Peeing on a stick

Me and the waiting game are not the best of friends. However, the wife has a knack of making me look like the most patient person in the entire world if not each and every known and unknown universe. Generally one needs to wait a couple of weeks after insemination to check for the little blue/pink/purple/red line. My wife decides we need to test on the drive home! Ok, maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration, but only a bit.

"I'm pregnant, I need to pee on a stick!"
"No, baby, you don't, it's only been two hours.."
"No, really, I need to pee on a stick"
"Yes dear"

Yes dear has become my general response to just about everything (except the inevitable "do I look fat in this?", in which case "No dear" becomes the correct retort).

On the day after insemination, she has started walking around cradling the tummy. I am being bombarded with emails of really explicit pictures of what I can only assume are alien life-forms, but which she insists are the zygote forming. Her Google search bar is filled with every conceivable question about pregnancy, the daily progression of said zygote and possible symptoms. "My boobs are sore" has become her mantra and my life now consists of feeling her tummy every thirty minutes to check for any tightness, stretch marks, kicking, heads crowning, etc.

The inevitable arguments about possible names start in earnest with me digging my heels in about calling any progeny Salt, Pepper, Storm, Mountain, Moon-pie....actually anything vaguely relating to something thought of during an extremely intense LSD trip!! I have flash-forwards of the fruit of 6ft, dark haired, green-eyed psychology major's loins coming home from school in tears because the kids are teasing him/her because his/her slightly deranged mother decided to name him/her after a condiment. Anyway, Tomato Sauce Henriksen just won't work on the world's no 1 golfer....

On day three I get an email at work containing a pregnancy calender with a huge red cross on day 15 which is supposedly the best time to do the pee on a stick test. Knowing her like I do, I'm pretty confidant that this will change about twenty-fifteen times over the next week or so.
I don't want to gloat or do the I-told-you-so speech, but by day 8 she'd already purchased the box of pee-sticks and was hinting at doing a slightly earlier test. I of course decide this is a good time to assert some authority, which, as per usual, has absolutely no effect whatsoever. We finally agree that she can try one on day 13.

Right in the middle of a very satisfying dream involving Angelina Jolie twins, I get dragged back to reality by a very uncomfortable looking woman still cradling her belly.
"I need to pee"
To which I very groggily reply "Huh?"
"I need to pee"
"And what exactly is stopping you?"
"The test has to be done with my first morning pee, and it's morning"
"Two o'clock in the morning!"
"I WANT TO PEE ON A STICK!"
"Yes dear"

Five minutes later we're both giggling like schoolgirls, hanging on to a little plastic stick that has just changed our lives forever by displaying two purple lines!

"My boobs are sore. Does my tummy look bigger to you?"

Giddy-up

So we finally get to the point where we are now ready to insert the Olympic swimmers, or at least the psychologically advanced swimmers.

Now for some or other reason, women in general insist on doing a serious spring clean down there whenever they have a gynae appointment or something similar. So out comes the Dove, three sponges, the pine gel, the windowlene, Mr Muscle....pretty much whatever can degrease the garage floor and the bikini trimmer for a final landscaping. I'm surprised she didn't glitter it!
Two hours later I load wifey into the car where she promptly grabs the stressball and starts manipulating the hell out of it.
At the bank Santa herds us into a little room and Kris is told to disrobe and get up onto the examination table. At this point I'm trying to find the stirrups which are pointedly absent. Having never been to a gynae (yeah, yeah, save your boos for someone who gives a.....), I'm pretty intrigued by the whole stirrups process, but apparently they're not needed for this little endeavour. So there we are, Kris on the table with her netheryeya covered by a quarter sheet - I think they had budget cuts - me paging through a two-year old copy of Hustler - I think they use the same room for deposits and withdrawals - and both of us nervous enough to generate enough kinetic energy to solve Eskom's current crisis.
Eventually Santa reappears with a bag full of goodies, including two straws of recently defrosted (do you think they use a microwave?) #3057 and one very shiny pair of duck lips. So while Santa gloves up, Kris grabs my hand and starts squeezing. It was at this moment that I decided not to be anywhere within grasping distance during the birthing procedure. The woman has steel clamps instead of hands! If I have three broken bones and severe bruising from the implanting procedure, I don't even want to know what she's going to do to me when she's in real pain!

The first step is the insertion of said duck lips (a medieval torture device if there ever was one) so that the sperm can be injected via a catheter (not to be confused with the one from the bladder!) directly into the cervix. This means the not-so-olympic, slightly cold dudes and dudettes have a lot less swimming to do, thus increasing the chances of one actually making it to the finish line. The next minute, Santa peers around the wife's raised knees and throws a "Do you wanna see?" my way. Being the inquisitive journalist type that I am, I can't give up the chance of having a birds eye view of the area I normally just feel my way around in (sorry Mom!). I finally manage to extricate myself from Kris' death grip to go and have a squizz.  I don't know if you've ever seen a cervix, but it basically looks like a short stumpy penis that's removed it's false teeth, sorta like the sandworms in the movie Dune. Apparently my exact words where something to the effect of "So that's what it looks like with the lights on!". Cue scornful glare.....

A few minutes later the procedure is done and Kris and I are alone in the deposit/withdrawal room, both slightly less nervous and slightly more hopeful that we are now finally on our way to becoming that statistic that most couples take for granted. You know, the one-car-2.4-kids kind of statistic......

PS. On the way home, the poor stressball finally gave in to all her manipulation, spewing white chalk all over my car.

Wonder what the Metro Cops would've said about this lot!!!

Tablets and Tantrums

Ask any man and 99% of Lesbians....women are hard to understand at best of times. Just because I'm a woman does not make this statement any less true. I do NOT get my wife. I don't understand the moods, why I'm wrong ALL the time and God knows I have no idea how to answer the "Am I fat?" question. Add into that mix a cocktail of fertility drugs and I am now in the depths of hell with absolutely no escape route!

The little tablet is supposed to ensure that The Egg forms when it's supposed to, thus upping the chance of fertilization when we proceed with insemination. What they don't tell you is that this tiny little pill also turns your obviously better half into Beelzebub's first cousin!

On day one it's all smiles and excitement because we're finally starting the process. By day three, the usually smiley happy face has scrunched into a perpetual frown and I am now sleeping with one eye open in case I get attacked in my sleep for dipping her teabag too many times. Being in the TV and film industry, I'm always wondering about motivation for certain effects in movies. I now firmly believe that Peter Jackson's wife was on Clomid when he came up with Smeagol's descent into madness and ultimate transformation into Gollum! I'm pretty sure I woke up in the middle of the night to her stroking the packaging whispering "my pressshhhhiiiouus".

By now I am counting to ten each and every time I attempt to open my mouth just  in case whatever I'm about to say could be construed in any way other than the way I mean it. "Hi sweetie, how was your day?" is treated to a scornful stare followed by a diatribe of how absolutely hellish her day of googling baby names was and how I now had to go out and find her some supper because there is just no way she's cooking!

I must admit that she was aware of all these changes though. On day four she proceeded to tell me that even though I am doing and saying absolutely nothing wrong, everything out of my mouth is irritating the "living hell" out of her and it would be best to just shut up. "Yes Dear" garnered me yet another scornful stare.

I thank each and every deity for limiting this small, white version of dynamite to only five doses, because at Day 5 I had already packed my toothbrush,  rolled up my sleeping bag from the couch and was heading for the door when she ever so sweetly popped her head round the corner and said, "oh honey, we have two lines"....

Now before you jump to all sorts of conclusions and start yelling at me for skipping steps, this was not the pregnancy test. This was the ovulation test.

Procedure to be followed upon positive ovulation test:
1. Phone up Santa at the Sperm bank and make sure that 1,9m tall, dark haired psychology dude with green eyes and medium complexion is in stock and book a couple of straws for the following day.
2. Load wife into car (making sure to tell her how amazing she is despite the scornful glares)
3. Get your ass to the sperm bank as soon as possible, taking all your weekly frustrations out on unsuspecting taxi drivers and early morning commuters.
4. Get wife to drop trou so she can get jabbed in the gluteus maximus by a rather large needle filled with yet another drug...this one ensures that The Egg drops into place when it's supposed to, so that the swimmers have a finish line to strive for!
5. Load wife back in car (sympathizing the whole way).
6. Proceed with the return journey home, yelling expletives at every other driver who dares to use the same public roads as you.
7. Deposit wife in chair at home, boil the kettle for tea (making sure not to dip the teabag too many times), grab laptop and hightail it the hell out of there.

To be Continued.....

Choosing Daddy Part 2

Ok, so the procedure is apparently as follows. First, go into hospital so they can cut into your belly button, inject some purple dye into your fallopian tubes and ensure that the tubes are open! I'm pretty sure my mom never had that procedure...I mean, surely that's an option if insemination doesn't work??? After that, you're put on fertility drugs, then, when you ovulate, you have to go and pick up your sperm from whichever bank you decide to withdraw from and bring said withdrawal to the doctor's office for insemination. Now I don't know about you, but I have a bit of a problem driving around in peak hour traffic with a vial of sperm on the dashboard. That's a bit difficult to explain to the Metro officer pulling you over for a routine check. And God forbid you get into an accident, does Outsurance's Out-and-about cover that?
Outsurance - "Can you please list the items damaged in the accident?"
Me - "Sure...one cellphone, a laptop and external hard-drive and R1000 worth of sperm."
Outsurance- "I'm sorry....repeat that last one?"

With all these questions mulling about in our brains we left the fertility clinic less than reassured about the whole process. However, seeing as how the Cryobank was just up the road, we thought we'd pop in and see what options were available to  two self-respecting Lesbians. Apparently not a hell of a lot!
Ok, so the four options include a Lawyer, a Psychologist, a Scientist and a small business owner which could mean he runs a boerewors stand on Malibongwe drive for all we know. They range from basketball player size to midget and have a range of features from green eyes to wavy blonde hair. Most parents take it for granted that their kids will inherit some of their features, so suffice it to say we tend to look at donors who have similar looks to ours, I mean it's gonna be difficult enough explaining it's parental origins to the future sprog without having to explain why he/she has bright red hair, is seven feet tall and is Outer Mongolian! So we finally decide on the 1,9m tall, dark haired psychology dude with green eyes and medium complexion, hoping that the result would be a vaguely intelligent, medium sized kid who looks a little like both of us!

Now, for those who don't know, sperm is sold by the straw. Odd I know considering that the only other thing sold in a straw is Sherbert and at least that one only costs R5 and you can use it afterwards for your coke....a-cola. Anyway....according to the elderly gentleman in charge (I'm pretty sure he moonlights as Santa at Cresta!) you need two straws per insem and you need to load up over two days....so that's four straws of man juice! But, wait, there's more...before they inseminate, you have to have this mother of an injection into your stomach to ensure that the egg drops into the allocated slot. Once again...I'm pretty sure my mother never did this! 

The upside of this rather scary visit was finding out that we could actually do the whole procedure there instead of going through the middleman (kind of like finding out you don't need an insurance agent, you can go direct and save thousands!). Kinda makes me wish there was an insemination Hippo.......

To be continued.......

Choosing Daddy

Ok, so after three years of mostly blissfull marriage, the wife and I decide to take the next step. Actually we decided this a while ago, but it's not that easy to find sperm. It's not as if you can pop into the BP shop at three in the morning, pick up a Coke, a loaf of bread, ciggies and a straw of 6ft tall, dark hair, dark eyes with a Law Degree. I came up with the idea of sending her off to some dodgy bar right after ovulation with a fistfull of Rufies and we see what happens, but that was shot down for some or other reason.
We did think of approaching our friends, but being the darlings that they are, they would all like to be "involved" in the baby's life. "Involved" how? I think it's going to be difficult enough for the kid to explain its two mothers, now we're gonna throw in a part-time dad as well? Then comes the question of maintenance, should he pay if he wants to be "involved" or not? And if he's involved as Dad, and my wife is Mom, what the hell does that make me, chopped liver?
Eventually we found a mate that wanted absolutely nothing to do with any and all offspring, so we attempted the home insemination! For all those Lesbines who read the story in the You Magazine about the couple with the champagne glass and the Turkey baster and went "Aaaawwwww"....., Up Yours, I say! There is absolutely nothing romantic, sweet, nurturing or bonding about approaching your better half with a syringe half full of a (rather satisfied at that particular moment) friend's man-juice and expelling said syringe into that very special place where it's supposed to go (contrary to most porn movies that insist it goes everywhere else)! We gave that up as a bad idea.

Sooo, we decided to take the medical approach. After chatting to some friends who took this route very successfully and ended up with the most beautiful cherub ever, we ended up with quite a few options. Several of these options would have been perfect for us if we had just won the Lotto, or maybe the donors were all Nobel Laureates or Male Supermodels. Either way, they were waaayyy out of our price range. We ended up making an appointment at a fertility clinic in Parktown. We arrived 15 min early for our appointment and as per usual when visiting a new medical practice, we were handed the obligatory file of papers to fill out and pointed in the direction of a row of seats. After 20 min (by now I had almost mastered Portuguese as that seemed to be the only language spoken in the waiting room) we were summoned by the resident psychiatrists who proceeded to check our mental stability. Question 1: "Have you really thought about this?" Uuuummmm.....no, I was in the neighbourhood and thought, gee, why not pop into the fertility clinic and have ourselves a baby! Question 12: "What if you change your mind?" Well, hell, that's easy, bring it back for a refund?? Are they serious with these questions?
Anyhoo. About 20 min later we're back in the aforementioned waiting room waiting patiently to see the gynae. By now the waiting room is chock-a-block, the receptionist is running around like a chicken without a head looking for some misplaced files and yelling at everyone, the psychiatrist is trying to keep the peace, we keep hearing hushed rumours that the doctor isn't even in and all in all the natives are getting restless. Just as I'm about to lead a revolt, we get summoned into what can only be described as a closet by a woman dressed as a suicide bomber. She proceeds to ask even more questions, and I'm like, cool, a female gynae, only to discover that she's actually the office manager and only really worried about who's settling the increasing-by-the-minute bill cause they are not affiliated to medical aid. By now I'm feeling decidedly like a lot of people who wore pink triangles and were herded onto cattle cars during the Hitler regime! Back to the now even more full waiting room where we squeeze ourselves between an elderly Portuguese man and what I hope to God is his grand-daughter! Finally we get called in to see The Doctor...Yes, it was spoken in hushed, Capital Letters and I fully expected there to be a glowing backlight on him when I entered the hallowed inner office, but alas, he was just a man. Said man's initial question to us was "So, why can't you get pregnant?" After a rather long pause which was filled with me looking at him, trying to ascertain whether he was joking or not, I replied with a simple "Cause I don't have a penis???"

to be continued.....