The first decision

Before we could decide when, where, or how to make our family, we had to confront our first issue: the who. And not, like, in the sperm sense – that decision was still months away.

You see, as well as a severe lack of sperm, we also had another issue – an abundance of uteri. It takes one uterus to make a baby, and between us we have two. A relatively good problem to have, sure, but a problem all the same. Especially after a quick straw poll revealed that both uterus owners were quite keen to experience pregnancy, at least once.

The simplest answer – one each – lead to a far more complex question. Who first?

(Side note: the dumbest question that I get asked, and it gets asked surprisingly frequently, is “why don’t you have them at the same time?” How about for every single reason I can possibly think of? We’re married, we’re not gal pals. It wouldn’t be cute for us to have babies at the same time. That's just not really how you make families? They’re going to be siblings, not cousins. Can you imagine having a sibling the same age but not being twins? How would you even explain that? Can you imagine the nightmare of having two pregnant women trying to sleep in the same bed? Can you imagine the jealousy if one person is glowing and the other is a spewing cranky swollen mess? Who’s helping who off the couch?! Who’s making who the midnight breastfeeding milo in this scenario?!?!? ENGAGE YOUR BRAINS, STRAIGHT PEOPLE having babies at the same time what are you even thinking about)

I have written about the pitfalls of having options before. With great power comes great ability to constantly doubt yourself, and all of the decisions you’re making. In this case, also, we had absolutely nowhere to turn for guidance, as all of the gay couples we knew with more than one kid had both been carried by the same person. Initially it was decided that I would go first purely because I was so desperate to have a baby that Linda was a little afraid I’d just snatch one from a distracted mother at the supermarket if she didn’t let me get pregnant as soon as possible. There was also the concern that even with a mirena now holding down the fort, my fertility, compromised by endometriosis, would steadily worsen. So it was agreed that I would aim to get impregnated sometime during 2018, and there the loosely-wrapped plan sat for a while, tucked safely away on the other side of the wedding and the overseas adventure. With time though, other considerations and uncertainties began to nibble around the edges and made us question whether we knew what we were doing. (spoiler alert for this whole blog: we never know what we are doing)

Finances were one of the first things that made us wonder whether getting me pregnant first was our best course of action. Linda earns about $30k a year more than me and climbing, and it dawned on us that from a maternity leave perspective we would be better off living off my smaller income with one baby and her larger income with two. My income is enough to live off with two kids if we needed to, but it did seem to make more sense to have it the other way around. Age was the other main factor that gave us pause - Linda is only 13 months older than I am, but we were constantly hearing about how persnickety fertility can be when it comes to the dreaded "cliff". If Linda went first, we might both be able to have babies before 32. If I went first, Linda would be older than that before her turn came around. With both of these considerations it was kind of like - well, if we didn't have a choice, then we'd make it work, but given that we do have the choice, does this matter enough to change our minds? Is it stupid to ignore factors like age and income just because I want to be pregnant so badly my chest aches?

There were other factors, too, that were less based on numbers and therefore more difficult to quantify. For me, the biggest one was mental health. Both Linda and I are at higher risk of post-natal depression due having had depressive episodes previously, but Linda also has OCD of the type that made her briefly want to take our cat back to the SPCA when we first got him because he was causing too much disruption in our lives.My first thought was that this was a good argument for me to go first - giving Linda the chance to adjust to having a baby around when she hasn't just been ruined by giving birth to it and isn't being plagued by hormones and isn't stuck under the breastfeeding baby watching her incredibly-well-intentioned-but-not-very-domestic wife let her house get all messy. Linda thought, though, that the process of pregnancy and the complete change in role would be helpful for her brain, that being the one that had produced this tiny life-grenade would feel more manageable than having it simply appear. There was also the consideration that if I get PND, if I went second then Linda would already have child-rearing experience from the first one to help her do the new-parent-plus-wife-of-depressed-wife thing.

For Linda, though, the biggest factor came a little later in the piece, in the murky space we were occupying in between having to make a final decision. One day she just pipes up out of nowhere (I can't remember where we were but we were probably in bed and I was probably about three seconds from falling asleep because that is when Linda has all of her Most Important Thoughts):

"Hey babe, I just realised - whoever goes second is going to be at home with the new baby AND the first baby." At first I thought she was kidding but it transpired that she had been picturing us each having the same experience of just being at home with a baby and who knows what she thought was going to happen to the first one when it was time for the second. Anyway, from that moment on, Linda was suddenly quite keen to go first.

Eventually the decision matrix we were looking at resembled something like this:

• Desperation to be pregnant, like, yesterday: Molly > Linda = Molly first
• Known fertility issues: Molly > Linda = Molly first
• Income: Linda > Molly = Linda first
• Age: Linda > Molly = Linda first
• Probability of post-natal mental health difficulties: Linda > Molly = Linda first
• Projected desire to be at home with a baby and a toddler: Molly > Linda = Linda first

Despite it making too much sense to deny, I don’t think either of us were particularly thrilled with the idea of Linda going first. I sure as shit wasn’t. In fact, I was pretty devastated. Adjusting to the fact that I would be getting the baby, but not the role, that I so desperately wanted was tough. Is tough. One time someone said to me "so you'll be up first on dad duties!" and even though I pretended to laugh, I had to go cry in the bathroom a little bit. Whatever you do, don't ask me about it after two glasses of wine. (what the fuck are dad duties anyway don't even get me started)

As it turned out, it was good that we came to that decision on our own before our first Fertility Associates appointment, because it turns out that there was one piece of information we didn't have that was going to be making the decision for us.

Next post: our adventures with AMH.