The Beginning: A Very Good Place to Start

Over the weekend (July 16, 2017), my wife and I began what I consider, seriously talking about growing our family. It was by no means the first time we brought it up, but it was the first time we spoke about it where we were both on the same page time-wise. My thinking wheels began to turn. 

On May 16, 2013 I was diagnosed with PCOS, or polycystic ovarian syndrome. My heart was crushed. I felt broken. First, what you need to know about PCOS is that it is not life-threatening. In fact, it's one of those conditions where all I need to do is take some meds before going to bed. There are some hurdles I face, like irregular periods (potentially ovulating only a few times a year), weight gain, and acne. It is definitely not a big deal and something I have to manage every day — like brushing my teeth. Well, after my endocrinologist broke the news to me, she immediately followed up by saying, "Don't worry. You will still be able to carry your own children and have babies. All of my PCOS clients who want to be moms, are moms." What did I hear? "YOU WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO BE A MOM!!" Silly. I know.

Now if there is anything you need to know about me, it's that since I was about 22 months old, I wanted to be a mommy. That was around the time my first baby brother was born. I was in love. I knew then, that when I grew up, I was going to be a mommy. 

Fast forward to March 26, 2016. The happiest day of my life. My wife and I were married in Malibu at our temple, nestled between the Pacific Ocean and the Santa Monica Mountains. It was a perfect day. On March 27, 2016, I began the baby conversation. Wait, is that too soon? Lucky for me, my wife has known me since high school, so this baby thing came to no surprise. And yes, it was too soon. 

At the start of 2017, I brought it up again. I knew I was ready. I also knew that our journey to becoming parents would be different. We had to plan. There is no 'oops! we're pregnant' conversation or, 'it just happened.' For us, we were going to have to plan, plan, plan. We were going to need sperm, we were going to have to know how our bodies worked like clock-work, we were going to need to pick a time and day this was all going to go down, and perhaps above all, we were going to have to save money. And a lot of it. Fortunately, our family and friends had given beyond generously at our wedding, specifically so when we were ready to start our family, we would have a serious leg up.

After months and months of conversations, we finally landed on the same page. The page belonged to sperm donor 14030. Standing tall at 6' with light brown hair, hazel eyes, and a cleft chin, we had found our match. We purchased 12 vials of sperm and sat there in shock and awe. Had we really just done this? Now what? We decided we didn't want family to know. We both come from very big, supportive families who love to talk and share (in a good way). So for us, we knew we wanted this to be our little secret until we had good news to share. But we knew we would explode of excitement if we didn't tell anybody. So we told a handful of close friends.

And here we are today, July 18, 2017, waiting for my Aunt Flow to arrive. We are hoping to do our first round of at-home insemination during my next ovulation cycle, which hopefully will happen in a short couple of weeks. In the meantime, I realized our story and journey will be a unique one. I guarantee we will have some lows. I also guarantee we will have questions and need to learn to as we go down this path. But I also guarantee that we will have so much joy and happiness in the end.

I am documenting our journey with all its trials and tribulations so that if anyone else is going through what we are going through, has questions that we may have the answers to, or that has the answers that we are looking for, we have a safe place to come together. I am beginning this blog on July 18, 2017. I am not yet publishing the site until we are further along in our journey and our families are the first to know. So when this does go live, hopefully you'll take the time to read through these earlier posts.