Boy howdy, have I heard some weird shirt over the last year.
Trying to make a baby kind of also involved learning a whole new language, or at least an oddly specific part of one. Beyond learning that BD does not indeed stand for bonk donk, here are some other things I've picked up that may be useful for other people on the baby-making train.
Sperm
Do you know how often you will hear the word 'sperm'? So. Many. Times. Times and times and times and times. Over and over. Sperm sperm sperm sperm sperm sperm (to the tune of Work, if you didn't get there on your own). If you, like us, are a lady-lady pairing that has pointedly and purposefully avoided both the substance and subject of sperm for an extended period of time, this may prove alarming at first. Note: you do not just have to talk about sperm, you have to look at sperm. Every time before they put sperm in you, they hold up a little vial to the light and make you look at it. It's... only a small amount, but it feels like a lot. A lot of sperm-talk and a small amount of actual sperm. So if you have sperm issues, maybe try to crack the ice on those a little before you embark.
Embryo
I proudly got a 50% grade point average in Year 12 bio, and was refused entrance into Year 13. I went on to get a Master of Science, but entirely in the brain department. The rest of the body remains a pleasant mystery to me, I like to think of myself as a fleshy robot, or a spirit floating about in a miraculous meat-sack that just does what it does and no need to think about it. Our fertility doctor does not care that I have little more than a ~vague idea~ of how reproduction works. He just talks to me like I obviously know, and I nod along glazedly and hope that a little more of what he's talking about sinks in at each time. This becomes profoundly more important as you reach the IVF part of things. We had to make a series of Frightening Decisions about exactly how to proceed with IVF, including what day we want our embryos to be transferred back into Linda and how many of what quality to put in when. It was just... up to us. I don't recommend crowd-sourcing your decisions about your own embryos, but I do recommend brushing up on your embryo-related knowledge a little before jumping in this pool so you don't end up staring at each other over a very terrifying consent form while a nurse coos "it's all up to you!" as though that's at all a comforting thing.
Mucus
As I write this I know that Linda will make me edit almost all of this bit out, but I can't not tell you that you hear a LOT about mucus during this whole fertility gambit. Cervical mucus is such a thing, you guys. It's inside us all of the time, changing in quality and quantity, and you never even know until you get a lovely nurse with a torch all up your bits telling you all about it. All. About. It. Specific terms we've heard are "oodles of mucus"; "a cascade of mucus"; "a veritable waterfall"; and on one occasion, "a lovely gaping cervix" ("I really hate this particular line here," states Linda, pointing very pointedly at the preceding sentence.) Apparently those are all good things, always said with abundant enthusiasm by the nurse clutching the sperm, but we never got a baby out of them so it turns out we heard all of those truly horrifying things for absolutely no reason. The reason now is so that I could warn you: cis females, there is a lot of mucus inside of you and if you try to do this baby thing, somebody is going to tell you all about it. ("Ooh, I hate that. Oh god, I really hate that. Remember how I didn't even want you to do this blog in the first place?")
6dp5dt
Do you know what that means? It means an embryo was grown in a little dish until it was five days old, and then that little embryo got transferred into a human six days ago. Six Days Post Five Day Transfer. It's also the magical day where, if your transfer stuck, your pregnancy test might just show a faint second line. (I'm just showing off now, you will gradually learn all of this by osmosis and google and it is not at all crucial to begin treatment, but really. Second language.)
Sharps bin
We have a sharps bin on our bathroom counter now. It's quite large very red and very yellow and it's my job to put the needles in it after Linda's stabbed herself with them. We then take the whole fandangled bin into the fertility clinic once a week or so so that they can throw them away for us. I don't know why the sharps bin is more alarming to me than the literal chiller bag of thousands-of-dollars drugs that came with it, or the fact that after dinner each night my tiny darling wife stabs a heckin needle into her stomach and pushes the plunger down while we count to ten. I think it's the way it sits there, both needlessly dramatic and entirely banal, as though this is just a thing we do now. Anyway, there's a sharps bin.
End of entry.
Trying to make a baby kind of also involved learning a whole new language, or at least an oddly specific part of one. Beyond learning that BD does not indeed stand for bonk donk, here are some other things I've picked up that may be useful for other people on the baby-making train.
Sperm
Do you know how often you will hear the word 'sperm'? So. Many. Times. Times and times and times and times. Over and over. Sperm sperm sperm sperm sperm sperm (to the tune of Work, if you didn't get there on your own). If you, like us, are a lady-lady pairing that has pointedly and purposefully avoided both the substance and subject of sperm for an extended period of time, this may prove alarming at first. Note: you do not just have to talk about sperm, you have to look at sperm. Every time before they put sperm in you, they hold up a little vial to the light and make you look at it. It's... only a small amount, but it feels like a lot. A lot of sperm-talk and a small amount of actual sperm. So if you have sperm issues, maybe try to crack the ice on those a little before you embark.
Embryo
I proudly got a 50% grade point average in Year 12 bio, and was refused entrance into Year 13. I went on to get a Master of Science, but entirely in the brain department. The rest of the body remains a pleasant mystery to me, I like to think of myself as a fleshy robot, or a spirit floating about in a miraculous meat-sack that just does what it does and no need to think about it. Our fertility doctor does not care that I have little more than a ~vague idea~ of how reproduction works. He just talks to me like I obviously know, and I nod along glazedly and hope that a little more of what he's talking about sinks in at each time. This becomes profoundly more important as you reach the IVF part of things. We had to make a series of Frightening Decisions about exactly how to proceed with IVF, including what day we want our embryos to be transferred back into Linda and how many of what quality to put in when. It was just... up to us. I don't recommend crowd-sourcing your decisions about your own embryos, but I do recommend brushing up on your embryo-related knowledge a little before jumping in this pool so you don't end up staring at each other over a very terrifying consent form while a nurse coos "it's all up to you!" as though that's at all a comforting thing.
Mucus
As I write this I know that Linda will make me edit almost all of this bit out, but I can't not tell you that you hear a LOT about mucus during this whole fertility gambit. Cervical mucus is such a thing, you guys. It's inside us all of the time, changing in quality and quantity, and you never even know until you get a lovely nurse with a torch all up your bits telling you all about it. All. About. It. Specific terms we've heard are "oodles of mucus"; "a cascade of mucus"; "a veritable waterfall"; and on one occasion, "a lovely gaping cervix" ("I really hate this particular line here," states Linda, pointing very pointedly at the preceding sentence.) Apparently those are all good things, always said with abundant enthusiasm by the nurse clutching the sperm, but we never got a baby out of them so it turns out we heard all of those truly horrifying things for absolutely no reason. The reason now is so that I could warn you: cis females, there is a lot of mucus inside of you and if you try to do this baby thing, somebody is going to tell you all about it. ("Ooh, I hate that. Oh god, I really hate that. Remember how I didn't even want you to do this blog in the first place?")
6dp5dt
Do you know what that means? It means an embryo was grown in a little dish until it was five days old, and then that little embryo got transferred into a human six days ago. Six Days Post Five Day Transfer. It's also the magical day where, if your transfer stuck, your pregnancy test might just show a faint second line. (I'm just showing off now, you will gradually learn all of this by osmosis and google and it is not at all crucial to begin treatment, but really. Second language.)
Sharps bin
We have a sharps bin on our bathroom counter now. It's quite large very red and very yellow and it's my job to put the needles in it after Linda's stabbed herself with them. We then take the whole fandangled bin into the fertility clinic once a week or so so that they can throw them away for us. I don't know why the sharps bin is more alarming to me than the literal chiller bag of thousands-of-dollars drugs that came with it, or the fact that after dinner each night my tiny darling wife stabs a heckin needle into her stomach and pushes the plunger down while we count to ten. I think it's the way it sits there, both needlessly dramatic and entirely banal, as though this is just a thing we do now. Anyway, there's a sharps bin.
End of entry.
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