*tap tap tap* ...is this thing on?

oy. nothing like pms grouchiness to pull me out from this rock ive been hiding under. its been a shameful amount of time since i last posted. not that anyone out there in cyberworld loses sleep over a silent jersey. i mostly feel ashamed because this blog has been such a fantastic coping mechanism for me through this nightmare of years and years and years of TTC, and i feel like ive been letting myself down by not keeping up with it.

sometimes its just hard to feel inspired to write when i think about the fact that the entire crew of folks i began blogging with... all of them... have either had a BFN, adopted or birthed a child by now. it feels like im the only kid in elementary school who didnt  go to summer camp and now i get to sit here and hear aaaallll about how awesome macrame class was and how much fun it was to swim in the lake. basically, i feel like the vo-tech stoner loser of my class. *folding arms and pouting*

the truth is, until recently... there hasn't been anything to write about on this blog. we have been going about our normal routine... working, hanging out with friends, drinking adult beverages, fixing up the house, hanging out with other people's kids, drinking adult beverages, seeing lots of movies, drinking adult beverages... basically doing all of the things that we hear get tossed out the window once you have a tiny human screaming in the other room.

i got'sta admit, the yay-we-are-free-from-the-shackles-of-motherhood good times are fun, and for the most part, keep us fulfilled and happy.  im reminded everyday that i married THE coolest woman on the planet and find myself pausing at random moments to scratch my head and ask how the hell i managed to pull this whole thing off. we hang out and plan road trips, attend fabulous late-night concerts, try new trendy restaurants... and always, without fail, say at least once,  "we TOTALLY couldn't be doing this right now if we had a kid". SCORE!

and then there are those moments... when we see a cute family in the grocery store or we look back at journal entries or insemination-day photos, that i feel the ache in my heart. i sometimes feel like NM and i are on pause, our family in limbo as we wait and wait and wait for the next phase of our life to begin. its not that we are "incomplete" without a baby... that's not at all what i mean. i really believe that had we decided against having kids, we would have lived a full and happy life together...complete in all its glory with just the two of us.

the problem though is that we haven't decided against kids. 4 years ago we sat down and pictured our immediate and long term future and decided then and there that the picture would be WAY cooler if it included at least one tiny human to corrupt. and so the TTC journey began.

sometimes i use this blog as a way to measure time. i look back at the dates of my early posts and think, "wow... its been 2 years and 8 months." or "3 years already?? that's such a long time to wait." i sometimes picture our three-year-old-imaginary-child and wonder what she/he would be doing right now while i write this silly blog.

but then today, while skimming the dates of my early posts, i actually paused long enough to click on one. and um, holy shit. as i read the post i realized that i started writing this blog ONE YEAR into our attempts at pregnancy! my three-year-old-imaginary-child just aged a year in one click of the mouse.

i wont get all Rent-The-Musical on you by counting how many minutes there are in a year... but trust me, its a lot. add four of those years together and holy crap, we have been waiting for a long time.

i often hear people say while *bouncing their free baby on their hip* "oh, just enjooooy your time alone now while you can. this little one keeps us soooo busy!" and most of the time i just want to punch them in the neck. riiiight lady. the problem here is that NM and i aren't "enjoying" the 4-year suspense roller coaster enough. *rolling my eyes*

i feel like NM and i agonized over whether we should enter the baby race to begin with and once we finally decided to compete and laced up our sneakers and found our spot at the starting line and waited for the gun to fire.... *boom!* off everyone else went without us. and here we sit, still at the starting line, watching competitor after competitor lap us (some for the second time!).

and sure, i suppose we could take the advice of the young parents in our life to "enjoy the time you have alone while you can". but really, how much fun can you have while sitting at the friggin starting line for 4 years?! its like sitting in the waiting room OF YOUR LIFE!

again, let me reassure all the feminist readers out there that im not suggesting our lives are incomplete without a baby. its more about the fact that the things we want to do as a family include kids. and we cant just live the life that doesn't involve kids because that would require that we actually SPEND MONEY on things like airline tickets and new cars or a fancy new flat in the heart of london!

this living in limbo thing is terrible and only made worse by the "live in the moment" breeder mumbo-jumbo we hear all the time. like what am i supposed to do, "enjoy the time alone" by moving abroad? joining the circus? going to vet school? (all things i would do in a life-with-no-kids).

when parents around us swash their wrist and say "oh just live in the moment" i want to yell-
EASY FOR YOU TO SAY! youre not the one who will have to explain this to a kid one day! i can picture it now, "gee, im sorry little jersey. we would have had money to send you to college but the thing is, you cost like TWENTY THOUSAND DOLLARS to adopt and then there was that whole live-in-the-moment circus stint that your mom and i had while we were 'living in the moment' waiting for you...*day dream sigh*... oh that circus was sure fun. anywho, the point is, we are a little drained on funds. sorry. *pat on the head*

oy. i swear. this pms is killing me.

that's just my baby daddy (oh and my high school boyfriend)

so, interestingly enough, in the last two days, two different male friends have volunteered their little swimmers to us in the hopes of helping us with our baby quest. ever since we have started on this journey we have only ever considered using anonymous donor sperm. the idea of using a sibling, cousin or close friend as a donor just creeped us out. (no judgement for those who have chosen that route...its just not for us).

we have had lots of humorous conversations with the men in our lives about all the reasons why they should be our donors.... "because you would make a great dad!", "because you could have sex with lesbians, make a couple hundred bucks in cash, and not have any parental responsibilities for the subsequent offspring", "please?? you have the best hair and fashion sense of all the men we know!".... but we have never actually considered using a friend as a serious option.

honestly, im not entirely sure that we would ever consider it, even with the recent offers. im blogging about this today mostly just to process via writing and to sort through some of the questions that are swimming around in my head. the first (and most sincere) offer came via a conversation i was having yesterday with a very old friend of mine who i had lost contact with until recently. he and i dated for quite a while and broke up while i was in college because we both grew apart. well, technically i grew into a lesbian but that's a different story for a whole different blog.

anyway... we were chatting yesterday and i asked him if he was happy with the path he is on in his life. he responded by saying that the one thing he wants in life is to have kids...but he doesn't really want to settle down and get married. i jokingly suggested that he find a couple of lesbos who live in the same state he lives in and offer his swimmers! he laughed and then said, "i would totally do that for you guys, actually". hm. interesting. suddenly the idea of using a friend didn't seem so weird.

which brings me to the point of this entry.... where do we get our ideas about what a "normal" family even looks like?? i mean, i work with a woman who had her partner's nephew's baby! when i first heard that, i couldnt even believe it was real... but the more i am around her and her daughter, the less weird it feels. i mean, how much less weird is her situation than the idea of 2 straight people accidentally getting knocked up after only dating for a month?!? who is to say which is more or less "normal"? i mean, is it really THAT weird to think of NM and i having a baby using my high school boyfriend's sperm??



um..... actually....*shiver*....... yeah.... it is. lol. (again, no judgement on those who have chosen this option... but its a little too much for me!)

i digress... the point is that i sometimes wonder how to keep a grasp on my own moral compass thorough this whole thing. like, 2 years ago i totally scoffed at the idea of people spending years and thousands of dollars trying to have a kid.... "i mean come on! if its not meant to be, why would you spend all of your time, money and energy on it?? move on already!"....

......but now that i sit here on the opposite side of the fence, 1 year and thousands of dollars later, i cant imagine ever giving up hope! so i cant help but wonder if our beliefs about what is "normal" will continue to change as our options continue to dwindle. and if in the end, we have a happy, healthy, loved, wanted baby.... does it really matter who the donor was?

i guess the point of this entry is that im working through the idea of "desperate times call for desperate measures". one year ago i thought that spending $15,000 on IVF was a desperate act. i judged women who chose this option and felt sorry for how desperate they were to have a baby. "Psh... that would NEVER be me!".


*swallowing my words*


now that it IS me, i have a greater understanding of why couples practically get a second mortgage in order to have the money to continue trying to have a baby. its about the dream...and about not giving up on the dreams that you have for your family. *nod*.

and to top it all off, the whole process is so damn complex and mind numbing that it stirs up emotions and values that you didnt even know you had! like for example, desperate times make the idea of having your high school boyfriend's baby (15 years later!) seem not so outrageous.


*sigh*
i need a beer.