Slow but steady

Went for my Bloodwork/ULtrasound appointment. The ultrasound looked awesome to me!! All those eggs!! 

I was told that we are moving 'slow but steady'. This is apparently preferrable to fast.  As a result I need two more days of my meds and our retrieval day got pushed out two more days. Good thing I just happened to have vacation schedule during this time!!

Lots of progress!

Tentatively optimistic. That would be my present mood. 

Sincere last post lots has happened. 

From the legal aspect we are feeling much more comfortable. I rewrote our consent contract agreement to one that lists us both as intended parents. We hope that this will help in any future legal meetings to help establish that we both intend to parent this child(ren).   The REI doc was really receptive to this. We're probably his first and only patients to write their own consents!

We started our meds on Friday. I have been getting injections of follicle stimulating hormones once a day. Wife has been enjoying stabbing me when she can. She considers it payback for the two Lupron shots in the butt!  The migraines have not been as bad as last month, but I'm also being proactive. I take migraine medication with each injection and I've only had to go to bed with a migraine once. So all things considered, not too bad. Wife has it easy right now; just pills and patches for the time being.  No side effects for her right now which is good. The hot flashes seem to be tapering down as well. 

I had my first blood work and ultrasound after starting meds yesterday.   I think things are going good. I don't know what I expected, I think I wanted the ultrasound to show I had hatched 30 eggs in the 5 days I had been on the med. as. It is the nurse and pleased with the number and the size. Several on each ovary.  We got called today and they said we are right on track, continue with the medications. The count on the ultrasound was 1 11mm follicle, 4 10mm follicle and 7 'smaller' follicles. The nursewas  being a cheering squad yesterday saying 'hopefully they'll catch up!'  I hope so. I would love to retrieve 12 eggs!!  I know all of them won't be good, won't fertilize or won't become healthy embryos.  So in hoping for more than 5. But we will take what we can. It only takes one to make a baby!! My next appointment is tomorrow and depending on what that ultrasound shows, I may add yet another shot to my repertoire. Ganirelix, is to prevent me from releasing all these fantastically grow. Eggs before they can retrieve them!

Here's to happy hatching!

More legal good news

I'm down right excited after emailing back and forth with one of the lawyers who agreed to help us. He seems optimistic that DOMA will be ruled unconstitutional. However, how this actually effects us is TBD. He also stated he's helped a couple before both get legally declared parents! Also, strangely, he seemed to infer that if we knew the hospital staff responsible for filling out the birth certificate, they might fill it out with both our names if we had an affidavit stating that the eggs were mine.

Interesting.

We are still going to look into birthing in another state that has parent parent birth certificates (Iowa for example). But I'm feeling a tad better. He also stated that an out of state birth certificate shouldn't be a problem in our state! Yay!

About two more weeks and we can take 2 on the hormone front! I'll need to ask for some advise from the doc about those headaches! Oh my! I asked my doc and she said "no touchie". Told me to ask the Infertility doc because she didn't want to mess anything up.

Waiting...

Murky legal waters

After weeks of stressing about the legal problems of living and parenting in Michigan, we finally get some promising news.

Two Michigan family/gay rights lawyers contacted me today, minutes after I emailed them. One has children with her wife and, therefore, some personal experience. She was optimistic about second-parent adoption changes. The other was even more helpful and said that if we fill out the paperwork they way we intend; with me as the patient and Wife as the surrogate, we could both be legally declared parents! He says he's done it before with no adoption necessary! This makes me wonder if we could turn this declaration into a pre-birth order and get us both on the birth certificate?! We are still looking into possibly birthing in Iowa if necessary. I might ask him to find a colleague in Iowa if the pre-birth order thing falls through.

Also, optimistically awaiting DOMA...

Back on track

So labs are good! We are a go😅! We are having to scramble to rearrange my schedule again. This is going to be difficult but we will figure it out. I'm canceling a work trip I had cancelled for early next month, because that coincides with our possible procedure week. We also may be needing to cut a family vacation short at the end of this month in order to get back in time to make an Ultrasound appointment.

It's going to be difficult and I'm likely going to be short on hours at work these two months. So I'll probably end up working my ass off over the winter to make up for getting ready. But it'll be worth it.

Right now I'm reservedly optimistic.

Finally looking up!

Had our long awaited follow up appointment yesterday. He's optimistic that we can start meds next week!!

Ultrasound showed an ovarian cyst. I learned this week that ovarian cysts can produce estrogen. This apparently was causing Wife to continue to produce estrogen despite the Lupron injection. Hence the work stoppage on the Baby Business Project. Official word will be tomorrow when we get Wife's lab work back. But, assuming the Doc knows his shit, he seemed pretty sure we could start.

Side note. As we were in the waiting room, a cute lesbian couple came out from the office. The one (I assume non-carrier) was sooooo excited she was dancing and as soon as she got to the waiting room she looks at us and yells "we get TWO!!" And then her other half is all embarrassed and tryin to drag her out the door. The woman keeps dancing while she puts her coat on saying "we get two!"

I can't wai.