We are expecting! Baby due February 18th!

Hey guys! It has been over a month since we have made a post, and that mostly comes with a certain degree of intent. In the last post, we shared about choosing our donor.  We were a few days into our IUI and had plans to write about our TTC journey.  After the two week wait, on a Sunday morning we woke up and went right into the bathroom.  Jocelynn took a pregnancy test, we covered it up and waited three minutes.  We had mentally prepared for our first negative while trying not to become too excited about the possibility of a positive.  We turned over the pregnancy test and Jocelynn started crying at she saw a positive! We both just could not believe it!

With that said, we have been mostly quiet about our positive, telling a few family members and close friends until the first ultrasound.  We decided not to comment on social media about the happy news until we knew for sure.  On Friday, July 7th we had our first ultrasound and can finally announce how incredibly lucky we are to have a baby on the way!

We plan to share more about our journey as the pregnancy progresses.  The outpouring of love and support during this process has been absolutely incredible.  For those still on the TTC journey, it has opened our eyes and our hearts to what a painful process this can sometimes be.  We are always thinking of you!

Look for more updates soon….

Choosing Our Donor

A few months before we were married, we started talking more seriously about what our future family would look like and started to do some basic research into the options. We looked at a couple of sperm banks on the internet and the options were endless, however they were expensive. Some sites even had paid subscriptions to their “all access” features. After looking for a couple of hours sporadically for about a week, we decided that when it got closer to the time we would start our family we would get a subscription and look more in detail. After that we put choosing the donor on the back burner and didn’t really talk about it much more.

Fast forward to April of 2017 after meeting with the reproductive endocrinologist (RE) to discuss our options to becoming pregnant, we realized we had to make a decision about picking a donor.  It was the next logical step.  Our doctor used the joke several times that we could go down to the Varsity (a local bar in Ohio) and find some college dude to be our donor.  He was kidding of course…if only it were that easy.  For many couples, this can be one of the hardest parts of the baby making process. Should we go with a known donor? If we choose from a sperm bank, could our child one day get in contact with the donor? Before we were married, we already discussed most of these things.  In fact, for a short period of time, we even entertained choosing a known donor. While every couple is different, we personally felt that having an anonymous donor chosen from a sperm bank would be the best decision for us. Then we got to work!

So, if you are new to the TTC journey as we are, we quickly found out that SPERM IS EXPENSIVE! It costs money to see pictures, listen to interviews, and receive minimal information about the donor.  The actual sperm is pricey, and then it costs quite a bit if you have to ship it.  We researched several sperm banks throughout the country while trying to compare prices and read the reviews.  The place for insemination that we planned to utilize actually had a sperm bank located next door. For us, it helped to alleviate the roughly $200 shipping charge tacked on by EVERY SINGLE legitimate sperm bank.  So, we honed in on their sperm bank and began looking for donors.  Early on, we decided that we wanted the donor to look similar to us (at least in eye color, hair color, and skin tone). After checking those basic characteristics, our results were less than we had desired.  We clicked through donor after donor, taking the time to read and analyze their medical history, education, and personal essays.  Then, we narrowed it down to a handful of men who had available pictures and paid $50 per picture…UGH! The two of us sat there for awhile staring at the pictures, without an immediate “this is our donor” decision. In fact, we just kept sitting there, staring at the computer screen hardly saying anything.  There was one donor that had many of the characteristics we were searching for but he was without a picture, as some of the donors want to be kept completely anonymous.  All we had was a silhouette and a description.  Then,  Katie suggested that we think about choosing him. Jocelynn seemed hesitant and kept staring at the photos of the other donors. After a while, Katie asked “is it that bad if we don’t ever know exactly what he looks like?” From her perspective she thought about it in the sense that in public, we wouldn’t be looking around and wondering if a guy that looks similar to the photo could be our children’s biological father. Jocelynn just kept sitting there thinking in silence, like she normally does and Katie was left waiting for her response. In the end, the truth was that neither of us felt like we had found our donor in the photos we had seen. The descriptions; however, were an accurate depiction of what we saw. We took a few days to think about it but we couldn’t take too long as the the IUI was soon approaching.  Ultimately, we went back to the donor without the photo. He had all of the features we wanted and the descriptions were accurate for the pictures we did see, so we decided to go with our gut and……. DECISION MADE!

An Introduction

Hi there! Welcome to the very first post about our journey to motherhood. We thought we would start off by giving some information about us.  We are two women in the pursuit of becoming mommies! Trying to conceive = TTC! In April 2017, we decided enough was enough and got married on the gulf coast of Florida at sunset, just the two of us.  We were former co-workers and best friends who fell madly in love and the rest is history.  Both of us have strong desires to become mothers! Once we returned home after our honeymoon and elopement, we met with a doctor regarding our options to become mothers.  Essentially, he informed us that it was up to us on when we would like to get the process started.  We decided right away.  There is absolutely no telling how long it may take to create our first life.  For those of you who are wondering, we do have a plan. Ideally, each of us would like to carry one child through Intrauterine Insemination (or IUI.)  Then, our two kids would be related to each other through the donor.  However, we are fully aware that in the world of infertility, these things may not always go as planned.  On Sunday, May 28th, 2017 we attempted our first IUI. We are currently in the dreaded two week wait.  We are both happy, excited and nervous about what the future holds.

Thank you for taking a minute to read over our introduction! It is our hope to connect with the TTC community, share our experience, and learn about the joys of motherhood all at the same time.