A New Family

I exercise semi-regularly (running/swimming 2-3 times a week + cycling to/from work), and have been trying to find evidence about the effects of exercise on conception/pregnancy.

General advice on the web can be a little confusing. BabyCentre come down in favour of exercise (within certain parameters), quoting a Norwegian study of 42 women that showed no relationship between exercise intensity and birth outcomes. (To me, 42 is too few women to draw any firm conslusions).

A review from the respected Cochran Database says the jury's out with regard to pregnancy outcomes and that larger trials are needed.

The Royal College of Obstetricians gives some quite detailed advice supporting exercise, but with few references to supporting evidence.

More important to me at this time, I've seen absolutely nothing with regards to exercise and chances of conception. So what should I do? I went running the day after insemination this month, and then spent the next couple of days worrying that I might have dislodged the little swimmers en route. I've avoided running since, fearful that the impact of pavement running, in particular, could prevent implantation. I have absolutely no evidence on which to base this though, and that's a shame. A large prospective study in this area shouldn't be too hard to design.

For now, I think I'm going to concentrate on swimming/cycling in the second fortnight of the month, and save running for the first. This is based entirely on avoiding my own worries, and I would much rather make an informed choice. If anyone knows of better evidence in this area, please comment?

One last point. Most of the guidance I've read in this area suggests keeping heart-rate down to 145 or below. Obviously, I've no idea about heart rates once you're carrying a baby, but, right now, I struggle to see the fun in that. Can low impact exercise really be fun? I guess I'm going to have to find out!

I'm calmer and worrying less about the "am I, amn't I?" question. I think, basically, I'm not. Having accepted that, it's easier to move on and look forward to Cagney's first try in the next week or 10 days.

When I was young, one of my friend had a granma who read tealeaves. (I think some of my gran's friends did too, but they weren't as terrifying as this Blitz-hardened East-Ender which is why I remember her more clearly).

You would have to drink down a cup of hot sweet tea (yuk!) and she would grab the cup, upturn it, peer into the saucer and tell you tales about what the future held. Throughout the tale she'd be pointing at the patterns in the tealeaves, saying "see? This shape here means...".

I feel now just like I did then - straining to decipher the patterns in those tealeaves. Charting my temperature and over-interpreting every little blip.

One week's waiting down. One more and we will know one way or another. Roll on next weekend!

It's so typical when you want your period to happen & it doesn't. I had told Travolta the next dates he was to drop his drops & have now had to change them. I was terrified that I might be having an early menopause! I only came on 3 days late in the end, I think it was just the stress of everything waylaid it.

So, it's my turn maybe next weekend or a few days after that. I'm not really looking forward to cycling across town to meet him whilst he spills his load in his work toilet, & then having to cycle back home with it in my panniers & trying to avoid all the potholes & speedbumps...I sure it will be fine tho ;~)

So I've been getting waves of (very) mild nausea for the last couple of days. Can this be a very (very - only 5 days post insem!) early symptom of pregnancy? I don't know enough about the biology, but I suspect not.

So my mind is playing games on me. Great. Just what I wanted when I need to trust what my body's telling me!

Travolta drove across town at short notice with a fresh sample lat night & we wasn't so flustered when we met up as the first night. Although Riply did put her foot in it & suggested that when we meet up socially next weekend that "maybe we could have a quicky in the toilets"....meaning me & her but it came out all wrong!! We had a good laugh about it tho & it broke the ice.

We are using 10ml syringes (without the needles of course) that we purchased from ebay. We have to wait 2 weeks now to see what happened. It's my first attempt on the 4th November, although if Ripley's poitive I'll hold off & wait & see if she's definately pregnant. Don't really fancy having 2 lots of nappies to change just yet!

We use LH testing kits to predict ovulation - in conjunction with monitoring temperatures, they're supposed to be helpful in predicting the best time for insemination. Everything I read on the subject, however, gets less and less clear on when this optimal time actually is. The closer to ovulation the better, and early rather than late seems to be the message. LH levels surge 24-36 hours before ovulation, so we inseminated on the day of the surge and the next day. Will this work? Who knows! (Watch this space).

The tests we used were "Advanced LH Home Ovulation Tests" kits from Access Diagnostics. They're cheap, simple to use, and arrive within a day or two of ordering. Please note: this is not intended to be an advert/endorsement/whatever - but it took us a while to find an affordable source of these things, and thought it might be useful to give a link for anyone else looking.

It wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. I imagined it would end up in a messy mess, & that I would drop the syringe on the floor & the dog would eat it, but everything went smoothly, I think the glass of champagne helped, as we were all nerves & giggles. We have to do this all again tomorrow so we should be old pro's at it by then!

This is about our attempt, as a lesbian couple (to protect our anonymity, we'll call ourselves Cagney and Ripley!), to create a child.

We've been making preparations for months now:

• finding someone who wanted to father a child
• getting to know each other and our hopes for what this could bring
• drawing up a co-parenting agreement
• monitoring baseline temperatures
• monitoring ovulation

More details on all these to follow. But for now - finally - the day has dawned, and we made our first attempt at insemination! We're keeping our options open, and are going to both try, and see who "catches" first. First turn is mine (Ripley).

Our father-to-be (who we'll call Travolta) delivered the sperm as arranged. The words "embarrassing" and "awkward" barely describe our attempts at smalltalk! Then we were left to get down to it - making love with a syringe of semen is a whole new experience. Kinda scary but lovely too.

And now it's fingers crossed (and legs crossed). Will have another go tomorrow, then wait two weeks and hope!