How we made our lovely baby boy... Part 3: NO! We did use a turkey baster...ugh!

How Tristan came to be
Part 3:

If one more person asks me if we used a turkey baster to get pregnant I'm gonna lose it! Let this be the blog to end to those dumb albeit genuinely curious questions regarding artificial insemination. It's quite funny because my black friends ask if the insemination process was anything like that scene in the season finale of a show called "Mary Jane". Ok so in this ridiculous scene, Mary Jane, played by Gabrielle Union, laid on the floor with her legs akimbo and asked her friend (an obstetrician..pfft..like I believe that...) to inseminate her with the ejaculate that she managed to keep in a condom from her recent sexual encounter. 

UGH! THAT IS NOT HOW IT WORKS! 

A woman would never get pregnant like that! 

Now my white friends ask if the insemination was like the infamous turkey baster scene from the show The L-word. I don't remember much about that scene but I think I remember glitches of a jar of frozen sperm, and a turkey baster being inserted in a vagina and then the woman doing a handstand against the wall after her girlfriend squirted it up there... Ugh! 

That is a bit closer to the mark but still way off.  I've heard some lesbo fables in which some women get the frozen sperm delivered to their house so they can do the insemination in a calm environment. 

Shiiiiiit! 

Sperm cost too damn much and we are to clumsy to try to do it ourselves. Could you imagine? Sperm all over the bedroom walls and us looking crazy with rubber gloves on with Kenny G playing in the background...ummmm no thank you. 

Let's leave all the sperm insertion to the medical professionals shall we...?

Good! Now to explain how the actual insemination works: 

(Again, this was MY experience...)

While sitting in the waiting room my doctor came over to us and handed us a small, crack vial sized tube with six numbers (the sperm donors identification number) printed on it. My doctor handed it to me and said "put this between your breast to keep it warm." My wife and I looked at each other and laughed. My doctor giggled at us and said "do it now!" 

Whoa! It was the sperm...it's really happening! 

As I was putting the vial between my boobs my wife said "that little bit cost $500?" Jeez, she was right because it was only three quarters of the way full. Ugh...straight couples sure have it easy with all that free sperm.

Anyhoo, after about two minutes my doctor comes back out to the waiting area and beckons us back into the medical room. When I walked in I remember that the room was dimly lit. 

Mood lighting??? Ha! 

Our doctor instructed me to undress from the waist down and to get on the table. She told me to breathe because I guess I was tensing up and she didn't want the speculum to hurt during insertion. I was nervous. That was a crazy moment. All I kept thinking was that we were to be parents and there is no turning back. 

The doctor took an empty syringe with a long catheter tube attached at the end and stuck it in vial of sperm. She drew back the plunger and the sperm went in to the syringe. She then walked over to me and told me to take a deep breath. She inserted the catheter inside my uterus and pushed the sperm inside. After that she tilted the table backwards so I my feet were above my head. She walked over to the left side of the table, grabbed my hand and then said "good luck" and walked out. 

It didn't hurt at all...at all. The entire insemination took around five minutes tops...maybe less. It was sort of underwhelming if I were to be completely honest. 

As we walked out of the office, the nurses told me not to lift anything over 30lbs and to return back to the office for an official pregnancy test in two weeks time. 

And then the dreaded two week wait began... 

As if I could think of anything else besides being pregnant. After every twinge, fart, burp, cough, itch, etc., I thought "am I pregnant?" That was one of the longest two weeks of my life. My wife walked on egg shells around me during that time but managed to ask "do you feel anything?" about a one thousand times. 

And I didn't because at the end of the two week waiting period I went in to the doctors office and received a negative pregnancy test. 

Ugh! I was super sad and I cried all the way home. My wife was super supportive and super gentle. 

For the next cycle we decided to ramp up the fertility drugs. I increased the shots and started taking another fertility drug that my doctor recommended. Unfortunately, that new drug did not agree with my system and it landed me in the ER twice. I lost 30 lbs in 3 weeks and was super ill.  Needless to say, we suspended the baby making until I regained my health. It took approximately five months for me to get back to normal. In that time, I was working full time and I somehow managed to finish graduate school and earn my Master's degree.

The very next month I told my wife I was ready to start another insemination cycle. 

She was NOT happy. She was super worried that the fertility medication was not agreeing with my system and was making me permanently ill. I couldn't blame her for thinking that but I was fine! FINE! I tell you!

I told her soooo many times but she wasn't happy when I made an appointment to start the insemination process that week. And before you know it, I was injecting fertility medication every night and back on the path towards baby making. Around ten days later, the doctor said I was ready to ovulate and she needed to inseminate me that very morning. 

Whoa! 

O.K. Take Two!

 I was shocked! 

Shocked but soooo ready... 

I was at the doctor's office alone that Friday morning as I usually went there before going in to work. My wife was already at work and I texted her to tell her that the doctor wanted to do the insemination right then and there. She was shocked too but I heard more worry in her voice than anything else. 

So again, the doctor did the insemination and sent me on my merry way. 

My wife and I spent that weekend in Fire Island. We ate, danced and partied with all the drag queens and managed to forget about the insemination...well...at least for those two days. 

Looking back on that two week waiting period, I can now say that I felt small twinges in the stomach area. It felt like regular ole' menstruation cramps so I thought nothing of it. 

But after the two week waiting period, I went in for my routine blood test and later that day at 1:00pm in the afternoon I received a phone call that would change my life forever. 

Phone rings...

Me: Hello?

Nurse: Is this Shavon?

Me: Yes.

Nurse: I have the result of your blood test.

Me: OK.

Nurse: You are DEFINITELY pregnant. 

Me: Huh?

Nurse: Yes, honey. Congratulations. 

Me: Can you check again? Are you sure? My full name is......

Nurse: (Laughs) Yes, honey you are absolutely pregnant. Please report to the office tomorrow so you can meet your obstetrician.

Me: (flatly) O.K. Thank you. 

I remember hanging up the phone and sitting in my car stunned. I was focused on this little piece of dust that was on the dashboard. I must have stared at that bit of dust for at least a half an hour before I realized I should call my wife. 

Me: Baby?

Wife: Yes love. Are you ok?

Me: Yeah....ummmm Guess what?

Wife: What love?

Me: We are having a baby.

       LONG PAUSE 

Wife: Really?

Me: Yes.

Wife: THAT'S AMAZING! 

Me: Yeah...crazy right?

Wife: Yes, I love you.

Me: I love you too. I'll see you at home. 

And that was the start of an amazing journey...