Not Knowing

Bright and sunny.

So, three inseminations, done.

The second two were ridiculously much easier than the first... bad puns all round by the third time. I have a feeling that the last one was a little too late, and perhaps our syringe technique was not perfect the first two times but it's a beginning, at least. Who would have ever thought that I would find myself suggesting that perhaps if I went down to get some milk, Joey might use the time to put some sperm in a jar for us. What a bizarre thing this is.

All the sperm business was over by Wednesday and Joey and Helen didn't have to go home until Sunday, which meant we all kind of got a holiday together. Hollie was at work, but home reasonably early so we all got to eat and talk lots. Regardless of whether we get pregnant this time around, it was such an important, lovely time together. I felt so happy with the four of us all drinking tea together. Sometimes it feels like this is the best possible way of getting pregnant (awkwardness aside) - so many good cups of tea this way. And it does feel like we are absolutely enveloped by love through the whole process this way too. I know that the normal thing is not to tell anyone until you've got safely past the miscarriage mark, but that was just never going to work for us. It's too much of a big deal for each of us to make it worth keeping it a secret. It's been so great having our friends offering excitement, good luck, things to think about and advice. The other night someone asked me whether we would consider, if there was such a thing on the market, using a penis shaped dildo with a built in syringe to inseminate. How could I keep the fact of trying to get pregnant a secret with that kind of question on offer!?

Now we are waiting. Or, more precisely, we are in a state of Not Knowing. The difference being that you usually know what you are waiting for - to go overseas, until the holidays come, for the next episode to come online, for the train - but this seems to be all about the state of simply not knowing what will happen. I am still on school holidays, which probably gives me a bit more time than usual to wonder, but even so, it is ridiculous the way that despite absolutely knowing that there is no way that I could feel pregnant, or have any kind of physical changes yet, I keep surreptitiously feeling up my tits to see if they've got more sensitive and trying to work out if I'm hungry or actually feeling nauseous. It's not altogether comfortable, the wondering, because if all that change is going to happen, I'd really just rather know now. I feel a little bit like I'm hovering between being ordinary or something absolutely life changing happening. I'd rather know! But soon enough. And mostly, I just can't actually imagine that I would be pregnant this first time. It felt like too much of a practice round. We were so awkward and emotional, it seems like getting through that should have been enough to achieve for this month.

Ten things about insemination

Dark. Cosy in bed.

I am judgemental about people who write  blogs with posts that are called things like 7 things I should have done before having a baby or top 3 reasons why we love cloth nappies, because all those dot points seem to say they can only think in bite sized pieces rather than some kind of sequential, coherant whole.

I can't seem to think in any kind of sequential, coherent whole. Bite sized pieces it is.

1. Last night we tried to get pregnant for the first time. We are trying three consecutive days, so tonight will be the second. It was a hugely much bigger deal - emotionally- than I think any of us expected.

2. I won't speak for the others, but what I found hard was the intensity of gratitude I felt. And accompanying fear that it's  too much to ask of them. I find it so hard to handle the idea that Joey and Helen are doing this incredible thing for us, for me, and there is nothing I can do or say to even express how grateful I am. Helen asked if I meant that I feel I need to repay it somehow, or if it is the discomfort of indebtedness. But it's not that. It's really just the overwhelmingness of gratitude. Who would have known that it could be such a difficult feeling.

3. Hollie said, just accept the hugeness of the generosity. You'll give it back to the world, in your own way. I was surprised by that, coming from her, but comforted too. 

4. I said I wouldn't speak for the others' feelings, but I think we all got a pretty big dose of Shit Got Real! It seemed silly, given how much preparation had gone into this. You'd think we'd have been prepared, but we weren't. Hollie (lawyer) made us laugh by worrying about how incredibly unregulated and "off the grid" the process is...

5. The process. I washed three jars, different sizes. All with lids. I had no idea what would be most appropriate! Then we went for a walk, after working out that they would message when we should come home, and that the jar would get tucked somewhere warm. We walked. I freaked out. We got a bit hysterical about how no one knew that we were wandering the streets waiting to get a message telling us that we had sperm waiting for us in a jar. I did that thing with the corner of a park bench to get the top off a ginger beer bottle that needed a bottle opener. Drank ginger beer. Picked lavender.

Then we got the message and so we walked home, took the jar from Joey on the stairs. We all hugged. I thought about how the family from school who lives in the flat below us had no idea what their kid's teacher was getting up to in the stairwell. Helen and Joey went to get icecream. Things felt momentous. Got it in the syringe and the syringe in the right place, and... Well now we just wait and see!

6. The funniest thing - actually from earlier in the day. I had to get a syringe, a medicine one with no needle (obviously), but when I went to the chemist, the ones there seemed way too big. So stupidly I asked if they had any smaller ones and predictably they asked what for. Oh God. I mumbled something about giving the cat antibiotics but having lost the little medicine syringe and left as quickly as I could. But it gave me an idea. Hollie and I may have made a baby, using a nice little syringe that I got from the vet.

7. All the straight women in my life had warned us about the weird/gross factor of sperm. I didn't think it was weird or gross. I was too busy feeling grateful. 

8. After the insemination we did the crossword in bed. We did quite well. It was very soothing. I felt like Hollie and I were really in this whole thing together - I'd been worrying about this part of everything, given how it really shows up how we really can't make a baby with just the two of us. But it felt like we made a baby with the two of us. 

9. Helen and Joey came home and we all had tea in the living room. The cat saw Helen was still jittery and chose to sit on her and go nuts purring and headbutting. I loved everyone so much. 

10. We went to bed. I didn't sleep, but I felt happy. In the middle of the night I got up and peed on all three brands of Ovulation Prediction Kits to see if we'd got the timing right. All three said yes. I went to sleep.

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