Same-Sex Households
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Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
PCP/TTC/ATP Wednesday
Let's hear updates ladies! Feel free to post other QOTD, I posted this one purely for selfish reasons 
.
QOTD: If you are using an unknown donor (sperm bank) how important is ID consent to you?
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Re: PCP/TTC/ATP Wednesday
So yesterday was a big PCP/TTC day for K and I. I took the day off so my goal was to finally order pictures of potential donors. I came close, but haven't bought them - for 2 reasons.
1) Portuguese donors are very limited and even more limited if I look at only cmv -. In order to broaden our pool of potential donors (from 3/4 to 7/8) I'm going to get the cmv test done and fight out if I'm - or +.
2) I don't know how much ID Consent matters to me. To K it's not a deal breaker either way. I thought for sure I wanted ID Consent but since K doesn't care either way - should I? Meaning if the donor is perfect in every other way, and given that our pool is already pretty small, should ID Consent be a deal breaker? IDK and that's what I need to figure out in the next week or so.
So even though I didn't order any pictures it was a good day because K and I once again had a nice baby planning talk and I think we're still on the same page moving forward.
QOTD:
I'm torn. Part of me says it is a good idea for the kid, but then, its a sperm donor. If I wanted the bio-dad involved, I'd go w/ a KD (which we may). I lean towards No for donor sperm
I am doing great this week. A little tired but I think that is just because I am almost at spring break. I am in state testing hell today so I am trying not to think about what will happen if I need to pee between the hours of 9 am and 1 (yes that is how long I am scheduled to be in my room today looking at kids take a test!!!) Oh and then I get to teach 2 periods!
On our news we are still working at clearing out and preparing the apt. We knocked a big item off the list yesterday and got a china cab. We had an open shelf in the dinning room with lots of crap a small child could break/hurt themselves with so we have been looking for something that had closed glass doors ect. We have a light maple dinning set and I guess we are not hip as everything in our price range is in dark stain. We did find several really nice ones for a couple grand but that seemed silly. S finally found something we liked on craigslist for 300 bucks yesterday. It is smaller bottom cab with a glass hutch on top. It is a signed Heywood Wakefield (which meant nothing to us but I guess was a pretty big mid century furniture maker or so google says!) We liked the style it is light wood and heck the price was right. I know it seems silly but this china thing was one of our big things we needed to get done before the baby. It makes room in our kitchen for baby related items and stores some things away from little hands. If you want to take a look. http://boston.craigslist.org/gbs/fud/1110930793.html
A week from yesterday we have our big ultrasound which is funny since I think people call it that because they get to know the gender. I am just excited to see the turnip again. Also I am looking forward to our babymoon in a couple of weeks.
As for donor concent it was very important to us. I wanted my child/children to have the oportunity to find out who the donor is when they are of age. For some kids it might not be important to them other very important. If they need to contact him they can I will leave it up to them. I have an adopted friend and while knowing her birth parents was not important to her I think she would have liked the option of at least knowing who they were (she is from Korea).
sorry so long I really have nothing to do right now!
Not too much news. We are waiting until May to try again. April is crazy and we could not see her ob/gyn until May 7. We are thinking maybe a progesterone supplement might help....anybody take that/apply that (I guess there is a cream too)?
Otherwise, we are taking the advice of a witchy friend of mine and trying to better prepare our home for a baby...new coats of paint, flowers, candles, maybe even a few baby things. We will try just about anything.
I believe we chose a donor without ID consent...but I would have to double check.
Hey - I have another question - has anyone looked into whether marriage rights in Iowa would allow both partners to be on the birth certificate? Or as I like to call it the gift certificate.
Re: consent - Our donor wasn't release. It wasn't an option at the time with the Ffx Cryobank (which we wanted to use since we could pick-up/courrier and avoid shipping costs.) At the time I didn't think it was that big of a deal - now I wonder if we should have had an ID release donor (will our children feel cheated by not knowing half of thier biological make-up???) There are a lot of other children out there by this donor (UGH) so if they choose, they can meet their 1/2 siblings (that is still so odd for me.)
I did use progesterone. I used capsules that were inserted vaginally - supposedly they absorb better than taking them orally. They were nasty and messy -but worked.
Nothing overly new on the kid front. We just got back from a 5 day trip to the ILs. Of course one of the kids got sick while we were there (ear infection) and we had to go to the doc/get antibiotics. He seems fine now. They were great on the plane (THANK YOU video iPod!) and we all were glad to be home last night!
ID release isn't something we are looking at in a donor. Niether of us care especially since after he is done transitioning he will be adopting baby as father....all our other children he will be listed as the legal father for on the birth cert.
Other news... Well im due to start ovulating next week so we are going to go groc. shopping tomorrow and pick up the OPK's for this month. Our private donor is going to help us out this month and next month we start our sperm bank sperm vials!!!!!
I also had an email confirmation last night saying they got the paperwork but needed one more paper - so E.M. faxed it at work last night!
We are excited and happy... pretty much been on cloud nine for the last couple of weeks since we started this process.
Anyway thats about all... I posted the blog link in my siggy a few days ago... I am currently OVER updating it ...I have nothing better to do and I dont want to over load E.M. with all my thoughts and ideas.
Have a great day ladies!!!! =-]
Sam - I'm so glad you found your buffet/hutch! I've been keeping an eye out for you. The craigslist ad's been deleted, but it sounds great!
QOTD: We're only looking at ID release donors. We talked about it and decided that we didn't want to deny our kids the possibility - even with ID release, you never know if you'll really be able to get a hold of the guy, but I think it's nice to know the door is open rather than shut. We are also looking for hard-to-find donors...redheads! And ID release limits our options even more, but we decided that it's important to us.
No real update from us, but I did sit down with the calendar and plan when I'm going to stop taking my birth control pills. The midwife said I should give my body a full 2-3 months before we start trying, so it looks like I'll only be refilling my script 2 more times! WOW! It's really scary going off the pill because my periods were so god awful before them, but also really exciting to know that this means we are getting very close.
Also, in even less of a real update, I can tell Cecilia is starting to get really excited. She will actually look at nursery stuff and baby gear with me online now - when before it was just too early for her to get into it. Now she's peeking over my shoulder on the computer all the time :-)
sahm ~ toddler breastfeeder ~ cloth diaperer ~ baby wearer
Maybe I don't have a heightened sense of smell, but I've never smelled any vagina on my pants. -- TSD
Bloggity Blog - You know you want to...
Sorry in advance-- this got longer than I anticipated!
QOTD: We've been back and forth about ID consent. In a perfect world, we would like an ID consent donor. But I don't think we're willing to give up other things that are important to us (most particularly a phenotypic match to Sylvia) to gain "ID consent" status. Only 3 of the 7 black donors at Fairfax are ID consent. Two we disqualified for reasons unrelated to the ID consent, and one is still on our short list. The problem is, it is very unlikely that a child using his sperm would end up looking like either of us. So while he was our #1 donor prior to receiving the pictures, he's now slipped to #2 and we're gathering more information on our former #2.
The new frontrunner is not ID consent. But when I look across the span of our child's life, phenotypic similarities to his or her parents will be an issue almost every day, whereas ID consent or not would be an issue only periodically. (I don't know, though, maybe that's the wrong attitude to have.)
Even with a non-ID consent donor, we still will know MUCH more about the donor's background than we will ever know about S's (adopted) daughter's father. We will have pages of profiles and photos and an audio clip and essay for our donor, and all we know about S's daughter's father is what country he was born in (literally-- that's it). So while a non-ID consent donor may keep our child from meeting/knowing that genetic half, he or she will have a good deal of information available that may help provide some of that sense of "identity".
IUI #3 gave us the best 2nd anniv. gift ever: 2 babies! (born 03/09/10)
Peanut and Little Man are getting so big! 2 years old already!
finally blogging again at This Will Be: An Adventure
This is a really good point. I hadn't thought about how much information you really have even without ID release.
sahm ~ toddler breastfeeder ~ cloth diaperer ~ baby wearer
Update (I promise to try to keep it short! lol): We are waiting for a plan. All the test results are back, but they came back after our RE left for vacation, so we're just waiting right now. In the meantime, I got a nurse at his office to agree that I should come in for CD3 bloodwork "just in case".
I also had the pleasure (yes, that is sarcasm you hear) of talking with the insurance company about possible coverage. I knew the answer was going to be "no", but it was still discouraging to hear that basically everything would be covered (including IVF!) if I were straight but since I'm a lesbian nothing is covered. Good times.
IUI #3 gave us the best 2nd anniv. gift ever: 2 babies! (born 03/09/10)
Peanut and Little Man are getting so big! 2 years old already!
finally blogging again at This Will Be: An Adventure
Things are going well here. I had a little breakdown moment at the OB today when I got on the scale... I was sooo not prepared to have gained 8 punds in 2 weeks! How ever I am still only 2 pounds over what I was when I got pregnant so I guess it is okay. I am now on weekly OB visits. On Sunday I will be 35/35 ( 35 weeks pregnant 35 days to go) I can't believe it is coming that fast. And we still don't have the nursery painted, however we have a crib sitting in our living room and the dresser should come next week.
QOTD: We decided against an open ID donor. To us, our child has two parents and biology is not what makes a family , or what makes a child who they are. We have adopted nephews and a niece and they are our family no matter where they came from, so in essence our child will know far more of her biology than they will.
~Kennedy
No big updates here - just a lot of researching and buying baby gear. This saturday we dont have class so i'm hoping the weather will be nice and i can complete a few of the big projects i have in mind for the nursery.
We're lookin at about 5 weeks until our first insem. Just a few more papers to be signed and we'll be the proud owners of sperm (ironic, isnt it?)!
QOTD: we're nuetral on the id release - there are so few donors that match the other qualities that we're looking for that we didnt place high importance on it.
Blogs: Our Growing Family - CT Working Moms
5 weeks! I can't believe it - wow!
We may have really big news, but after last weeks heartache I am extremely hesitant to believe anything.
We did get a placement call on Monday. If this really does happen, we will have 2 girls to love, one early next week and one in about 3-4 weeks when her health improves. If, if, if if...
I suppose I should assemble the changing table and tidy up, just in case???
I will post more info on my blog IF I hear from the social worker and feel better about this actually happening.
AOTD: I considered ID consent a nice bonus to the donor we chose based on race/ethnicity. I liked the idea of the possibilty for future contact but it was definitely not as high as other factors. C didn't care much either way but I think she would have been fine with a completely annoymous donor. Luckily, our donor was *perfect* for us and happened to be a willing-to-be-known donor so it wasn't a hard decision.
Other news. I'm really busy with school/working as a teaching assistant, but I'm enjoying the quarter so far. Tonight my little sister, who's 12, is coming to stay with us during her spring break (Wednesday night til Saturday afternoon). I'm looking forward to spending some time with her including something fun and Seattle-based (exciting when you're from a smaller city) tomorrow (my day off) and then coming with me to the classes I teach on Friday morning. Then we'll take her home on Saturday and stay for Easter.
Next weekend we'll start packing non-daily-use belongings to store while we prep our condo for the market. Then we'll chose a real estate agent and get going on the last huge PCP item.
I've been temping this month, which is new, and I'm a bit concerned about my fairly low temps. I have hypothyroidism so it may be related to that, but I think it should be controlled by my supplement, which I recently had increased and need to get checked again soon.
::crosses finger:: Oh Duch! That is great news.
Maybe I don't have a heightened sense of smell, but I've never smelled any vagina on my pants. -- TSD
Bloggity Blog - You know you want to...
well, we're in the 9th week now. she's soooo tired all the time, and it's driving her crazy! usually she's one of those people who can easily function on 6 hours of sleep or less a night, but now she's having to take naps on top of sleeping longer during the day. she's having a bit of queasiness periodically, but so far not too bad. hopefully it stays that way! oh, but her boobs? (can i say that on here?) so tender it's not even funny. and not in a good way. :-P
right now we're waiting on the paperwork to go through to the ob we're looking at so we can go meet with her and see if we like her and want her as our doc, although they said often the files get mailed and take a little longer and they should get them soon. if we don't hear anything by tomorrow she's going to try to call when she wakes up to make sure things have been sent on and see what's up.
qotd: id consent wasn't really important to us. we didn't even look to see who was and who wasn't, and although we wouldn't have been upset if he was ours isn't. i do wonder sometimes if the kids will want to know more when they get older. we do have extended medical history that gets updated periodically, and a picture that we didn't even buy until after we had the positive result so we'd have it if they want to see it.
yay! please keep us posted, i'll be thinking about you! Dealing with "the system" requires such an insane amount of patience - as you know better than i!
Blogs: Our Growing Family - CT Working Moms
sahm ~ toddler breastfeeder ~ cloth diaperer ~ baby wearer
I know I'm a little late. It sounds like everyone has a lot going on.
We had our 12 week ultrasound this week. It was great to see the little baby and since they had to get certain measurements while the baby was in a certain position it took quite a while. Selfishly I enjoyed how long it took b/c it just meant seeing the baby longer but I wasn't the one laying there having the ultrasound done. All looked good and everything seems to be going well. M had a cold this week so she wasn't feeling too well, but other than that her pregnancy related sickness seems to be getting better. I am really anxious to find out the gender so I can start shopping.
Donor consent wasn't too big of a deal for us. We chose a donor that did not want to be contacted but we figured it was ok since we do have all the donor information. They could always try to contact the cryobank once they are 18 to then again see if the donor would like to be contacted.