Checking In

Nothing new to update on on the baby front. We're still patiently waiting for a foster/adopt placement. We've been on "the list" to receive a placement since October 24th so we're hoping we might get a call soon to have a little one come and stay with us.  We have been doing a lot of babysitting though. I got to babysit a 4 and 5 year old brother and sister, and Jennie and I have babysat a three year old a few times and an 8 month old. At this point we've just been babysitting for friends. We did have one foster mom bring an almost 2 year old little girl over for sort of a meet and greet so that we could hopefully start doing some respite (babysitting) for them. She was sooooo cute! Jennie and I both as soon as she left were like "you can just leave her here with us forever".  We're both starting to get a bit impatient now that life has settled down and we have the time to think about life with a baby.

On another note, I did want to clarify on a statement I made in an earlier blog post. I think it was on the one year anniversary of our Indiegogo campaign that I said, "Unfortunately, it's been a year and we still don't have a baby Crate yet. I know I need to be patient and that when it's right it will happen, but it's getting harder for me with each month and with each new friend who either brings a baby into the world or announces a pregnancy."

I know that when I posted that I was in a pretty sad place and feeling frustrated about things not working out how we had planned. I think unintentionally though, I made my friends or family who were planning a pregnancy, celebrating a pregnancy, or celebrating the birth of their baby feel like they shouldn't celebrate with us or in front of us.  That is definitely NOT what we and want.  We love when we find out a good friend of ours is pregnant and seeing pictures of their new little one they brought into the world. One more baby in our lives just means one more baby we get to ooooh and aweee over and hopefully get the chance to spoil :) Yes there may be a small tinge of, honestly, probably jealously for me that it's not us, but in reality we know things will happen for us when they're meant to happen.  So I guess what I wanted to say was please, please, please continue to celebrate these exciting times in your life and share them with us. Please don't feel like you have to tiptoe around us or consider not wanting to hurt us. We will be and are so excited for you!

Infant Care Classes

We are officially done with our final requirement and are licensed foster care parents! We traveled down to Rose Medical Center in Denver for two Monday nights filled with everything infant--crying, pooping, sleeping, bathing, and much more.  We only got to play with these little dolls, but it was a pretty informative course!

We are signed up to provide some respite care for other foster families (basically babysitting if a foster family goes away on a trip) and then on October 24th we go on the call list for a placement.  Who knows what the rest of this year holds!

Just another bump in the road

Well we tried again this month to get pregnant and it didn't work--we're both pretty sad this time around. We keep trying to keep our heads up and know that it will all work out when it's supposed to, but it just seems to get harder each time.  This was our eighth attempt. We're going to take 5-6 months off from trying because we already have weddings booked for next wedding season, so that will give us some time to make some appointments and make sure nothing major is going on with Jennie. We know that our donor's sperm is excellent and we know that we're getting our timing just right (she starts her period exactly 14 days after we try--other than one month when we were totally off with our timing) so we're worried it might be something more. We also know that it could be nothing, just that we're having a hard time conceiving. A lot of couples take a really long time to get pregnant.

It's hard to explain what all of this feels like--trying not to get excited each month when we try and trying again to not be so disappointed when it doesn't work. It's a bit torturous. It's also hard to explain why I want this so bad.  It's not that I feel something is missing from our relationship or that having children will make us happier (in fact research shows exactly the opposite!), it's just that I know that this is what I should be doing.  Being a parent is something I'm called to do--it's an identity that I feel like is a part of the fabric of who I am. So although I feel like something is missing from my life, I don't feel like something is missing from our relationship.  I don't know if that makes any rational sense, but there it is.

We are still pursuing a foster care placement, although Jennie has some reservations. As a planner/logical minded person she want's to know the future and with foster/adopt that is one thing you just can't know. We're confident though that we'll figure out what is best for us. Now that there's not so much pressure from the agency to be ready for a placement we're able to get through these next few months that are crazy busy and have told the agency we'd be willing to be considered for a placement October 24th. This gives us a bit more time to focus on ourselves and not focus so much on foster care requirements. Although we do have our infant care classes on September 8th and 15th.

So we kind of have these dual processes playing out and we're open to both means of creating a family, it's just sort of a wait and see at this point.

I do have to say I'm excited to have a little while to not think too much about baby stuff and just focus on us. We even have a little getaway planned for ourselves the second weekend of October to celebrate 4 years of marriage and what we're jokingly calling a baby moon before we potentially get a foster care placement.

The Journey to Become Parents

Well we're continuing on this wild ride to become parents--we're sure it will happen somehow.  The foster care placement that we were preparing for/hoping to happen this month didn't work out. We were possibly going to take a sibling pair of two kiddos, but when we visited with them for a weekend we realized they were just too much for us to handle.  I'm glad that we had the opportunity to do a few visits before the kids moved in so that we could better understand what we were capable of.  Originally we had told the agency we'd be willing to take up to two children age infant to 5 years old and we've since edited that to one child age infant to 2 years old.  We went into the process a bit more confident in our ability to just jump in and parent two kids and now we know that we're better off starting with one. It was a great learning experience, although hard to let go of a placement that we were preparing for and wrapping our heads around.

We are fully certified by the agency pending our Virginia background checks. We've heard that in other cases Virginia has taken 3 months to send them back. Hopefully that's not the case for us. Once those are back we'll be able to accept placements as they become available, or really when the right fit comes along for us.

So we'll continue working on making a Baby Crate and we'll also work with the County to hopefully find a placement that is right for us.

EDIT: Just got news a few minutes ago that our Virginia background checks have been received! Now all we have to do is take an infant care class.

No Baby Crate this month...

Just wanted to update everyone that our latest attempt at our at home insemination was not successful.  We tried two days in a row this last time and had some hopes as we thought Jennie was having some of the early signs of pregnancy (hungry, tired, etc.), but it turns out we weren't pregnant.  We'll try again next month and hope that it works then!

On another note we will likely be getting a foster care placement the 3rd or 4th week of August so that will be exciting news to share!

Foster Care Update

As many of you may have gathered from previous blog posts or Facebook, Jennie and I have decided to start pursuing the avenue of adoption through the foster care system.  We are still attempting to start a family using our wonderful donor, however, as time passes and we continue to age we decided that it couldn't hurt to start looking at other options. So this is how we landed in our current situation.

I have always had a strong interest in adopting from the foster care system. Jennie and I have talked a lot about how we might build our family.  We've talked about the fact that we would like to have 3 bio-kids and then once they're grown and in college perhaps we would adopt a sibling set through foster care since we'd have the empty bedrooms :)  I really want a large family. I know a lot of people think it's somewhat old fashioned, but my ideal number of children would be 5.

I do have some experience with kids in the foster care system. When I was an undergrad student I decided to spend a summer interning with Child Welfare Services in an effort to figure out whether or not I wanted to pursue Social Work. Obviously, that experience had a major impact on me as I now have my Masters in Social Work, although my initial thoughts of working in that particular sector changed.  During my time at that internship I had the opportunity to work with children and families toward reunification, facilitate sibling visits, attend court hearings, and ultimately work on finding adoptive families for kiddos whose parents no longer had parental rights.  Being exposed to children in the foster care system really opened my eyes to the world that these children exist in.  Many of these children only need temporary stable, loving homes while their parents/families get their lives together in order to better care for their kids in the future.  I've always thought we could be a rock in these kids lives and provide that love and stability, even if only for a short time.

When Jennie and I were still living in Syracuse I even tried for a good 6 months to convince her that we should foster.  I figured we were young and able and had a spare bedroom--looking back I'm glad we didn't jump in then because I'm not sure we were emotionally ready or completely financially stable!  Fast forward a few years and we've decided to revisit the potential of foster care.

Initially we weren't sure we were interested in adopting, at least not right away since we'd always talked about building a bio-family first.  However, after attending foster care orientation and learning that if you're just wanting to provide foster care you would receive kids who were 12 and up, we reconsidered what we wanted.  It was actually Jennie who after the initial orientation said, "you know, I think maybe I am interested in adoption." I was pretty shocked, because I wasn't sure this would be something she'd be open to, at least not at this phase in our life together. So after a lot of conversation and talking through all the possible scenarios we decided to register for foster parent training as a foster/adopt family!

It felt like as soon as we hit enter on the electronic registration form we received an email from the program coordinator asking us if we'd like to expedite our certification process.  What this would mean is that we would still have to go through the same process as every other foster/adopt family, we'd just complete everything in 1 month instead of 3-4.  At first we weren't sure (well let's be honest, I was all over it and Jennie wasn't sure!) because we were thinking we'd have 3-4 months to prepare ourselves and our house before we could expect any children.  But ultimately we decided that if a system that is sometimes notorious for moving at the pace of a snail was willing to get us through the process quickly, why not take them up on the offer!

So as you can all probably imagine this last month has been quite a whirlwind! Let me tell you the amount of paperwork you have to fill out and sign is HUGE (as it should be)! Going through our home study packet and filling out and signing everything felt a lot like closing day when we bought our house, and this is just the screening portion!  We've filled out questionnaires and had interviews with our home study worker about our childhoods, how we were as teenagers, and what our relationship is like.  We've been completely open and honest about everything because we know it's important for the agency to know where we both come from. We've gotten a lot done so far. We've been finger printed, did our initial home study walk through, and completed 2 out of 3 of our all day foster parent trainings. Jennie has gotten her CPR/First Aid and I have my class next weekend.   This week we have to go get physicals and cleared by the doctor. Basically they are just ensuring we don't have any communicable diseases and that we're healthy enough to take in a child.  Once our background checks from Colorado, New York, and Virginia (why did we have to move so much!!?!?) are back we'll sit down with our home study worker to review our home study and she'll do her final walkthrough of the house. Once this is finished she will go in front of a certification committee and present us and they will decide whether or not to certify us.

We didn't have to do a ton of stuff in the house to get it ready. The main thing was that we had to clean out the spare bedroom which was serving as a bit of a garage and paint it. We also had to install a smoke detector on the main floor of the house because we only had one upstairs. We had to gather/buy furniture, bedding, toys, and books.  One of the most difficult things is that in order to be certified you have to have everything prepared for the age range and number of kids you say you could foster.  We've said that we will foster/adopt infant to 5 years old, and up to two if they are a sibling set.  So we've set up a crib that converts into a daybed and a twin bed.  The room is coming together nicely and is super cute!  Some of the things we didn't expect was that we had to physically lock up all of our medications and cleaning supplies/hazardous materials. So we bought a locking tackle box to put all of the medicine in and figured out a lock for the downstairs bathroom sink cabinet to put all our cleaning supplies in.  We had to buy and put on all the plug covers for outlets and still have to install the child safety latches for the kitchen sink cabinets and the upstairs bathroom cabinets.

The list of what we have left to do is getting shorter and shorter.  We have our physicals tomorrow, I have CPR/First Aid on Saturday, and we have our last foster parent class on the 26th. I also need to look into finding a daycare center near our house that will accept one or two kids and the state child care stipend program. But really that's it!

The kid(s) room is all ready and we've been told that we can expect a placement at the end of July! This summer is definitely shaping up to be a bit more exciting/life changing than I think either of us imagined, but we're really excited for what life has in store.

This is NOT legal advice!

We've been getting quite a few questions about our donor agreement and people asking if we can share it with them so I thought I would share it here.

Just to be clear this is not legal advice, and you should definitely run any sort of contract/legal agreement by a lawyer just to be sure. It's also important to know your state's laws surrounding artificial insemination because each state varies and what is legal in Colorado may not be the same elsewhere. For example, in Colorado it is only considered a legal insemination when administered by a physician. We hope that this can be helpful to people who are going through the same process as us.

Donor Agreement

This agreement is made this _______________day of _____________________ 20___, by and between _____________, hereafter referred to as "Recipient" and ____________, hereafter referred to as “Second Parent,” and ____________, hereafter referred to as "Donor."

NOW, THEREFORE, in consideration of the promises of each other, Donor, Recipient, and Second Parent agree as follows:

Each clause of this agreement is separate from the others and should a court refuse to enforce one or more clauses of this agreement, the others are still valid and in full force.

1.      Donor agrees and understands that the purpose of the insemination is to produce a child or children.

2.      Donor agrees to be tested for sexually transmitted diseases, specifically HIV, Chlamydia, Gonorrhea, Syphilis, and Hepatitis A, B, and C. A copy of the Donor's examination and testing results shall be provided to Recipient prior to insemination.

3.      Donor understands that he is providing his semen for artificial insemination and agrees in advance to consent to the adoption of any child conceived through this process by the Second Parent. Donor waives paternity rights, if any, to a child conceived through artificial insemination of sperm donated pursuant to this agreement. Donor agrees not to attempt to form a parent-child relationship with Recipient's child. Each party acknowledges and agrees that the relinquishment of all rights, as stated above, is final and irrevocable.

4.      Recipient and Donor agree that Recipient has relinquished any and all rights that she might otherwise have to hold Donor legally and financially responsible for any child or children who result from the artificial insemination procedure. Each party agrees the Donor shall not be named as the father on the birth certificate of any child or children born from the artificial insemination.

5.      Each party acknowledges and agrees that she or he signed this agreement voluntarily and freely, of his or her own choice, without any duress of any kind whatsoever. It is also acknowledged that each party understands the meaning and significance of each provision of this agreement.

6.      There are no promises, understandings or agreements between the parties other than those expressly stated in this agreement.

7.      This agreement shall be construed under and in accordance with the laws of the State of Colorado, including Colorado Revised Statutes 19-4-106.

____________________________                                               ______________

Signature of Recipient, __________                                                      Date

_______________________________________                         ______________                        

Signature of Recipient’s Wife/Domestic Partner                                       Date

and Second Parent, ______________

____________________________                                               ______________

Signature of Donor, ___________                                                         Date

        

           

Signatures of each of the above are certified by the assisting physician, Dr. ________ at ________________ clinic.

__________________________________________            _______________

Signature of Assisting Physician, ______________                          Date

_______Physician shall send this completed form to:

Colorado Department of Health and Environment

Vital Records Section

4300 Cherry Creek Drive South

HSVRD-VR-A1

Denver, CO 80246-1530
(303) 692-2200                                              

_______Physician shall send copies of completed form to Donor and Recipient.

Returning to At Home Inseminations

The month of June was quite the whirlwind with trips, photography, and some big decisions on the baby making front. I know I mentioned in the last update blog post that we were thinking about talking with our donor about changing our insemination attempts to at home versus attempting IUI's at the doctor's office. Our last ovulation window happened to occur over a Saturday-Sunday and since our OB/GYN is not open on the weekends we thought this was a good time to talk with our Donor and his wife about the at home inseminations. I'm happy to say that after talking with them, and adding a few additions to our legal contract we decided to move forward with at home inseminations with fresh sperm.  Probably the most important clause that we added on was one that discussed future guardians and read:

In the case that the Recipient and Second Parent are incapacitated, the families of the Recipient and Second Parent and any guardians of the child or children born from the artificial insemination procedure must relinquish any and all rights that they might otherwise have to hold Donor legally and financially responsible for any child or children who result from the artificial insemination procedure. All parties agree that the Donor is volunteering his time and service to help the Recipient and Second Parent in their desire to have a child or children and can never be held financially responsible for any child or children born from the artificial insemination procedure. If the Recipient or Second Parent, their families, their agents, and/or the guardians of any child or children born from the artificial insemination procedure bring legal action against the Donor, all of the Donor’s legal fees will be paid for by the plaintiff. 

We were glad that our donor brought this up and that we could add it in. Although he has total trust and confidence in us and vice versa, we hadn't thought too much about what would happen if we were no longer in the picture.

We were able to put together an Amendment to the contract and have it notorized by a wonderful friend as well as inseminate all in the same day! We all met at a coffee shop to get the Amendment notorized and then after our friend left we discussed how we should do the donation process. Should we just give them our key to go to our house without us? What about the dogs? How long might it take? Where should we go?

We decided that they would follow us to our house and we would let them in and then we would take the dogs on a walk and he could text us when he was done. It was again another funny/awkward situation, which we're really getting used to by now! So again, we inseminated and waited the  14 days, and like clock work Jennie started her period.  No Baby Crate this month. Honestly, this month was a lot easier for me. I kept telling myself out of the gates that it wasn't going to work--I was trying some reverse psychology on myself. I figured if it didn't work I wouldn't be surprised and if it did then it would be a great surprise.  

After this latest failed attempt we started revisiting the idea of foster care.  I'll leave that story for the next post, but I'm excited to say we have some good news coming soon!

   

May Update

It's been a while since I've updated, but life's been super busy.  Jennie's busy at her new job and with photography, we've started playing softball on Tuesdays and Sundays, and I decided to take on some volunteer activities.  That being said we're typically going non-stop during the week all day and most evenings. Sometimes a midst the hustle and bustle we look at each other and say how do you think this is going to be with a baby in the mix? I think once we have a little one we'll work harder to make the most of our time together--at least I like to think so.  We've already made it a priority this year to do a date night every weekend. This past Friday night we baked homemade cookies together--it was a blast!

No exciting updates on the baby making front. We went in for another IUI and were assigned another new doctor. Jennie seems to always be ovulating on Mondays when our doctor is not in. Unfortunately, we haven't had any sort of connection with the other doctors, they've just sort of come into the room done the procedure and walked out--it's not the best experience. And to top it all off Jennie seems to have a "difficult" or "tricky" cervix that makes the IUI procedure very painful. Again after the 5th attempt we tried not to get our hopes up too high and to trust the process, but when Jennie started her period 14 days after insemination it was hard.  We haven't given up hope and continue to keep our fingers (and toes!) crossed each month.

As we move forward in this process we're starting to wonder if we should transition to at home inseminations.  I just have a hard time believing that we're going to get pregnant when Jennie is going through such a traumatic and painful event.  This is something that we're going to have to talk with our donor and his family about to see if it's even something they'd be comfortable with, but we're hopeful that they will. It seems that so many of the lesbian couples I've connected with either face to face or online have shared stories of tons of failed IUI's at the doctor's and then getting pregnant pretty quickly at home. We'll see what the future has in store--hopefully a baby Crate is in the cards.

I can't believe it's been a year since our fundraising campaign!

It's crazy to think that it was a year ago that you all were rallying for Jennie and I and helping us to raise a staggering $6,550! We are still so thankful and overwhelmed by the support we received from everyone, whether it was financial or words of encouragement.  

So much has changed in a year! The biggest changes are that we decided that Jennie would be the one to carry our future baby and we now know our sperm donor. It has been quite the journey full of learning and A LOT of emotion. We've tried to inseminate four times now. Twice at home with frozen sperm, once at the doctor's office with frozen sperm, and most recently at the doctor's office with fresh sperm. We've taken some breaks in between trying because of life schedules and really trying to take into account our photography business.   

Our most recent experience at the doctor's office was an interesting one! We decided that the best option for our donor to make his donation would be to do it at the doctor's office. He lives an hour from our doctor's office and we live 30 minutes away so in order for those little swimmers to survive, we decided to ask our doctor's office if they ever have people donate in office. They told us it was no problem and that they could definitely do that.  Well fast forward to our appointment and probably the most awkward experience of all of our lives...we showed up with our donor so that we could sign all of the legal documents and have them witnessed by a doctor and then the plan was that we would head out and return in an hour for our appointment.  Sounds simple right--well it didn't quite turn out this way! The medical assistants who walked us all back to the room made everything really awkward. They were giggly and very assertive with the three of us in the room.  We felt so bad/embarrased for our donor--they were talking to him like he was just some sort of sperm factory.  It was really awkward.  

And to top the whole thing off we all assumed he had an hour for his task and then they informed us that the washing of the sperm actually takes 45 minutes so he had 15 minutes or less to produce a sample.  Holy hell! We all also kept bringing up that we needed to sign the legal paperwork, but they informed us the doctor was not available to sign it so we would have to wait. So Jennie and I were ushered out to the waiting room where we waited to sign the legal paperwork, which made things even more awkward because originally we were going to leave.  Well needless to say this was a high stress, high pressure, awkward situation and thank God we have the most amazing donor who didn't just walk out of the office.  We were so mortified and felt bad at how the medical assistants approached the whole thing.  We just have to say our donor is a pretty amazing guy. We definitely recommend that if you're ever going to opt to have your donor make their donation in your doctor's office that you ask how often they've done that and exactly what their procedures are. We'll definitely be prepared better for the next time. 

We ended up inseminating later that day and were the last folks in the office. Overall the day was pretty high stress, but we figured it would make for a funny conception story :)  After the insemination we got really excited because the day that Jennie was due to start her period came and went.  As each day went by we tried not to get too excited, but thought maybe this time had worked. Unfortunately though after 3 negative urine tests, a negative blood test, and the arrival of her period it was confirmed there was no baby Crate on board. 

Unfortunately, it's been a year and we still don't have a baby Crate yet. I know I need to be patient and that when it's right it will happen, but it's getting harder for me with each month and with each new friend who either brings a baby into the world or announces a pregnancy. I know a year is nothing compared to other people's journey's, but reminding myself of that doesn't make it that much easier.  I know in reality we've only tried 4 times and I have to be patient, but it's just so hard to wait for something that I've known I've wanted since I was young. I've always had this calling/need/passion to be a parent. I can't explain it. I just know that is my calling life.

So I continue to hope and try and keep my spirits up, but some days it's just so damn hard.  We thank you all for your continued support and words of encouragement.

Wednesday, December 11 Changed our Lives Forever!

A lot has developed over the last month and a half! As you all know, after our third attempt at insemination we were out of sperm from our frozen donor. It had taken us a lot of time and consideration to choose the donor that we did and it was heartbreaking to learn that they were out of his samples at the sperm bank. We had been weighing all of our options and going back and forth about the next steps for moving forward when we received the following message on Wednesday, December 11th:

I am the wife of donor XXXX. He would never contact you because that would be an “invasion of your privacy.”  But you posted a great deal on the blog that made me think it was ok to shoot an email.  We were rooting for you as we followed your blog posts and he was SO flattered you chose his profile.  We were really bummed after the third try failed.  He regretted not donating more and moped around for a few weeks.  We have a baby expected in February and thought it would be really cool to know there was a sibling out there.  I am writing to say that I know he would happily donate more and would do so for free, via whatever bank, doctor’s office or system works best for you.  He would be flattered. We gave all the sperm bank checks to environmental groups anyways. Lastly, it doesn’t matter who’s genes you use, because you will overwhelm the importance of genes with your NURTURE.  You two are so totally awesome, strong willed, bold, motivated, creative and smart.  To use crowd funding for something that personal, to write about it publicly, that is bold.  Your photos, adventures and goals on your photography website are so fun and outgoing and creative.  You two bubble with great mommy traits. Regardless of the donor you will be great moms.  We thank you for sharing your experiences and wish you the best.

Our initial reaction to this message was "OH MY GOD THIS IS AMAZING!", and our second reaction was, "What if this is some crazy internet stalker?".  We took a day to process this message, talk about it, weigh our options, and decide how to respond. Ultimately, we decided that this was an amazing opportunity and could potentially lead us down a path of knowing who our donor is.  We had always wanted to know who the donor was, but decided that if that wasn't possible we'd just deal with it. Ultimately we decided to go with a local bank that didn't provide that option.   The other amazing part of this opportunity is that if we did decide to go a route outside of the sperm bank that we could save A LOT of money, which would make the money we raised from our Indiegogo campaign stretch further. 

We decided to respond to the wife of the donor with three potential ways to move forward:
1. We call the sperm bank and have them ask the donor to donate more sperm. 
2. We bypass the sperm bank and use the doctor's office to inseminate.
3. This whole thing is too weird for us all and we move on with another donor from the sperm bank.

Ideally for us, we wanted to move forward with option number 2, but we weren't sure if the donor or his wife would be comfortable with that option. In the next email we heard back from the donor himself, that was interesting! I can't explain what it's like to go from having an anonymous profile of a person to actually beginning to communicate with your donor and learning more about who he is and that he is real. I loved that the subject of his email was "The weirdest letter I've ever had to write..."

The donor was more than open to option number 2. We had some added stipulations before we would be comfortable moving forward. In order for us to move forward with peace of mind and for the safety of all people involved we also required:

• He needed to get tested for STDs and HIV and share the results with us.
• A Legal Donor Agreement Contract.

The donor was willing to comply with all of our stipulations and we learned a lot about reproductive law in the state of Colorado during the process.  We talked with our OBGYN and she was totally on board with this new option as well. In order for our Donor Agreement to be legal the doctor has to sign off on it and send a copy to the state registrar, so it was good she was on board!

The last part of the equation was to decide whether or not we wanted to meet the donor or have any type of relationship with him and his wife.  After a lot of emails back and forth we decided that we should go ahead and meet in person and decided to do brunch. This was a BIG step for us. I was so nervous leading up to our meeting. What do you wear to meet your sperm donor? What questions should I ask? What if we don't get along or have anything in common? Will they like us in person, will we like them? What if we have nothing to talk about?

In the end, there was nothing to worry about. When we met up with them conversation was easy and felt very natural. I think maybe there was only one awkward pause the whole brunch--amazing right! I'm sure they were also nervous about meeting with us, but it didn't show.  Our donor had brought a bunch of childhood photos for us to look at which was really cool and he even paid for the brunch! Jennie and I were so excited to walk away from that brunch feeling like our family had just grown by two amazing people (well actually three now because they had just had their baby son, but we haven't met him yet)! I can't help but think back to the blog post I wrote after our third attempt didn't work out:

Alas, we'll continue trying until it does work and continue to tell ourselves that everything happens for a reason and maybe the timing wasn't right this month.

I truly believe that we were meant to meet our sperm donor and his family and that is the reason that those first three attempts didn't work. If it had, who knows if we would have ever met them. And we would have been left wondering who the other half of our child's genes belonged to. We're still not sure exactly what type of relationship we'll have moving forward or what exactly that will look like, but we are excited to know that if we want it a relationship with them is an option.

We keep joking that this whole thing feels like a Lifetime original movie because it seems so unbelievable that we've been so supported by everyone and that everything really has fallen into place. We are so truly amazed at the generosity of our donor and his wife, and so thankful that they believe in us.

Now we just sit here and wait for our next positive ovulation predictor strip so that we can do the next insemination. Here's hoping attempt number four is the one!