Signed, Sealed, Delivery

BY AMBER LEVENTRY

My partner and I are ready to have children.  Unfortunately, there is no amount of romance, alcohol, or love that will allow us to produce a child.  As a same-sex couple, there is much more involved than being ready.

I don’t have sperm.  Neither through biology nor metaphor.  I am fine with this detail, but when my partner and I decided that, yes, we want to have children, it became a very important and glaring detail in our quest to obtain a child.

Thankfully, we have options.  However, stealing a baby is not one of them.  Over the course of a year, I have watched my partner shift from being capable, yet somewhat unsure around kids, to willing to snatch a baby out of a baby Bjorn while I create a diversion to distract its unsuspecting mother.  The biological clock is fascinating.

We are definitely advocates for adoption, but we eliminated that option for now.  We just can’t ignore the craving to go through pregnancy, to raise a child that is biologically connected to us, to one of us at least.

Amy, my partner, is excited for the opportunity to become pregnant so she will be the one to carry the baby.  I, on the other hand, have no desire to be in such a state.  I actually fear that, somehow, I will accidentally become pregnant during this process.  Our gynecologist assures me that this is not possible.

So, we need sperm.  For us, picking a donation from a sperm bank created too many variables, too much mystery for us and this hypothetical child we want to conceive.

Very easily we settled into the idea of asking one of our best friends to be our donor, our baby daddy.  Contrary to some people’s initial reaction to our plan, this method will not increase our chance of having multiples, nor will my partner and baby daddy being going on a ‘date.’

It felt natural to us to ask him to fill the only void in our desire to start a family.  Because I will not be biologically related to this child, when choosing between an anonymous and known donor, I felt disconnected from the idea of picking a number from a sperm bank.  We could choose a donor with characteristics that match mine, but it didn’t feel right.  I selfishly feared that I would not be a significant part of this child’s creation.

Because I know and love this man, I felt a huge sense of belonging and inclusion when we decided to ask him for his swimmers.  And we tried to think into the future.   Amy and I know there will come a time when the kid wants to know who its biological father is.  We want to be able to provide a name and a face with this answer.  We don’t want the kid to feel like they have to leave the family we have created to find a piece of him or herself.

This man and his wife, by being part of our lives, will be a very big part of our child’s life, whether biology permits it or not.

And we trust his ability to be invited into our lives in this intimate way, yet keep himself at an unbiased and emotional distance.  He has called himself simply the ‘co-cultivator.’  We will be the child’s parents.  Since he has said yes to our request, this has not wavered.  The same can be said for his wife.

This process started two years ago.  It had to.  There are just too many logistics involved.

We waited a year to really make sure our decision was complete.  We wanted all four parties to be 100% confident knowing that one of our best friends would be the biological father of our child.

After all, Amy will be carrying a baby made in part by a man who we will continue to see on a regular basis.  And then there is the very good chance that the baby will look like its father.  He or she might have his mannerisms, might remind us everyday of him.

Next are the legal documents and extraordinary costs that go with them.  My partner and I are finalizing our Living Wills, Power of Attorneys and our Advance Medical Directives, capturing the rights we don’t automatically get as a same-sex couple.

After several months and drafts, we have finalized the Sperm Donor Contract, a seven page document that details the nature of all parties’ rights and roles regarding the child we hope to create.

We have learned that though we are all signing this contract that says the father will give up all parental rights, this can’t actually happen until the baby is born.  From the point of conception until birth, I technically don’t have any rights over the child.  Because I live in Vermont—a state that will recognize my parentage over this child—my name will be on the baby’s birth certificate as a second parent, but I can not adopt the baby until the biological father terminates his rights.

The contract is also an agreement upon medical tests we are requesting he have done, upon the number of times per month he will contribute his sperm, based on the time of Amy’s ovulation.

Frankly, I am over the fact that this is too much information for some people.  It is what it is and I am okay with explaining the process to quell curiosity or ignorance.  For the next several months, our lives will be dictated by the fascinating and somewhat gross rhythms of my partner’s body.

We don’t have the benefit of being surprised by a pregnancy, of conceiving a baby while on a romantic getaway, or at a family member’s house during a holiday visit.  We have to know when baby making time is most optimal, so that we and baby daddy can be in town and within 20 minutes of our house post-contribution.  Twenty minutes is roughly the amount of time the sperm, while cozy in a sterile container between the legs, can live once it has left its home.

The original plan was for all of us to meet in a doctor’s office; baby daddy would be in one room and provide us with his contribution.  It would be transferred to another room, where said doctor would do the honors of inseminating my partner.

However, because of liability issues, hospitals or doctors will not perform inseminations from known sperm donors without the rigorous background checks of a sperm bank.  This would be very expensive and time consuming, so we are going with option number two:  me.  I will have the important and slightly terrifying task of inseminating my partner.

All of these plans have been made based on ideal and hypothetical situations.  We have spent two years preparing, paying and yearning for something that does not exist.

This tells us that, and perhaps confirms to others, that this is what we really want.  We are certainly not having a child to fulfill an agenda to multiply and replenish the earth’s population.  We don’t feel pressure to have kids, we just feel ready.

We know this will be the biggest and best choice of our lives.  We are excited to pass on our values, our senses of humor and our traditions.  As much as we hope to teach them about kindness, awareness, and open-mindedness, we know we’ll learn more from this child than we can ever teach.

When I take a step back from all of the planning and details, I start to worry about the things that will come with being an expectant parent and then parent.  I worry about the health of my partner, the baby, and all of the things that can go wrong.  I worry about keeping my sanity while maintaining a balance between work, friends, and family.

All of the planning is coming to an end and we hope to see results soon.  I know more about my and Amy’s body than I ever wanted to know.  I have seen pictures of things I never knew existed.  And I when I picture the egg bursting through the ovary, into the fallopian tube, and then fertilized by the sperm, I can’t help but think of science experiments and science fiction movies.

Because of all of this I have called this thing we are trying to make a creature.  Amy insists that if I keep it up she will donate her uterus to science and mine can be use for the nine-month baby motel.  Point taken.

The book we have found incredibly useful is called Taking Charge of Your Fertility, The Definitive Guide to Natural Birth Control, Pregnancy Achievement, and Reproductive Health, written by Toni Weschler, MPH.