Answers to questions nobody asked, part 3

Does this outfit make me look virile?

Welcome to part 3 of a small series of essays about baby-making as a queer couple. In part 1, I wrote about our (long) process of deciding to add a new baby to our family and the choice to have Ash, who is nonbinary, be the gestational parent. In part 2, I shared our experience of working with a known sperm donor and planning for an at-home insemination. Today’s essay is about the day of the insemination.

I want to acknowledge that, for many people, queer and otherwise, at-home insemination with a known donor is not an option. I also want to say up front that getting Ash pregnant was quicker, less complicated, and less expensive than either of us would have dared to hope — especially given that Ash had been on gender-affirming testosterone for a half-dozen years before trying to conceive, a set of circumstances for which there is scant precedent and about which doctors know little.

As Jenn Shapland writes in her brand-new essay collection Thin Skin, being a queer woman — or, a queer person assigned female at birth — means knowing that you will “never be a ‘natural’ mother. Having kids as a queer woman is an endeavor that requires planning, determination, and in most cases a large financial investment.”¹ Even when it’s easy, it is not simple. I hope these essays will be of use to someone. Please share them as you see fit.

Though this series is for paid subscribers only, I understand that not everyone can afford to pay. If you cannot, email me. (If you’re reading this as an email, just hit ‘reply.’) You don’t have to explain. Just ask! And if you are a paid subscriber, consider donating a subscription to help fund access for others. Thank you.

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On the morning of Saturday, May 7, 2022, we woke to see June off with Brandon. Then, because it was a Saturday and we had no child, I have no idea what, if anything, we did next. I do remember that around eleven, my mother called: she’d woken up with a sore throat and had taken a Covid test. It was positive. The implications began to unspool: she’d been at our house the previous afternoon, so we were all potentially infected — including June, who by now had probably breathed enough on Brandon to potentially infect him too. We sent around the requisite texts, tested ourselves — negative, for now — and planned to hunker down for a few days at home, waiting and continuing to test.

Around one that afternoon, Ash padded to the bathroom. It was time for their daily ovulation test, a litmus-like strip that you dip in urine, with a control line and a test line — not unlike a Covid test, come to think of it. I used the same type of strips when I was trying to get pregnant with June. They’re easy and reliable. If the test is administered properly, the control line will appear, clear and solid, and if the test detects luteinizing hormone (LH) in the urine, the test line will appear too, just under the control.

Ash had been taking ovulation tests every day, roughly in the early afternoon, and the previous three tests had had a faintly visible test line. We hadn’t thought a lot about it: LH is present throughout a person’s cycle, and a faint line only means that a small amount of LH has been detected. What we were looking for was a dark test line, which would indicate the surge in LH that causes ovulation. The egg is usually released from the ovary 24 to 36 hours after the surge, and then the egg is only viable for another 24 hours after its release. That brief window is when you’ve got a shot at getting pregnant. Because sperm can live for longer than an egg — up to five days — it’s a good idea, if you want to get pregnant, to make sure the sperm are already there when the egg is released. Does everybody know this? I hope so, though I doubt it. I had to learn most of it from Google.

Ash had been off testosterone for about five months. Based on their previous cycle, we expected an LH surge on or around May 12, a Thursday. We’d given K, our donor, a heads-up that he might need to hop a plane at midweek. I think I’d even cleared my schedule for Wednesday and Thursday. But that Saturday afternoon, May 7 — five days early and exactly two hours after we’d learned that my mother had Covid and we probably would soon — Ash’s test line came up unmistakably dark, darker than the control, a deep shade of purple, a color that one might call cabernet if it were on a dress or a sweater but that we called ovulation, OH SHIT. Then Ash took two more ovulation tests, each made by a different company, just to be sure.