Do You Speak Legalese?

Everyone got together last Sunday. Our midwife, our donor, and Tarra and myself. You know, our baby team. I asked Tarra if we could all get power rings and put them together before an insemination, you know like captain planet?

With our powers combined: GAYBY!

Anyway, jokes aside, it was a great meeting. We talked about testing our donor for STD's, why and why not we'd want to do that each time, and getting a sperm analysis so we would know if I'm not getting pregnant, it's likely something going on with me and not him. We talked about where our donor might like to make his donation, how our midwife would "wash" the sperm for an IUI (intrauterine insemination). All those romantic queer baby making things.

We learned fun new phrases like "sperm snacks". This is an adorable name for the protein rich media at the bottom of a vial that you place a sperm donation into. Strong, healthy sperm swim down through filter layers to this snack bar and hang out. This removes all lame sperm, skin cells, and extra fluids that would cause a super gnarly infection if inserted straight into a uterus. Normally, your cervix acts like a bouncer for this stuff, but since we're going IUI we need our sperm snack vial to be our bouncer. Why IUI? It's double the chance of getting pregnant compared to vaginal insemination (which I've read is roughly 15%). So, we're doing everything we can to move things along and not waste everyone's time and our money (like $400 a month, sooo maybe we'll name our baby Lexus, or Subaru).

We've also decided that we're not sure if I'm a human person, or chicken at this point. Our midwife told us when we do a home insemination on our own, intravaginally (you know, "turkey baster"except it's more like baby medicine syringe with no needle, but that's not as catchy though, so baster) that I should lie down, hips elevated and roll every ten minutes to a different side, like a rotisserie chicken, basting my cervix in sperm. Sperm can live 5 or more days in the vaginal canal as long as it's hospitable (you're producing fertile mucus) and there are little crevices that they hang out in ready to make the swim when the egg shows up. Like this. But, you know, less spikes. Also, likely less corny narration.

So, baste, roll, baste. There are eggs being made, I'm eating all this healthy food and whole grain breads, so there's stuffing... yeah, I think I'm a chicken in this near literal metaphor...

We also talked quite a bit about custody. This seems like one of the biggest untouched frontiers of Queer civil rights. In California we have this law that came into effect January 2016. The non-birthing parent can claim parenthood with the form on the bottom. In California also, Tarra is going to be able to sign the birth certificate. This is amazing, right? Sure, until we travel to another backwards state and someone gets hurt. Like, if we're on a road trip through the south, and we get into a wreck, I die, one would assume the baby could go back to California with Tarra, she is my wife and all states have to acknowledge that, but custody is different. Many states are refusing to adopt out to queer couples, so the discrimination is real and tangible. What can we do to protect ourselves until our bumblehead legislature does something?

Second Parent Adoption. Ugh. Like, paying all the legal fees, potentially having a "home" visit to ensure we're treating the baby right to claim legal right to a baby that is obviously ours. Our midwife suggested that step-parent adoption is cheaper and faster and they do home visits less often. Ok, I like cheaper and quicker for anything derogitory like having my WIFE adopt her child, but SHE ISN'T THE STEP-PARENT!

<iframe src="//giphy.com/embed/8dGP6ex3Es45W" width="480" height="270" frameBorder="0" class="giphy-embed" allowFullScreen></iframe><p><a href="http://giphy.com/gifs/epic-forum-8dGP6ex3Es45W">via GIPHY</a></p>

We are trying to do our best to protect ourselves. There are horror stories of donors saying they don't want anything to do with the baby, then see it and freak out- sue for custody and win. Parents of donors winning custody. It goes the other way too: donors and recipients agreeing, queer couple loses job seeks government aid and government sues donor for child support and wins. Fun. So, we're using This donor agreement from our queer baby making bible Essential Guide Lesbian Conception Pregnancy. It's a beast of a document from a beast of a book. We're hoping to meet our donor sometime this week to talk about how much we want to keep, what we'd like to change, etc. Maybe we'll just leave it alone because someone obviously much smarter than me wrote it... so maybe they know what's best?

We also read in our queer baby bible that we should expect our child to find all of this one day, as children do, and we should consider writing something "softer". Like a love letter to the future baby to let it know that while we were being careful, we were making this baby out of the love of our baby making team. I guess that's the one shred of dignity I can find in all of this: that everyone involved here is involved out of genuine kindess, compassion and caring. I guess we get to make a baby out of love, just the love of two other people included. Lucky baby.