I wouldn't call it *popular* demand...

A few people have expressed interest in continuing to read my story here on babycraft. Or at least reading a thrilling conclusion. And I realize I do feel interested in sharing these experiences again. So. Back to our regularly scheduled programming.

The last post I made here was in May of 2009. More than a year ago. Let's catch up. In the intervening year...

I spent a lot of time and energy professionalizing myself as a librarian. I completed my first clumsy forays into the profession, as an intern, as an underpaid student worker. I graduated from my MLS program, I went to the ALA Annual Conference and enjoyed the nerdfest. (Librarians aren't really sexy hot like all the fantasies say, but the girls working at the Penguin Publishing pavillion on the expo floor were.) I am on an ALA book award committee now, and that means I read gay books like its my job. Its amazing to have found a profession that is this organic to my real interests and talents. I found a job, its only part time for now, but I dig it. I work at a small college in Brooklyn, I do reference and library instruction, and am trying to wrestle their college archive into an intellectual arrangement that makes any sense. Its literally the best job I've ever had. I understand now the difference between having a job and having a career.

Jen and I decided to get married, for real, like, you know married with the cake and everything. We've been saying we were going to get married for almost as long as we've been together, and we were starting to plan earlier in the year. But when Jen put an engagement ring on my finger last February, it was like we had translated ourselves into English. They were all like..."Ohhh...MARRRIED!" My mom threw us an engagment party. We began to receive lovely and completely unrequired gifts - may I brew you some coffee in my french press? Or perhaps pack a picnic for us in my tricked out wicker picnic basket? No? Ok. I'll just be over here, powering through mixing cake batter with infathomable speed in my Kitchenaid mixer if you need me.

Now that other people think we're getting married, we really have to plan the wedding. This summer we got a lot done. Picked a venue, reserved hotels, picked a baker for the cake, picked a sort of theme (creepy line drawings of birds), and generally got the ball rolling so fast in one particular direction that we certainly can't stop or change course now. Not that I want to, I'm just trying to convey the...velocity of our intention. We're getting married in Ogunquit, Maine in July 2011. I like the "Saved by the Bell: Hawaiian Style" feeling of uprooting everyone from their lives here in NYC and CT and piling them all together in an unfamiliar place. It's a very special two part episode of Rose and Jen and while I'm nervous and concerned about money, I am also thrilling with anticipation.

In this process of announcing an engagement and planning for the wedding, we've come out all over again to our families. Which I now realize is the point of a marriage, and why marriage equality is such an important issue. Grandparents can't really rationalize to themselves that you're just friends. Aunts and uncles can't pass you off to young cousins as just roommates. You're relationship is out and present every time you walk into a room with a ring on. So many times now, we've gone to an event, a tangential family event, a cousin's baby shower for example, where non-relatives are there, and "This is Rose, and her fiance Jen". Smiles and friendly chat. And after I leave my mom gets a little grilling. "So you're comfortable with that?" And my mom, because she loves me and she loves Jen and she loves justice and because she's a great lady, sticks up for us and asks why anyone would ever think she'd be uncomfortable with her daughter finding love that seems lasting and honest, with someone who is so smart and sweet and successful. Before we didn't have to deal with that. People could misrecognize the word girlfriend, or we could just gloss over our connection. But choosing to get married means we're choosing to be always introducing ourselves as out, socially.

We did all this. And we also did the every day things. Fed the dogs approximately nine hundred and ninety times. Painted the hallway. Bought new shelves. Visited our families. Went outlet shopping. Kept trying to have a baby.

At this point, that's not a special event. Its a regular part of our life, and every day we do it or plan to do it in some way.

This doesn't mean we inseminated every month for the past year. Far from it. I did go through 5 insemination cycles at Callen Lorde. But there were a variety of issues. First the sperms weren't swimmy. Then my cycle turned bizarre. And between the two things, we ended up with a well timed, likely insemination maybe one time out of five. So, probability being what it is, that would be a .2 chance of having a good insemination multiplied by the .2 chance that any IUI insemination will work (and that's VERY generous) which gives me a .04 chance of being pregnant or having a gorgeous mewling infant in the next room.

I'm not. I don't.

It all got a little frustrating and a little expensive. People that weren't even married when we started thinking about this started lapping us, having kid after kid, through the simple joy of having sex with each other. I wouldn't call myself jealous, what they have doesn't negate the possibility of what I can have. But I will say that my wanting is keener and more directed. I hypothetically wanted to have a child before. Now, I want to have a child.

All of those things that we did in the last year and half - professionally, in our relationship, with our families - these things have helped us to be ready. We are more mature and more financially stable and more in love. There is more of us every day. And I guess, to put it poetically, I do trust that this more, this excess will ripen and grow into a child for us.

But biology and poetry are two different things. So I have an appointment with a reproductive endocrinologist next month. My cycle has been uncooperative, to say the least. I experienced a 96 day gap between cycles. I didn't get my period all summer. All the tests I've done so far have shown nothing but healthy, normal outcomes. Hopefully the RE can help explain and rectify the situation. I expect there will be more tests and then we'll start inseminating again in a few months.

People always wonder why I would do that with the wedding coming up. "Don't you want to be able to drink at your wedding?" I can't explain how drunk I'd be on joy if I were pregnant when Jen and I get married.