Buying Baby Batter

As a lesbian couple, I never thought we would spend so much time talking about sperm! I like to call it baby batter for fun, but there's really no "cute" name for the stuff. I'm not looking forward to having to handle the stuff on the day of insemination--I guess that's one of the down sides to at home insemination!

The whole sperm bank industry is just really odd to me. The weirdest is looking between sperm banks and seeing how much prices increase for the bells and whistles! We are getting our sperm from a local bank and it is almost half the price of the original bank we were looking at, but still offers the same level of genetic testing and screening. The sperm bank doesn't offer face matching (where you can send a picture of your partner and have them matched with a donor), personality compatibility tests, or childhood photos, but ultimately those aren't really things that will matter in the end.

We have also gone back and forth on whether or not we want a donor who is willing to be known by our child(ren) when they turn 18. At first we thought no way--we don't want someone who had nothing to do with our child, other than some genetics, to be involved in their life at all. And then we thought, well maybe we should have that as an option for our child in case they really want to know.  We've settled on using an anonymous donor--someone who is not willing to be known--because it feels like what is right for our family. We hope that our child won't have a desire to know someone who really has nothing to do with their upbringing and our child will have two loving parents, and a donor profile to tell them about the donor. We haven't settled on how exactly we're going to share with our child that we used a donor, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there.

Anyway, looking through donor profiles is so weird! Who would have thought that we would have so much say in the genetics/health history of the person who will contribute half of our child, but I'm glad we do.  It's nice to have so many donors to choose from and the ability to take someone out of the running because of family medical issues that we don't want our child pre-disposed to. Of course who knows if our child will have any medical issues, but if we have the option to try and avoid family history of cancer or other serious conditions, why not.

We settled on a donor, finally! After looking through several banks and donor profiles. The donor (at the time) is a PhD candidate in Ecology and loves the outdoors. We loved the answers on his donor profile and he has an awesome medical history. We don't have any pictures to go off of in our decision, but ultimately that's not the most important to us.

In order to purchase the sperm Jennie had to go to the doctor's office and have a paper signed giving her the all clear for at home insemination--a step that we didn't know was a part of the process, but we're glad they signed off! Jennie had her appointment last Thursday and we officially ordered three vials of sperm on Friday! So they are there and ready to go with our name on it for when she is ovulating.

We're getting really excited and every morning that she tests her ovulation (even though I know it's not even close to the right day) I ask if today is the day!

Hopefully in a couple of months from now we'll be able to announce a pregnancy, although we're trying not to get our hopes too high, we're really hoping it works the first try.

More details about Insemination

After my last post it seems people wanted a bit more detail about the different types of insemination and what was involved. I will do my best to explain all that I've learned, but I am by no means a medical or fertility expert!

So let's talk a little bit about the equipment involved in the process of our at home insemination using IUI:

Oral Syringe--this is basically a needle-less syringe, just like the kind you would use to give a child medicine orally. Looks like this

We'll get the oral syringe from the sperm bank when we go to pick up our specimen.

We will also use a speculum for the at home IUI. I ordered a pack of 10 single use speculum's (ladies you are probably familiar with these) from DME Medical Supply.

Next we needed a catheter tube. There are different types of catheter tubes and the type that we needed is called a Tom Cat Catheter because they were originally used in veterinary medicine. We ordered them from Insemination Supplies, which helps people take control of their own insemination.

When the catheter is connected to the oral syringe it looks like this

Next I wanted to talk a bit more about the different types of insemination. I know I threw out a bunch of acronyms and you all were probably thinking, what does that mean, so here goes.

Unwashed sperm basically means sperm in it's "natural state", swimming around in all of the seminal fluid.

Washed sperm means the individual sperms have been seperated from the seminal fluid.

 

IVI (Intravaginal Insemination)- IVI involves taking unwashed sperm either from a bank or directly from a known donor if you're not using a bank and inserting it into the vagina with an oral syringe. You don't use a catheter with IVI. 

ICI (Intracervical Insemination)- ICI also uses unwashed sperm either from a bank or known donor, but with ICI you do use a catheter. You insert the catheter as close to the opening of the cervix and deposit the sperm there. 

IUI (Intrauterine Insemination)- IUI is what we are doing. With IUI you have to use washed sperm. This is important because the seminal fluid is not meant to reach the uterus and if it is inserted it can cause infection. The process involves the use of the syringe and the catheter just like ICI, however, with IUI you actually insert the catheter into the cervix about 4-6 cm so that it reaches the uterus and then you slowly insert the sperm. I've learned a lot about the process online and here is a good walk though of at home IUI.

I hope this is helpful and that people now have a better idea. If you're curious just Google it! Although maybe not at work :) 

 

At home vs. at the doctor's office

The most recent discussion/debate/investigation we've been doing is to whether we should inseminate at home or at the doctor's office.  Depending on who you talk to and what you read the opinions are varied.  My initial instinct was definitely to go with the the doctor's office. My thinking behind this was they are the trained medical professional and I have no idea what I'm doing.  However, after talking to a lot of lesbian parents and stumbling around the lesbian TTC (trying to conceive) community, there are a lot of great arguments and some research that point to at home insemination.  I've heard and read a lot of stories about multiple unsuccessful insemination attempts at the doctor's office, followed by a successful pregnancy with just one try at home.  Jennie and I have been going back and forth for weeks on what we thought was right for our family.  Ultimately, it made more sense for us to start the process at home for many reasons. The first being it is the least expensive means of trying and eliminates all of the doctor's office fees and doing it this way will stretch out our fundraised dollars and make them last even longer. Secondly, at home in our room and in our bed is a much more relaxed environment when it comes to baby making. Who wants to conceive their child on a cold plastic/paper covered exam table with some stranger all up in your business? Not us!

The next question in this process was what type of at home insemination should we attempt? Should we order washed or unwashed sperm, should we attempt IUI or ICI? So many questions, so of course we turned to our lesbian friends on the internet to see what's out there and what's working for them.  We decided based on cost and the type of sperm available at our local sperm bank (keep an eye out for an upcoming blog post on the sperm procurement process--talk about some awkward conversations!) that we would attempt at home IUI. I've read quite a bit about the pros and cons and the debates as to whether at home IUI's are advisable and we've decided it's the right thing for us. So once we made this decision I went online to order our supplies. We had to order some speculums and catheter tubes. With IUI we will be placing the washed sperm (have to make sure you use washed sperm for IUI) into the uterus directly. There is a higher likelihood of a pregnancy when you by pass and go straight to the uterus. In order to place the sperm in the uterus you have to attach a thin catheter tube to the end of the oral syringe.  Sorry if this is too much detail!  The process can be somewhat complicated because you have to get the catheter tube through the opening of the cervix and into the uterus, but I've been reading up on tutorials and tips from other lesbians online. I hope this goes better than the time I decided to learn to cut hair from the internet--sorry Dani!

I'm sure at home insemination will be slightly awkward, but we're making the best of it! We keep joking that we need to make a baby making playlist for the iPod and I've already warned Jennie that I'm going to have to have the laptop propped up next to me so that I can follow the instructions :)  But hey, if a little Baby Crate comes out 9 months later, who cares how awkward it was!