Tis the season for turkey basters

So how does one totally normal, and actually quite boring lesbian have kids? Well after acquiring a lawn to mow, a lawnmower to mow with, oh and a mortgage for that bit of lawn, next step was kids. 

As an aside, I have wanted kids for as long as I can remember. My best friend of many many years, previously posted in another blog remembers me talking about it at 17. I remember wanting them my whole life. While others I know were thinking of weddings, etc, I was thinking of kids. How many? What sex? Blue eyes, OF COURSE, naturally curly hair, DUH! One can order all those things, right?

So, kids were my plan. Not what degree I would get, or what I would do for a living, nope. Just those kids. 

1.  Adoption.  This is not legal in the fair state of UTAH.  One can adopt if they are single though...get that.  Openly gay homes can not adopt, not even kids conceived in the relationship. (another topic all together).  Back to adoption: it's costly, has to be done out of the state of Utah.  There's a wait list.  There's a chance of a woman changing her mind at the last second. Even if you have already purchased an entire nursery full you could end up with just that, a full nursery and no baby.  

2.  Known donor artificial insemination.  Geez, the ways this can be done.  I know people who have used a brother's semen to impregnate a partner. Also there's just one friend donating his baby batter to a lesbian couple he knows.  This man can then be called an uncle, or funcle or a dozen other names.  There's way to legally protect this type of arrangement, like signing away parental rights, or just plain ole trusting the guy that one day he won't come take your kid away (I know couples that this has happened to as well).

3.  Surrogacy.  Again, not legal here in Utah. I really don't know much about this as it's not legal, plus I'm not a guy so I'm woefully uninformed.  Please feel free to give me information.

4.  Unknown donor artificial insemination.  This also has various ways of happening.  For a nominal fee you can purchase not only your sperm but a medical history of the donor.  You can purchase pictures of this donor as a child as well.  You can also pick a donor who will become known at the time the child reaches 18.  

5.  IVF This is VERY expensive.  It takes embryos and implants them in the uterus of a woman. you can do this with your known or unknown donor sperm.  They usually implant two embryos, if you don't know what an embryo is please google, to get more accurate information than I can provide.

6. This is last and my least favorite.  As a woman you can just go out and have intercourse with a stranger, or a one-night stand to get prego and never inform the guy.  Also leave the birth certificate blank, which happens any way here as second parent adoption is not legal.

There may be other ways that I'm just not savvy enough to know.  Please feel free to add them in the comments section.  My babies are 6 now so I have been out of the baby making loop for a bit (Tiff and I are discussing having lucky number 4, blame our procreation numbers on the mormon roots here in Utah).

Once you have your baby batter there are many ways to get that stuff where it needs to be.  You can pay a dr to inseminate.  You can inseminate at home.  You can do who knows what, and how.  

We did our insemination at home.  Just us and that lovely baby batter.  How we did it I will leave to your very vivid imagination. ;) We chose an unknown donor, no baby photo of him but we picked him out from his stats.  He is 6 feet tall, has brown hair, blue eyes, he's a communication major and his family history was pretty unremarkable.  That's about all we know.  Well and the number.  That all valuable number of the donor.  "the donor number" 

The donor number is actually quite a controversial thing.  There are some couples who proudly state their "donor number".  There are others who hide it.  I'm a hider.  Reason's for being open, finding half siblings, making connections, probably others I can't think of.  Perhaps future organ donation, bone marrow transplants, who knows? Reason's for being hidden, well Utah here is a small state.  We all know each other, or of each other.  Comparing of whose kids "look alike" and whose kids are related becomes quite the gossip.  My girls, they just will have to get a blood test with their future spouses before intercourse.  Won't that be a lovely round the dinner table topic of conversation?

All the ways above are costly.  I happen to get impregnated exactly the way my mother always told me, by drinking the water in a highly impregnated area.  (not really) I do happen to be a "one shot" wonder.  I have 3 amazing kids from very few attempts at artificial insemination.  I even was lucky enough to get 2 at once, even though twins aren't in mine or the donor's family.   Lucky me...

This is how a homo makes a family.  Well it's all the ways I can think of, at the moment, with my girls playing quite LOUDLY behind me.  Yes, this does affect my ability to think....straight, or perhaps that's just a normal thing for me? Inability to even think straight?  Sounds like a totally different blog to me!!

If you haven't already.......GO VOTE.

AM