Appointment #2

This morning was our second appointment.

I didn't mention this in my first post, but we were not terribly enamored with the first doctor we met at the fertility clinic. She was very, well, clinical. We also found out that she specializes in "minimally invastive [surgical] procedures related to fertility", which we don't expect to be in need of, so perhaps she wasn't terribly interested in us. Anyway, when we were booking our second appointment we found out that she's only at the clinic one day a week in the afternoon, so we asked if we could be switched to another doctor. We met with the new doctor this morning and both really like her. She was very personable. She explained things extremely well, answered all of our questions, reassured us that she will be around to guide us through the whole process. So today was a much better experience overall.

As expected, the doctor went over my wife's test results with us. Actually, all of the results weren't in yet, so she went over the ones that she had and told us that in a week we can call and she'll go over the results that haven't come in yet. As I mentioned above, she also explained the process to us again and answered a bunch of questions we had about blood types and Rh factors and IgM and IgG and all sorts of things.

We're going away on vacation next week, so we weren't able to do cycle monitoring for August and the doctor recommended that we do one month of montoring before starting IUI so we will do monotoring in September and start IUI in October. That also gives us time to get counselling, which everyone who lives in Canada and plans on using donor semen/eggs has to do before receiving treatment. We're also still trying to narrow down our list of potential donors. We've chosen which bank we're going to go with and have a short list of about 10 potential donors to further narrow down.

So, our next steps are to get counselling, go through one month of cycle monotoring and choose a donor.

I'll keep you updated.

The Beginning

Where to start?

I am one half of a lesbian couple who is just starting to try to have our first baby. We decided many years ago that we wanted to have children. We weren't quite sure how we were going to make it happen, but it was definitely in "The Plans". There were other things that had to happen first. Me finishing school. Us getting married. Her moving to Canada. We've accomplished these things. Now it's time for the next step: trying to have a baby.

Unfortunately, when we started this process, we didn't know any other lesbian couples who had tried to have a baby, so we started off by researching things online. Eventually we decided that we would go to a fertility clinic with the hopes of getting my wife pregnant using donor sperm.

Yesterday was our first visit at the clinic. The doctor there went over my wife's medical history with us and asked us what our plans were. She explained a little bit about the process and gave us a package with a whack of information in it.

It seems the next step is for my wife to go get a bunch of blood work done and get the results sent to the clinic. They need to check hormone levels and some other stuff. My understanding is that they are looking for anything that might show that there could be difficulties conceiving. Hopefully there isn't.

We also got information on the sperm banks that we have access to. We need to look through their catalogues and decide which donor(s) we would like to use. (It's recommended that you choose at least one "back up" in case your first choice isn't available.) I think that it is going to be a difficult decision to make.

Appointment #2 is in a month. The doctor at the clinic will go over my wife's blood work with us and, assuming we're able to pick a donor by then, set up an appointment to start cycle monotoring.

And so it begins...