I grabbed the test stick, ready to throw it Always, and glanced at it almost as an afterthought… and my world exploded.

Inexplicably, there next to the static line, was a very faint (but visible) second line. I shook the test, as if there was some kind of mistake that shaking it would fix, and stared at it again. I looked from every angle, as close to the light in the bathroom as I could, and no matter how I squinted or moved, or closed my eyes and opened them again, the line was still there.

Still in disbelief, I stumbled through the house to wake up my mom. All that I could get out was a “Mom,” and the shaky, wavering sound in my voice woke her, and from a dead sleep she had the sense to say,

“Are you pregnant?”

“I’m not sure. Help. Look at this. Look at it.”

She put her glasses on, we looked, and she agreed there was a line there. My dad gave up on going back to sleep at this point, and when he, in all of his steadfast, levelheadedness, agreed that there were two lines, I finally allowed myself to believe it.

I was in disbelief all day. Floating on a cloud of am I, aren’t I, and if I am, for how long? I was convinced it was a fluke, that some of those terrifying words I’d read about in TTC groups were going to come true – chemical pregnancy, ectopic pregnancy, miscarriage. I knew that 25% (or 1 in 4) pregnancies end in miscarriage, and I found myself already bargaining within that expectation. I could get pregnant. That was the first hurdle, but could I stay pregnant?

I shared the news with some of my closest friends, people that knew I had been planning an insemination, that had listened to me groan about the wait. I originally thought I would tell no one, but I’m a terrible liar, especially when I’m excited, and I didn’t have a partner to share secrets and excitement with in those early days, so my friends and my parents played the part.

I took a pregnancy test every morning until the official date that was to end my two week wait – September 24th, the day after my birthday. I splurged for a fancy digital test that day, because I wanted to see it in writing, as if the seeing the word “YES” on a digital test stick would solidify the fact that it was true.

I called my fertility specialist with shaking hands, because while we had planned out what I would do when the test was inevitably negative, we hadn’t talked about this. When she answered on her day off, I barely let her say hello before I was practically shouting into the phone.

“I took a test. I took a lot of tests. They’re all positive. Now what?”

She laughed at me, said one positive test was enough, and told me I’d come in for blood work the following day. And then she said congratulations.

Could it really be this easy?

It was too good to be true, but I didn’t know that then.

Leaving the fertility clinic was another awkward experience to add to the list. I was leaving a little sticky (thanks for all the extra lube!), and with an entire Sunday stretched out in front of me, and two weeks after that. Two weeks sounds like nothing after waiting years to begin really trying to become a mother, but felt like an eon when I was staring it down, waiting to see if two weeks was going to change my life or not.

Breakfast with my parents following my IUI (intrauterine insemination) was nothing short of hilarious. Imagine sitting at a table with the two individuals that gave you life. If you’re married, people entertain vague thoughts about what you’ve done to try and get pregnant (in TTC lingo people even call it “baby dancing,” which is cute, but doesn’t sound nearly naked enough considering what it is). It’s known, it’s assumed, but no one talks about it.

When you’re single, and you’ve just had another woman between your legs with a speculum, catheter and purchased sperm, there is nothing vague or mysterious about what’s just happened.

“I have sperm inside of me right now. This is so weird.”

“Should I give them a pep talk? Swim like Michael Phelps, boys!”

“What if I’m getting pregnant right now? Am I going to have to tell the baby they were conceived somewhere between the doctor’s office and pancakes at Perkins?”

Then there’s the tried and true… “How do you want your eggs? Fertilized.” (This didn’t happen – I don’t like eggs, but I read that joke and wished that I had at the time, because I love a terrible pun, even now.)

I spent the rest of Sunday relaxing, convinced that too much walking around or activity would have gravity pulling all of my expensive sperm off course and away from their mission. The first week at work was relatively simple, and I tried to keep myself busy thinking about anything other than the waiting game. After all, no one gets pregnant after their first IUI. I would wait, take a test, get my period, and soldier on to the next month.

The start of the second week was a different story. After a lightheaded spell on a particularly warm Wisconsin Saturday at our local farmer’s market, my mother was convinced I was pregnant. I laughed it off, and told her she was crazy, but it made the next few days difficult, and I had a hard time fo using on anything else. Dr. Google and search terms around IUI success symptoms, PMS symptoms during IUI and the like filled most of my hours.

Then the cramping started, the tell-tale ache that for my entire life had meant shark week was upon me. I was convinced my period was coming, that the first IUI was going to be for practice, writing it off completely. Even with Clomid (which I’d taken because I didn’t have a measurable ovulation the month before – although in hind sight I think I just tested late and missed it), it was going to be a bust, and I was happy that I’d purchased three vials of sperm at the same time.

After a few restless nights, I finally caved 11 days post-IUI. I couldn’t sleep, I was having cramps, and my birthday was two days later. I wanted to take a test, confirm that it was negative so that I could take a deep breath and prepare for the next month. I wanted to have a rare, celebratory drink on my birthday, and I wanted to relax over the weekend. It was going to be negative.

I grabbed one of the pregnant tests I’d purchased in anticipation, and then waited. Taking the first pregnancy test I’d ever taken in my life, setting the timer on my phone and yawning, wanting to try and go back to sleep before work, since my anxiety would be gone.

After all, no one gets pregnant after their first IUI.

Thursday, September 21st, just before 4:00 a.m.

The plan with my fertility specialist was to call her when my ovulation prediction kit indicated it was go time. These kits (OPKs in trying to conceive lingo) come in many different forms, some more simple than the rest, but I chose the tried and true ClearBlue Easy digital. With this test, it meant waiting to see a smiling face in the results window so that I could make a call.

Before I was actively trying to conceive, in the years between the obligatory sex education class, I thought that pregnancy and getting pregnant was so simple. Growing up in a pretty impoverished area in eastern Kentucky, I watched so many girls get pregnant by accident while we were in high school, and I think this set my early expectations somewhere near “how hard can it be?” Once I opened the trap door into the trying to conceive (TTC) world, I found out quickly just how wrong I’d been.

For example, while I knew that my body would release at least one egg every month (if everything worked correctly), I didn’t know that egg would only survive twelve to twenty-four hours if not fertilized. I didn’t know that realistically each month there’s only a window of about six days (at most – usually smaller) in which a person can conceive. I’m not sure how long I imagined each egg surviving, but definitely longer than a day. With that kind of timing, my thoughts immediately jumped to – how in the world does anyone actually get pregnant?!

I should back up and say that OPKs (which work by checking for a surge of luteinising hormone in urine) aren’t the only method people use when trying to conceive. Sometimes they’re used alone, but many people use multiple tracking methods – OPKs, basal body temperature, cervical mucus charting, and so many more, in combination or otherwise. It was overwhelming to read all of the things I could be doing, but based on the recommendation from my specialist, I decided to stick to OPKs alone. Because I had never been pregnant (and had never tried to get pregnant before), we had no reason to think that I had other challenges conceiving – basically my hurdle was a lack of sperm (or baby juice, baby batter, and a million other things that I’ve called it).

Every morning, I would wake up, pee on my stick of the day, and wait a few minutes for the result to populate. It was an exercise in patience and, more times than not, hilarity as I fumbled to open test strips with bleary eyes, sometimes bouncing from one foot to the other because I had to go and my hands couldn’t work quickly enough. I became so used to seeing a blank result in the window (meaning no LH surge, no ovulation), that the day a little smiling face did show up I had to take a picture of it (one I’m glad that I have now).

It was Saturday, September 9, 2018. I called my specialist and set an appointment to pick up my first straw of sperm (I purchased three) at 7:30 the next morning. September 10th would be our first attempt.

I was incredibly anxious that evening, as I always am when I’m not sure what to expect in a situation (I might have control issues), let alone something as monumental as my first attempt at getting pregnant. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t think about anything but the “what if” scenarios running through my mind. What if it didn’t work? What if it never worked? I only allowed my mind to wander to the alternative every so often – what if it DID work?

I brought my mom with me the next day. We’re incredibly close, and as I didn’t have partner I was trying to get pregnant with, I wanted someone that could be emotionally involved in things with me. We drove to the Andrology lab at one of our local hospitals, and I left my mother in the car, because I thought it would be quick. Just a drive by, like a run through McDonald’s, except I would be leaving with a very different kind of straw. Of course it wasn’t this simple.

Checking in at the front desk involved filling out forms, so many forms, and then waiting to be allowed up to the lab itself. When my name was called, I walked through the maze of hallways (there seemed to be no direct path, and the signage was lacking). The lab turned out to be a tiny locked room, and once my identity was confirmed, I was ushered inside by the female tech.

She asked for my name, my date of birth, and then showed me my straw and asked if the identifying information from my donor (sometimes this is a donor ID number or a fake name, depending on your bank) was correct. She asked me some other questions that I don’t remember, because I was fixated on what was in her hand. This tiny tune was filled with some shockingly yellow gunk. If this was sperm, it looked like snot. Gross and unexpected. She finally shook me from my staring with an off-handed comment.

“You picked a good one. This stuff can definitely get someone pregnant.”

I laughed, because I wasn’t sure what to say to that. Thank you? I hope so? That’s what I paid for? None seemed appropriate. The sperm commentary shocked me, but her instructions next were even more surprising. I had to keep the straw warm, preferably at body temperature, so I needed to stick it either in my bra or in my pants for the drive over to my specialist’s clinic. So in the bra it went.

My trek back to the lobby felt treacherous, as if one wrong step would send this yellow snot/sperm falling to the floor. Stepping into the elevator, I found myself standing with strangers, wondering how they would react if they knew that I had a vial of sperm nestled between my boobs. The drive to the clinic was worse, because I kept anticipating some horrific accident or road closure that would prevent me from getting the goods to my specialist within the thirty minute “go window.” In the end it was easy, and we made it there without incident.

While I brought my mom along, I sequestered her to the waiting room. I joked that it was going to be interesting enough to tell my future child that he or she was conceived with two women in the room (me and my fertility specialist), and that adding his/her grandma into the mix was going to be too weird. It was something I needed to do on my own.

The procedure itself was quick. Undress, put on a gown, lie back, wait for the speculum. I opted for an IUI (intrauterine insemination), so my specialist used a thin catheter to deliver the sperm past by cervix. A little pinch, and it was done. It took all of two minutes, and I had to lie on the table for fifteen minutes.

I asked my specialist what people tend to do during this fifteen minutes, because it suddenly felt like an eternity. She said some people visualize success, which was out for me – I’m not good at visualization exercises, and all that I could picture was the opening scene to Look Who’s Talking.

Instead, my specialist left me alone with my phone, and I opted for music to try and relax. I opened the massive playlist that I have and hit shuffle, leaving the first song up to fate, and when the chords started my heart clenched, because of course. It was perfect. Fire away.

I was afraid, I was terrified, but as I listened to the chorus of this song and cried, I allowed myself to feel hope, too. Hope that maybe I would get lucky. Maybe it would work.

Ordering sperm over the internet is not for the faint of heart.

The only thing more terrifying was my brief detour to a site called the Known Donor Registry. After only a couple of days with my details registered, the number of offers that I received from men interested in coming to my aid was baffling… until I read further into each offer of assistance and realized that they were only interested in helping if my preferred method of insemination was NI. Natural insemination. Sex. That was a hard no, so on to the next option.*

The number of sperm bank options are overwhelming, and while each bank offers very similar services, the differences were just enough to cause a case of analysis paralysis for me. When choosing someone strictly on the merits of their genetic material, how do you make the decision?

In the end, I chose a bank that offered “bonus” information at no additional cost. Baby picture, genetic testing results, a few pages of Q&A, a handwritten essay and even a voice sample. Basically, I picked a bank with the best marketing (which is slightly ridiculous), but it’s what felt right at the time. Good marketing and the fact that they had a coupon (this is not a joke). Thirty years in business entitled me to a coupon code to save 15%, and considering the price being paid per straw it seemed too good to pass up.

My bank decision made, I set out to try and find someone that (at least on paper) looked like me. Brown hair, brown eyes, a little tall, maybe some freckles. Beyond the physical characteristics, I wanted someone that was willing to be a known donor. This can mean different things at each bank, but at Cryos it meant that my child could reach out to the bank to request name and contact information for their donor once they were eighteen. I had no interest in having a relationship with the guy (other than to say thank you), but I knew I wanted to be able to explain to my child that I had taken steps to try and get any answers to questions that they might have (and of course they would have questions – it’s human nature to want to know your own history).

Then the question became motility. This is another reason I chose Cryos – they offered different levels of motility (or parts per million, so to speak) in varying price buckets. I called my fertility specialist, and she was surprised that they even had options, so I decided to purchase the same level offered by one of the most widely used banks in the country – California Cryobank. At $700 per straw, not including the required shipping ($250 including a nitrogen tank), it wasn’t cheap, but it was worth it. I had my guy.

I had assumed that would be the end of the donor drama, but I was wrong. Ordering sperm during hurricane season, only a few days before an active storm, was stressful. I called both the lab that would be housing my straws, keeping them on ice until I needed them, and the bank itself to ask what would happen in the event of a package lost in the mail, and both assured me that it wouldn’t happen. Still, I work in an industry and watch packages get lost and misrouted every day, so it didn’t provide much relief. I joked to close friends at the time that the process might be over before it got started – some well-meaning receiving clerk clocks out to grab lunch and forgets about my tank on the shipping dock, but the package was delivered without incident. Received and put on ice until I was ready, which meant more ovulation tests and waiting.

Waiting for a smiley face so that I could schedule my first IUI.

I always knew that I wanted to be someone’s mama.

At every age that I can remember, thoughts about my future always involved children. Most of the time, those thoughts meant picturing myself at twenty-five, “old” and coupled up, my life completely together, with the perfect job, the perfect house and at least one perfect baby.

The goal line stretched as I grew up and realized that twenty-five isn’t old, that no one has it totally together at that age. It was moved further when I hit thirty as a singleton with no prospects in sight. I had a home, a job, none of it perfect, but all of it mine, but it wasn’t enough. At around thirty-two the ache began to settle in to stay. I was the oldest of my friends without children.

The world was filled with babies that I could hold, but none that I could keep.

Seeing someone in the office on their obligatory trip to show off their newborn was enough to reduce me to tears, even if the mother in question was just an acquaintance. I covered my tears by making a joke (the coping mechanism I’ve used for most of my life), blaming my wet lashes on a severe case of “baby rabies,” joking about picking up a stranger in a bar for one purpose alone. In public, I could laugh as I cried, and in private I began to think it would never happen to me.

Adoption, foster care, foster to adopt, all things that I considered, options that I weighed as a single woman. Insemination seemed so risky, and I was sure it wouldn’t work. I was sure that I was too old, too fat, too poor (because the money goes quickly when you’re trying to buy the “ingredients” to make a baby that boys the world over have been abandoning in their socks and sheets for years) to make it happen.

I never let myself imagine what it might be like to be pregnant, because it seemed like such an impossibility.

It took a conversation with my father to shake me out of my indecision, when he looked at me after listening to my fears about adoption and foster care and said, in his simple way – do you want to be pregnant? Suddenly, this thing hat had seemed so impossible turned into a maybe, and that maybe turned into a plan. Three attempts, and then on to something else.

That plan gave way to peeing on sticks (so much peeing on sticks), waiting to see an indicator of ovulation, of proof that my body was doing its part to make this dream a reality. The plan essentially became wake up, pee, then hurry up and wait, because nothing in the world is quick when you’re wanting and trying for a baby.

I spent that time waiting shopping for the goods online, the sea of options apparently endless when searching for a sperm donor. Anonymous, open ID, ethnicity, height, and the boxes to check went on, each thing feeling less important than the next, because all I wanted was the good stuff. Grade A, top of the line semen, and yet none of the banks made their offerings that clear.

Somehow, I made a decision – a tall, nameless guy with a baby picture that looked like he could belong in my extended family. Brown hair, brown eyes, ears that stuck out just a little too far, and that was enough. Baby batter purchased, right before a hurricane, and the waiting started all over again.