How Are Babies Made?

Only a few more days until I'm flying off to Colorado. I'm so excited for the little vacation to a beautiful place to see my lovely friends who feel like family. I think this time spent there will be sweet, fun, and maybe a little interesting as far as the inseminations are concerned. 

It'll be kind of fun to inseminate myself. Such an interesting journey toward getting pregnant. Certainly different, but bringing children into the world can happen in so many different ways! I'm really appreciating family right now. My kids spent the night with me last night and I just savored all the time with them, even though Milo was awake for hours in the middle of the night and just wanted me to sit with him and stroke his hair...I loved all of it. No, missing sleep isn't the greatest, but I'm really seeing more and more that time flies. These kids are growing so fast and I just want to remember all of it. Watch their faces when they tell stories, see them smile, smell their hair when I hug them so tight, listen to the sound of their little voices and laughter. I love them so much. They mean the world to me. I wonder what it will be like to grow this baby we're all trying to conceive and then hardly ever see it. It'll be such a different relationship. But still a very loved little person, by all of us. Such a huge idea to ponder for me and I know that it will slowly unfold more as I experience it all first hand.

I've had a few conversations about how to go about this insemination process. The midwife I've been working with had lots of ideas. Many of which I had already contemplated. Most importantly, she had good pointers on how to get the swimmers up there. I just picked up a few 10cc syringes from her this morning, that I can use to inject the semen up near the cervix...although looking at them now I'm wondering how accurate this will be. There will probably be some awkwardness with these different methods and tools. Don't be surprised, Lisa and Brooks, if you hear me talking to myself, cursing, or laughing at the newness/strangeness/funniness of this situation. There is the syringe method as well as the Instead method. The Instead Softcup is another option for collecting menstrual blood, instead of using a Keeper, Diva cup, sponge, or tampon. However, in this situation I pour the semen into the dip of the Instead, fold it up, like origami, and insert it into my vagina (while lying down) and get it up as close to my cervix as I can without spilling a drop. Um...this sounds like acrobatics to me. And I can totally see this being a hilarious skit (take note Lisa). So I'm thinking I'll need to practice this whole insertion thing with the Instead before I put the sperm in there. I would hate to have it slip out of my hand and bounce across the floor. The goal is not to impregnate the floor. The other idea is that maybe I can use the two different tools in combination. Maybe use the syringe to get the swimmers up there and then put in the Instead cup to hold it all in place while I sleep. In any case, it'll be fun to write about. It would also be really wonderful if through all of this, there could be a baby who starts growing in here. Little person, whoever you are, you are the reason we do all this crazy stuff. You must be one lucky little kid. You picked some pretty cool people to do some funny stunts in order to bring you earthside.