So how do two girls go about making a baby? Well, there are many ways but I will tell you ours. Having kids in the LGBTQ community is a struggle. There is no easy way to go about it.

My name is Christina and my (ex) wife’s name is Katie. We were married for a few years before we decided to start a family. When the time came for Katie and I to start having kids, we already knew what we wanted to do. We just had to put our plan into action. Katie grew up thinking that when she was older, she was not going to have kids. I on the other hand, grew up always wanting kids.

I had my future planned out and although some things in my future weren’t exactly as I pictured it as a kid, having children was something in my future that never changed. Katie’s mind changed about kids. She knew how much I wanted kids and she fell more in love with idea.

Reciprocal IVF v. IUI

We both wanted to be part of the process of having our children so we knew Reciprocal IVF was for us. Katie wanted to experience pregnancy whereas I wanted children, but didn’t mind not being pregnant.

When the time came for us to start a family, we looked for a fertility clinic close to us. We live in California so we just googled fertility doctors, looked at the reviews and the distance and picked the best
one. We went in for our consultation months before we actually wanted to be pregnant. During the consultation, we had glanced at other options, such as IUI, but we liked that with Reciprocal IVF, we would both be doing our part to create our child and the success rate was much higher. It seemed like we would get pregnant the first try. Everything statistically was in our favor. Our health was great and our age was ideal. Nothing would go wrong, right? The procedure cost was between $15-20k and at the
time, that sounded great and cheaper than IUI because we thought we would get pregnant with only one round of IVF. We didn’t plan for the unexpected but does anyone ever plan for that?

Sperm Donors

We did encounter problems, but not at first. At first, everything was great. Everything went smoothly. We each did our shots. The monitored ultrasounds of my eggs looked good. At this time, we started to look for a sperm donor. We went online and began our search. We didn’t realize that finding a sperm donor would be so hard. There were also so many hidden fees. For example, we wanted to see a donors photo but that was an extra charge. We wanted to download more information about the donor, which that was extra. We realized that it’s just a better idea to pay for the all access membership, most cryobanks offer. We used facial recognition to help narrow down our search. We put in a picture of Katie’s face into the search engine and the results had donor photos that matched Katie. It’s definitely important to look at all the results since some looked more like her than others. We also went with a cryobank that offered pictures of the donors as a child and as an adult. We wanted as much information about the donor as possible. We ordered our sperm vials and prepared for our next step – egg retrieval.

Egg retrieval

Egg retrieval day came. We went home and anxiously awaited by the phone. We were eager to see how many of our eggs fertilized. We got our first phone call but it was to ask for permission to open the second vial of sperm. The first vial did not successfully fertilize any of the 18 eggs retrieved. We were starting to get worried. We gave the approval and waited for more news. The phone call came that we didn’t want to hear. Our of 18 eggs retrieved, only two were left and they weren’t fertilized. We were asked permission to do Emergency ICSI on the two remaining eggs. ICSI is where sperm is injected into the egg. It is more costly procedure but we were all out of options. We waited again by the phone to
hear what happened with our two eggs. Unfortunately, we heard the following day that one didn’t make it. Then the next day, the other one didn’t make it. It was a series of depressing phone calls and when they phone calls ended, we were left feeling empty.

We didn’t know what to do next. We were emotionally, physical, and financially exhausted. We were told there was no real conclusion of why this round of IVF didn’t work. The doctors couldn’t tell if it was
an egg quality problem. We were told the sperm wasn’t acting completely as it should have (whatever that means). I was still giving Katie progesterone shots each night. Her body was ready for an embryo but we didn’t have one to transfer. We kept doing the shots until we figured out what we were doing. We didn’t want to wait for another cycle. We didn’t want more time to pass without being pregnant. We searched for options.

Embryo Adoption

We came across Embryo Adoption. This seemed like a great option and our clinic offered it. Using a donor egg and a donor sperm, the doctors would match our faces to the two donors and try to create a child that looked somewhat like us. I believe the price was around 12k and for that amount, you get three embryos. If one of those embryos didn’t result in 12 weeks of pregnancy, then you would get your money back, or three more embryos. This sounded like the best option for us. We would be able to do an embryo transfer soon. We read over the profiles of each donor and had them memorized. We signed the paperwork saying we had full parental rights to the embryos. We went in for the transfer.

We were planning to transfer two embryos because we hoped to have twins but we also knew with transferring two, the chances of at least one taking would be higher. As we sat in the waiting room of our clinic on transfer day, we sat in a busy room filled with many couples. All of the couples were older than us, and we both sat wondering if we were doing the right thing. If these other couples could have a baby, why couldn’t we? We weren’t sure if what we were doing was right but we wanted a baby so badly. It’s crazy what this process does to your mind. I felt like we were emotionally crazy for a baby and we would do anything to have one. We didn’t want to wait any longer. Our name was called to go back and so we walked back slowly to our exam room. Our nurse, who we had grown close with throughout our process came in for the transfer. As soon as she walked in, I started crying. She gave me huge hug. I looked over at Katie who was also crying. Our nurse told us we didn’t’ have to do this. She encouraged us to try one more time. We made the decision to walk out of that exam room without those two embryos. I still think about that day and how crazy it ended up. We decided to try one more time.

We went through the entire process again. The shots, the retrieval, finding another sperm donor. This time when my eggs were retrieved, ICSI was performed on half of them to ensure fertilization took place. 18 eggs were retrieved, 9 went through ICSI the day of retrieval while the other 9 were left for regular fertilization. In the end, 11 embryos were fertilized! This was amazing news!

Pregnant!

We went in for transfer day. We transferred two embryos, hoping for twins. We waited the long two week wait. We go the phone call that we were pregnant. We were so excited and went out and bought a pregnancy test, just to be able to see that word “pregnant” on a stick made all our dreams come true. We had wanted to see that word so badly. Pregnancy progressed and we eagerly awaited our ultrasound to see if both embryos had took. Before that day came though, a terrible day came instead.

Katie awoke early in the morning and I remember her calling me into the bathroom that morning. There
was blood all over the floor. I’m pretty sure all the color in my face drained and I panicked. The babies. Were they gone? The image I had in my head of us holding two babies vanished. I reassured Katie it was okay when deep inside I thought, nothing about this is okay. We scheduled an ultrasound for later that day to see what happened. We prepared ourselves to see nothing on the ultrasound machine and plan for another round of IVF.

We sat in that exam room trying not to cry and staring at the screen praying something would appear. To our surprise, a heartbeat appeared. What a relief it was to hear our one baby’s heartbeat. The huge blood clot we saw on the ultrasound sitting next to our tiny baby was terrifying. Our baby was still so small and the blood clot was many times the size of the baby. We were told the blood clot would most
likely take over the baby and end the pregnancy. It was unlikely our baby would survive.

However, time passed and eventually, our baby grew bigger than the blood clot. It wasn’t until the end of the second trimester when the baby was bigger than the blood clot and we actually started to get excited. We had our guards up the entire pregnancy wondering if our baby would make it. We both felt happiness and also relief when she was born. We were amazed to see a healthy baby. After everything we had been through, she was perfect. We couldn’t believe it. We were two unbelievably happy parents.

When the birth certificate paperwork came, we were able to fill it out as both being the “mother.” It was nice to see there were three options to check when you wrote your name: parent, mother, or father. I believe in the state of California, we both have equal rights to our children but we have never spoken to a lawyer. We just assumed that since we were both on birth certificate, we both have rights. My job has accepted the birth certificate as well as our marriage certificate for insurance reasons so this
is another reason I assume we were full parents. It’s a lot of assumptions though. The rights for parents who are gay is always questionable and I wish it wasn’t that way.

We are still happy with the path we chose to have our children. We went back a year later for frozen embryo transfer. We encountered more problems at the beginning of that pregnancy. At first, the tests showed we were pregnant, then they later showed we would miscarry or have an ectopic pregnancy. It was devastating news after exciting news and it was hard to handle. We spent weeks after that news waiting for a miscarriage or for signs of pregnancy in Katie’s tubes. The day came where Katie thought
she was having a miscarriage and we felt relief and sadness. We could try to move on after all this but we weren’t sure how long it would take for us to get over all this. However, when we went in, we saw a heartbeat. We were the second case this has ever happened. We felt fortunate and so happy. The rest of the pregnancy went as a normal pregnancy but we were cautious something could happen as it did in our last pregnancy. I have learned that none of our pregnancies will probably be normal. We have yet to have a pregnancy that hasn’t been filled with sadness and feeling cautious the entire time.

Would I go back and do it all over again? Yes! I love our two daughters so much and can’t imagine life without them. If we done it any other way, we wouldn’t have them here today. Of course I think about all the “what ifs.” I think about our almost Embryo Adoption. I think about the other embryo that was in the womb with our first daughter Kennedy. I think about how neither of our daughters weren’t even supposed to be here accounting to all the tests but they both beat the odds. We have two little miracles and we hope to continue to grow our little family in the future.

Parenthood is the best thing that has happened to us. There are many ways to create a family. It’s important to find the right way for you. Reciprocal IVF was what Katie and I both wanted but it’s not for everyone. Advice for those who are considering this path is to save money. Katie and I had saved for one round of IVF and ended up paying for two. We spent close to 30k for our first daughter Kennedy and around 8k for our second daughter Charlotte. Each clinic differs in cost. Insurance only covered medication for us. You also can’t predict if you will have any problems along the way. Another piece of advice I would give is to be there for one another. Katie and I experienced a very bumpy path to having kids but we supported each other. I have seen this journey break couples apart. We only grew stronger
through the process and we continue to grow as a team for our children. Having children was difficult but it all worth it. Katie and I always say that being parents is hard what we went through to get them
here was harder. Just remember that you are strong and you can do it. Parents are superheroes!

Christina @babybaileymamadrama