Loopsie Daisy!

Our daughter, Zoe, was as close to an accidental pregnancy as two lesbians can get.  You see, the first time around - with our son, Leo, we tried to conceive for over two years. We tried on our own, we tried with a doctor's assistance, we tried with fertility medication, we tried acupuncture, we tried ancient Chinese herbs, we tried eating pineapple, we tried tracking my basal body temperature - we tried and we tried and we tried.  When we finally got (and stayed) pregnant - it was nothing short of a miracle in our minds.  We had been so actively invested in this outcome for so long - it felt nothing if not intentional.

We had made peace with the possibility that Leo might be an only child.  We cherished our little family.  Still, jb and I both come from larger families and we are both still quite close with our siblings now in adulthood - of course we wanted that for Leo, but we didn't assume we would be lucky enough to conceive again.  We talked about how far we'd be willing to go - how long we'd be willing to try.  We reminded ourselves that it was ok to give up if trying to conceive was taking a toll on our family.  We braced ourselves for another long and difficult road and agreed to moved forward when the time was right.  We knew we wanted a minimum of two years age difference - but also knew we weren't really in charge of the timeline.

When Leo reached the age that would ensure a two-year age difference, I made a call to a highly recommended fertility specialist in our new city.  There was a long wait for a new patient appointment, but I wasn't in any hurry.  I thought of it as a marathon, not a race.  I scheduled the appointment and  let jb know that we could begin trying in a few months.

"Should we have dinner to celebrate?" jb asked.

"To celebrate trying again?  Sure.  Tonight or closer to the appointment?"

"I was thinking tonight.  Afterall, if we could try tonight, we would, right?"

So out to celebrate we went.  We had a lovely dinner and talked about all the things we imagined our children would do together.  We were excited, but made sure to qualify each hope and dream for a new baby with things like - "It might not happen." or "Don't forget, they could be closer to six years apart."  We ate, we drank some wine and towards the end of the meal jb jokingly asked, "So, shall we go home and try tonight?"  I didn't quite get that it was a joke - you see we lived just a few blocks from our known donor at that time.  So we *could* try, as we'd given him the head's up that it was on the horizon.

"But I don't even know if I'm ovulating!" I laughed, suddenly realizing she was being funny.  Then we looked at each other - why not?  It would be mostly symbolic, obviously - but it would mark the official beginning of trying.  So we tried.  And two weeks later - we got a positive pregnancy test.

It didn't seem real.  How could one tipsy date night result in a pregnancy!?!  Doesn't this sort of thing require months upon months of appointments and agonizing?  I actually felt blindsided.  Obviously this pregnancy was very wanted - but strangely unexpected.  I peed on many sticks that week.  It was true.  My pregnancy progressed normally and we welcomed a healthy baby daughter.  We'd had a lesbian oopsie.  A Loopsie, if you will.  And she's awesome.