New Baby Name Idea

Name your baby after your favorite spam author. Here are a couple of my current faves:

Rosalijah
Sydney Ho
Cal Lemire
Snuffers S. Mullen
Chester P. Sinclair (who wants me to buy Cialis)

Imagine the story you can tell your child:

Mommy? Where did you get my name?

Well, there was this email about penile implants...or was it the man from Nigeria who had 60 million in a bank in Switzerland and needed my help to get it out?

Any other good names out there?

Le bon temps rouler!

Happy Mardi Gras y'all.

This is a picture of the very first King Cake we've ever made. It's basically brioche dough with a cinnamon sugar filling. There is NO BABY in this cake just to protect teeth.

Fat Tuesday, the frat boy holi (holy) day. Lent, the darkness before the light.

If we have any readers in New Orleans or other areas affected by Katrina, our thoughts go out to you today. And I'm really sorry Britney Spears showed up for your big party.

Peace.

Stress: Fraying at the Edges

When we started trying to concieve it was easy to anticipate how stressful it would be. After all, the stress is something completely abstract. You tell yourself that of course trying to make a baby is stressful. It's stressful for everyone.

Then reality hits. And it hits hard.

You miss your old selves. The people who could just love each other without blame and accusations hanging in the room. And you remind yourself that those people aren't gone. They are still there, they still love each other, and they'll be back. We just have to hold onto each other and get through this.

We've been together for thirteen years and have been through difficult times. If I didn't have that to hang onto, I might feel like everything I've built my world on is crumbling into tiny pieces, ripped apart by our phantom baby and my own failures.

We start trying again this weekend but I feel like I haven't really had a break from the TTC rollercoaster this time. I wanted to get away from all that pressure during the week between the END and yet another beginning. Except until this morning we haven't been able to find a way to talk about IT and failing at IT without all our own anxieties and frustrations taking over the conversation.

And in the middle of all this we have to find a way to stay connected to all the love we have for each other. This is hard.

TWW, here we come.

Seeking Donor Perfection Part III: The Family Minefield

In a lot of ways using an anonymous donor keeps things clear when it comes to our families. There's no real live person for anyone to inappropriately latch onto. There's no one to become DAD in the minds of our parents.

Using a known donor makes everything much more muddled, and especially one we intend to be a regular part of our child's life from the beginning. We're asking everyone to change their way of thinking, to shift our donor from being DAD to being uncle, or friend. To shift the non-biological parent to being MOM, a term traditionally bestowed because of biology and not because of intention. We're redefining family and we're asking our own families of origin to come on that linguistic and society bending ride with us. And unlike a lot of things in the lives of queers, there's no wiggle room on this.

Families of queer folk have to learn to be flexible. They start by losing their (heterosexual) dreams for their children. They learn to readjust, to change their point of view to incorporate new information and new realities. Now they must learn to think of family in an entirely new context. For us, that family will include our donor but our baby will be parented by two women.

This is where I know I'm entirely misguided but I still hold onto my dream. Because I love M., I love my parents, I love my in-laws, I love DtD, and I really want to believe that we'll all find a way to be a happy family.

There's a high risk of everything blowing up in our faces, but when has family not been a minefield?

New Pics: Graveyards

When I was a kid there was amazing lore around Indian graveyards. You DID NOT go in them. You looked at them from afar with a healthy respect for what would befall you if you trespassed onto that land.

Well, M. and I went to an Indian graveyard yesterday with our camera.

I have a thing about cemeteries. They are an amazing reflection of the community they spring from. They tell tales of long lives and very short. They carry the pain of loss and sorrow, sometimes extreme tragedy. A cemetery is not a sad place for me. Probably partly because we had a large one up the street from the house I grew up in and my brother and I used to play in it all the time.

I have a series of cemetery pics from the Puyallup tribe graveyard and the cemetery up the street from our house. Here they are: graveyards.

The Crazies Set In

I'm feeling increasingly crazy. I keep having these thoughts that MAYBE I'm actually pregnant after all.

And the crazies are all DtD's fault.

When DtD was born he was technically a premie, except he was around nine pounds. We are both of the opinion that he was probably not born early and it's most likely his mother had some spotting and was actually pregnant earlier than she thought.

Now, whenever I get my period, he says something to the effect that I still could be pregnant, despite the blood gushing from my body. Because it happened to dear ol' mum. And it's making me absolutely CRAZY.

I know my body very well and I know what my period feels like. But part of me keeps saying to myself, "but maybe you're pregnant. You just had that martini, maybe you're pregnant...you just filled a tampon per hour, maybe you're pregnant....you're feeling nausous from cramps, but is it REALLY from cramps....your temp is low, but you could still be pregnant...."

And maybe I'm going to give birth to the second coming of Jesus. I mean REALLY!

I have a bad, bad case of the crazies.

Latching onto Oppression

We're sitting at one of our fave breakfast spots (while most may go out for dinner, we go out for brekkie because I'm usually pooped by 10:00) and a woman walks in with her baby all firmly tucked into her Cadillac of strollers (my nickname for those horrid plastic contraptions with cup holders everyone wheels around) and proceeds to ask the girl at the counter if it might be okay if she breastfeeds her baby.

I have not seen a lot of women breastfeeding in public. And when I have, I've never seen one just whip her top off and latch that baby on while everything hangs out. There is always a certain level of discreetness. Probably much more discreet than I am at Old Navy when I don't want to fight my way across the store just to try on a t-shirt so I pull it on under my shirt which never goes exactly the way I expect and I always end up showing a bit more skin than I had wanted to. And certainly more discreet than the man-boobies (thank you DtD for the term) that I see shoved in my face whenver the temp goes above 65 degrees in Seattle.

So this woman was not asking if the restaurant would be okay if she exposed her self. She was asking for permission to feed her child. It wasn't the booby that might cause the problem, it was the act of breastfeeding.

M. and I have been talking about oppression lately (one of the many reasons I love her, after thirteen years we can still have a rousing coversation about oppression). She has been talking a lot about the subversive oppression that women face in society and how she feels (and I agree) that her internalized sexism is much worse and more influential than any oppression she faces as a lesbian.

The woman in the restaurant, who was not young (prob about forty), was furthering that oppression by timidly asking if it might okay for her to feed her child. She is a white, middle class woman who lives in an urban environment and has countless resources available to her about the benefits of breastfeeding. Yet she has shame about something that is done openly and naturally by women in third world countries all around the world. She has shame because our society has told her that her body is something offensive to other people and that the act of merely feeding your infant is frowned upon.

This isn't just oppressing women for doing something absolutely natural. Ultimately it hurts the children. If a woman can breastfeed, she should, and she should do it wherever and whenever she needs to.

Photo Friday: Shoes

Hello Kitty Flip Flops

For the longest time I wanted a pair of Hello Kitty barettes in black, until I realized that Hello Kitty is made for six-year-old girls and they don't really make things in black. Anyway, what grown woman has Hello Kitty flip flops?

BFN Frustration

Okay, BFN #2 is out of the way. Emotionally, we're hanging in there, by our fingernails.

I've always said that becoming a nurse was (is) the hardest thing I've ever done. I stand by that, but trying to make a baby might be a very, very close. All of the blame that seems to float around this process sometimes feels like it might rip us to shreds. It's natural to look for something or someone to blame when we're having our dreams deconstructed in regular two week increments.

It's hard to know if it's time for intervention or if we keep going until #6 THEN start heading in for bloodwork and tests. M. is pushing for interventions. I'm pushing against them because there's a huge part of me that wants...NEEDS...to feel like I'm normal. I want to put off acknoweldging that my body has failed us until the last possible moment. It's very hard. M. has done so much work and studying to get us to this point and is frustrated that I'm not agreeing with her. I can see how TTC can tear even the strongest couple apart.

The one thing I've agreed to do is accupuncture.

I'm so tired and frustrated. I hurt my foot last night, twisted it on the way to the car, so being in pain isn't helping anything. I'm groping for a way to deal with this in a positive way knowing that it's only going to get worse with each BFN.

Lies, and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them

The lying liars are us....yep.

More on that in a minute. First some updates. As you may have noticed, we had some technical difficulties over the past two days. We've resolved the problem for now and will work on structural changes to ensure it doesn't happen again.

While we were away we POAS at 10dpo and got a BFN, followed immediately by spotting. Now, AF is here in full force and we're into a new cycle. We were feeling very sure about this last one but alas, Gert was not to be. We also got back the results of the progesterone test from this cycle, which came back at the low end of the normal range.

Ok, onto today's story. Since we've had two unsuccessful cycles with great timing and since we really wanted to do this before we started so as not to waste time, we're sending DtD off for a semen analysis to make sure everything is ok in that dept. I actually think he wants to go since I believe he secretly hoped his swimmers would do the job the first time and now he wants to make sure he's ok.

So, I found an andrology lab which will do the analysis and I called to get all the info for DtD to make it easy for him. All he needs to do is call and schedule the appointment. The woman on the phone was oh so helpful and even said they could just bill us directly and that the Dr.'s order he would need could come from his Dr. or ours. It was all very open and positive.

Then, she muttered something......blah, blah, blah..PARTNER, blah..... I couldn't figure out what she was alluding to and when I questioned her she asked if she could call me back in 5 minutes. Aparently there were people there who she didn't want to talk in front of.

So, she called back and told me that if he were to come in and announce he's a known donor or if I were to schedule the appointment for my known donor, they wouldn't work with us AT ALL until they drew DtD's blood, did STD testing, froze his semen for a 6 month quarantine and tested it again. Now, I think it was clear that at this time we're looking just for a semen analysis, not any inseminations at their office. So, I was a little taken aback. She said then when we or he referred to his position, we should use the key word "partner" because that's the language that would get him full access without further testing (that by the way, we've already done ourselves!). She informed me that we should say "partner" and they would slyly smile and wink while opening the door. I was informed that they didn't care if he was a boyfriend, or husband, etc, as long as he wasn't a "known donor" and that as long as we didn't say that, they wouldn't pry. Yet another example of Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

Now, I know that this is a clinic policy and I know that they are trying to protect themselves from lawsuits by women who contract something terrible like hepetitis or HIV in their presence. But, for the life of me, I can't figure out their rationale. Wouldn't this be just as likely (or more so since we've DONE testing) with a woman's "boyfriend"....maybe someone she hasn't known long at all?

The bottom line is that I had to swallow what she was saying and just be happy that she was nice enough to share the secret password with me, so that we could then take on the lie and ask DtD and his Dr. to do the same. Let me just say that it's not a good feeling being told that you must lie to be treated equally.

Jumping onto the Bandwagon a Bit Late

Seems our blog is down again so this post will go up when we go back up....

A bit late on this one, but here we are as South Park caricatures. I'm the one with braids. Aren't we flippin' CUTE?

P.O.A.S.

We pee on our first stick of the cycle in the a.m. Good thoughts are welcome, as well as crossed fingers, toes, prayers, chants, spells, wishes and dreams.

And fairy dust. Lots of fairy dust.

The mysterious world of lesbian conception

I find it amusing how the straight world twists the experience of lesbian conception into terms they can understand. I can't tell you how many times a straight person has assumed M. and I are making regular trips to the doc for our IUI, because really, what other way could a lesbian possibly concieve???? My ex-coworker actually asked me if anonymous donor sperm comes from some sort of vat. Even though it's impossible, imagine if we got sperm from a vat. No longer would sex be the only mystery.

You would think that urban legend of the turkey baster would have enough power to at least bring the concept of home insemination into the mainstream.

They just don't think about it much. After all, baby making for them is all about getting off the pill and fucking like bunny rabbits. Which is why when we show up with a baby they are amazed and think that baby must have been made by fairy dust and chants under the full moon.

After all, how else would a LESBIAN get a baby?

Photo Friday: Hands

M's Hands
Her nails are short because she bit them until recently. The ring on her right hand is her grandmother's ring. She died a few years ago. The ring on her left hand is actually two rings: The largest is our ring from our commitment ceremony in 1999. It's a custom-made leaf motif. The jewler liked the design so much, she now sells them, but ours was the first. The second ring is a thin, cheap band we bought for our legal wedding. I was in nursing school and we were poor. We promised ourselves we'd have diamonds someday. Now we're going to have a baby. Maybe diamonds for our fiftieth.

Sacha's Hands

These are my hands. I probably put on a hundred pairs of blue gloves a week.

To Test or Not to Test

THIS IS NOT A BFP...JUST AN OPK....

I've been purposely not talking about the TWW but I need some HELP!!!

We decided to wait until this coming Friday to do our HPT for this cycle. Most likely if we are NOT preggo, my period will start before that time. I also don't want to start the pee-on-a-stick roller coaster any time sooner than I have to.

M. wants to test on Tuesday.

Why?

Well, my luteal phase tends to be on the short side, usually ten or eleven days. In order for Gert to stick (should she need to) we may need progesterone supplements. I just had my progesterone level checked so we'll know on Tuesday if my levels are really low, but it could be too late for Gert. I'm also going to start using the natural progesterone cream tonight.

Two other significant pieces of info:

• My boobs are bigger. I'm convinced I've just been eating too much candy. Well, not really. But I have been eating a lot. But my bra isn't fitting as well. And it's pissing me off.
• I'm an emotional moody mess. I cried at the doctor's office. I almost cried when I saw my patient assignment this morning. The world is crushing me left and right. Whaaaaaa!

And NONE of this means I'm pregnant. NONE OF IT. That's the one lesson I've learned. There is nothing we can rely on, no one definative sign. Have I mentioned that I hate the TWW?

So, help me...do I stand my ground and insist on waiting until Friday? Or do I give into M. and we test on Tuesday?

Back away from the sperm!!!

I called DtD this afternoon for one of our hour-long chats about pretty much nothing. And during this chat he tells me that he and BF were going to have coffee with another lesbian couple.

What????

Thought #1: Hey, we're supposed to be their token lesbian friends.

Thought #2: Those bitches better not want his sperm. It's OUR sperm. BACK AWAY FROM THE SPERM!!!!

I was all ready to open a can of whoop ass on the unsuspecting couple. After all, don't mess with a crazed TTC lesbian's sperm source. But the lucky girls never called to make coffee date arrangements, DtD is miffed at their social faux paux and I could sit back and play the understanding friend.

Bwahahaha ha ha...

Why this is IT!

We keep thinking of all of the "signs" that this is THE cycle, despite knowing how silly that is:

• semen mishap under our belts
  
• grandma's dying
• I started my period finally after 3 months (ok, with the help of Provera)
  
• the sun was shining during all insems during a very rainy winter, and has basically been shining since
  
• and best of all.....Sacha's lunar chart was lined up perfectly this time

According to the personalized lunar fertility chart I downloaded for Sacha, she has only three peak insemination days during 2006. Well one day was in January, a week after she O'd, the second day was on Friday (one of our insem days). The last day on the chart isn't until Oct. So there you go...this is it, RIGHT?

The Haters

I stopped fighting the haters a long time ago. It just felt like such a waste of my creativity and my energy to rail against people whose world views are as embedded as mine. I know…I mean know deep in my heart…that it is wrong to oppress queers. There is no doubt in my mind that we will some day have equal rights. So the haters who want to hurt us, insult us, scare us and otherwise force us back into the closet aren’t worth my time. Because no matter how convicted they are, they are wrong.

So when they come to our internet homes, our blogs, and spew their ugliness, stomping all over our thoughts and feelings with their hurtful words, I just think that I am happy despite them. I am thriving despite them. If they step away from whatever religious texts they use to shore up their hateful world view and really look at queers who are living their lives, the answer is clear. Would we be so happy if we weren’t meant to be?

Happiness is threatening. So they resort to ridiculous insults that completely undermine whatever they have to say. If their words aren’t ridiculous to start with, throwing insults at a person’s appearance, tells me that making fun of people is really the only thing they have left. Their self-righteous sense of superiority based on their presenting a heterosexual orientation and a nuclear family to the world is built on quick sand. Because if it wasn’t they would keep their arguments in the realm of the intelligent and cerebral instead of resorting to nastiness.

Gert and I are at work. It’s a nice day outside. The sun is shining. We are loved. What else can anyone ask for?

Happy Valentine's Day

These are cookies from my fave bakery in the 'hood.

I have a soft spot for Valentine's Day. I think it's because our anniversary is in Jan after all the holidays and it always seems like we have little time, energy or money for gifts and nice dinners out. So it happens on Valentine's Day.

I spent too much of my time searching Seattle for just ONE box of those delish Necco conversation hearts, to no avail. Who knew?

Happy V.D. (not Happy Herpes, ahem...) from Babycakes and treat your loved ones right.

Dear Anonymous

Let me preface this by saying that if you have something to say, please say it yourself and not as 'anonymous'. And say it in a way that lets the world know that YOU own your emotions and thoughts instead of being accusatory. The following is in response to an anonymous comment below.

Selfishness

It is not unkind to point out the reality that DtD faces some barriers in his life that would make having children at this exact moment difficult. I won't discuss the specific barriers but will say that I hope with all my heart that they will not be there for much longer. They aren't barriers DtD has created; they are the political type that haunt every queer person's life.

We do not 'keep requesting' DtD's sperm. He has agreed to give it to us. We have gone to great lengths to make sure that all parties in this situation are clear about what we're all doing. We have all gone to lawyers and signed a contract. We have done this at our own personal expense.

And we asked DtD to be our donor despite the heart disease, high cholesterol and otherwise imperfect health history he brings to the party. His sperm is more than good enough for us simply because it's HIS. Imagine someone coming to you and telling you that they want YOU just because of who you are and nothing else, the whole package, faults, benefits, the full meal deal.

So if wanting my family to be protected is selfish, please call me selfish. If acknowleding that his barriers, which neither of us have much control over, marginally benefit us, makes me selfish, please...call me selfish.

If 'anonymous' is a regular reader of this blog, I hope he or she has also taken note that both M. and I have a great deal of love for our donor. He's going to be a fabulous dad, if and when that becomes possible for him. And M. and I will support him in every way when that time comes.

Grrrrrr.

Do not go gently into motherhood

After three hours of community meetings and being so hungry I thought I might devour M.'s down jacket, I'm flippin' tired and waiting for M. to finish watching TV so I can snuggle up with my sweetness. So I'm blogging.

I don't like many people. This is evidence by the fact that I have four IRL friends (BFF KK, DtD, kick ass neighbor A. and cool new friend J.). I love all four of these people and don't need anyone else but them.

With impending Future Child I feel like there's all this pressure to start connecting or liking people just because they have kids. Even before we actually have one, or even one on the way. M. is hopeful that we'll find all these new friends once we have baby wipes and diapering techniques to discuss. I just feel like I'm going to be subjected to more people who irritate me. All of the sudden I'm going to be expected to go out with the other mommies to have pedicures, to talk about only the kids, to lose my intelligence, my concern about justice, my passion for politics and my empathy for those who suffer.

I feel that I'm expected to dwindle into a mother. Yet being a mother is one of the most powerful things a person can do. And that is the rub.

I will not go gently into motherhood. Because I am afraid that if I accept this change without challenging it I will lose myself in the process. I can only hope I will find a new self and the balance that I need.

Seeking Donor Perfection Part II: The Enemy

Continuing the known donor discussion I started in Seeking Donor Perfection.

As much as I hate cliche, the saying "Keep your friends close but keep your enemies closer" applies to the known donor situation.

In many ways DtD is the enemy. He could tear our future family apart in the blink of an eye. He could specifically establish his position as father when we've specifically detailed that he will not. He could completely negate M.'s position as parent. He could inadvertantly become the focus of our parents just because they can understand the context of man-woman-baby better than woman-woman-baby. He could start demanding the baby have a relationship with his family. All these things loom in the future.

How do you cope with such overwhelming negative possibilities?

We keep him close. Because he is our friend and things will go bad if we start losing sight of that and start seeing him as the means to an end, a quicker, easier way to get pregnant, a convienent source of fresh sperm.

M. feels differently. I think partly because she hasn't known him as long as I have and partly because she's the non-bio mom and DtD's biology is threatening. DtD has always been more of a vial or a body part to her. When we first asked him and he said 'yes' she was suprised at how involved he already viewed himself as being. I wasn't because I knew DtD would never do this if we stipulated he had to jack off in a cup and walk away. He's the type of person who needs involvement.

Part of this is because he wants kids. He's not one of those party-all-the-time homos who realize they want more at 45 then fly to China to pick up their baby. He's been planning kids with BF for as long as I've known him. There are some serious barriers to them having kids which I'm actually grateful for. They protect us and he may not have said 'yes' if he was considering having kids with BF any time soon.

With all these different things coming into play, and not having any idea what the future holds, we can only make sure we all stay close. I talk to DtD every couple days, they come to our house, we go to theirs, we make sure we see each other regularly. We keep the connection because if that connection breaks, we're all in trouble.

What's YOUR gag factor?

Thanks to everyone for song suggestions. Best. Valentine's. Mix. Ever!

Lil' Gert is out of the gate. I have officially ovulated and we are officially starting the two week wait. And this time I'm determined NOT to go crazy. There will be no laughing about that statement.

I called DtD and told him that we're done for this cycle and he's off the hook. He can have a masturbation-free night (if he choses). We discussed how I know if I've ovulated. I told him about my temp jumps and mentioned that I have "other signs" that I look for as well. I omited that I check my cervical mucus because mucus is DtD's gag factor and I figure it's polite of me to not gross him out.

Aren't I NICE?

Two Week Wait Ideas

To make the next fourteen days more bearable, M. and I are busy thinking of ways we can occupy ourselves until the glorious day I get to pee on that flippin' stick. Here are some of my ideas:

• Have a hot date
  
• Shop for a strap on (he he. M. would like everyone to know that we're not all about sex. I'll let her keep believing that if it makes her feel better.)
  
• Go to the movies
• Go for walks
• Invoke world peace
• Write a novel
  

Any other ideas? I invite everyone to offer up things that will keep us occupied. They can be serious. They can be funny.

Help make our two week wait bearable.

Needed: Cool Cheesy Love Songs

I'm working on a Valentine's Day mix CD and need some help. I'm looking for cool, sexy songs, nothing too contemporary and good to slow dance to. What I have so far:

Burt Bacharach: The Look of Love and What the World Needs Now
Al Green: Let's Stay Together
Otis Redding: That's How Strong My Love Is (awesome song, I must say.)
Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind (not sure about this one but I have a cheesy weak spot for Gordon Lightfoot)
Marvin Gaye: Sexual Healing
Stevie Wonder: My Cherie Amour

We're baaaack...

The blog was out of service yesterday. We're sorry, dear readers, but we're glad to be back today.

Round two of insems has gone well. We did another stop and drop. Seems that The Couch Lady continues to hold more allure then our abode. Once again, we're lucky we live 10-15 minutes away from each other. Then DtD and BF came over for dinner and board games. I made good soup. M. made the most amazing apple galette. I always feel more sane about Project Baby when we all reconnect on a friend level and I remember I like DtD as well as his sperm. It was really fun.

EXCEPT... for DtD holding two of our cats and exclaiming, "This is what you would look like with twins." I informed him that we are NOT having twins. M. informed me that I don't have too much control over that. I'm convinced she's wrong.

One more insem today. At least it will be tonight so I don't have to spend half the day smelling like sperm. I've decided that it's not so bad fresh but a few hours later when it wafts up from your crotch....eh...not so great.

Enjoy your days out there. It's sunny in Seattle and 37 degrees. What does this mean? SHORTS WEATHER!!!

Sperm Spatter

We have finally have official dyke TTC hijinks.

I ended up taking the day off work (thx to VERY supportive co-workers) and we picked up my aunt and went down to see grandma. This meant day one of insems had to start in the AM. We picked up the sperm (2.5 cc), headed home, I became pantsless and the syringe was inserted.

Turn...turn...turn...take the syringe out...

OH. MY. GOD.

I don't know how it happened. I have a lot of experience using syringes from my job and I've never seen this. The sperm had somehow leaked behind the plunger and was stuck there, gelled. I yell for M., she runs in, we're both staring in horror. I start to pull out the plunger and the stuff glops down. Then M. tells me to pull the plunger all the way out so we can rescue as much as possible.

SPATTER!

I'm lying on the bed with sperm spattered on various areas and we have to leave to pick up my aunt in about fifteen minutes. We salvage what we can, shove it back into my vagina, I lie there for about three minutes then we have to go.

I've been smelling ejaculate all day. It doesn't smell bad, persay. I mean, I'm sure if DtD had my cervical mucus spattered all over him it would smell just as strange. It just doesn't smell like ME.

Round two tomorrow night. We're plying him with food and hot mormon boys doing yard work. He he. Okay, if we can't find mormon boys he'll have to make do with food and his imagination.

The Couch Lady

DtD has been having a Couch Saga. It started with his brand-new couch that arrived broken. Usable but broken. In steps The Couch Lady. The Couch Lady's job is to run around Seattle and fix couches. She's been supposed to fix DtD's couch for the last couple months but for one reason or another the appointment keeps getting put off.

Today's the day that The Couch Lady will finally arrive to fix the couch. The same day we start insems. And she's coming in the morning, right after we pick up the little nearbabies.

I was talking with DtD yesterday and sensitively suggested we could pick up the semen before The Couch Lady arrives so he wouldn't be distracted. And he says...

"Oh, I could probably do it while she's here."

He he! Um, he has expressed, on several occasions, that he feels COULD NOT manage to masturbate in our house. Keep in mind that any masturbation would occur with us taking a walk around the block. But he can maturbate with the COUCH LADY in his house. Funny, funny boy.

M. is determined that DtD WILL masturbate in our house this cycle. I think she's feeling a little competative with The Couch Lady.

Grandma Update

I think this is the beginning of the end. But her vitals aren't as bad as my mom made them sound. It sounded like days or even hours but now more like weeks. I suspect she's going to stop eating and moving, then either get pneumonia or full organ failure. Our family has decided to do no interventions, and I think that's the best.

Mum is calling tonight. I'll decide then if we should go down tomorrow or not.

What a way to start the next cycle...

My grandma might be dying. I'm not sure right now. I'm waiting to hear from my mum about exactly what's going on. I have to preface this all by stating that my grandma is 92 and end-stage dementia. For some reason that takes the edge off.

Anyway, she fell last night. And this morning she's having neuro-muscular problems and slurred speech. The last message I got from my mum is that she's almost comatose, her bp is dropping and her heart rate is increasing. In the medical world, NONE of that is good news.

I really wanted my grandma to hang in there long enough to at least meet her first great grandchild. She's given us scares before so maybe this is yet another.

In the meantime, the winner of the name contest is....

GERTRUDE

If she sticks and then kicks, we'll call her Gallopin' Gertie.

An Accident of Hope: of babies and baseball bats

Read this. It's not pretty. It's amazing. It's true. An Accident of Hope: of babies and baseball bats

Seeking Donor Perfection

Charlotte and S. are going through negotiations with their PKD and asked whether or not other people's KDs feel perfect. Since I've already blabbed enough on her blog, I'm going to answer here.

I'm not convinced there is a perfect donor out there. After all, you're dealing with another human being and he has emotions and opinions just like the rest of us. And emotions and opinions just fuck everything up.

Dick the Donor is perfect in many ways. He's cute. He's a moral, good person (good lord, the boy barely ever uses profanity). He's gay. He's committed to this project and to our future family. He does what we want with very few questions (gotta love that). He's been a good friend to us, perhaps one of the best friends we've ever had. He challenges me with his caring and generousity. If I need help, he's there. All of this will make him a fabulous person to have in our child's life as well as our own.

He also scares the shit out of me. Our child may be the only child he ever has. And he'll have no claim to the child, no right to give his input. And I know...I mean KNOW deep in my heart... that no matter how many contracts and conversations and clarifications we have with him, there's a part of him that will always think of this child (and child #2) as HIS child. And I KNOW that he's going to be hurt and there's nothing I can do about that. Except be his friend and hope we can all love each other enough to get through it.

So it's not perfect. It's crazy and scary. Sometimes it makes that frozen vial of sperm look mighty fine. Sometimes it makes the entire world sparkle with the wonder of it all.

I think the better word for using a KD, and specifically DtD, is RIGHT: it's not perfect but it feels like the right thing to do. And sometimes you just have to take a deep breath and know in your gut that everything's going to turn out okay.

Muffins and Marriage

Since Canada (stupidly) elected Steven Harper and a conservative government, I've wondered on and off if legal marriage there is threatened. Truthfully, I don't think so. It's hard to take an entire country backwards and to remove rights from an entire group of people. A small part of me is worried.

You see, M. and I have a Canadian marriage. And it's our second marriage. The first was a church ceremony in 1999. Good lord, I don't want to do a third. Although I'd figuratively marry her over and over and over again, both of us agree that we've married each other enough times at this point.

I can only hope WA state will get its butt in gear and recognize our marriage.

If we had to do it again, it's going to be funny, in the back yard, pot luck, bbq, strange dresses, pudding for dessert, and we're inviting the pope.

In the meantime, I'm making muffins. Because that's what I like to do. M. got me The Vegetarian Mother's Cookbook from the library and I'm cooking my way through it. I'm also subtley stalking DtD since I haven't seen him in three weeks. How am I subtle? I'm sending him brain waves that he really should decide to take me grocery shopping since M. has the car and I'm stuck here alone. This has actually worked in the past but considering that he gets up at 5 pm, probably won't work today. I've also directly suggested he and BF come over for dinner on Friday. That will probably be more successful.

TTFN.

Flat Ass Baby

Picture of the Space Needle in case anyone doubts we live in Seattle :)

I have a horridly flat ass. And for being a fat girl, it's quite boney. I've always thought that I should at least get the advantage of padding, but no. The minute I sit down my butt bones poke right through. I can't sit still for very long.

Well, DtD has a boney ass as well. Boney from his own report. I was relieved to find out that I'm not the only person on earth that suffers from boney ass. And it's baggy as well. How do I know this? I admit it, I checked out his ass one time when he headed to the bathroom.

M. and I have accepted that our baby will have a boney, baggy flat ass. I hope he/she will understand that we had to make choices and their ass was sacrificed in the process.

p.s. new pics are up on Flickr. All the new ones are at the front of the set.

The Power of Language

I've been doing a lot of thinking about the power of language lately. Especially related to queer issues. My focus is on marriage because that's where our largest fight lies. I think a lot about the words we use to define our relationships, because that is represenative of our internalized struggle.

The earliest word, and perhaps most passe now, is lover. It was a word that grouped our relationships with the illicit trysts of married people, unmarried women of ill repute, rakish men who had no respect for the bonds of matrimony.

The next word, still widely used today, is partner. Part of me really likes this word. It represents the equality that has been stolen when people use husband and wife. For straight couples, husband and wife have an inherent inequality. Queers have the opportunity to banish this linguistic ineqaulity because two wive or two husbands bring equality to the party my nature.

Another part of me hates the term partner. Partner is not widely recognized and is easily confused with business terminology. I remember the first time I saw Philadelphia. When Tom Hanks' character, Andrew Beckett, was sick in the hospital and Antonio Banderas, introducing himself as Beckett's partner, rushed to the waiting room to see him, I could not figure out why this man's business partner was so concerned about him. That was thirteen years ago and the world has certainly changed in many ways, but I still feel there is confusion around the world partner. By not using language that clearly defines our relationships we further devalue them.

The next word, actually words, are husband and wife. These are my words. M. is my wife, not my partner, not my girlfriend, my WIFE. We have a certificate that says we are married and the world "wife" best describes our relationship. But it has taken time to take ownership over these words that have traditionally belonged to the straight world. I've had to struggle with feeling worthy of the language of marriage.

With the advent of legal marriage in Canada and Mass, and in a few weeks I truly believe WA state will be joining that small but mighty club, I think the use of the term partner should begin the long road to banishment from our language. If you are married, use husband and wife. If you aren't married, used boyfriend or girlfriend. Partner just continues the linguistic limbo that queers find themselves in and reflects the internalized homophobia that all of us struggle with every day of our lives.

That said, I think it's most important to reflect the language you are presented with. I'm not going to call my neighbor's partner his "boyfriend" simply because of my convictions since he introduced him as his "partner". I'd like it if the people around me would refer to M. as my wife and stop changing my word to "partner" or "significant other".

The world will change. Our children will grow up having all options available to them.

Photo Friday: The Reefer

Okay, so what does it say?

• I like a well-stocked fridge. You can't see the drawer but it has about six kinds of mustard as well as every type of pickled veggie you can think of.
  
• I love my veggies. Note veggies in the veggie drawer as well as stacked at the top and scattered through out.
  
• See my beautiful Le Creuset? Ahhhhhh. Nothing makes me happy like good kitchen gear.
  
• Tofu!
  

Old woman syndrome

I am an old girl today. In addition to all my aches and pains, I somehow managed to strain my hip flexor just by walking to the garbage can to throw away my newspaper wrapper. It would be nice to have a good story, like saving small children from certain danger, but NO...walking to the garbage can...

And I smashed my finger in the addressograph machine yesterday.

A couple Aleve and a day of rest should cure it all. And some whining. Whining cures all.

Baby Stuff

We start again Wednesday. Thank you body for a short cycle. DtD is ready to rumble. We'll have only one day of really funky scheduling to get through.

On the bad side, I only have a week and a half of feeling normal until we start the roller coaster again.

On the good side, one more chance for baby to become reality.

I need names...

I'm going to name each try. Since Sherman has left us, I invite all readers to submit a GIRL name for our next little hypothetical blasty.... Since we can insem sooner our timing might be right for a girl.

Love and peace to all.