We are not her typical patients. She works for a community health center, which is code for “health care for poor people.” Obviously, her choices and values are part of what we love about her. The quality of care is just as good as it was when she was in private practice, but there are no toys in the waiting area, there’s a guard in the entry, and today was the only time I’ve ever noticed another white patient waiting. (There are often attractively dressed, perfectly made-up white women around the waiting area, but they are pharmaceutical company reps.) Sometimes it takes a ridiculous amount of time for a nurse to return a “can we get in today?” call, leading us to have a close relationship with the neighborhood Urgent Care receptionist as well. Apparently, when you are uninsured, you have to spend a lot of time waiting.

Today was Josie’s 3 year old checkup. (For the record, she is perfectly healthy, 39″ tall, weighs 35.2 lbs, and is almost exactly on the 50th percentile line for 4 year old girls in height.)

The nurses were lovely — Josie didn’t even cry at her shot. (We had missed a vaccination last time; they were out of what we needed.)

But the support staff is still learning about a few things — like families that are not quite typical.

The discussion started like this:

Receptionist: Are you her mom?
Me: I’m one of her moms.
R (looking alarmed): Are you her legal guardian?
Me: Yes.
R: Are you her birth mom?
Me (looking stunned): I don’t think that’s any of your business. Why are you asking?
R: Legally, I’m required to ask that.
Me: What? No you aren’t. I am her legal parent. What difference does it make whether or not I’m her birth mom, or she’s adopted?
R: I have to make sure you are authorized.
Me: What? Why don’t you talk to Dr. Tully? She can assure you that I can authorize medical care for Josie.
R: She’s with a patient. You’ll have to wait.
Me: That’s fine.

A few minutes later, Josie was summoned by the nurse. We were about to take off her shoes so she could get weighed, when the receptionist announced that we were NOT checked in yet and should not be taken to an exam room. The nurse looked confused, so I explained, “We’re having a dispute over whether or not it is any of her business whose vagina Josie came from.”

The 4 or 5 women staff in the immediate vicinity began to buzz. Josie and I returned to the waiting area. The receptionist and I went back and forth a few more times. (My main point became, “The terms ‘birth mom,’ and ‘parent,’ and ‘legal guardian’ are not synonyms.”) I knew that if I caved and said, “Yes, I am her birth mom,” things would move along more quickly. But someday, Jill will be the parent at the doctor’s office. And sometimes, other parents in 2 mom or 2 dad families will come there too. So I stood my ground, unwilling to answer the question.

(Let us also leave aside the apparent weakness of the receptionist’s powers of observation. The fact that I am this child’s biological parent is so obvious as to be remarked upon by strangers in parking lots. But that is not the point.)

Eventually Josie was weighed and measured, her blood pressure was taken, and she had charmed and been charmed by a lovely nurse.

Not long after that, Madelaine arrived. She had already seen my Facebook status update, which noted my love for her and lack of love for her support staff. She had spoken to the receptionist about what happened, and explained to her and why “are you the birth mother?” wasn’t the right question. Madelaine arrived and immediately conveyed the receptionist’s contrition.

Some days it is harder to feel like the Ambassador from Planet Lesbian Mom than other days.

Working backwards from today: WAY TO GO CALIFORNIA! I promise not to say anything bad about you ever again. Even if I do feel fat every time I visit. (Ok, really, thats about Southern California. But I’ll still quit talking trash about you, California.)

About 5 minutes after hearing the news that their State Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage, in a really strong and fantastic opinion, I started wondering when we could go to California to get married.

A few seconds later, I had a brilliant idea: BLOGHER is in San Francisco this summer. I wasn’t going to go, because I’m going to be ~7 weeks shy of my due date and traveling that far that pregnant kinda sucks. Plus flying cross-country is expensive.

But I had a great time last year, and even though my posse the LadyBlogs won’t be going, I would still have a good time.

The idea of going AND GETTING LEGALLY MARRIED became irresistible in about 4 seconds. My fantasy caught fire and all I could think about for the next 5 or 10 minutes was how to convince Jill.

Then I looked at a calendar.

My cousin Kirsten, the last unmarried cousin in my family, is getting married the same weekend. In Milwaukee.

I’m not skipping a family wedding to go to a conference, no matter how cool the conference is. And I’m not skipping a family wedding for what is a super exciting piece of paper, but not for us a “real wedding.”

Our real wedding was February 22, 2003. 

Our immediate families and many of our friends and extended family were there. The only thing missing from that wedding was acknowledgment under the law — and while I certainly want that, exactly when I get it is not that important to me.

We ratified that wedding once through a Vermont Civil Union when we were in New England for Dave & Lizzie’s wedding, but only because we could easily get the exciting piece of paper on Friday and drive to the wedding on Saturday.

So yeah, no BlogHer wedding for us.

Now I’m fantasizing about the 4th of July. Wouldn’t that be cool and symbolic?

(Thought: Is there any chance that being legally married in California would annoy a Georgia court sufficiently to interfere with Jill legally adopting Esmerelda Freugenspeigal? Our civil union was viewed as a good thing, but The M Word sometimes causes strange reactions. Check with the lawyer here before actually doing it.)

YESTERDAY:

Last night, our dear friend Peter Mulvey was in town for a gig. He came over for an early dinner, and stayed at our place after the show.

Noah cracked us all up throughout dinner, and again this morning, with his constant refrain of, “Man? Man? Man!!!” to get Peter’s attention. (Neither “Mr. Peter” nor “Peter” seemed to stick.)

We tried to get Noah to tell his knock-knock joke, and to those of you who know Peter and our mutual friends…I’m afraid Noah’s joke telling ability may rival Scott’s.

Even more exciting than Peter himself, was Peter’s Big Bicycle which parked in our front hall overnight. Noah was beside himself with glee that Peter let him “fix” the bicycle with his yellow plastic hammer and orange plastic wrench.

I got to go to the show, which was fantastic. It’s fun to see how his performance has evolved, and I loved the some of the stories he told. Especially the story about his Dad emailing him stories about a character named Dynamite Bill, and the story about his wife Meredith.

I won’t give away the plot of the Meredith story, except to say that never in the history of the universe has it been funnier to imagine offering someone a sandwich.

The other thing I came to realize in the course of the evening is that I think Peter has the most well-rounded education of anyone I know. I want to be in a book group with him. I don’t know anyone else who reads history, biography, religion, poetry, and apparently astrophysics.

LAST WEEKEND:

Grandma was here! And Noah had a great time. Some combination of Noah and the rest of us went out for dinner, and to music class, and for tricycle rides, and to the zoo, and to see trains.

Noah hasn’t stopped talking about Grandma and her visit since she left. Especially the part about the trip to the zoo, and seeing the elephant pooping. But he loves the toys and books she brought, and he asks about her now that she’s gone.

And Jill and I got to have a much needed date night. We had a nice dinner and saw the movie Baby Mama. It had cute moments, but didn’t live up to the comic potential of the awesome cast. We didn’t really care.

TOMORROW:

Tomorrow is Noah’s last day at Miss Heather’s for day care. He likes it a lot, and we will totally try to use her for backup and/or if there is no space at the church day care when I go back to work after Esmerelda Freugenspeigal is born.

Yesterday, I posted about all the boringly practical things I’m planning to spend my 2007 bonus purchasing or fixing. What I didn’t say is how lucky I feel — the original plan for this bonus was that it would go straight into savings in order to pay for the roughly $3000 that it will cost my family for Jill to become Blur’s legal parent.

And that’s assuming that we don’t get assigned to the homophobic judge in our county and have to move. Again.

The only reason we can afford to do such scandalously frivolous things as garbage disposals and storage bins with that bonus check is because my company announced last week that they’re moving from annual bonuses to twice/year bonuses this year, and also giving retention bonuses. Both of those will be paid out much closer to the time that little Blur is due.

There will be no new tires with that money. That will be all about the lawyers.

When a couple is legally married, they are both automatically the legal parents of any child born during the marriage. They don’t have to spend thousands of dollars on legal fees, creating a legally binding relationship between the child and the parent who didn’t gestate the child.

And if that legally married family suffers a tragic accident, such as the death of that non-gestating parent, even a bran-new newborn will at least have the financial safety net of survivorship benefits from the deceased parent’s Social Security.

We spent nearly all of our savings on expenses related to Noah’s adoption, particularly with the unexpected fact of having to move to a new county after being assigned to the one judge in our county who flat out refuses to grant same sex couples second parent adoptions.

But it was worth it to have the security that provides.

I am by no means saying that Noah and I won’t be a serious mess if something were to happen to Jill. We would be!

But it helps a tiny bit to know that at least there would be a modest ongoing income for Noah’s support, through to his adulthood.

Can you imagine how unfair it would be for Noah to have that, but his equally loved and planned for future sibling to be left high and dry?

There are a myriad of other reasons why families like mine need to be free to legally marry, why civil unions, partnership agreements, registered domestic partnerships, and insurance benefits for domestic partners are not enough. For more personal stories about how important this is, check out Robin’s blog, The OTHER Mother, for bloggers participating in a cool week-long meme about it.

All those reasons are compelling and important too. But right now, as a mother who is pregnant with a so very wanted and planned for child, fear of the worst case scenario is the reason that wakes me up at night.

It isn’t graphic, but just in case you feel like knowing more about our babymaking thoughts is too much information, the rest is “below the fold.”

I think I said that we loved the babymaking practice that Jill picked, but I also love these folks. How could I not? They helped us make Noah. But they’re also really nice and holy moley do I think they know what they’re doing. Seriously smart people, and I love that.

Plus they gushed about how cute Noah is, which is never a bad idea with me.

Anyway, I left with a boatload of information, instructions to get a bunch of bloodwork done during day 2, 3 or 4 of my next cycle & to do another ovarian reserve test, and the request that we fax Jill’s bloodwork results too.

With all of that, they’ll advise us on the relative probability of each of us getting pregnant and carrying a baby to term, and in combination with whatever Jill decides she wants to do as far as trying herself, help us formulate a plan.

These are the variables, information factors, and associated random thoughts:

• Whether Jill attempts to get pregnant or I do (she’s older by just over a year).
• That year is the other side of a line on nearly every fertility related chart we’ve ever seen.
• We have 4 vials left of our donor.
• How many tries should either of us make and if we are both prepared to try, in what order should we go?
• Should we do any 2-insem cycles? (probably not)
• Our relative FSH levels (similar unless mine have dropped significantly in the last 2.5 years, which is entirely possible) play a role that we’re just learning about.
• What kind of drugs/meds should we use (letrozole or injectable gonadotropins)?
• And when — ie some cycles with letrozole but if they don’t take, trying injectable gonadotropins? Or hit the ground running with injectables, since they increase the odds significantly?
• If we did do injectables, could we handle the higher risk of twins?
• Holy shit, twins.
• FYI, for those of you not part of the IVP/TTC universe, according to the nice doctor yesterday, letrozole is associated with an 8% chance of twins. Injectable gonadotropins are associated with a 25% chance.
• No matter which of us did it, I would have to get over my needle thing if we did injectables.

So, tests tests tests, and we’ve established a “we will formulate a plan by” date, after which time I am free to be the steamroller of implementation that I have so far been trying to keep under control.

As long as “girly-girl” means conversational and people-oriented, rather than fashionable, I’m afraid to say that I’ve been nailed by a silly Internet quiz.

Maybe I should change from my “usual” grande skim latte. Although the last time I ordered something “different” the poor barista was having a rough morning and twice made me something I didn’t order — first my usual, and then the fancy drink the woman in front of me ordered.

In reality, I am trying very hard to keep my expensive coffee purchases to a minimum. This is challenging when there is a starbucks right in the building.

Wish me luck today. In keeping with our newly open-ended unplans about trying to have a second child, today’s my “if I’m the one to do this, what do we need to do?” doctor’s appointment.

Her TSH level is now 1.3!!! That means the docs will work with her and will not be unduly concerned about the risk of miscarriage. Woot!

Also, whether it was carefully and repeatedly explaining to Noah that he wasn’t supposed to get up until the birds start singing, or exhaustion, or leaving his fan on all night, or an act of God, G-d, Goddess, or the deity of your choice, IT WORKED. Noah slept through from about 8:30 until ??? — he’s still sleeping now at 5:21 am.

Here he is looking all cute yesterday, when instead of dinner he wanted to run around outside.

(He loves those shorts. Yesterday I had to find something he could wear with them. As soon as I opened the drawer, he was all “Fwower? Fwower? Fwower?”)

Updated to add: The hat thing was equally funny. We have a heap of his jackets and hats sitting in a chair near the front door, with a heap of shoes under/around the chair. Every so often, Noah gets inspired and digs into the heap.

Yesterday, while ignoring the pizza we were trying to get him to eat, Noah dug into the heap and pulled out all the hats. Then he put on that one and “Mommy, up!”-ed us into taking him outside.

Noah proceeded to carry his soccer ball all the way to the play area in our development (~2, maybe 2.5 blocks), distracted only by hearing dogs behind a fence. The hat stayed in place, random tie hanging in his face, for half an hour at least.

I have a cute son, if I do say so myself.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned this here, but my adorable nephew, Max, is once again thriving! He’s eating well and gaining weight like a champ. Way to go Max! Way to go Aunt Anna! Way to go Uncle Jason!

I hear birds singing. And a baby grunting.

We haven’t changed any of our plans at this time. We are just *thinking* about it. Since we still have almost 2 months before Jill could try for the first time, we’re considering about alternatives.

The main alternative being me trying to get pregnant again, instead of Jill. Or maybe Jill trying once, and if it doesn’t take on the first try, then switching over to me.
What it really comes down to is trying to find the right balance within our family for everyone getting to have the experience she hopes for, and the best chance of having a second child using the same donor.

Mainly, I love the idea of being pregnant again. In fact, a day or so after this first came up, I confessed to a secret fantasy plan where Jill got pregnant on the very first try and then a couple of years down the road, I convinced her that I should try for one more baby with the last vials of our donor.

But thinking about moving that plan from the realm of airy-fairy future to concrete reality is so different. For one thing, there would have been a good stretch of time where I wasn’t pregnant or nursing in that fantasy. I do miss having my body being entirely mine.

Anyway, she’s going to get the follow-up thyroid bloodwork etc done in the next couple of weeks, and at the same time, I’m going to make an appointment with the RE practice that got me pregnant with Noah and find out what course of action they recommend. Although I’ve had my period back for 5 months, I haven’t been charting, but I’ll start this month.

Wish us luck sorting through our alternatives and figuring out what course of action makes the most sense for our family.

I know that some of you have gone through similar questions and quandries in your families — I’m curious to hear about your thoughts and experiences.

Looks like that part’s been handled. Here’s the card that Noah and his teachers made for us today:

He may not learn how to use apostrophes, but he also isn’t learning homophobia. And that’s more important. Particularly at his age.

If you click on the right hand image you can see where Noah actually “signed” it, below where his name appears.

Incidentally, he’s become even kissier. He kissed both teachers goodbye today, and “Can Mommy have a kiss?” did not generate any, “Nooooooooooooooo!” responses.

During both of the last two evenings, Noah has worn himself out by dancing and doing laps through our living room, dining room, and hall, both while giggling like a maniac. (Note: linked files are long.)

Tonight, he also asked that we get out the fabric tunnel. (By ask, I mean walked over to where it sits tied into a big round donut, touched it, and looked at me while going “Enh. Ennnh. Ennnnnnhhhhh!” until I figured out what he wanted.)

That was almost funnier than the dancing and running laps.

Sadly, wearing himself out has not precluded waking up at 2 am. Loudly and with great frustration. And staying awake.

* * *

We have also been having some stress. This thyroid thing, while not apparently dangerous, is also no joke.

Jill is on a low dose of thyroid replacement hormone, and they will do another round of bloodwork in a couple of weeks to see if things have improved enough that she can TTC. If not, more drugs, more tests, and more delays. If we are lucky, she will get to start right around her birthday, a not so wonderful reminder that our chances are steadily decreasing.

Aunt Anna is bored out of her gourd on bedrest. The baby has dropped and seems to be contemplating making an appearance. When I’m there June 9 & 10, maybe I’ll be meeting him.

* * *

It appears that my high school class is having a 20th reunion after all! (If you are in my graduating class and read this, I gave Engrid your email address, assuming I have it. I also gave her all the teacher email addresses I could find, mostly pilfered from Sandra’s emails.)

And it is the weekend after BlogHer, which turns out to be convenient — I’d been planning to go to Milwaukee for the weekend before BlogHer, but now I think I’ll go the weekend after.

* * *

Dammit. Not convenient after all. We just consulted a calendar, including our best estimate of when Jill will be ovulating, assuming we get all the thyroid stuff sorted out. Looks like the week we would be in Milwaukee.

That bites.

Pretty much that means that either we wait to TTC, or Jill doesn’t come to my reunion with me. And both of us deal with a high energy toddler alone in an airport.

Probable plan du jour:

1) I go to BlogHer by myself

2) Jill and Noah go to Milwaukee, where I meet them after Saturday’s BlogHer sessions are over (skipping Saturday dinner & parties).

3) Jill leaves Milwaukee maybe on Wednesday; earlier if she surges early. We ask around to see if any of our doctor friends there can check to see how many follicles she has and how they look — if they don’t look promising, no leaving early.

4) Noah hangs out with Grandma while I go to reunion. This especially means PLEASE TELL ME YOU ARE GOING. And those of you who are a year (or two) ahead or behind us, wouldn’t that week be a good time to visit Milwaukee?
* * *

Sudden thought: Hey Lizzie, will your work send you to BlogHer? Where we could hang out with Lizzy? Mebbe yall could do a similar first part of our logistical crazy dance and then we can have a week long playdate in Milwaukee while our friends with jobs there are at work.