What a Week!! - Tate's Birth Story, Part IV

After the festivities of the weekend, and some downtime for Christian to recover from his jetlag and the overwhelming welcome he received our week started in earnest that Monday, my birthday.  We had several appointments with the RE over the course of that week.

I had an HSG which was pretty cool;  I even let Christian be in the room with me.  He got his first look at the inner goings-ons of the female body :).  All was clear with me save a few cysts and a small fibroid tumor.  (It was recommended I have it removed before we did an IUI or IVF to increase my chances of becoming pregnant)  Christian provided his uh, samples, a few times, as well as some of his blood :) complete with a fainting spell by him!  I gave up my arm as well.  We both started on supplements, though I was already on pre-natals I increased my folic acid dosage as recommended.  He took some to increase sperm count, motility and mobility.  All of his numbers came back well within normal limits, but as we planned to try on our own until the 6 month quarantine was up, we opted to go ahead with supplementation for him.  All of his testing came back negative which meant we were on our way.  And as his last HIV test had been almost 6 months prior and negative I was 100% comfortable moving forward with home insemination. 

This is where we spent several hours over the course of 2 days....

(Christian did take several other interesting pictures chronicling our time at Dr. Allon's office.  I doubt I will ever share those with Tate, at least not in a public forum :) )

We also met with an attorney to  hash out our initial donor contract.   She asked us to just brainstorm about what we wanted this contract to be about, what we wanted it to say.  She had a template for our use, but wanted Christian and I to really take some time to just say what we felt out loud, no judgement from each other,  what we thought we wanted from this endeavor beyond me simply having a baby.  One of Christian's main concerns is that this child-to-be know how very much he loved and wanted him/her.  He didn't want this to seem like a simple legal transaction void of emotion, love or caring.  Just looking at him as we discussed him terminating his rights was hard for me.  I think this is when he began to realize what he was truly giving up.  Yet, if he couldn't do this, I couldn't move forward with him as my donor.  And I know he knew in his mind and in his heart he was not doing anything wrong or unloving, but it sure is hard to see it that way when you see those words on a piece of paper,  termination of parental rights.  So we spent some time with the attorney getting the true legal stuff started and opting to give ourselves some time to figure out how to realize that this piece of paper, this donor agreement, was protection for both of us.  Because it was protection for both of us... preventing me from going after him for financial support (as well as hopefully the government) and preventing or at least making it much more difficult for him to take MY child away from me.  This was probably our hardest appointment of the week.  We walked out of that office holding hands, but in utter silence.

Between doctor visits and my working a couple of days we found time to enjoy one another and getting to know each other.  We spent many a night just talking in my living room about anything and everything.  It was as if we'd known each other forever.

My dear friend Susan and her husband Dan wanted to spend some time getting to know Christian one-on-one.  You know give him a true working over by concerned loving friends.  Under the auspices of taking me out to celebrate my birthday, they were able to grill him mercilessly.  Ok, maybe it wasn't that bad, but it was fun to see him squirm just a bit .  We went out to Taste of Texas and enjoyed some fantastic steak, wine and friendship.

The girls!

The boys!

The Texans were playing that week, so I got us great seats for the game that Thursday evening against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.  Yes!  I'm a huge Texans fan!!  If ticket prices weren't so astronomical I would take Tate, but I'm not paying those prices to stay for 30-45 minutes.  So hopefully, in a couple of years we can go!!!

Pre-game :)

Watching our boys warm up!  The fabulous Reliant Stadium!

Love me some football!!

We ventured down to Galveston for a day, went by the beach, had a lazy afternoon strolling along the sea wall and just enjoying each other's company.  Since that first trip to Galveston, Christian has loved it, so we try to go back whenever he's here and bring Tate along with us.

Driving back to Houston at dusk from Galveston

We braved the steaming August heat and took a tour of the Bayou Bend Museum (all outside!!)  We lasted about 30 minutes.  I've taken Tate back a couple of times...most recently this past 4th of July.

We spent one afternoon at my friend Julie's house...out in the country.  She has a gorgeous pool and HUGE backyard.  Christian was continuously awed about the HUGENESS of everything Texas.

Yep!  That's her gorgeous pool and HUGE backyard...
all the way to that fence in the waaaayyyy back!

I had shared my TTC plans with my office staff as in my profession booking yourself for appointments and monitoring would put a huge glitch in scheduling my own patients.  I'm so very lucky that I got pregnant on my own and didn't have to deal with all that would have entailed had I needed to do IUI or worse IVF.  They were all thrilled to meet this gorgeous foreigner....after all there are about 24 women in that office, mostly single.  Too bad he was already taken.  By another man ;)   But we happily joined them for happy hour one night after work.

I wanted to show him how a real live working ranch worked, so we went to the George Ranch Historical Park.  We saw some calf roping and cowboys doing their cowboy thing :).  It was a blisteringly hot summer day, but we had a great time.  And as an aside...my college scholarship was funded by the George Foundation, and when we were in line to purchase tickets I told the woman selling the tickets how very much I had appreciated the George Foundation for helping me attend the college of my dreams.  She asked my name and remembered me and where I went to school!!  How amazing is that?  AND, they let us in for free!!  Apparently, anyone whose scholarship monies were financed through the George Foundation, if they mention it, get in free to the ranch. 

For Christian's last meal on Texas soil we headed to Pappasito's for yummy margaritas and Tex-Mex.  Lindsey joined us for a very festive, alcohol hazy evening :) Try to ignore our happy, glassy eyes! :)

And unbeknownst, to most people I expected to be ovulating the day after Christian left.  So though we had nothing but a syringe from my local pharmacy and a plastic cup, we decided to 'practice!'  We figured if it worked...SUPER WOW!!!  And if not, we had already decided he would be in the states in October with his boyfriend, and they were going to tack a few extra days to the end of that trip and swing by here to get me pregnant.  His boyfriend would stay 3-4 days, and Christian would stay for 7-9 days!!

Luckily for me it didn't work, and I don't even really consider a real try as it was so spur of the moment and neither one of us had any idea of what we were doing.  And our timing was a bit off.   It's so hard to imagine that I would have a totally different child today if it had worked.  And I cannot fathom any other child in my life other than my so very sweet Tate Christopher.

Christian flew out that Sunday amidst alot of tears.  Alot of tears.  For both of us.  Those 10 days were some of the most precious days in my pre-Tate life.  We came to the realization that we did want to do this;  we wanted me to have a baby born of me and Christian.  And as he left that day, walking down to the terminal I thought 'If it's this hard for him to leave me, I cannot imagine how much harder it will be for him to leave a child, his child.'  That was my biggest worry then and sometimes still now.  Though I know he is not prepared to be a parent in the truest sense of the world to Tate by his own admission, I know he loves this boy;  he loved him all those years ago before he was even here.  And I knew then that he always would.   Somehow knowing that helped me know this was right.  Though, I would be parenting this child on my own, someone out there would love him or her almost as much as I would.  And that's what I always come back to...Love.  Love.  You can never have too much love.