Open Letter To Lesbian Couples Trying To Get Pregnant

I was four years old when I knew I was gay. However, I was 22 when I finally decided to come out. Three weeks after that I married my now wife. Up until that moment I never had to think about the different options of getting pregnant with the person I love. I always had thought i’d be in a heterosexual relationship so there were really no worries. No one seemed to talk about the process for a lesbian couple or even heterosexual relationships that have fertility issues.

A year ago my wife and I decided to start our journey as becoming mothers. The first step was choosing who would carry, we both knew I would carry first. The downfall of that decision was the questioning of how my wife would connect with a baby that wasn’t biologically hers. It sounds like a terrible thing to think about but it’s the truth. We were afraid to discuss this, as it just feels wrong to think she couldn’t connect with the baby but these feelings are true. Do not ignore them, it’s more common than you think.

Next is choosing the donor. We read all over the internet not to use a donor we know just because of legal and emotional complications. This research alone eliminated the option of using a relative from my wife’s side. This was our one hope in having a child that was both ours (DNA wise). We selected our cryobank and began our search. This process took months of going back and forth between our top 5 for months. We have pros and cons lists with reasoning on both sides that just sounded so strange to see on paper. Was this donor too self-involved? What about that great uncle that died from addiction? Should we really be diving this deep to find problems that wouldn’t even be a thought in a heterosexual relationship? But, we did. We picked apart every single profile. We went through the pictures, the essays and the impression the cryobank staff wrote out. Exhausting, this was so exhausting.

Finally, we picked our donor! If I can give out any advice to a couple experiencing this same thing it would be to always go with your gut. The donor we ended up picking was our first choice from months ago. What stuck out to us most was his empathy and positivity. I keep getting these overwhelming emotions that all I want to do is thank this stranger. I want to thank him for being generous enough to give my wife and I this chance to build a family and even though I haven’t met him, I feel like I owe him a lot.

I never actively tried to get pregnant when I was with a man but I can imagine that this part is an experience all women go through. First things first, the ovulation tracking is so discouraging at times. I start out every morning peeing on some sort of test. Whether it’s ovulation tests or pregnancy tests I get out of bed half asleep to stumble into the bathroom and face the fact I will likely feel disappointed this morning. During the waiting window for the first time my search history was miles long with possible symptoms I was having. How many symptoms for early pregnancy are there? Let me tell you, there is a lot more than you think!

Insemination day, that one day a month where you can either waste $1000, or begin the rest of your life as a mother. The giant tank was sitting in our living room for days before this. Eager to open it, we inseminated when my LH hadn’t surged yet. Our mistake. I read the steps of the process at least five times to make sure I got every detail correct. I thought in my head “this is so bizarre’. I wrote in several queer groups to see what was successful for them but like every other internet search, something different worked for each of them. Now it was just a matter of finding out which way worked for us. Was my body prepared for this? Did I eat enough this week to prepare my body? Did I cut caffeine early enough? Were any of my medications making me infertile and I didn’t even know it? There were thousands of these thoughts while we waited for a positive pregnancy test but that day never came.

One morning while I was at my work (I have been a nanny for this family for 4 years now) I felt the cramping. I started to spot the day before but I lied to myself. I kept telling myself this was implantation bleeding but I knew it wasn’t. I started to cry in the bathroom, but I knew had to get myself together because two little lives had never seen me this upset and they were sitting just beyond the closed bathroom door. When I came out could barely look at them. These were the children that made me ready to be a mother, ready to be a toddler wrangler for more the 40 hours a week. I put on a smile until the end of the day when I was driving home, then I just lost it.

This month my wife and I will try again but we will ease with caution. The heartbreak of trying to conceive is a form of grieving we never talk about. I wasn’t sure if it was normal to be this let down by a stick that will either smile or not. This is the reality for some women who was trying to make a family of their own. We can only hope all the pain, tears and research are worth it in the end when we hold our child for the very first time.