Taking Charge of your Fertility

I have no idea what to think this morning. It is the third day after our IUI and I am just simply enjoying a very normal, average Sunday morning of CBS news programs with no sense of anything funny happening down there. We've decided that this fifth IUI is a very pivotal point in our quest as hopefully preggo lesbos. This is a mildly expensive process, and we're wondering how much more we can truly afford.

It has been recommended to me that we check out a book that specializes in fertility for both trying to get pregnant and trying to avoid pregnancy. Taking Charge of your Fertility, by Toni Weschler, MPH, is a guide to charting your cycle and understanding the individual points in each person's cycle that pregnancy can be both achieved and avoided. I've also discovered that the author has a website with forums and blogs and online charting options at www.tcoyf.com. The website seems to be basic, but has information about the book and a downloadable pdf chart that you can use if you'd like to manually chart. I had trouble getting to the part of the site where I can chart online and share my results with the world; wouldn't let me create an account. I may check back later since charting manually sounds horrid to me.

I'm not sure I want to buy the book because it seems as though I already have a stack of books about a man and a woman creating life and none have been inspirational. The sample charts on the website show a space to make note of the days in your cycle that you have sex with your partner. Some of the samples showed 5 or 6 days in a row of sex. THAT hasn't happened in my life in years!!! HA!!! I'll have to get on my partner about this. My challenge with charting is that we only have one chance each cycle, not 5 or 6, so it really is imperative that we get our timing right every month. After looking at the sample charts, I am wondering if we could really narrow our chances down further by charting. I do think that it is worth a shot. Instead of us being able to narrow it down to two days of ovulation with our digital tinkle test, we might be able to narrow it down to 12 or 24 hours of peak-ovulation. Definitely worth a try.

We decided to go on our second day of ovulation this cycle for the first time. Perhaps the second-day method will work! I plan on charting if we need to try again.

Okay, so it was two months.

Yes, for those of you thinking that was a rediculously long 'one month', it has in fact been two months.

It has been just over three months since the concussion, and I am finally feeling like myself again. Only ocassionally do I have a small dizzy spell, and it usually goes away in a few minutes. I haven't taken any serious drugs for about three weeks now. So we are ready to make babies once more!

Summer is upon us and we are trying to take a few 'days off' to enjoy a 'vacation'. I say this lightly since we will both be working over the course of our 'days off', my partner much more so than myself. Yesterday, amongst phone calls and email interuptions, we went to the beach. It was a gorgeous day and the lesbians with babies were everywhere! Not to mention the old lesbos, baby dykes, and middle aged dyke-alikes as well. It was just a very gay day at the coast I guess. After we had our fill of sunshine, we went to our favorite hang out for a mocktail/cocktail. My partner made an interesting call and got into a not-so-interesting conversation with a guy at the bar about travel and islands to visit. She then made a very interesting call to compare Key West to Provincetown, and the conversation was only downhill from there. As he made some sort of comment about what 'they' do in Provincetown, we both paused, looked at each other, smiled, and remembered that people are generally naive or stupid, blind that two lesbians are in fact sitting in front of them. Perhaps mostly naive. Well, maybe stupid. And just wait until we have a baby, right? That'll confuse 'em.

Today is day 15 in my cycle and still no smiley face on the ovulation kit. The previous two times we've been, I've ovulated on day 14, so I am wondering why no eggies yet. Perhaps it has something to do with all the acupuncture? Since we started working on fertility (and not concussion) at the acupuncturist, I have been moody, emotional, crampy, crampy and generally crampy. My period was a bit more 'normal' I suppose, but not entirely. And since then basically I wake up daily with minor cramps and then they may or may not get worse through the day. I am going to see him today and will definately ask about the no ovulation.

Other than that, we are so excited to be back on track! My partner is crazy busy at work right now, and just waiting to see how/when we'll fit in our trip to Dartmouth. Hopefully it will be tomorrow.

It's a big, straight world people

Dear average, intelligent, coupled lesbian,

My partner and I did not decide yesterday to get pregnant. As a matter of fact, we are well on our way to becoming preggo. Just this morning I tested my ovulation for the second time this cycle. We anxiously awaited the 2-3 minutes until the test was complete. But no, today is not the day. However, today is the day I decided to start this blog. I have noticed many aspects of our journey to baby that are so ridiculously and blatantly heterosexual that we literally look at each other and laugh out loud.

What really frosted my gay cake and inspired me to write was reading the directions to our ovulation kit. Like many gay couples, we bought a leading brand kit at a leading chain drug store. We were sure to buy the really expensive, digital one in hopes that it was the best choice. Here is a brief synopsis of the instructions in my words:

Step 1: Start your period and count that day as 'Day 1' of your cycle.
Step 2: Count each day until you get to day 11 or 12 of your cycle.
Step 3: Test your tinkle.
Step 4: If your test kit reads just a circle, throw it out and try again tomorrow. If your test kit reads a smiley face in the circle, congratulations! You're ovulating! Now go home quick and bang your husband.

I was so carefully reading each and every little instruction until I got to that last step and realized that this major, national brand kit literally thought that everyone reading their instructions was straight. How could that possibly be? In the heterosexual world, people just have sex and then have kids. It's so easy and straight-forward. If that were my case, we'd have 10 kids by now. Jeez.....

I mentioned to my best friend, who happens to be a nurse, that we had started 'tinkling on sticks'. He got really upset and said 'you're pregnant?!' thinking that I had left him out of this huge, important process of my life. I said, 'no, we're testing my ovulation.' Now, my best friend is a happily married, straight man with two kids. And he's a nurse professionally. He knows how the process of reproduction works. 'Oh, I must have slept through that class...' was his response, to which of course we both chuckled. My point is that no normal, healthy heterosexual couple uses these expensive ovulation kits unless necessary, and the really successfully re-productive may not even know they exist. But every single lesbian who wants to get pregnant does know and will continue to use them for all time. Why would this company assume I am going home to have intercourse to reproduce?

Let me reassure you all right now, I am not out to be a crazy, feminist, straight-folk hating dyke. I am out to share my joy, humor, challenges and confusions of pregnancy as a lesbian. After all, we must laugh in order to get anywhere in this world. And it's a big, straight world people.