12: DIY ICI, Round 2!

Everybody. I did it. This is Meredith. This is the 12th episode of the backup plan and I am trying to have a baby with my gay best friend and we did the deed. We didn’t do the deed as a heterosexual couple would. Obviously, we used what we lovingly refer to as the turkey baster method this month. Look, this is a really monumental time for me, because the last time I tried this, I freaked the fuck out and ended up flying home from where Michael was living at the time in Alaska, because I couldn’t handle it. I just had a panic attack. I was really nervous going into it this time because I didn’t know if I was going to. You can go into something confidently and then just get in the middle of it and be like, oh shit, nope, this is too big, this is too much, I don’t want to do it. That didn’t happen this time. That’s not to say there weren’t nerves, but we’ll get into that. Today’s episode is going to be just me relaying everything that happened over the last week. I’m going to start off by saying that this process I have. It is self-sabotaging, honestly, for me to be doing this podcast, because for something like this, something that’s so absolutely life-changing, I would typically keep this to myself. I wouldn’t tell anybody. I would just do it and then be like oh yeah, I know, it’s just something I did, it wasn’t a big deal, and now I’m pregnant seven months into it. Being so open and honest is I don’t like it necessarily, but I know that this is something different and unique and worth sharing. You’re welcome is basically what I’m saying. It’s very strange to have folks reaching out to me as I’m doing it, because I would normally keep that group so selective. It’s strange, when you’re in the very middle of it, to have somebody you don’t expect to reach out and be like how’s it going? It just interrupts the flow that my body is used to. And that’s not to say I don’t want people to reach out. We’ll get into support later. It’s been wildly overwhelming, but not something I’m used to, because I don’t reach out to people during catastrophically life-changing situations such as this. That is not a catastrophe, what am I saying? Life-changing event of this magnitude. Anyway, we’ll start at the beginning. Michael has recently moved and I wanted him to move to a bigger city, because I like bigger cities, but wildly. Not everybody likes the exact same things as I like in life and Michael likes places that are a little bit smaller, with less traffic. So he moved to a small city in Washington and, guys, I didn’t hate it. I have a proclivity as an elitist east coaster to want to live near the water, to want to live in a big city near the water. And this is a small city inland and there’s a river that runs through it, but it’s not the open ocean and my brain doesn’t know how to process that, but it’s learning. We had an interesting conversation because then he took me over to Kirtland, idaho, which I admittedly told him you know, coming from the east coast. We learned about the 13 colonies and history class and that was it and nothing else existed. There were states that had names but nothing happened there and it was nice to see a little town where people looked hip and they sell condos for a million dollars. Listen, I still don’t understand that one, why you would buy a condo for two to three million dollars in the middle of nowhere, like I just. But maybe if you have that money it doesn’t matter. Maybe when I have that money it won’t matter. Maybe I’ll get myself a condo in Kortelain, maybe that’s the thing. But a look, all this to say. I had a nice time and I enjoyed the place, and the fact that Michael lives within walking distance of not only a red robin but a pottery barn is lovely Like that’s just my speed and so make it easier for me to visit. And really isn’t that what matters most In where my best friend chooses to live. I’m being sarcastic. Obviously he’s got to do what he loves. I just wanted to be easier to visit him and it was. It was a much shorter plane ride. In preparation for this, I packed up the stuff that I’ve discussed in previous episodes. I packed up syringes. I packed up pre-seed lubrication, which makes one’s vagina a more hospitable environment for sperm to do their thing. I packed up a menstruation cup. I packed up a steamer to sterilize mostly the menstruation cup I packed up. What else did I bring this time? I brought pink stork fertility tea. I brought liquid IV. Golden cherry is my jam because I wanted to stay really hydrated during this whole expedition Things I wish. I brought panty liners and latex gloves. That would have been a smart thing to bring, but I didn’t and I survived. It’s fine. I just brought with me a better attitude, guys. I just felt better about everything. I think that having this podcast to keep me honest about what I’m doing and to remind me why I’m doing what I’m doing, I think that’s been incredibly helpful. While this podcast is difficult for me to make, it’s also been incredibly helpful. I’m glad for it and glad for all of you guys. I plan this trip during my ovulation window, obviously, and when you’re in the ovulation window, there are days when you are more likely to be ovulating, right. So the way that I was testing was by using the keg fertility monitor, which, if you’re interested in using, I have a code for. You can find that in the description. I couldn’t get there right at the beginning of the window, which was fine because it wasn’t as prime time as the end of my window is. Michael had some traveling that he was doing for work, so it’s fine. I got there on Monday night and we didn’t do anything on Monday night because that was a lower ovulation time for me. Also, I got in at 10.30. We had to drive to his apartment. We had to drive somewhere else, pick something out. By the time we got to his apartment and I put my suitcases down, it was like midnight and there’s just no way that that would have been a good time for either of us. We were just exhausted. So the next day I was there for two more full days and then one half day, and so the next day it was so funny because we both work from home, so it was like us aligning our agendas of like, okay, we’ll put some time in the calendar for 2PM and that’s when it will happen. And that ended up being better for me, because I can’t think of the magnitude of these situations without wanting to just shrivel up and do nothing. I am a risk averse person. I don’t like confrontation, I don’t like doing anything that could go wrong. So sitting around and thinking about the magnitude of you are about to change your life, you are about to make a choice that you can’t go back on. You are about to change your body completely and there’s just no way of going back. This is a decision that changes everything. I don’t like doing that, and so sitting and thinking about it is not fun. So being in Alaska in an apartment where you know you look out the window and you don’t see anything happening, there’s no life. And the one time we did it up there, he did what he needed to do. And then him and his friend left for a little bit. They went out on a little cross country ski excursion which they invited me on. But like the Nordic track action of a cross country ski in combination with having his bodily fluids inside of me, it’s just, it’s not a good combination. I would have just Nordic tracked that sperm right out of me. So I sat alone in his apartment in Fairbanks and thought about everything everywhere all at once and I was calling friends, I was calling Whitney, I was calling Dana, I was calling my mom and I was just like truly freaking out. And then it ended up being too much and I was like I gotta get a shower, I don’t want to do this anymore. And it was not great, especially in the state that I was in without being on medication. So this time around being like, oh, this fits in between my one o’clock and your three o’clock, so we will do it at two o’clock, that was just better for my brain space and being able to joke around with Michael after it, like just laying with my legs in the air and shooting the shit about people we know or places we’ve been, or places we’ve wanna go, or shows that we’re watching. It’s just a nice distraction and it’s what I didn’t know I definitely needed. And then after that we would go out for dinner or we drove. Like I said, we drove to Coeur d’Alene and it was just nice. It was better to do it that way for me, and the thing that sucks about that is that you can’t really know that that’s what you need until you do it the other way. And unfortunately I did it the other way the first time around. So hey, I’ve learned that about myself. That’s great. So the procedure besides, you know, scheduling it on the calendar was that you know, michael would go into his bedroom and door bathroom I wouldn’t ask details, he would do what he needed to do to make the things happen. And then we use the Mosey Baby Kit this time, which I’ll get into that in just a moment but he would bring the cup into the room I was staying in, leave it on the nightstand. I wouldn’t even see him walking with it. That was another thing. I was like I just don’t want to. I don’t want to see it, I don’t want to think about it, I just want that to be a sample and a liquid that is unrelated to my friend. And so he put it in the nightstand and then I would go in. I would use the Mosey Baby Syringe to insert it up in me. Oh, but before all this, when he would go in the other room, I would put the pre-seed in that comes with its own syringe. You need to give yourself at least 15 minutes of kind of a sit and wait time, let it marinate inside of you. So I think you have like 15 minutes to an hour. So I would put that in. He would go do his thing and then, after he deposited it in my room, I would go in. So I would use the Mosey Baby Syringe. The thing about the Mosey Baby Kit look, it’s expensive. I recognize that. I’ll do a cost comparison for the blog post that accompanies this episode, but it is. This kit costs $129. Although right now I think it’s a BOGO, I think it buy one, get 150% off. So then that gives you four tries for a lot less money. But it was better, you know, using sterile cups that you can order online. They are. You know they have a flat bottom, so you kind of have to wait for everything to sort of slush down to one side and then using the sterile syringes that you can find online. They may not be big enough. The ones I was using were pretty small, but if you’re working with somebody who has been saving it up for you, one syringe might not be enough. The Mosey Baby it is. It was adequate and because the cup that they give you is sort of like a rounded little dish on the bottom. Like you know, I’ll post pictures of it online, but it has it’s kind of it’s bowl shaped, so it’s like a little tiny bowl and it’s sterilized and sealed for your protection. But it because everything is centered and because the syringe is just like a little bit bigger and rounded on the bottom, it’s just easy to get everything that you need to get. And it was great. Like honestly, it was just really great. I did balk at the price when I saw it, but I would recommend it if you want a situation that is simple and easy, like it was great, and you eat the little box like look, I like aesthetics. It matters to me if something looks nice and is pretty and the little box is like it’s a gender neutral sort of. It’s not, you know, it’s not like pink and blue and baby things, it’s just it’s the design of it, the graphics, everything looks nice. You open it up it says let’s make a baby. It’s very, I know it sets the tone. I don’t know how to better explain it. It just makes me feel nice and I like feeling nice, so I would highly recommend that I have a link in the description for that as well. So then I used a menstrual disc, which is not recommended by Mosie Baby they don’t say anything about it in the description, but from the couple different videos that I watched on YouTube of women, mostly lesbian couples, who have done this. They’ve used a menstrual disc to just kind of keep everything up and near the final destination that it needs to get to. And I would just lay around Because I had the menstrual disc. I didn’t feel as, oh God, I had to lay with my feet in the air or something like that, so I could get up, go to the bathroom quick, clean everything up and then I would come out and sit and drink my tea, have some water. Like I said, michael and I would laugh and joke and I gave myself at least 30 minutes, 40 minutes of just kind of laying with my butt up, as much as I could put it up. Thankfully he’s got a lot of decorative pillows. And we did that three times. We did that on Tuesday, we did it on Wednesday and we did it on Thursday, pretty much right before I left for the airport. Then, oh my God, the airport was such, it was a whole thing. Thankfully he lives very close to the airport, which is great. I got there in perfect time, enough time to get myself some Starbucks and to wander around. I was trying to find sleepless and Spokane merchandise. There is a window there, guys, of opportunity, because nowhere in the airport do they sell something that says sleepless and Spokane. If I may, that’s funny. The alliteration is great. Obviously that’s not the term, that’s not the thing. It’s sleepless in Seattle, but hey, sleepless and Spokane, I don’t think that’s trademarked. I haven’t looked, but I was trying to find something, because it’s a joke that my friend Brad and I have had for a couple of weeks now, trying to find him some sleepless and Spokane merchandise. Anyway, got on the plane, everything was fine. We pull into Seattle and a luggage cart was parked exactly where our airplane needed to park, where the what do you call it? The tunnel that connects to the airplane? I cannot think of the name of it whatever. Our gate was blocked by a luggage cart and we had to wait for 20 minutes. My layover was 30 minutes, so you can see where, perhaps, my anxiety started gearing up. And then we had to circle the airport because there were planes waiting behind us. We were blocking gates for people, so we had to circle around. I just barely made my plane from Seattle to Santa Ana and I was, of course, like if you’ve been to the Seattle airport, you know that there is a sort of remote terminal that’s connected by a train. We were not supposed to be landing there. We were supposed to be landing at the B gate, which is right down the hall from the A gate not a big deal, but the S gate is the remote one, so I had to take a train to get to the A gate, where my connection was. I was fucking running through the airport like mad dash, just terrible, and I have a bum foot, so that’s not fun. I was wearing boots, so that wasn’t fun. I also decided to carry everything on, which was probably better. I don’t know if I would have lost luggage because of the connection fiasco. So I was like running with my away luggage, which I can’t recommend enough and I am still hurting from it today. My hips are so tight. But I was like you know what? I have got a menstrual disc full of my friend’s joy juice and if this doesn’t like, jump it all up into the place it needs to get to, I don’t know what will. I made it and that’s what matters, because otherwise I would have had to wait until 6 am the next day and that would have been fucking awful. Anyway, that’s how I began my two week wait and that’s where we’re at now. I guess that’s the terminology that all of the baby blogs and fertility communities use. It’s the two week wait where you just kind of wait and see what’s going on. Fun, good times. I am not as focused on it. I am thinking about pregnancy and babies like I would say, 20 hours out of the day, but it’s not all consuming. I can kind of focus on other things and think about other things, and that’s great. Have I read about early pregnancy symptoms online? Of course I have. There was a post recently. There’s a great Instagram account called Mommy Labor Nurse. She’s a registered nurse, her name is Liesl and she posts some really great content and there is a post recently about early pregnancy symptoms and I read through the comments and somebody said something about like a metallic taste in their mouth. And after the run through the airport I sat down and I was like, did I bite my lip? Am I bleeding? Like I had this real like irony sort of a taste in my mouth. Nothing, a little irony taste, not an irony taste in my mouth. And somebody commented on this early pregnancy symptoms Instagram post that a metallic taste in their mouth was an early sign. I do feel I’m like aware of my uterus. You know, I’m hoping that’s not a placebo effect. I’m hoping it’s not just me thinking about my uterus. Therefore, I feel my uterus. I don’t know, but I will say that I feel better. I don’t feel like I’m floating in some kind of sea of ambiguity or concern or frustration or fear or worry. I feel happy about what I did. I feel excited about the possibilities, I feel ready for the things and now we wait, now we see, now we think good thoughts. So thank you to everybody who has been wildly supportive. There have been so many Instagram comments. I had such good friends sending me text messages during the process. I wanna thank Shayna, who was obviously on the podcast a couple of weeks ago. She’s been touching base every step of the way. I wanna thank Lala if she’s listening. She was sending me so many sweet messages and Raleigh, who I can’t wait to spend more time with, has been just so interested and caring and sweet. And I have to give it up for my quad goals girls Karla and Christina and Ariana were just. You know, ariana was in the middle of everything that leads up to the live broadcast for Dancing With the Stars and yet she was texting me. How are you feeling and be friends with people who ask you that question? I can’t stress that enough, cause sometimes, you know, we meet people and we go through life and we find ourselves in situations with people and they don’t care and maybe you don’t care either, you know, like, think about that for a little bit. But I know I sometimes get wrapped up in my own life cause I have so many things happening all at once. I’m a very active individual and just take stock and take time to ask your friends how they’re doing and what they’re up to. And, you know, find a friend who will, in the middle of going on live television and performing a contemporary dance routine to Frozen, find the ones that stop and ask how you’re doing. It’s really important. Yeah, so that’s how everything went. This is a shorter episode cause it’s just me. I just wanted to let you guys know what happened, where we’re at and how we’re waiting and what we’re expecting, and I very much welcome those good vibes. I very much welcome the sweet reviews that you’re sending me, thank you. Thank you, dana, for your lovely review this week. That made me feel good. Yeah, gosh, guys, let’s just hope that worked so we can get on with it and we get to the next phase of this and I get to tell you about morning sickness and how my pants don’t fit anymore. Really, just want to tell you guys all about that. Anyway, thanks for listening. Thanks for following along on social media Backup Plan Pod on all of the things, but mostly Instagram and have a great week, thanks. The Backup Plan was created, produced and hosted by me, meredith Cape. Julian Hageins is my co-producer. You can find us on social media at Backup Plan Pod. The best place to get updates is to sign up for our newsletter at BackupPlanPodcom, where we also post all episodes, show notes and transcripts. Thank you for listening.