today we received a phone call from a representative from one of the clinics asking if we were ready to make an appointment for a first consult...and wondering if we were serious about this and if not, to stop wasting their time.

!!!

i have no idea if that person is homophobic or just stupid, but Plenitas Clinic is now off the list.

emails galore.

all progress in the current stage seems to be electronic. and really, how much feeling can one show over email? thus, we are not currently experiencing lovely bonding moments with doctors or secretaries that i've read about on other blogs. it's ok, though.

we continue to get responses from various clinics (except the one who said "no anonymous donors" has NOT written back with a good excuse yet...). they seem to be pretty ridiculously varied in price, which surprised me. i've currently gotout a round of clarifying emails: "when you told us that price, was it in US dollars or argentine pesos?" the pesos is about 3.09 to the dollar, so it'll make a difference!

yesterday a friend from church forwarded us an article from the biggest national newspaper....about lesbians using fertility clinics! how about that!! it quoted the head of one of the clinics we've been writing to as saying that he gets about 10 or so lesbian couples a month seeking more information. of course, he added, they come in saying they're friends, that the wanna-be mother is single, etc. but you figure it out eventually.

i just think that's amazing, that that article appeared just now. also, it gave us a couple of leads for other clinics...

so we're actually making (excruciatingly slow) progress on this whole thing. we got back several emails from the different clinics we wrote to this week, and are waiting to find out the price of the first consult for three of them. only one has said a definite "no" (the others said yes, we just don't know all their costs...), and gave their reasoning as "we only do egg donation when the donor is anonymous." why this might be? i have no idea. it could be anti-lesbianism (is that a phrase??), or it could be something else. i would have written them a slightly snarky email trying to get them to own up to it, but luckily esther wrote the reply. we shall see if they feel like offering more details.

what's next??

i just realized that becky and margot commented back a week or so ago, and how exciting is that! i didn't figure anyone would actually read this...here's hoping they come back to see the answers to their questions. and that becky starts her own freaking blog someday!

why not just buy sperm? seriously, i totally get that it would be WAY cheaper. yes. but we are totally enamored of the idea of both being a major part of this person's conception. i realize that one of us (not sure who yet) will not be contributing chromosomes, but they will be giving much uterine time and energy and nutrition, as well as most likely, the boob.

who? not sure yet :) we both want to; we both see that there would be some advatages to having it be mine to get instant u.s. citizenship; but it's such a delicate issue that i'm hoping the doctor will decide for us. she thinks she's already decided to let me get pregnant, but i know how badly she also wants it, so for me, the decision won't be made super easily.

i don't know if we'll do this twice and both get to try pregnancy. that would be the ideal, but we don't have that kind of cash. and i feel bad enough about overpopulation already. thoughts?

this morning we had a fight about baby names. can you believe that? we haven’t talked to a fertility specialist, cracked open a book, or measured a single temperature, and yet we managed to fight about NAMES. for a human being who is probably a few years away from existing. do you think that’s a bad sign?

really, our fight was more about our personality flaws than the actual names. i want to get my way at all costs, and she tends to assume the worst. what the heck else is new. of course in this particular altercation i have my defenses prepared and could explain to you why i think i wasn’t in the wrong…but isn’t that what EVERY fight is like? who ever fights about how the other person is RIGHT?

i will refrain from posting about said names until they are less polemic (the poor kid’s 3^rd grade year?)

not much else had been happening on the baby front. we were waiting to hear back from the one clinic we actually managed to speak to, as their doctor was supposedly out of the country until march 18^th. monday we got a call from “federico” asking if we wanted to set up an appointment. what happened to nadia? she was the nice lady that called the first time and spoke to esther for half an hour and asked good questions and all that..where is nadia?? according to esther, federico was nice as well, but apparently i’m already hyper-sensitive about things like this. sigh.

we’re considering whether or not to make that appointment for a consult. if it’s really expensive, i’m going to go with “no,” but if it’s not too much, it might not be a bad idea to go ahead and spend a few bucks on that, to actually have a moment to lay our thoughts down before a professional and have him or her react to them. you know?

this morning we did some more web searching and filled in info forms for three more clinics. i should go and check esther’s email and see if anyone wrote back….

…nope, nothing yet.