A&C told us about the second-parent adoption process in MD. They needed letters of recomendation/character references for A to adopt K. The lawyer recomended getting 4 letters. K and I talked about who we would like to ask, and came up with 8 different people who represent different facets of our lives (our minister, K's family, our kid's godparents, friends of our with kids) and who would all write an excellent letter. We may narrow it down when the time comes or just ask all of them and give the judges something to read.

7. A friend in NY who we only see about once a year is having a really hard time. Her dog died and she got fired. And then she said, enough about me, how are you? I couldn't bring myself to say, oh, my life is excellent, we just got back from a fabulous vacation and now we are going to start trying to have a baby. Couldn't be better.

8. At the church picnic, we were talking to J&S and another couple came over, A&E. Both J&S and A&E have kids. We don't but we hang around with J&S's kids A LOT. A&E were talking about their neighbors and said they are a young couple who loves kids but doesn't want to have them, so they hang around with A&E's kids a lot. Then A looked at us and said, I guess that's what you guys are too, right? K said, Uh, no, we actually want to have our own one day, we just happen to really like hanging out with J&S and the kids.

So that's a wrap up of my weekend. Now I'm at work, and better get something done today. Ugh..