Well that was a crazy week! Went up to see my sister and my nephews and my mom who was in the province for a week. Drove back home Friday with my mom, hosted a little party for her on Saturday, Sunday drove out to my best friend’s because her oldest son is really struggling in life right now and she was in serious crisis and needed help with her 3 younger kids and with life in general. Came home yesterday and am absolutely knackered. So I spent the morning watching Coronation Street and lounging around. Feeling much better but I never want to drive again. My sister and best friend both live over 2 hours away, in opposite directions. Unfortunately, I’ll be heading out to my best friend’s again on Sunday because she’s getting baptized along with her kids. That’s the kind of thing I’d feel really bad about missing, even though the thought of leaving my house just makes me exhausted.
So I’m sorry, dear internets, for neglecting you all and for not posting. Kate is right – it has been a bit quiet on some fronts lately. Good thing she has been providing us all with fabulous questions to ponder and tales of hospital stays and ugly pictures. Otherwise life would be dull indeed.
I’m having a bit of a mini-freak out about the impending start of really trying. Because I’m thinking about having a child, and how hard it is, and how my relationship with Manny needs some serious work. I struggle with a lot of resentment towards him for not responding to me the way I want him to, and for not really sharing what he’s going through. And I feel like adding a baby into this is just going to make it worse. Like the dog – I’m the one that wanted the dog, and I’m the one that takes care of the dog 99% of the time. But he did want the dog, too, and he gets to enjoy the dog and play with him. It’s just that I am the one doing all the walking and feeding and bathing and stuff. And I have a terrible feeling it’s going to be the same with a baby – if I want him to do stuff with the baby, I’m going to have to ask and spell it all out for him really clearly. That’s how everything is in our relationship. I know it’s stupid to think he should be able to ever read my mind, and I really know that I need to work harder at asking for what I need. But sometimes I just get so tired. I just want him to see what needs to be done and to do it. And to see that I need help, without me having to ask.
I worry that the baby is going to be the same way, and I think deep down I am afraid that he doesn’t really want the baby. Even though he’s assured me that he does, even though he’s really excited that the sperm is ordered (yes, we picked a donor – more on that in a bit), even though he has undergone painful ball surgery to try to get me knocked up the easy way. When we met, he didn’t want any more kids. He’d had the snip and that’s where he was at. And as we got more in love, and started thinking about a future together, he changed his mind. There is a part of me that has a real hard time accepting this – that I have a man who will pretty much do whatever will make me happy. I want a baby – he changes his plan for no more kids, he has surgery, he accepts using a donor because I don’t feel IVF is right for me. I know that if I ask him for help – around the house, with the dog, with a baby – he’ll try to do it. I guess I just feel sometimes that it is really difficult to have that responsibility. I could abuse it so easily, his willingness to do what I ask of him. And it also means I need to be really clear about my own desires, or else it’s not fair to him.
I don’t know, this all seems like rambling right now. I know this will get better – the intensity of these feelings come and go in me – and I also know that I am still learning how to take care of myself and be clear about what I need. It’s not something I learned to do as a child, so I’m learning now. And that’s ok, even though it’s frustrating sometimes. Or all the time. I just wish things were easy, you know?
Ok – the donor. I’m not telling anyone any details about the donor for sure. It seems like it’s really something that should be private between me and Manny and our future child(ren) and for the kid(s) to share with people if they decide to do that. I have to say it was incredibly fun choosing the donor, and way easier than I thought. Our pool was limited by a number of factors – there was really only 1 bank to choose from (there is one in Canada but they don’t do open ID for some reason, and that was non-negotiable for me), so we went with Xytex, which has a Canadian subsidiary. That was important because my clinic is only licensed as a sperm distributor, not a sperm importer, so I couldn’t just order from any US or international sperm bank, cause they are not interested in jumping through all the Health Canada hoops to change their licensing status. And then the Canadian distributor only has the Canadian compliant donors, which are tested to a different (I think higher) standard than the larger pool of donors available for use in the US. So once we put in our physical characteristics into the mix (and we were a bit flexible on this, but really, as I’ve mentioned before, curly hair would really not work for us) it was quite a manageable number.
The best part was that Manny and I agreed right away which donor we liked the best, and we liked him WAY more than anyone else. We made a shortlist, but we really were attached to this particular donor. Everything – from his interests, his physical characteristics (there was a kid photo and an adult photo), his essay, his reasons for donating – all of it really spoke to us.
As an aside, if you have $165 to burn for 6 months of entertainment, consider getting access to donor profiles. It is hilarious, although I suppose much more so if you’re trying to consider these guys as your potential donor and bio dad of your children. The interests are sometimes so random – modern dance, anyone? And that was from a guy that looked a bit lumberjack-y and totally un-modern dance-y. Weird. And lots and lots of bowlers. I take it that bowling must be big in the South? (Xytex is headquartered in Georgia.) Then there’s a spot on the profile for “celebrity look-alike.” And one guy actually put “John Tesh.” He was actually pretty handsome and seemed alright in other respects, too, and made it into the top 3, but I’m glad to report that I won’t be trying to have John Tesh’s baby next month.
Then the photos. There were 2 or 3 where the guys were shirtless, and at least one that looked like it had been taken by a professional gay porn producer trying to get a new boy into the business after supplying him with a full torso waxing and a few joints. You know, jeans, workboots, flannel shirt tied around the waist, reclining in a barn doorway with one arm draped over a bended knee, looking knowingly at the camera. What the hell? Only one of us needs to masturbate to make this baby, and it’s not me.
Anyway, it was easy. One evening of looking at profiles, talking it over a bit, and that was it. I called the next day and talked to the most AMAZING woman at the Canadian distributor. She rocks so hard – we made jokes, she told me info, and generally totally ruled. Hopefully I won’t have to talk to her again now that I’ve ordered 5 vials of sperm. Unfortunately, they only had washed samples from this donor right now, and although I’m planning to do ICI where you can use unwashed and save some money, this donor is totally worth it. I need to discuss with my doctor a bit more about this – they said they can do ICI with washed sperm, it’s just more expensive cause the samples cost more and then you do 2 tries as opposed to just one with IUI. I need to ask them whether they’d be willing to do unmedicated IUI with me so I can make the samples last longer and have better chance of success. Anytime I’ve discussed it with them, they just seem to see ICI as unmedicated and IUI as medicated. I guess that’s just the way they do things. But I don’t see any reason to not try unmedicated IUI. I’ll try to give my doctor a call in the next week or so to ask about that. Might as well.
So that’s my updates for now. I’m still madly in love with my dog, whose name is going to stay Lucky. I actually sort of like the classic dog names as opposed to the trendier people names that so many dogs have now. Plus he’s the only Lucky at the dog park. So he stands out for his cuteness and his name. He is madly in love with me, too, and cries everytime I leave him with someone else. I need to take him to school and work with him on that – he doesn’t destroy anything in the house if he’s alone, but I feel bad leaving him at all if he gets distressed. I tied him up outside a shop last week and he chewed through his leash in about 3 minutes! Fortunately a friend was there and caught him for me – he was just headed to the door of the shop to find me, but who knows if he would have stayed around. I had left him outside places before and he seemed fine, so maybe something just spooked him. Anyway, we just need to work on his confidence a bit and teach him how to listen a bit better. I know he can be the kind of dog that doesn’t tug on his leash and who always comes when I call, it’ll just take some work to get there. And although Lucky can’t talk, I know he was very happy and relieved about the return of Charlie. We all were.
My tulips have pushed up a few inches in spite of it being cold here again, the cranesbill I put in last year is starting to come in, the rhubarb has little curled up leaves under the dead ones from last year, and my yarrow is already greening up. It’s splendid. How does your garden grow, internets?
I used every single container I had available, and I still have a pot of soup left. I’m bringing some to my grandparents tonight, and will probably eat it again for supper, so that should be taken care of. Our freezer is getting mighty full. Thanks, Boris!
I know I am supremely biased, but isn’t he the cutest dog of all time?
