THE BEGINNING (sort of)

THE BEGINNING
 (but not even close to the start)

2013 – 2015

This all began at that simple place; the easy, unassuming beginning. Claudine and I wanted the challenge of sharing our lives and love with a brand new human. So we started this journey.

We naïvely assumed that this would be a reasonably ‘simple’ process. But I guess the best of voyages are never that easy. For brevity – because too many details are boring to recap – I will oversimplify the events over the course of this affair that took much time, a few tedious medical procedures, and occasional tears.

Because we were lacking a ‘key chromosomal ingredient’ we addressed that issue first. This, ironically, was one of the first/easiest things we got sorted out. Perusing an online catalog of potential sperm donor candidates, basically Facebook for sperm – or JizzBook as it became known in our house – was exhausting, hilarious and rife with trepidation. In the end and after much analysis we chose a donor match for his: health, appearance and perceived personality. After pondering over the decision and choices for many weeks we ultimately decided that this guy stuck out to us from the other candidates. (Plus if I had to spend anymore of my life looking through donor catalogues I might have expired.)

We chose an Open ID Donor, which means that our child can decide to make contact, if they wanted to at age 18. For us this seemed like an option best to leave open. After much consideration and some silent resignation to the fact that we were spending our hard-earned money on ‘stranger sperm’ we finally clicked purchase and hoped that he didn’t lie on his application and wasn’t actually some sort of rampant axe murder. But really, who doesn’t like a good ole fashioned axe murderer? Oh yeah, that’s right, nobody.

Many months passed and life sprinted on. Claudine went for initial tests to check her fertility, these turned into more tests and then other tests and test and tests. The problem with this process is that it is cycle based. One month led into another – very much like a rusting Slinky staggering languidly down a staircase; time slunk along.

Fast-forward through many major life events and we found out that Claudine had to have a procedure to remove a polyp from her uterus. (I will refrain from ever using the words polyp and uterus in the same sentence ever again.)

While this small mass was non-threatening to her overall health, the doctors explained to us that it would not make for a very welcoming 9-month incubator to a growing baby. We were then referred to a specialist in this field and we had to drive really far, to another hospital in another city, because that’s where this particular professional worked. Hospitals always make me feel a little sticky all over.

I wanted to fold into a tiny package of melancholy when they wheeled her away to the Operating Room on the morning of the surgery. The procedure was mercifully short and completely successful, everything went well and she was off to a full recovery. Polyp-free and extra awesome.

After that operation she endured the tedium of scans with a full bladder, empty bladder, inside bladder, outside bladder. After what seemed like an army of angry tests it turned out that Claudine’s body was unable to produce a viable egg of her own. The fact that my wife is 40 (at the time) but still looks like she is 22 made this all the more unanticipated.

“Am all outta eggs.” I sang to the tune of Air Supply’s classic 80’s rock ballad All out of Love.
We laughed the sadness away and over time, we found peace.

She was very sad. And I was very sad for her sadness.
But our story didn’t have to end there.
We had other options.

Life peddled away and moved ever onwards.

My fertility tests came back with very promising levels; not unlike an overly keen salmon swimming upstream to spawn, my body was unreservedly ‘egg-y’.

“Am so full-a eggs.”

The next hurdle was that the eggs we had were simply in the wrong place.

I can’t carry a baby, because I don’t want to, because it might not be the most advisable thing for my heart condition. And Claudine felt really strongly about wanting to be pregnant, because she is crazy awesome.

We were refereed to a fertility clinic here in Toronto and through a cycle of IVF (in vitro fertilization) we could ‘harvest’ my eggs and transfer them into her to carry.

Holy Science, Batman!

Once we knew the exact plan, we then had to wait until after I had fully recovered from having open-heart surgery to start the Ovarian Stimulation protocols in order for me to lay* all of the eggs. (*“Lay the eggs” is not an official term, but I believe strongly that it should be)

Many months passed and life galloped on and on and on…