oooh, baby, baby

As I've mentioned before, J and I are trying to have a baby. J will be the bearer of said child and I will be in charge of all that pertains to the day-to-day maintenance of a pregnant lady. Having been on the pregnant lady end of things, I'm not sure which job is more difficult - I'll let you know.

Anyway, we're coming along rather nicely in this process. We've selected a donor - a tall fellow of Jamaican descent. His profile indicated that he has things in common with both J and I - he's a reader and a soccer player and J, being of Puerto Rican descent, liked the idea of a fellow islander. And not that race/ethnicity matter to us, it must be a deal-breaker for some folks, as it was amazing (creepy? weird? sad?) how rapidly the white-boy sperm gets snatched up.

So here's how the whole artificial insemination thing works: after you fill out a shitload of paperwork for the sperm bank, as well as for the doctor's office and you've selected a donor, you begin tracking your ovulation. This requires the mother-to-be to pee on a stick every morning until the telltale sign of the pending ovulation inidcates that action must be taken! Immediately!

We obtained a positive ovulation result on our third try. But ovulation is the easy part. The getting preggers part is a little bit more difficult, despite what sexually-eager teenage girls are told. Upon receiving a positive ovulation test, we needed to phone the sperm bank and alert them that we're ready to pick up a sample. We also needed to page the fertility nurse to schedule an insemination appointment with her for the following day. These both needed to happen by noon.

Upon phoning the sperm bank, J encountered a voicemail on the other end. This wasn't what she was expecting, but she left a message anyway. After hanging up, she told me that it seemed weird that she got a voicemail when she was expecting to reach a lab and give them time-sensitive information. She double checked the number we had written down versus the number she'd dialed. Sure enough, she'd just left a voicemail for someone with her name, phone number and telling the poor voicemail recipient that she was "ready for her sperm."

In the meantime, we waited for the fertility nurse to return our page. About fifteen minutes later, the phone rings. J practically trips over what appears to be air to get to the phone and check the caller ID.

"Hello?" J says, as if she has no idea who is on the other end of the line.

"Hi, this is Joanna, the fertility nurse - I was just paged?"

"I'm ovulating!!!!!" J exclaims excitedly.

"That's great!" Joanna replied, "but let's start with your name. Tell me who you are."

J became suddenly shy and embarrassed, but Joanna turned out to be a good egg and was very kind and understanding with regard to J's outburst. She must deal with this sort of thing all the time.

The next morning at the crack of dawn, we had to head to the sperm bank to pick up our sample (yes, we called again - this time with the correct phone number). After forking over a lot of money, we were handed a tank similar to the sort of thing one might use to inflate helium balloons. It was only about one third to half as tall as a helium tank and weighed around 25 pounds.

We carried our "man in a can" to the car to head over to the doctor's office for the insemination. Upon starting up the car, J and I suddenly exchanged surprised expressions. The radio was playing Bob Marley's "Lively up Yourself" - a minor coincidence that we were hoping was a good omen.

Later, however, when we were in the waiting room at the doctor's office, J nudged me and said, "are you seeing this???"

I look over just in time to see a very pregnant woman walking down the hallway.

What was so remarkable about her?

She was wearing a bright yellow t-shirt with a large green, black and yellow flag emblazoned across the front and the word "Jamaica" across the top.

Coincidences?

So we won't know for about another week whether or not we're knocked up (cross your fingers for us!), but if J's behaviors, sensitivities and food cravings ('let's dip these Fritos in dark chocolate!", "I wonder what peanut butter and cheese mixed together would taste like") are any indication, then it's a no-brainer. That or she's just somaticising every symptom in the book. I'll keep you posted.