Just for the sake of completeness, IM=Intended Mommy and ID=Intended Daddy. Those are the terms in which WE are referred in all legal documentation in this god-forsaken process...well...not really mommy and daddy but intended mother, intended father, intended parents (ugh1 ugh2...) IPs, in other words. I'm wondering why the lawyers landed on "intended parents"? Is it because it's such a natural term that people use in their everyday life!?! Anyhoo....

Ok. It's been a long time since this blog was started and I have yet to write anything. I suppose one has to get in the "habit" of writing. To help myself get started I figured I would just write not-particularly-well-thought-out-stuff from time to time.

We are starting a donor cycle right about now. We went in for a mock-embryo transfer a day or so ago and everything was fine. Good news. Even though everything is very likely to be fine it's nice to have the hurdle safely behind us. We also spoke to the Dr, signed forms, and thought about how much money this will eventually cost. Yikes! Even though I'm quite used to all of this it still feels like an intrusion and causes me to feel down in the dumps afterwards (usually). Hence the subtitle of the blog: goddamn bitch of an unsatisfactory situation. We've been at this for nearly 5-6 years (who's counting) and it's become so normalized that often I don't notice. However, from time to time things bubble to the surface and bite a bit. For example, we went to Benjamin Button (it's good) and a woman announces that she's pregnant (I won't be a spoiler). It has almost nothing to do with the movie and is NOT a major plot point or anything and I couldn't help my mind from wandering into that realm where I think "that will never happen to me". Pathetic, right? But, IM will never "surprise" me with the announcement that she is pregnant. We have left that part of life long ago. I'll never be surprised and she'll never get to surprise me. Instead, for the last 4 years or so, we have spent 4-5 hours, after IM gets her blood drawn for her pregnancy test after the dreaded two-week-wait, trying to stay busy so we don't think too much about the pregnancy test results. The habit has been to go to a movie and turn off IM's cell phone so that the clinic has to leave a message. Then we both listen to the message for, what feels like, the inevitable response saying "I'm sorry but your beta was negative and you are not pregnant....come in in a few days for a follow-up appointment...."....

The funny thing is that I almost, literally, cannot imagine a positive test result. I don't have any idea how I would react. This is particularly funny to me as I write this because I have actually experienced the experience above that I said I'd never experienced before. Did that make sense? Long ago when we first started down this road and after IM had some procedure...a D&C or something...she got pregnant and told me excitedly and showed me the positive home pregnancy test result! I spent the day in a hazy-fog wondering how to process it all. It was early on and I was not as prepared, ready, or impatient for a kid as I am today, but I was extremely excited. It also happened to be Father's day weekend. Nice touch, eh? My Dad and brother were there with my brother's 1 year old daughter. We were so excited b/c we had seen a fertility Dr already but hadn't been so beaten down by the process as we are now. We even told my parents and brother and sister-in-law...we were all together which is a slightly rare event. Anyway, IM got me a Father's day card and everything was so sweet and happy.

To cut to the chase, IM miscarried about 2.5 weeks later. (that's a whole other much more depressing post than this.) Lesson #1: you don't tell people you are expecting until you have seen the baby on an ultrasound, i.e., 2 months or so. Essentially, it was a chemical pregnancy. That's what it's called and it's not an entirely bad result but it's not super good either. Pathetically, we've held on to that minor result like the holy grail for the past 4 years. "Well, you've been pregnant before! That's a good sign. It can happen again, can't it?" Blah blah blah.

So, I guess I have experienced being told that I am going to be a father without a Dr or nurse or coordinator being involved, that is, the old fashioned way. Ironically, I've never been told by that cadre of experts that I'll be a father, because 4 years and IVFs later we have not had ANY luck to warrant such an announcement.