LezBehonest BABY how our baby came about... no it's not exactly the birds and the bees!!

We started our pregnancy journey last August.  We ended up going to a reproductive endocrinologist through UCONN that specializes in fertility.  Jake had a slew of tests done to make sure that she was fertile, and fertile she was!!).  We also had to meet with a psychiatrist to clear us for the process.  Jake is a physician and I am in the counseling field, so I thought that having to go see a psychiatrist to clear us psychologically was a little absurd.

As a couple, we are on the same page and have gone to counseling before, so why should we have to spend over $250.00 out of pocket for someone to tell us that we can put sperm inside of my wife? Heterosexual couples don't have to be cleared and I think sometimes, they should be!!

This was my internal dialogue... and sometimes I eat my words, in this case, I absolutely did.  We met with the psychiatrist and she was able to shed some light on being a same sex couple while using donor sperm.  We never thought about the conversation we would have with our children regarding who their donor was.  She gave us some pointers that were extremely helpful when it came time to select our donor.  Here are some of the pointers.

• While choosing a donor, make sure to choose someone that has similar values and interests as you and your partner.  She said that if your child eventually wants to know more about the donor and you have chosen someone with a completely different religious and value structure that it can be hard for the child to have a sense of their identity while understanding why we CHOSE someone that was so different. (When we were looking at donors that matched our criteria and saw that many of them wanted to have lunch with Socrates and Plato... at this point we thought were screwed!) Our donor's dream lunch was with himself at age 5.  He thought it would be really insightful to see himself through his 5 year old self.  When Jake and I read that, we knew that it was playful, honest and real... It matched us as a couple.  Anyone that knows us knows that having a major philosophical lunch talking about the world on a very deep level is just not us.
• When referring to the donor (have to train your family and friends), it is to be called the donor and never the father.  It is important to make sure you have the conversation with everyone in your life that will be around your child.  The child has a donor, not a father and has two mothers.  That way the child doesn't feel left he/she has been abandoned.
• When choosing a donor you have to choose if you are going to have an open or closed donor. If you choose a closed donor you are not allowing your child to ever have access to the donor. What I never thought about--- if you choose a closed donor and your child has medical issues and you need information from the donor; you can't reach out to the donor.  Everyone will have different ideas and feelings with regard to giving your child the option to reach out to its donor at the age of 18.  We simply wanted to give our child the option with feeling secure that we will have done everything to provide our child with a loving and nurturing environment.
• We were also given a list of outdated books and resources for same sex couples that I haven't looked at.  

So it came time for us to choose our sperm bank.  We had four different banks to choose from.  I thought it was going to be similar to the nikeID store.  On the site, you can built your own sneaker with every color and design possible.  I thought it would be that easy to pick our donor, I was wrong.  Similar to our friends, health was our first concern.  We chose a donor who was a tri-athlete. He likes sewing, carpentry, music and has a strong sense of family.  He has blond hair and brown eyes.  He is 6'1" and slender.  We bought 8 vials at around $8000.00.  We were told that normally it takes at least 3-4 vials to get pregnant.  Jake is carrying first because she is older than me.  I will have a baby in a few years and our kids will be half genetic siblings.  We thought it would be a long process for Jake to get pregnant.  On November 7th she was inseminated through IUI. 

At four weeks and a few days Jake handed me a gift bag.  I opened the gift bag and inside was a pregnancy test that said, "PREGNANT."  I was elated, scared shitless, crying and excited.  All we could keep saying was, "first time." My baby was pregnant with our child and I was SO excited yet couldn't tell anyone.  That was 6 weeks ago... we are now at 10 weeks and Jake has been SO sick.  We shall continue on... I am off to buy pregnancy pops with my counterpart.