my DIY baby

Monday afternoon my ovulation stick turned. Sort of. It was a different brand than the past five months and I was checking it every time I sat on the toilet, so I certainly would have known if I got a solid Yes. I started feeling like a 3am driver seeing tracers on the side of the road, staring intently at this little strip of cardboard like it might have something more to say beyond Slightly Purplish Line.

Whatever. It was proof enough and by now my cervix and I were buddies, mano a mano. 24 hours after I took my first vial of sperm into my own hands, I called the midwife to schedule a second Meeting of the Gametes.

I asked her if it seemed like a good time. Or when might be a good time. “What do you think?” she asked. Um. I had some opinions. But it seemed to me she’d done this a few hundred times more than I . Oddly, we continued this passive dance of ambiguity until finally settling on a late night visit.

And I just have to say, after countless lengthy, useful conversations with the multiple goddesses at the sperm bank, this deflection approach was disorienting. It’s clear that women who offer IUI at your beck and call know what they’re doing. But I got the sense after a series of meandering, confusing conversations that woo woo was fuzzing the corners of their expertise and plain common sense. This didn’t diminish as events unfolded…

At 10pm a midwife showed up at the door. I’d been sort of fretting, never having had a health practitioner come to me like this. Very Little House on the Prairie. I wondered if I’d feel the same way delivering at home and relished not being bent over in pain. There were definite perks: I got to wear my sheepskin slippers and flannel moon jammies. I had a reason to clean up around the kitchen. I could stay pretty much horizontal for the next 8 hours.

So we gathered around Tank, let another wave of cool frostiness out and pulled the second vial out of its restraints. I carefully set it on the counter to thaw, just as the instructions I’d read 30 times told me to do.

“Oh no, don’t leave them there!” she cried “These little guys are going to get you pregnant! Hold them close.” An unusual thing to be chastised about. I worried I’d warm them unevenly but did as I was told, clutching the frosty tube in my oven mitt.

We perched on my bed and proceeded to fill out paperwork. She asked me if I knew when I’d ovulated. I described the Illusion of the Second Purple Stripe on the most recent ovulation stick and the most recent cervical facial expressions all to the best of my ability. Didn’t seem to be quite what she was looking for.

“Have you had any twinges, any feelings of the follicle erupting? What does your intuition tell you?” I wracked my brain for more words, incorporating a show of hand-waving in an attempt to satisfy her unquenchable hunger for woo woo. “I can convince myself of nearly anything,” I confessed, “so it’s hard to say really.”

“Ah, but you see, you touched your left side there as you were talking – you’re probably ovulating from there, and you felt something.” She seemed pleased with herself. I was too amazed to record exactly what she said. Because it was gas pains. I’d been farting all night and was trying to be a gracious host and it hurt. I changed the subject.

Fortunately the Little Guys Who Are Going To Get Me Pregnant were thawed by now so we got down to business. And she was good at her job. However, woo woo failed again, I can’t help but report. Apparently there are a couple of gates in the entry process: the first door of the cervix and then a second one (who knew?!). The second one wasn’t cooperating. She asked me to visualize it opening. I did. It didn’t. Still hurt in a discomfiting but far away kind of way. Then she suggested I push down on my lower belly, the uterus shifted, the tube went through.

Physics wins. Again.

So now I wait another week and see if it took and if it didn’t, I get another visit to the Twilight Zone. Meanwhile, I’m on the lookout for once this kid takes root: if anyone knows of a midwife with a sense of humor and a healthy dose of irreverance, don’t hesitate to send me her name.