Amazing + Absurd = the lives of kk and the injector

Um, ya.

So, remember how we slung some seed up me a few weeks back?
And do you remember how it was the first time I had ever done such a thing?
And do you remember how long we have been trying to get my kk pregnant?

I will synopsify the attempts to get kk pregnant here:
18 months of trying (may 07-nov 08)
20 months total since the start of the whole endeavor
80 inseminations
4 visits to reproduction clinic
3 months on clomid (devil, devil, devil drug)

And then the one time on a whim when kk thought me fertile and our donor and kk decided to play a game of brief back and forth, snarky emails throughout the day--planning in sinister and loving cahoots the injection of me.

Come that night, two days before thanksgiving 2008, my love shot me up with this potential life giving fluid. She did it so gracefully and passionately my heart sprung a leak of everlasting love.

Well nearly three weeks since that fateful night, I have peed on 3 pregnancy sticks—two on Monday the 8th of December (almost 6 hours apart) and one on Friday the 12th of December after missing my period by two and a half days and all of them have shouted the positive PREGNANT.

Now on Monday evening, you should have seen me in clear and intense shock; stunned to a sit down on my ass stupor. Well you can see it below in the action photo sequence that kk took of me.

Anyhow, I tested a day and half before my period was due and got the positives. I did not start my period, and this morning (six days later) no period and moving into what seems to be my fifth week of pregnancy.

And still I am in a state of disbelief, but I am so in tune with my body that I do notice the distinct changes; abdominal pulling, gassy belly, super sleepy, bits of nausea and then me wiggling and turning and staying wide awake for hours on end when I should be sleeping. Though the last two nights, I have slept deep and fully and had crazy vivid dreams.

So, there you have it. I am carrying a little seed critter. After all of this trying and hoping and being let down and trying again and hoping some more and hitting our heads against so many elusive and hard walls, we tried this one time with me, and bang it worked. Like my mama asked, “N, do you think this is a miracle?” In some way, it is; it really, really is. I mean one time—the one time that semen has ever entered my body and presto.

At this time, I am pregnant. And kk and I are hoping with all of the hope we can muster from the deep steamy, stinking parts of our guts and the bloody, pumping parts of our hearts that this wee critter sticks and stays with us and chooses to be part of our lives.

p.s. I was hesitant about putting this up here cause I know how very early along I am, but I am trying to live each moment of this newness in joy and deep inquisitiveness.

p.s. kk is very thrilled and happy about all of this and together we will work through the sadness connected to the months and months and nearly two years of the trying without implantation that she has been through. Also, she will become a frequent guest poster here at injection reflections since she seems to be the more capable injector of the two of us:)











We went Christmas tree shopping for the first time in our nearly 9 year relationship right after we got the first positive. We were in crazy moods; happy and stunned.

will i catch a pregnancy

We just arrived home from kk's dad's house. We watched jaws 2 with him and ate cupcakes for his 62nd birthday. our drive home was very, very slickery. Winter is here in good old Michigan. It is about 30 degrees and icy.


Icy drive home

On our way out to her pop's, I noticed that all the strip clubs on Michigan avenue were thumping--packed out parking lots--and this was at 5:30 on a Monday evening. It is strange that the economy is down real, real bad here in the previously motor ruled--now motor dying state and still horny men are spending cash on liquor and titty views. Oh, I guess it really is not all that strange. When you are down and out, what's better than some booze and boobs?

Anyhow, this post is not supposed to be about ladies' parts or a dying economy or automobiles. It really is supposed to be all about me and what's been up in our super busy, but then all quiet lives.

We had turkey day here at our queer pad again. I deep cleaned the house for many days. Then I cooked a hell of a lot. Then our family and friends arrived. Then we ate a lot of the food that was cooked. Then everybody left. Then K and I slept for hours and hours each night that we had left of our vacation/weekend. Then we did nothing at all. Then I chopped a huge chunk of skin out of my left index finger and it bled for 1.5 hours and hurt like hell for about 13 hours and is still swollen [in the last two months or so, I have wounded my hands by either slicing or burning multiple times; universe what message are you sending me?]. Then kk yelled at me to be more careful with knives. Then we relaxed.


me relaxing in the small dose of sun we have had in the last many, many weeks

Monday we went back to work.

Today, I am waiting patiently to see if the mother of all miracles is taking place inside my body. yes, my body. yes, many days back we shot some living fluid up into my body. It was done on a whim. I think nothing will come of it. Kk thought I was ripe so we injected me with some semen (but I pretended it was something else like special lubricant or something, because I have never had sperm in my body before--not ever).

See,I woke up and said, "I think I have fertile mucus." Then we went to work. Then kk called me at work and said, "baby, I think we should try on you tonight." Then potential bio-dad said cool. So, come nighttime, we did it.

I keep pretending I am a queer virgin mary (or a 17 year old girl who can get pregnant from leg crawling sperms) and this one time this special dose of jiz (god breathed into me through the saint like fingers of my loving kk and the plastic cavity of a syringe--yes like the kind you feed medicine to cats with--) will get me prego.

A shot in the dark for fucking real, and kind of fun all at once.

p.s. more to come soon about what's up with kk's repro office experience and our thoughts regarding the use of my womb for potentially carrying a wee critter into the world of the living.

again the wait

Waiting again. Kk took Clomid this cycle and it fucked her up more than ever. Once again, she did not get an LHsurge and so we just shot semen into the wind.

Our gracious, gracious donor ejaculated the goods approximately six times and maybe during that time k dropped an egg that was robust and full of life and needing to meet a syrupy mate.

who knows?

If nothing occurs this time around, we are taking a break for sure.

we do want a kid. we want to be parents. we want to grow our family. but we are content as is. we are busy motherfuckers.

in all of this longing for children, i have turned inward and often thought what does it mean to be loved; what does it mean to love; do i love well; can i love better; is having a child a selfish endeavor to discover the depths of my love?

some simple answers, and yes, these are super simple answers.
what does it mean to be loved? to open up to love.
what does it mean to love? to give always and know how to accept the love of others.
do i love well? sometimes...
can i love better? always...
is having a child a selfish endeavor to discover the depths of my love? yes and no.

maybe in the end we will remain childless and we will love each other and our family (birth and chosen) with a fierce devotion that grows every minute in its complexity and chaos.

who knows what tomorrow might bring...

number 100-rage at the re

How terribly appropriate that my one-hundredth post on this lovely blog will be all about the very thing that brought me to the land of web-bio-blather--trying to get my girlfriend (oh and she is so much more than a girl that is a friend) pregnant.

I cannot begin to explain the fury and sadness that erupted in my heart at the doctor's office this morning. But i can describe this uncontrollable swelling of tears that merged onto the edges of my eyes in front of a resident. I got this zippy electric pulse in my cheek bones that I could not shake and then the tears mounted the little pink precipice of the tender flesh that lines my eye sockets and i blinked 100 times to try to keep them in, but to no avail.

I do not like the reproductive specialist we go to. It is not because he is a bad guy or anything like that. It is because U of M medical is a teaching network and we keep having to be asked a million questions by different residents/doctors/students before we see the "specialist". Before it did not bother me all too much, but today, oh today, it struck a nerve and let me tell you why.

The resident who came in and slammed us with all of the questions laid out the steps we need to go through now that the multitude of test results are back. The steps included:
1. we try Clomid (big surprise there)
2. if and when Clomid does not work we move onto IUI with the fresh sperm (this is where the fury set in)
3. If IUI does not work move onto more drugs/FHS shenanigans.
4. Finally, when all else fails they would suggest In Vitro.

Okay, so we had to inform aforementioned resident that because k is not sexually intimate with potential bio-dad we cannot use his fresh sperm for an IUI. Now why--why did I have to use my breath on informing someone at this professional establishment this already painful-to-me knowledge? the head doc had already explained it to us for the second time back at the very first visit--apology all wrapped up in the explanation. And now we were informing the resident about our ass-backwards health code...

Anyhow, I got pissed as you can probably tell. But what I am really pissed about is this--instead of hanging his head and telling us how sorry he is that he cannot perform a fresh (washed of course) semen IUI in his office, why can't he offer up the notion that maybe he would be willing to organize some RE folks to work to get the ass-backwards health code changed so that same-sex couples have as much decision making power as straight people to put what semen they choose into their bodies?

He did tell us that he thinks we should have our known donor start the freezing/quarantine process now so that in case step 1 (Clomid and progesterone and DIY at home with the graciously donated fresh sperm ) does not work after a few months we will be ahead of the game--the quarantine process takes 6 months--and ready to move on to step two (that is step two for queer people which makes that fresh sperm frozen sperm).

At this time we will just stick with the drugs and the fresh jiz. I am too livid about once again being told what i (or my lover) can and/or cannot do with our bodies to start investigating what the extra money slam of freezing and quarantining the sperm of potential bio-dad would cause to our already depleted bank account.

Fuck the government...essentially they are once again giving straight people a financial break. The implications of their flawed health code do more than simply demoralize me as a gay woman; they also place an unfair financial burden on me--it would be much, much cheaper to use fresh sperm for the in office IUI.

But, fuck me too. how can I even begin to bitch about the cost when I have health insurance and so many people in this country do not? So, there it is bringing my rage full circle right back to my owning blathering heart.

Oh, and just so those of you who are not familiar with Michigan politics/legal shit know, we feel that it would severely jeopardize our already precariously constructed legal documents to try to pretend that K is sexually intimate with potential bio-dad. See, if we ever do get pregnant (that is kk ever does have a kid), I will have NO-ZILCH-NONE-AT-FUCKING-ALL rights to the kid here in MI. We do not have second-parent adoption; we have a constitutional amendment voted on by the MI public that bans gay-marriage for all time; we have an extremely conservative court system.

Basically, k and I have drafted up some legal documents that when push comes to shove could mean nothing at all.

If kk had a kid and then left this planet for the spirit world and then her dad or brother wanted to go after the kid, well they could and I might lose. Or if kk does have a kid and we end up in some conservative county in this state--that i keep loving for many reasons--and the kid gets hurt and k is not with us and i take the kid to the hospital they could be like, "you need to take a seat in the waiting room. (essentially, you don't matter--you queer fuck.)"

And now, I will end this ramble. but not without first pointing out that all of the rant above is deeply connected to desiring recognition and rights from an already extensively flawed system--i do not like the institution of marriage or the "rights" that have been built into it, and I have serious issues with the representative "democratic" government in this country. I believe a system based on representation will always keep many, many people and groups of people on the fringes, invisible and oppressed. So, my rant in its entirety is me wanting just for a minute to be part of the status quo and that in and of itself makes me sad...

You’re the meaning in my life; you’re the inspiration

Chicago easy listening...

Was piped at just the right level into the ear of the receptionist and therefore the ears of all waiting in the drab/way too bright clinic waiting room for me to think how annoying it would be to listen to a lite muzak/lite rock mix all day long and still simultaneously smile and sing along.

Yesterday, was our first visit to the reproductive endocrinologist. It was a sullen adventure. One full of sitting on our asses waiting for k’s name to be called and for yours truly to step in an awkward, pretending I do not quite have tits, stride behind her to the “room” for consultation.

We waited patiently as the bad radio station bleated out tune after tune of sentimental, hetero love songs.

The receptionist lady and the other clinicy people were sweet as jello based pie and as we waited among the slews of straight folks trying to get their babies on, our friend, another lesbian, walked through the door and set my heart at ease, just cause she was there and that made three girls in the room who like to have lovely sex with other girls rather than the boring old cock devotion that was way over-represented in this repro clinic.

It took an hour and 15 minutes to be called back to the room.
Then it took some more minutes for the resident to come into the room with a boy medical student trailing her. The resident said to k, “we are going to ask some questions and go over some stuff with you and then dr. r will come on in and provide the consult. Is that okay with you?’

Apparently, this was the wrong question to ask kk cause she did not answer and I chimed in with a “that’s fine.”

See k was in an enormously bad mood. She still is. She is tired of heterosexism and heterosexist laws and rules and regulations. The questionnaire she filled out for these people was totally void of questions regarding queer people’s sex lives or practices or anything at all about gayness. I wrote a snarky comment on the back of the sheet and I am sure all the doctors and students and residents got a chuckle.

So, k got extra peeved when the U of M poke and prod and learn crew showed up for the repro consult. I was not too concerned; the resident was really quite kind and the boy medical student was entertaining to watch cause he was squirmy and nervous and probably a bit fascinated with the butch/femme duo before him.

They asked questions and listened to k’s heart together. Yes, she had two stethoscopes on her body at once. Then they left and k was testy with me and mad and drained.

Then the doctor came in and he was very nice and smart and k was impressed with him. He told us again about the fresh sperm dilemma imbedded in our MI health code. But he framed it like this: “If you are sexually intimate with the person providing sperm then we can use fresh (washed) sperm to do an IUI, otherwise it is simply illegal for us to do it.” Then he went on and on about how it would be much simpler for all involved if we used a sperm bank with frozen sperm so we would not have to worry about any of this or otherwise we would have to freeze our donor’s sperm for six months and make sure it was a okay for us to use and then do an IUI at his clinic.

Of course, all of this is premature. We do not know what’s up with k’s insides, so that is the next step. K will have her uterus and tubes looked at—they will shoot some saline up her and do an ultra sound; she will get some more blood tests to make sure she has good hormone production and we will get the sperm tested to make sure it is swimming forward.

The doctor said he really does not think it is low progesterone; he looked at the reading from last month and said it is borderline low but not too low…

We like the fresh sperm do it ourselves method best. And really I refuse to get locked up in the big business of reproduction unless we absolutely have to. Our insurance only covers so much and we are far from wealthy people. We will attempt some messing with hormones and cleaning out of tubes etc. if needed. And then…I really do not know what.

iui #2 continued

Scene 12
I did eventually wake up after going to bed...and then kk told me i could not just end it like i ended it. I had yet to include the most important parts.

So the saga continues...for one more scene at least.

Scene 13
kk is up in the stirrups. her orangy colored hair compliments the light brown sheets and her brown collar shirt marvelously. Her sun soaked skin is almost like caramel in this setting.

All the ladies are in the room--the midwife S, M the apprentice, and K the apprentice and yours truly (but I am something not-quite-lady like). I hold kk's hand and the three woman stand around her spread eagle legs.

S preps the speculum and slides it into kk, but kk winces so M runs and gets a smaller one (this is strange cause kk is usually wide enough for various objects, but those plastic speculums suck ass and pinch vaginal walls). When she is all propped, S slides the long thingy up to her cervix then through the first hole and then tries to push on into the uterus, but alas kk is blocked (she may have already dropped the egg).

S pulls it back out and kk puts her legs up on S's shoulders and she tried again, but no go. So I just press the thingy and shoot it in her cervix and so is life...

The end of iui #1

p.s. you are all real sweet with your comments and good lucks and such--thank you

iui #1

oh.oh.oh.
oh, how I wish so bad that I had my camera today to document our first midwife iui. It was quite a ride, and now, you who dare to read on, will have to hear all about it.

Scene 1
Morning
kk pees on stick--positive
the injector says, "I told you you should have peed on it last night cause I know it was positive then too."
kk, "I would have to go and get more of this these wasteful sticks."
the injector, "wah, wah, wah."

Scene 2
Injector riding by self to work.
The injector out loud while riding, "today will be hectic. kk will get them all scheduled: donor, midwife, me and kk. does it matter? not really, cause I think we are late. too bad that sucks. we are always too late or too early, or maybe kk's stuff is all dried up? or maybe we are not supposed to have kids? or maybe the world is straight up overpopulated and this is a sign? This trying and trying and no go is some kind of sign. well, there is always my womb. Oh, but then i would have to go without riding my bicycle for a few months...wah wah wah..."

Scene 3
Injector arrives at work with frozen toes
It is unseasonably cold in Michigan and I wore my sandals cause it was supposed to rain all day and I did not want wet runners. Did it rain? of course not.
VM from kk, "Be to S's by 10:45." Talk to kk in live person format. "kk you need to be to her place by 10:45 we have to be there by 11." Note: This means donor has less than one hour to get from ann arbor to ypsilanti; whack his lovely junk; kk get from ann arbor to his place and claim his lovely junk and then kk get back to ann arbor--the center of town on a market day (that's the farmer's market)--NO PARKING for people who drive cars.

Scene 4
Injector on phone with a parent of a client. It is not a good conversation. I will not go into it here because some readers may not understand the complexities connected to my sarcasm, but I am on the phone way too long and furious by the end of the conversation.
Injector leaves work AT 10:45 due to dumb person and simultaneously fuming about the difficulties some people have to go through to get pregnant and the ease that other people (dumb asses in particular) encounter.
Injector arrives by bike at midwife's office at 10:53 and locks bike to a pole. walks into waiting room. good feeling. hostility connected to earlier conversation eradicated.
kk is nowhere to be found.
Injector drinks lots of water.
kk, "I just got the sperm five minutes ago. I am on washtenaw. I will be five more minutes. Come outside and grab the jar from me so S can start the washing process."

the injector, "yes mam."

Scene 5
11 minutes later kk arrives in car on corner with sperm. Injector runs out and claims the jiz wrapped in a large gray smart wool sock. Injector stuffs aforementioned jar in pocket and dodges traffic while crossing back to office/clinic.

Scene 6
Waiting for kk to park while S preps the protein fluid and sperm and vile and all that jazz connected to this process. Injector told to hold jar close and not tip it so that the sperms can swim into the protein fluid and be washed of the stuff that comes off in the cervical canal.

Scene 7
kk arrives and she is beautiful beyond beautiful.

Scene 8
holding sperm for a long time while missing meeting for work. Happier holding sperm than meeting for work.

Scene 9
realize not enough protein fluid in vile. Restart process of holding sperm filled vile with more protein fluid added. During waiting time talk with midwife S and her two very sweet and kind apprentices about many things. Finally, conversation turns to the dangers (actually risks but danger lights went off in my head) of iui. Did you all know a person receiving sperm into uterus can go into anaphylactic shock? Bet ya did not know and now I do and boy did it freak me out and make me say glad it is not me cause I would make myself into a frenzy thinking about the ways in which my body could really truly physically reject sperm and simultaneously kill me.

Scene 10
It is washed and K gets in the stirrups and then S tries to get it through to her uterus but her cervix has already shut and so...

yes. big let down. it is just injected high up into her cervix.

Scene 11
I have to go to bed

the orgasm question

Starting the ball rolling all over again.
Her period has ended; her charting continues; the injections will now begin again.

Someone told us the other day that kk needs to orgasm with each injection of sperm. Is this true? Cause for all the times that I have shot that sweet smelling fluid up her, she has had orgasms about 3 times—give or take.

Part of the problem I have already explained—I have an issue with male fluids. The other problem is time and timing. I mean, for fuck sake, if I have to get her off every injection that means I can never just shoot and run out of the house when the other necessities of life come calling (work/obligations/etc). Furthermore, it is a little tricky to keep sperm warm in a syringe, get my baby all excited, and still have a hand free to make her come.

Please, do not take this as insensitive, or unsentimental, or rude. We do try to be as “spiritual” and loving about this process as possible. But, I am an incredibly practical gal. If the fluid is right and her cervix is right and her temp is right and her ovulation predictor kit is saying sling it and the ferns are forming on the maybe mommy and the days are lining up and her horniness level is right, then we have to trap and shoot. Sometimes, the time is early in the morning; sometimes, this is late at night.

And, of course we have to make sure bd’s life (plus those of his sweet family) is lining up with our lives. When the kind man is already willing and able to swing a jar of jiz by on his way to work, who then has time for kk’s orgasm?

Unless that orgasm is essential to the process of that darn sperm sticking to my kk’s egg, it becomes the last thing to check off on the doing it all right list. Of course, if we have a free night and all the timing is just perfect (which has happened) then things can run a little differently. Romantic lights and kissing and licking and all that.

a party, 2008, the cervix, and some sperm!

What a start to the New Year... Kk and I were real sick all weekend; we had some kind of bug that knocked us on our backs and made our bellies hurt. I slept 26 hours from Friday to Monday and watched ten movies. We were really supposed to be preparing for our annual New Year's Eve Party, but we pretty much got everything in order for the festivities on Monday, the day of.


party, party, party







Quite a few folks piled into our house last night. We had a good spread of food and a sweet bounty of beer, wine and liquor. The evening was warm and cozy. Around 11:00 Est. it started snowing hard--big, beautiful flakes--I'm talking the size of a fifty cent piece. Many of us at the party rang in the New Year on the front porch and in the front yard, swallowing snow flakes and spinning dazedly in the splendor of it.


50 cent piece snow flakes









Who knew the very first day of 2008 would also include the first sperm injection of the new year? Over the last few days, I've been checking kk's cervix. I lube up the speculum and very carefully slide it on up into her. The speculum is a cheap, crooked plastic thing that concerns me every time I use it cause I'm terrified it might rip a chunk of kk's sweetness out as a pull it back into the air. So far, so good...

Anyhow, back to the story of her cervix. The last three times that I checked the little donut it was emitting creamy fluid and lowly positioned (not high and back). On Sunday night I investigated and the same situation was in process. I could tell the fluid was getting a little less creamy white, but not that much.

Then our crazy, hectic New Year's Eve Monday came. After a piss, kk told me she thought she was super slippery and perhaps the egg white fluid was starting to surface. I was like how could it shift that quickly and plus according to your chart you are not even supposed to begin the ovulation phase until Wednesday (the earliest potential date for ovulating). But, I also let on that we should call the bio-dad and ask if he could provide a little something, something. We did not.

Then this morning after a late night (3:30 a.m. bed time). Kk peed on the ovulation predictor stick and a smiley developed. We texted bd and let him know we needed some fluid. He texted back and sprang some for us a bit over 2 hours later. No, it did not take him two hours to get it off; he had family obligations:)

Then kk got all cozied up and I injected the first, fresh sperm pool of 2008 up into my love's hole.

How appropriate that New Year's day should be a day for injecting. Last night, during the party, I was sitting around with two of my straight, boy friends shooting the shit about kk's cervix and a Nova special they had both seen that shows the cervix dipping into a fresh sperm pool. They said it was really cool and I should watch it. Well, today I hope that bd, me, and my kk created a fresh sperm pool for the cervix to bend into and lap up whole heartedly some sperms for procreation.

Happy 2008!

learning more about the mystery from a whack cycle

I’ve decided that kk’s cycle is whack. She is on the 22nd day of her cycle and supposedly she is having her LH surge right now. According to all other calculations—this includes temperature, goo check, and horniness levels—she was busting with fertility last week.

We dosed on Monday evening, Wednesday evening, and Friday evening.

This time around we bought the CVS brand (much cheaper) ovulation tests. While the line got darker, it never got all the way dark. After Friday’s injection, we thought we were through for this time around.

However, kk woke up yesterday and said, “I think my mucus is egg whitey and fertile; maybe we should try again tonight.” That was it, though, we put the notion aside thinking 22nd day, no way.

Then, a sweet, serendipitous email came from potential bio-dad. He asked kk if we were all through for this time around? His message got kk and me thinking—maybe we should give it one more try.

So last night after watching the witches of eastwick and discussing which of those foxy ladies we thought was the foxiest, we shot another wad of jiz up inside kk.
Then this morning using the more expensive ovulation predictor kit, kk got a positive for an LH surge in the next 24 hours.

Obviously, none of this is precise. Even though we try to narrow it down into a kind of perfect science, it just does not work that way. And so I have been toying with opening myself up more to using loving kindness and calling on the wisdom of elders and wise women in this process. Not that this hasn’t been about loving kindness from the get go, but as much as I want to call on the mystery and scoff at modern day reliance on scientific inquiry, I still find myself wrapped up in using the rational to make sense of this process. Alas, the rational is the last thing I should be relying on.

So, whacky cycle I adore you for your unexplainable patterns and when we do find some method to your flowing, mysteries ways, well thank you for that. Here’s crossing my fingers and bowing to the winds.

Update on our attempts at making a sugarpatch

me with a jar of jiz--wet and sweaty from my ride to pick it up...








I've been a slacker in describing our most recent experiences in the world of procreation. Mostly, I think I've been lacking in words because the last injection phase was so excellent and I was not sure if I could do our experience justice here.

I will be brief, but give a simple play by play.

1. We got a new donor.
2. He is super great.
3. His lady is super great.
4. We like their family a super lot.
5. We signed some papers.
6. I performed the first pick up by bicycle. Riding through the mist to their house to claim the prize was invigorating and fun. I sucked up the first gift of jiz and shot it up into my baby. His smells different--but still bleachy and unusual with a hint of candy, sweetness.
7. The following evening we picked up another gift and shot it up into kk real quick on the couch. We covered her with blankets and crossed our fingers that our roommate would not arrive while I was under the covers injecting the swimmers up into her body.
8. We tried again the next morning. The NBD (new baby donor) arrived on our front porch with a gift of jiz early. How sweet. Again, I shot kk up on the couch so I could talk to her while I made coffee and toast.
9. We went up north for the fall get away and hoped that the swimmers might take.
10. On Sunday morning, while still up north kk had her SURGE of HORMONES. We trucked on home. NBD gave us a hand off that evening. I shot kk up again.
11. Monday morning our very kind NBD dropped another wad of jiz to us. And once again we did a couch injection.
12. Kk's temperature went up on Tuesday morning which means her egg fell right into some swimmers.
13. We had our fingers crossed for days.
14. I started my period before kk; this does not usually happen, so we thought hmm....(I also got this really cool tampon pouch. It is called Vinnie's Tamp Case--it is cute and makes me laugh.)
15. Alas, while in Nashville, before we came home to find our treasured pumpkins ripped off, kk started her period.
16. Swimmers failed to take this time around.
17. Looking forward to this next round of tries.
18. NBD thank-you for your steady stream of fluids:)

A New Ride

The past couple of months have been void of sperm. We have not injected since July. The distance of the don don and the insane business of our lives have proven to be major obstacles in our attempts to get pregnant. So, here, in public, I give a shout of thanks out to our don don. Thanks for trying with us. Thank you for familiarizing me with sperm—its smell, its texture, its elasticity. Your sperm will always be the first I ever sucked up in an orange syringe and let fly.

But now, we must move on to closer swimmers. Some very gracious people have offered up the male half of the couple’s sperms. And we have found this arrangement to be comfortable and to make sense. Laughing about the process with these folks has made me love the adventure even more. Now, fresh sperm will be just a few blocks away, and I will be able to pick the stuff up via bicycle and ride it home to my sweet girl’s eager cavern.

I cannot stress how happy I am that I can ride my bicycle to pick up the life giving liquid. Riding my bicycle makes me incredibly happy. Every morning I wake up excited to get on my bike and ride to work. Many mornings I meet my dear friend T and we take off for the wild world of Ann Arbor. Riding my bike to work makes me feel like a kid; riding my bike to work with a friend makes me feel like a super kid out on a play date rather than on my way to the stress riddled realities of social injustice that I become submerged in throughout the day. The ride in prepares me for a long day; the ride home helps take my mind to the present moment.



my single gear-redline 9.2.5.

Riding is like that. It turns a mind and body to the presence of air and ground and wind and gravel and concrete and grass and rivers. Riding over roads and paths, consumes the senses with all that surrounds the body. I have to become consumed, because I have to pay attention to every detail happening around me. The wiz, wiz, wiz of too many cars becomes a mantra of refusal to be clipped. The ferocity of the wind can set the pace and make me feel like I am riding in the midst of something miraculous.

Riding in a rainstorm initiates a deep satisfaction in my soul. It is like swimming on land. We are able to delve into the mystery of water while breathing in oxygen. Even the freezing months’ rides deliver a thrill. While it may be difficult to get my ass out of the house on those 20-something degree mornings, once we are on the road the anticipation of warming up by mile 5 speeds up the heart, warms the muscles, and breathes life into our blood.

I am amazed and blessed and thrilled that I can now combine my love of being out in the world on my bicycle, traversing the landscapes and moving through the present moment, with this sugar patch creation adventure.

Again, thank you dear don don.

And now, onto the new ride