Can we have your sperm?

It’s the burning question that so many lesbian couples have to awkwardly ask a man at any given time if they wish to conceive with their partner and don’t want to use a sperm bank.  I don’t think anyone envisions themselves asking a man for their sperm.  I certainly never thought I would be I that position.  Unfortunately, lesbian couples have to do A LOT of planning to try and have a baby.  My wife and knew we had our work cut out for us in our quest to conceive.  We did not have the financial means to do IUI’s with a doctor nor the desire to have a strange doctor knock my wife up in an office.  We looked at our other option…the turkey baster.  GASP.  Was the tool that bastes our turkey on Thanksgiving Day really our best option at trying to conceive?  And who would be the baby daddy?  So many questions, so many things to decide.  If only I could temporarily have a penis and sperm.  One can dream.

Before we were going to decide which “tool” we were going to use to try and conceive, we had to start with the bigger question, where were we going to get sperm?  Kiersten and I began looking at sperm banks and donor profiles to see what was out there.  You can’t even begin to imagine how many donor profiles exist.  You can go as far as to purchase celebrity lookalike donor sperm.  So, while the idea of having a mini Brad Pitt was enticing, this whole sperm bank thing didn’t seem like our cup of tea either.  Back to the baby daddy drawing board.  And how do you “find” the right baby daddy?  Sure, everyone wants the tall, smart, handsome “perfect” donor, but as most women will attest to the fact that “perfect” men don’t really exist.  So how do you narrow down your field of options?  For my wife and I, it wasn’t a difficult decision.  We knew we wanted to use someone that had a great personality and temperament.  Someone we would have a high level of comfort with and someone that would be ok with forfeiting their parental rights but also be willing to be a known donor to our child.  The other factor was that he would be willing to be our donor for the 2 kids we wanted so our children would be biologically related.  No big deal, right?  Our donor being smart, tall, handsome and all those aesthetic things was taken into consideration of course, but we knew what was important.  After careful consideration, there we were, drafting an email to our potential baby daddy.  I don’t think there’s any right way to ask a man for their sperm so we didn’t try and sugar coat it.  It was a gentle, yet straight to the point question.  “We were wondering if you would ever consider being our sperm donor?”

My wife and I were lucky enough to have asked the most amazing guy ever.  He was 100% on board with everything we wanted and needed.  His husband was also 100% on board and after a dinner “meeting” and a few drinks, we had officially found our baby daddy.  Now that was a done deal, the next task at hand…how the heck do we inseminate?  And this means we have to come pick up his sperm?  Oyyyyy. 

Stay tuned for my next entry as I delve into our story of sperm “drug deal” drop offs, headlamps and inseminating in the most strangest of places.  Until next time….     

Welcome!

I’ll never forget the morning when my wife told me she was pregnant. When I went to sleep that night before, I assumed the morning would be business as usual.  I often hear my wife's alarm go off and her getting ready for work and I'm somewhat alert but on this particular morning, I was still sound asleep.  This was only until I heard our bathroom door open and Kiersten said with excitement, “Steph, look!”  In a daze of being abruptly woken up, I slowly opened my eyes to see a white stick with purple cap being handed to me.  As I continued to try and focus on what was being handed to me, I see the word “pregnant”.  I paused, looked at her, and in disbelief, I rubbed my eyes thinking I was not seeing things correctly or this was some sort of dream.  I looked again, closer this time, and it still said “pregnant”.  Holy shit.  It worked.  

After many months of trying to regulate her hormones, picking up sperm from our baby daddy (which I can only compare to a very awkward drug deal), inseminating in the most bizarre of places, and then finally being able to use the Semenette® to try and get pregnant, and then, it freaking worked.  I was in total dismay and shock.  Kiersten burst out, “We are pregnant!!”  It was words I had longed to hear and was instantly an overwhelming feeling of emotions that flooded me.  It was happiness, relief, and freaking the fuck out.  We hugged for a brief moment and then the wheels started turning.  What do we do??  Do we call our moms?  Do we call the doctor?  So many thoughts and things all happening all at once and I’m still in my damn pajamas.  I was NOT prepared for this but god damn, I am excited! 

My baby girl at 7 months, via 3D ultrasound

As I sit here and write this to you all, I am joined by my wife and my brand new daughter, Isabella Rose.  I can't begin to put into words what this feels like.  All I know is that it's fucking awesome and everything we went through to get to this very moment seems like a distant thought.  

This is just a glimpse of the kinds of stories my blog will contain.  I wanted use my first post to share with you all this most incredible moment of my life thus far.  It was a long road in getting to this moment in more ways than one, and I am beyond excited to share with you the stories of just how we got here and all things in between.

At long last, here she is!!