We were a nice, low-profile, upwardly mobile lesbian couple with a 3-bedroom house that seemed far too empty far too much of the time. I worked in the quality assurance department of a pump manufacturing facility, and Krys was a physician’s assistant. She worked in a clinic that provided services to a mostly homeless, drug-addicted population. We were both socially conscious, and enjoyed putting in volunteer hours for various charitable organizations.
All that was missing in our life together was the proverbial “pitter-pat of little feet.” After thinking about it for a couple of years, we decided to go for it, and began researching our options. Krys had had a hysterectomy (part of a nasty cancer scare) fairly early in our relationship, so I was the obvious choice to carry and give birth to our child. The only question was how conception would take place.
Oh, sure, we considered picking up some healthy looking stud in a bar. We also thought about asking the brother of a friend to donate to our cause, but realized the possibility of strings and complications was too great. We even toyed with the idea of mugging an anonymous donor (“Get it up or we’ll shoot!”). Eventually we settled on the far less exciting, but probably safer (and imminently much more legal) solution of consulting the local fertility clinic.
After sifting through countless web pages of donor information and profiles, we finally settled on donor 9824, who we later affectionately referred to as Tank, a nod to his liquid nitrogen bearing containment unit (we even made a cute little video of Tank sitting in my recliner relaxing before getting to work on his appointed duty). But I’m getting a little ahead of myself…
Prior to our first (and only) attempt at conceiving our child, I went through more medical tests than a NASA astronaut candidate. Hormone levels, daily temperature records, diet regimens (yeah, right, I just ate my bowls of Lucky Charms in the privacy of my bathtub). Oh, and this hideous little exam called a hysterosalpingogram (HSG for those who don’t wish to tie their tongues in knots). I won’t bother to explain that one, you can look it up. Most of this medical mayhem was executed because of my age. Boy, if you want to get over that feeling of youth and vigor, just try having a baby at the age of 38. The first time your doctor whips out the term “advanced maternal age”, you’ll be cured of it. At least I had a family history of this sort of thing. My own mother was 40 years old when she had my little sister. I was not quite 14, and you better believe I nearly lost what little mind I had at that age when it occurred to me just exactly what my mom and step-dad had been to doing to make THAT happen!!! But that’s another story.
So there I was, poked, prodded, and proclaimed fit for pregnancy, but with questionable egg-viability (because of course, my eggs are as old as I am – sheesh!). My OB/GYN therefore recommended a mild dose of Clomid (a fertility booster of sorts) to sort of even out the playing field. What she perhaps forgot to mention was that as a woman advances in years, her bodies sometimes overcompensates by releasing more than one eggs during an ovulation cycle. Add to that the fallopian flushing-out which was an added side benefit of the HSG procedure, AND the Clomid, and you’ve got a recipe for a WHOPPER of a surprise!
A few days following the insemination, I detected a good bit of spotting that is typical of what happens when a fertilized egg implants in the uterine wall. So I was pretty darned sure we had hit a bull’s-eye on our very first try!! We held off on the official celebration, though, until we got a positive pregnancy test. And celebrate we did. Invited our friends over to make the announcement, shared all the hugs and the tears and excitement that come with such an event. We had the usual conversations about whether we hoped for a boy or a girl. We expressed that we were SORT OF hoping for one of each. Twins would be awesome! And for awhile, everything seemed to be progressing perfectly.
Six weeks in, however, around 3:00 on a Sunday afternoon, to be exact, something seemed very wrong. I began having a lot of sharp lower abdominal pain, and Krys thought it best to take me to the emergency room. Once there, following triage (during which I noticed I’d gained a little more weight than I thought I should have at that point, and made a mental note to cut back on the Lucky Charms), we were taken right away for an ultrasound examination. The technician, after gooping me up with that nasty, near-frozen gel they use, applied the transducer to my belly. Krys was standing at my side holding my hand and looking very worried. I couldn’t see the ultrasound monitor, and wouldn’t have known what I was seeing if I could have. Krys, however, could see, and did know. Her initial look of worry changed suddenly to one of outright terror, and at about the same time, the technician blurted out, “Oh dear, I’m not set up for this!”
I tried to remain calm, but further explanation was not forthcoming, so I finally raised up on one elbow to get a look at the screen. As the tech ran off to get a different machine, Krys pointed at the still shot that was still on-screen. In an uncharacteristically shaky voice, she said, “Look at ‘em honey: one, two, THREE. Huh…”
“Three WHAT?” I asked nervously.
“Remember how we said we’d like to have twins? Well, guess what? It looks like we got the ‘buy two, get one free’ special!”
NEXT TIME: The calm before the calamity…
