A New Family

So,

it's now 14 and a half weeks and everything looks fine. The midwife visited last week and we heard the baby's heartbeat. The 12 week scan showed no problems, and finally I am relaxing! But I spent the first 12 weeks of this pregnancy convinced I would miscarry at any moment. I spent time on the web searching for my symptoms (or lack of symptoms) and what they might mean. In case anyone else gets crazy like me, I thought I'd list all the things that worried me, needlessly. If these things happen to you too - they're not a sign of impending doom!

• Pains. About 4 weeks (just the 2 days after my period was due), I had fairly constant moderately bad pain in my lower abdomen. The GP suggested it might be a sign of ectopic pregnancy, but they faded over the next day and haven't come back. Maybe my uterus was welcoming a new guest?
• No symptoms. Everything I read said sore breasts are the commonest early sign of pregnancy. So when mine were sore, it was comforting. But then they'd suddenly feel absolutely normal - sore for a week, or a couple of days, then nothing for another several days. That was the most scariest, after Cagney's miscarriage which was preceded by a loss of symptoms. But, again, everything was fine. The soreness normally returned after a few days (although they've now been pretty much pain free since 10 weeks).
• No nausea/vomitting. Really. Absolutely none! I got really lucky here, but again, at the time, took it as a bad sign. But not every woman gets morning sickness. Some (about 20%) don't!
• More pains. At various times I'd have brief sharp pains, or longer period-like cramps. The web suggested these were scary only if accompanied by bleeding (which they weren't). I'm now getting used to them - figure it's the uterus stretching.

So. Maybe this is useful for you. Maybe it's useful for me to remind myself what a worrywort I can be!

We got a comment on a recent post asking about how we found a father, and what legal steps we took in the UK. So, thinking back to a over year ago when our first firm steps began.

After talking half-seriously about starting a family, Cagney and I realised we would like a father, not just a sperm donor, and set about thinking how to find one. We considered ads in the gay press (there are often one or two in the Pink Paper) but that had the disadvantage that we thought it could take a long time to get to know someone well enough from scratch. Around the same time, Cagney started asking (almost) any man we knew if they wanted to give us some sperm - even to the point of asking a straight friend who'd recently got married - in front on his wife! Anyway, one guy responded with "if you're serious, we should talk about this sober".

Having a friend as a father works well in a lot of ways - we already knew that we got on, knew about how long he can maintain close friendships (we're hoping that's a marker for how long we'll maintain a family relationship) and have some trust and common ties before we began. But I think we got lucky - I'm not really sure what we'd have done if Travolta hadn't been keen.

There followed lots of conversations (some quite awkward) about what all our expectations were, and the mechanics of how the insemination would work. We wanted to be clear from the start that we would be 3 equal parents, so we made an appointment with a solicitor (picked from an ad in Diva) to discuss the legal hows.

The legal bit

As Cagney and I are civil partners, that makes things easier (I don't know what would be different if we weren't, but what follows may be specific to the situation of civil partners). In the UK, only 2 people can be listed on the birth certificate. We thought these should be the biological parents. But anyone else can be given "parental rights" simply by signing a document. All 3 people then have equal rights about decisions about schooling, where the child lives etc, but only the biological parents would have the right to put the child up for adoption.

We set out in a legal agreement our intentions - why we were doing this, what commitments we were making to each other and any child. I don't recall the full cost, but it was about a few £100.

Once the child is born, we will need to get the parental rights sorted, so are planning to revisit the solicitor in the months before the birth so that they can be transferred to Cagney asap after the birth. With these, she will have all the same work rights as any other parent (paternity leave, right to flexible working, parental leave while the child is young).

And the rest

The comment also asked about what tests we'd had done. And the answer is - none. Travolta said he'd been tested fairly recently and was scrupulous about practicing safe sex! I think in the UK it's hard to get fertility testing as a woman on the NHS unless you've been trying over a year. But I believe men can get a sperm count quite easily (this sounds sexist, but it's most likely to do with rationing and the relative cost/invasiveness of fertility testing for men and women).

So we just went ahead - taking temperatures, weeing on a stick to predict ovulation, and ferrying pots of fresh sperm across town! (We'd started the temperature charting and stick weeing well in advance, so when the legal/emotional decision was made, we were ready to start right away. Although the logistics and complete nervous embarrassment took a few months to iron out...)