single mom

Vivid Dreams, Hormones and Loneliness

by lisadiane

It can’t all be unicorns and rainbows, can it? I know I normally make you laugh, but today I’m going to give you a little story about a reality check moment I had last week. For 19 weeks, almost 5 dang months, I have been an absolute emotional rock star. I’ve felt joyous and excited and strong and ready. I spent a year before getting pregnant preparing my mind for going through this alone. And one vivid dream activated the hormones.

One of my favorite symptoms of this pregnancy have been the vivid dreams. Most of them have been… ahem… really nice. The other night though, I had one that shook me. Let me tell you about it.

I walk into a bar with the man of my dreams. He’s brilliant, sharp, hilarious, attentive, patient, gorgeous, ambitious AND successful. Along with every other box checked on my dream man checklist. We sit at the bar, and he orders me a water and a juice without asking because he knows the baby only wants toddler food and drinks right now. He demands a menu because he knows I get lightheaded and hangry when then baby is hungry. When the bartender starts quizzing me on why I’m not drinking at a bar, he comes to my side with pride and explains that I’m pregnant. I order the mac and cheese because they don’t have peanut butter and jelly. Toddler food or bust.

Next bar we go to, same song and dance. At this point we are having a blast. I’m not hangry anymore so I’m back to my wild and crazy self, which he loves. He eggs me on and laughs with me while we make friends with everyone at the bar and tell inappropriate jokes. When I flirt with the bartender, he pretends he’s jealous, but he knows I’m obsessed with him and don’t have eyes for anyone else. I knew the second I laid eyes on him in the Cermak produce department that he was the one. He knows it’s important for me to have fun and be a normal person, not a recluse.

Next bar we hop too, he’s leading the charge. He’s making sure I’m hydrated and taken care of; he’s proudly telling everyone we meet about the baby. I’m next to him filled with adoration and gratitude to have such a wonderful man by my side. The bartender tells us how lucky we are to have found one another and how compatible we are and how he loves how we make each other laugh.

We leave in an Lyft to get home, and we tell dad jokes in the backseat, having a blast, making the driver of the Lyft laugh and just being crazy and having fun, just like we always do. We get back home and I wake up from my dream.

You know that moment after you wake from a great dream? You lay in bed trying to make the dream keep going. That moment when it’s no longer a dream, but a fantasy. I fantasized of all the memories me and my dream man would have over the next few months. Feeling the baby kick for the first time together. Going to the ultrasounds and seeing the baby wiggling around. Footrubs when my feet start swelling up. A Babymoon in Grand Cayman or The Bahamas because those are the only places the doctor will let us go because of Zika. The drive to the hospital when the contractions start. The final moments of it just being us two while I push and he holds my hand and then…

I had to cut myself off. Because I was sobbing. Because it was just a dream and a fantasy. And I’m alone. Those dang hormones and a dream finally broke me.

I’m an eternal optimist who lives and breathes by The Secret (The law of attraction and the power of positive thinking) so I do believe my dream man is out there and will find me some day.

Until then, I have reached the point where doing this alone has become a little sad and lonely. I used to brag that I get to make all my own decisions and don’t have to deal with someone else’s input, but then I’m sitting on the sofa a couple weeks ago, feel the baby move for the first time, and look to the other end of the sofa and realize it’s just me and I have no one to share that special moment with.

I know all my friends reading this are shaking their heads and wagging their finger at me saying, “you can always call me, I’m always there for you!” But they all know it’s not the same.

I debated writing about this and sharing this story because a) you’re all used to hilarious stories and clever tales from me and b) I don’t want anyone, especially my future baby to think I ever had one moment of pause on doing this.

Someone reminded me though that I have to tell this story and share my emotions for a few reasons. 1) all the single moms and future single moms out there reading this have to know that this journey isn’t all sunshine and rainbows and that it can be very lonely. 2) my child will read this some day and I never want them to resent me for doing this alone. I want them to know that I always planned on completing our family and giving them a father figure but I wanted them so desperately and didn’t want to miss my biological window 3) To validate for myself how much I do crave a partner and that even though I’m getting what I always prayed for with a baby, I remain diligent in my journey to also find love for myself. I remain hopeful that I will find a wonderful father for my child and supportive respectful partner for me someday.

I also want you all to know that it’s all good. I read this excavator book to my best friends child 14,324 times while snuggling on the sofa and I’m back to being so very excited for moments like this with my own little nugget. I’m so grateful that this worked. I’m constantly filled with gratitude that the Lord blessed me with this incredibly special gift when women and men all over the world including very good friends of mine suffer daily with fertility challenges. I’ll never take it for granted.

The excavator book. If you would like, I’ve memorized it and can tell you everything there is to know about excavators.

Thanks for your support on this journey, and I promise my next post will be filled with laughs.

A 20 Week Baby Bump to make you feel better after reading that post. Halfway there!

How to Pick a Sperm Donor 101

by lisadiane

“You don’t pick the sperm donor, the sperm donor picks you!”

Just kidding, I for sure had to pick my sperm donor. Been waiting for a live sperm donor to pick me for quite some time now.

Let me start by clarifying that I have no authority to consider myself an expert whatsoever on picking a sperm donor. I will contribute the success of getting pregnant to some great tips I got from people on how to pick.

Moral of the story, it’s all about the chemistry. Literally. In real life sperm chasing or the online form. As I’ve failed extraordinarily in picking or finding the right sperm donor in real life, I’m happy to say that I figured out the formula for picking the online version.

Here is my story.

When the doctor and I met to talk DIY baby making, I was surprised to find their was no manual, guide or best practices for how to choose a sperm donor. (All I knew was the version I was told growing up. Find a guy, any guy, marry him, and then make a family the good old fashioned way and then do his laundry and clean and cook for him as a thank you.) She showed me the Midwest Sperm Bank which was literally an excel spread sheet with the donors parents ethnicity, their blood type, age, job, some other rando information and then a spot for hobbies to which one donor had written, “Aaron Rodgers look alike!” Let’s just say while It did bring me a moments pause, my smarts kicked in and realized this was an excellent sales technique some dude was using and most likely my baby would look like Chewbacca and not Aaron.

When I started looking at the other sperm donor bank options, I was immediately overwhelmed before I even started. There are 135 sperm banks throughout the US, with hundreds if not thousands of options per bank. Along with that, human men, whether they were joking or not, for some reason started coming out of the woodwork and throwing their sperm at me when they found I was looking! (SUPER figuratively, not literally. Wow, that sounded crazy.)

I did a little internet research and found out the Seattle Sperm Bank had the best reviews. It also seemed they did a great job vetting their donors. There were baby pictures of the donors to look at, a full health profile, audio interviews, and more. It was WAY too much information. I prefer to be told what to do. Tell me which one is the best choice. All I want is a healthy baby, nothing else matters.

This process took me months as I had no one tell me how to pick! I hate shopping, and going through the list of donors was like shopping at TJMaxx. Lonely, confusing, hard to know what the good stuff is and what the filler items are. I had my sister in law attempt to help as well at first, but that was a lot of pressure to put on someone. Eventually I figured out how to navigate the process like I normally do. I wasted a few months searching through man profiles confused. Literally just like online dating.

I emailed the bank for help.

Based on advice from other women who had gone through the sperm donor selection process, there were only 3 things that were important in choosing a donor. And no. FAQ’s tells me you want to know the answer to this. I had zero cares in the world about what the baby looked like. Me, Denzel Washington, George Washington, or Lin Manuel Miranda, I didn’t care. I just wanted a healthy baby and to be able to get pregnant.

Here’s the list of MUST HAVE’S:

  1. Their blood type complimented mine. So this is important because it decreases your chance of miscarriage tremendously. Some blood types fight others and your body sees the sperm as a threat and not an adorable bouncing baby.
  2. They have no genetic preconditions. This was important to me as I didn’t want to spend the money getting my own genetics mapped. You both have to have the gene for the mutation in order to cause it, so if I have any bad genes, it wouldn’t be a problem because they didn’t have any genetic mutations.
  3. They had already had a live pregnancy. Many of the donors are first time donors and had yet to have their swimmers work in making a babe. Not that they won’t work. BUT because I literally had all my eggs in the IUI basket as I couldn’t afford IVF, this was important so I knew their little swimmers were as good as Micheal Phelps.

I sent this list of requirements to the Seattle Sperm Bank via email and they sent me back 8 choices. I was blown away. Because there were thousands of options to pick from, I couldn’t believe it was only 8 that fit these 3 simple things. And then I still had to pick 1. I wanted to narrow it down again, so I requested they narrow the list to include only the ones of those 8 who fit these requirements.

  1. 6 foot or taller (Because, why not? I could use some help on the higher shelves.)
  2. Smart (They will be rolling with me and I need them to hang. Because I’m sharp. As a tack. In the brains. Or they could help me graduate college. Shut up.)
  3. Athletic. (We be ballin’. I just want us to be able to play sand volleyball together like my mom and I do. Plus, scholarships.)

That narrowed it down to 3 choices. I was going to let my friends pick for me from those 3 options, but ended up picking myself because… let’s be honest, this isn’t The Bachelorette or an arranged marriage.

One of those 3 donors was out of stock, which helped me get it to two. Both of the two remaining donor options were amazing, but I recklessly (or… brilliantly) made the final decision because one of the sperm donors baby pictures had him in a Packers shirt. Where I’m from, being a Packers fan runs in the blood and I didn’t want to end up having to give my kid away because they turned out a Seahawks fan or something.

A picture of the sperm donor I selected as a child. Only a true Packer fan will understand that I had to chose this donor based on this picture. Packer blood runs deep.

Something interesting is that most donors now days are Open Donors, which means when the child is 18, they are allowed to seek out the donor. I’m guessing this is because with modern technology and DNA testing, they would be able to find them anyway. I struggle with this part of the narrative because my hope is that my child has a human father soon and never cares to know where their DNA came from. We will cross that bridge when we have to.

So here I am! Scientifically DIY pregnant with a chemically appropriate sperm donor. Hoping the next kid will be conceived by a sexually chemistry matched live sperm donor and the device to insert the sperm looks and feels a little different, but if not, I at least know the algorithm to get results.

TMI?

Oh, and here’s a little about the lucky donor. Eric wants to be a commercial real estate broker when he grows up. He’s only 25 right now. (Sperm donors have to be between 19-29) He has a sister. His mom is half Filipino and half Irish. His dad is German. He got a 1710 on his SAT’s and considers himself an introverted extrovert. He loves animals and BBQ, and is an amazing athlete.

This is a profile of the sperm donor I chose. It is just a summary, I was also able to listen to him talk, read about his and his families medical history, and more.

8 Weeks Pregnant/30 Days Sober

by lisadiane

Or 6 weeks. Whatever. At least the more time goes by it doesn’t feel as strange tacking on a couple extra weeks.

Even though I’m 9 weeks pregnant tomorrow, I thought I would give you an 8-week update. Honestly, I had such big plans to blog at least weekly. I think about it all the time. I have these great subjects and great pictures, but holy cannoli am I tired. If I could arrange life to nap between 2pm-4pm every day I think I would be fine. But that’s my only symptom.  Other than that, I have just had thoughts over weeks 6-8 and I figured I would share those with you in lieu of symptoms.

  • Riding on Birds/Limes/Spins/Scooters. – For sure one of my favorite forms of transportation.  You can read about my thoughts on them here.  Even though I’ve seen my mom and a friend of mine eat some serious crap on them over the past couple of weeks, I just love those things.  I figure I have to ride them until I start showing because a pregnant lady riding on an electric scooter will probably be frowned upon by most people I blow by.  I did google if the vibrations are safe of going over the bumps and stuff and apparently my little travel buddy is surrounded by a crap ton of amniotic fluid so they are fine.  Plus, don’t some pregnant people run?  That’s probably bouncy.  (You can tell I’m not familiar with the inner workings of “running”)
  • Meet my new best friend. –  It’s too embarrassing to talk about, but I literally couldn’t get through life without my best friend.  You can read about my best friend here.
  • Non-Alcoholic Beer Sucks. – Well, at least from what I’ve tried.  I’ve heard I’m supposed to give St. Pauli Girl a chance, but it’s not on the top of my priority list.  Mocktails though…  Milwaukee really rocks at making me feel like I’m drinking when I’m out with my friends.  Beautiful tasty drinks everywhere.  Detroit was amazing at it too.  I’ll have to blog separately (about Mocktails AND Detroit!) because I have so many delightful pictures of mocktails (and Detroit!).  I’ve been really proud of my friends for continuing to include me in after school activities.  In fact, I get to be the boat captain on the a pontoon ride down the river with some girlfriends on Friday. You might think they are taking advantage of me as a designated driver who is comfortable driving boats, but I see myself as a really cool boating friend! Keep in mind I’m down to about 7 months of freedom and have to live it up before someone arrives that calls all the shots. I want to do ALL the things.
  • Dating while pregnant is turning out to not be a thing. – Can’t say I haven’t tried.  I mean, in my mind I have a very limited amount of time to date the normal way.  *Insert daydream here of a date where a simple drink turns into dinner turns into a long walk turns into a makeout sesh turns into talking for hours until the sun comes up* *Then insert daynightmare of date where a drink has to end because your childcare facility closes as 6 and you hadn’t planned additional childcare for your spontaneous want to keep talking to handsome stranger date and then you have to go on 17 other 1 hour dates over the next 2 years with same guy just to get enough time to decide he’s not the one and you’ve spent a lot of money on childcare figuring that out*  I was going to continue to online date but really couldn’t wrap my head around how to manage the “bait and switch” of dating while pregnant.  I mean, I could put in my profile “I’m pregnant but don’t worry, there’s no father yet and that could be you!”  No, that makes me look psychotic and probably will attract some people but certainly not for the right reasons and I certainly don’t want to have to sort through that.  Dating has become a little more serious in my mind as well because I’m not only vetting a potential partner for myself, I’m now vetting a father for my child and this guy better be DAMN good because my child deserves the best. (Funny I never thought I deserved the best until now? Classic codependent.) I did attend a singles event at The Iron Horse Hotel last week with some friends though.  I had my mocktail in hand and did my thing where I was funny hoping that would attract some fish but turns out my personal brand of super extra with a side of sarcasm combined with the nervous energy I was fostering of hiding a “secret” from the guys I was talking to was not a winning combination.  No dates for me. Not worried though. There’s a guy out there looking for a single mom who is wildly successful (and by wildly successful I mean mildly successful), hilarious and often (always) inappropriate, who loves to travel, do outside things, do inside things, is happy 99% of the time, and displays her personal life for all to see via a very unpopular blog because she doesn’t know how to use technology or social media properly to advertise even though if she did she could probably get a book deal and live out her dream life of traveling and writing while observing humankind in all their different types of habitats for a living. 
  • My skin looks AMAZING. – At first I was 100% convinced I was having a boy because of my lack of symptoms and beautiful skin (apparently girls take away your beauty and make life miserable according to an old wives tale) but then I realize my skin looks this great 100% because I haven’t drank alcohol in over 30 days and I’m chugging water like it’s my job.  *Side Note:  I will not be finding out what I am having because I hate surprises but also like to challenge myself to step outside my comfort zone.
  • My child may come out of me with burst eardrums. – I drive a fair amount for work and normally listen to books on tape… er… I mean Audible but because of my temporary narcolepsy I am no longer able to improve my mind while in the car and now have to focus on my lung capacity and keeping myself awake. So I have been singing at the top of my lungs. I pick one artist or one station and go hard for my hour drive to and from Madison. So, my future traveling buddy will come out well versed in Paul Simon, Miranda Lambert, John Mayer, Hip Hop, Country Music, The Best of Hip Hop and R&B from the late 90’s and early 2000’s, The Best of the 90’s, and Yacht Rock.
  • I need a Night Nurse. – Yes, I’m still sleeping like a rock star.  Actually, sleeping is one of my superpowers.  Apparently, babies wake up every two hours.  I watched this movie called Tully (Just watch this preview) and now I’m hyper obsessed with Night Nurses. Night Nurses basically work 3rd shift and come over at night and take care of your baby while you sleep and clean your house and when it’s time for you to pump or nurse, they bring the equipment or baby to your bedside boob and hook everything up while you remain in REM if you would like.  When you wake up in the morning they are gone like fairies and your house is in perfect order, there’s breakfast waiting on the table, all your laundry is done, and your baby is content.   Despite the fact that they can cost $350-$1000 a night and that is certainly not in my budget.  You can find me at the casino nightly trying to win it big in order to add this childcare service to my life.  A good friend of mine has already offered to come into town from Arizona to night nurse for me for 4 nights as her baby shower gift.  I was overwhelmed with joy.  In fact, this concept is so fascinating to me, that my best friend just had a baby 4 weeks ago and they both weren’t sleeping well, so I went over there at 3 o’clock in the afternoon and told her to go to sleep.  I took care of and fed the baby, she woke up exclusively to pump every 4 hours (and to probably check on her child let’s be honest).  She got in 10 solid hours of sleep, I got in a shit ton of snuggle time.  I left at 7am.  Only thing is I did no cleaning. And I was pretty noisy when I left unlike a fairy. I also left a mess, ate her food and lost 3 pacifiers.  If you need a night nurse, you just give me a call.  I’m all about earning some good night nurse karma right now!
  • I’m sick and it won’t go away. – What the heck is this garbage?  I don’t get sick.  I have an award-winning immune system.  I can even drink the water in Mexico. I mean, who gets sick in summer?  I promise I will never take Sudafed for granted again.  I miss taking the drugs. So it’s been a solid week of a hard core cold and cough.  Annoying.  Someone told me I could take a Tylenol.  I laughed.  I might as well take a standard gummy bear and call it a day.
  • Finding childcare is going to be a pain in my rear. – A. Expensive. B. Inflexible. C. Inconvenient.  Is it too much to ask for childcare that is in my budget that allows for my flexible schedule?  If anyone wants to give me a lifestyle quiz and then take this task of finding childcare off my plate that would be great, thanks.  Apparently, you have to start before conception as well because there are waiting lists years long.  Should have thought about this 10 years ago. Anyone else downtown Milwaukee want to do a Nanny share or that does in-home care?  Or that doesn’t charge too much and wants to just hang out with my kid when I need you to?    
  • I don’t like my future travel buddy being compared to fruit. – So I changed the filter on my pregnancy app to strange things.  Last week my little travel buddy was the size of one of those firework poppers that you throw in the street and they explode.  This week it’s the size of a 2×2 Lego.  Can’t wait to find out what size they are tomorrow!
  • I made my first baby purchase.  –My amazing SIL Natalie send me a link to the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. I had to buy them. I mean, they were on clearance at Nordstrom Rack.  I pretty much had to.  I bought two sizes as well because my child will wear them and love them so much and then years later will be like, do you remember those shoes that looked like Sushi?  I loved those.  And then I’ll be like, well in fact I do remember those and I want to make your wildest dreams come true so here they are in your current size because I knew this moment would come.  And then I win at parenting.  See?  Always thinking ahead.  Super strategic they call me. 
The best dog in the world can’t wait for her new best friend to wear her face on their feet.

And that’s about that for my thoughts! Thanks for joining me on this journey! Look forward to sharing all the things with you.

Lisa