Conception

What we did and when.

We were tracking my cycle on an app called Fertility Friend that showed that I would be due to ovulate on 10th Feb.  You want to have sperm in your body before you ovulate as sperm can live in the body for 5-7 days and eggs have a much shorter lifespan (something like 24-48 hours).

As such, we artificially inseminated (details to follow) on the 7th, 8th and 9th Feb.  We are not 100% sure which day was ‘the’ day and you have to remember the length of time that sperm can linger in there for.  So I might have been late in ovulating and my egg was fertilised on the 15th?  Who knows.  We are just so happy.

The method –

Our first day, the 7th, we dropped off a specimen pot (sterilised) with our known donor, waited till we got the ‘I’m done’ message, and collected.  We took it home (20 minute drive) and Ashley inserted the semen using a needle-less syringe, then gave me an orgasm (clitoral action only).  We felt like there was quite a bit of wastage doing it this way as so much of it seemed to come out when I stood up (about 30 minutes after insertion).

The next twice, Ashley was at work, so I met the donor early morning on both days and inserted the baby-juice a different way, I used my Mooncup (menstrual cup).  So I emptied all the semen from the specimen pot into my Mooncup and inserted it.  I then lay with my legs in the air for approx. 30 minutes in an attempt to guide the little swimmers.  I kept the Mooncup in for about 5 hours.  After taking it out, as a big lesbian, the sight is not nice!    Old, yellow-ing, smelly sperm.  Don’t look and flush it ASAP is my advice.

26th Feb 2016

So yesterday, after having tender breasts and a sudden dislike for the smell of FryLight cooking spray, Ashley and I decided to make the journey to Tesco and buy a ClearBlue pregnancy test (my period was due 24th Feb).

It came up positive! This was our first try! So the result just felt absolutely surreal.  There were also a few tears.

We felt the need to go back to Tesco and pick up another test, ‘just in case’.  This was also a positive.  Sitting on the bathroom floor with A waiting on the little digital test window to show ‘pregnant’ and then ‘1-2 weeks’ was just insane.  Good insane.

Now, I am a google-r, a researcher.  Always have been, it is actually annoying and takes up so much time and effort to ensure that I am getting the very best of whatever it is that I am looking into, but that it’s also affordable.  So the best that I can possibly afford.  It takes hours, sometimes days.

Being a crazy researcher, I looked into pregnancy at 1-2 weeks.  Never do this.  Chemical pregnancies and early miscarriage just seemed to keep popping up so today…I spent the entire day, every 20 mins, checking for blood, to see whether I had lost the baby.

This is going to be a long 9 months.