A 3 Ring Circus Involving Sperm

It’s official.

We’ve decided that I’m going to try to have baby #2. There wasn’t a compelling medical reason for Jill not to try, but we’re playing a numbers game given that we want to use the same donor and we only have 4 shots of his little swimmers left.

And all other things being equal, which our blood tests indicated was so, the difference in our ages translates to a difference of around 10% in the chance of actually delivering a baby. Plus we know that my body knows how to do that.

It was a kind of tough decision, but at the end of the day, Jill feels clear that she doesn’t need to be pregnant to be a Mom.

And I feel thrilled that I get to go again!

I mostly enjoyed being pregnant, except for a few minor things like not being able to brush my teeth without puking, or sleep on my stomach. On the whole, my pregnancy was healthy and low-stress as these things go. Hopefully we will get lucky like that again!

But. This is where the 3 ring circus comes in — I got pregnant by a different medical practice than the one that Jill was planning to use.

Jill went to the local feminist clinic, which is in-town and convenient, plus explicitly lesbian friendly. They’re the starting point for most people we know here. If I had gone to them prior to going to the doctors that got me pregnant with Noah, I would stick with them in a heartbeat.

But that’s not who got me pregnant with Noah.

The people who got me pregnant with Noah are a fancypants high-end Reproductive Endocrinology practice. I think they’re the most expert doctors I’ve ever personally seen. And they got me pregnant in 2 tries, after 3 failed attempts when we lived in DC.

I don’t want to mess with such a successful formula. Even though they only deal with frozen sperm in their most inconvenient office.

We made our decision on Wednesday night, after I’d had a second round of bloodwork results and we knew that my FSH & LH levels were well within the range of normal.

(FSH 6.4 & LH 3.5, for those of you who speak TTC; FSH 5 & under is optimal, but my docs consider under 11 to be managable. My purty graph from them looks like 6.4 is about 2% less likely to deliver a baby than 5 or under, at my age. And they like to see the LH level roughly half the FSH level.)

I had another doctor’s appointment on Thursday, to see how the follicles produced by my clomid challenge test were doing. There were 4: 3 15 mm and a 19 mm. It was cycle day 12. All those indicators pointed to a possible weekend insemination.

Except for one thing. The sperm was still frozen at Jill’s health care provider’s facility.

Thursday afternoon, I called the fertility practice coordinator and explained our change of plans. She was beyond delightful. Then I dropped the bomb, “I’m on Day 12.”

“Ok, you need to call the local sperm bank and see if they will rent you a fully charged transport tank. Bring it to my office at noon, I’ll load your sperm into it, and you can take it up to Fancypants RE’s Extremely Inconvenient storage facility that is practically in the next state.”

I called.

All of their tanks were on the fritz, they aren’t even delivering their own products right now.

I called the Fancypants REs and left a message for the wrong person, who doesn’t call me back.

I called the nice feminist back.

She saved my butt. She had a tank, and it was charged, and she really shouldn’t be loaning it out, but she did. I thanked her 265,936 times and promised to be extremely super careful and bring it directly back to her. Have I mentioned that we love her? That the biggest bonus of not being her client anymore is that now we can ask her if she’ll be our new best friend?

There’s just one more thing. She can only meet me between 12 and 1:30 pm. And, it’s abortion day at the feminist healthcare provider, so there’s added security and also not much parking. I shouldn’t worry about parking illegally as long as other people can still get out of the oddly shaped lot — the tank is heavy.

All I could think about was how relieved I was that this is going to work, and I hoped there weren’t protesters at the clinic.

I went in to work at 7:30 am in anticipation of a long and eventful “lunch.” (And decided to park in a guy who recently had surprise bonus baby #3 after 2 beautiful IVF babies, rather than risk being parked in myself.)

I also started worrying about the fact that no one from Fancypants RE has called me back, except my nurse who doesn’t know what to tell me about delivering sperm, but my Day 12 bloodwork is “wacky” and she wants the doctor to take a look before we plan any inseminations for this cycle.

Wacky, in this case, means that my Estradiol level has dropped between Day 10 & Day 12, which it isn’t supposed to do until right before the LH surge, which my eggs didn’t look quite ready for.

Hrm. I don’t know what to think about the cycle, but I’m too far in on the sperm transportation plan to change that.

I got all busy at work in the morning and forgot to call and pester the Fancypants RE’s Timbuktu office, then I flew out the door to go pick up my semi-unauthorized tank of frozen sperm from the feminists. In 98 degree heat.

While driving, I explained to the Fancypants RE’s Timbuktu receptionist that I am on my way with a tank of frozen sperm and exactly where should I be taking it?

Yes, I’ll hold.

She found an appropriate person, who is herself extremely busy, and could I please call back around 2?

Well, no. You see, I’m not entirely comfortable leaving a tank of frozen sperm in the parking deck at work, especially since I estimate the chance of my getting a spot where I won’t have to leave my keys with the attendant at approximately the same as getting pregnant by Jill. Plus did I mention the 98 degree thing? Also, I suspect that driving in the direction of Timbuktu at the end of the day on Friday will take 2-3 times as long as driving there around noon. Alotta people live in Timbuktu and commute.

I only said the part about leaving the sperm in the parking deck. Fancypants RE’s receptionist agreed this was a bad idea, and that she would convey the message that I am coming unless called back and explicitly given other instructions.

So I arrived at the feminists. The parking lots are packed. I accidentally turn into the wrong place and bypass the security guard completely, but still got where I’m going.

It was packed.

That was one of the strangest and most surreal moments for me. The waiting area was 100% full, and there were people standing, and people sitting in the entryway, and people outside. Mostly women, mostly youngish looking, but some men and certainly many in their 20s, I think. A mix of races and classes. I overhear a feminist explaining a consent form about looking or not looking at the ultrasound.

I felt sad, and lucky, and strange. Sad that so many people there were pregnant and didn’t want to be. Strange for the same reason — here I am spending lots of time, energy and money to get pregnant, while they spend it to get unpregnant. Lucky to have the choices I do, and lucky that when I was sexually active with men, I never had an unplanned pregnancy, a major birth control failure, a need to sit in the 98 degree heat before going in to the most unfun medical appointment I can imagine. (And I’ve had some seriously unfun medical appointments.)

At least there were no protesters.

And the traffic wasn’t bad as I drove to Timbuktu. The strangest thing was that when I drove there trying to get pregnant with Noah, what struck me was all the construction around the facility. That was 2-2.5 years ago, and it still looks exactly the same.

When I arrived at the Fancypants RE’s, a different receptionist looked at me like I was from Mars, but tracked down someone who knew how to take delivery of my tank and keep all the little swimmers frozen.

He was a little thrown when I said that I had to wait for the tank and return it myself to the feminists. He also expected slightly different paperwork than I had. But we worked through it.

While waiting for the feminists’ tank, I read 2 magazines and spoke again with my Fancypants RE Nurse, who told me that my Fancypants RE Doctor did not like seeing wacky estradiol levels. Since we only have 4 shots, he recommended calling this cycle a failure. (In context, shouting “abort! abort!” seems inappropriate.) Call on my next Day 1, and they’ll double the dose of Clomid.

Eventually, Random Guy returned with the feminists’ tank, and I drove the not quite an hour back (including drive through lunch) to the feminists.

It was still packed, although no longer spilling over into the crazy 102 degree heat — with a heat index of 109. They took back the tank, and I went back to work.