Transfer and Why I'd Like You to Click on the Link in the Post Below. Please.

Sunday morning the alarm went off early. It was cold, but bright. Before we left the house, I filled up my Nalgene bottle with water and we trekked out to Partner's truck and the temperature reading said it was 5. Five degrees. I called my parents in South Carolina; my mother had said they were going to walk on the beach at sunrise and throw sand into the ocean for us and our dreams. I wanted to find out if they really did it. (They did, and then came back to their house and drank champagne. I love my parents.) They thought it was cold there until I told them it was five in Michigan. 5, people-- that's pretty cold.

One of the things we had to do on our drive was discuss the "oocyte donor" and "gestational carrier" sheets that we had been given by the RE office. Last cycle when a nurse gave them to us, we said, "Oh, thanks," and then promptly ignored them. (You may remember me railing about not wanting to be called the gestational carrier.) No one ever asked about them again. We thought we'd try the same thing this time, but unfortunately people kept asking about them. Including Dr. BBB on the day of retrieval. He said he couldn't go forward with the transfer without having them signed.

So, on our hour plus drive to the clinic outpost where retrievals and transfers take place, I read the "agreements" out loud. (Oh, Amy, where were you when we needed you? So much legalese!) The oocyte donor sheet was more compact: one line for the donor to give up all rights, and one line for the carrier to take all rights. The gestational carrier document was a little more fluid. There were lines for "donor and partner" along with lines for "carrier and partner" and we just filled in our names in all spaces until the one place where indicated the gestational carrier gave up rights to the donor (and partner). I can't remember how exactly it was worded, but if we had both names listed at that point, it looked like we were both giving up rights.

So we read the documents in the bright cold morning. And then we just drove for awhile in silence and I looked out the car window at the frozen ground and barren trees and tried to think about the meaning of all of this.

If it isn't clear that Partner and I love each other very much and we are our family together, then what else could be clear?

If it isn't clear that I want to have children with this woman, then what else could be clear? Oh my Lord-- do I want that. Even in the moments when I joke about having to give up my manhattans, I know that I would gladly drop them forever to continue growing this family we have started here.

Amazingly, on Sunday, I didn't get angry about this. Instead I thought about how much it hurt to have to sign a document saying that I gave up my "rights" to be the legal parent of this child. And at the same time, how could I ask Partner to do that either? I got selfish in my silence. I got sad. And when we got the clinic, we talked more about it, came to an agreement, and Partner filled out the gestational carrier "agreement" while I watched. I took umbrage with the phrase that all parties signed the document free and voluntarily with no coercion. I watched when she wrote my name accidentally on the line that indicated who would be the legal parent. And then I watched her cross it out and write her own name. And I cried some silent tears. And then she told me that nothing, no piece of paper was going to stop us from both being parents to this child. And we cried some more, and then went inside to get blastocysts made from her eggs transferred into my uterus. That on paper I was relinquishing rights too. Not quite the happy moment you envision when thinking about having a baby. (Then again, not much of IVF is that happy moment, but categorically, this made it about 1000x worse.)

We live outside the law in our marriage. No official has recognized it as real, but we know it is. Just as no official will ever recognize us both as parents, but we know will be. You see, in Michigan, two women cannot both be legal parents of the child. There is no two parent same sex adoption. We'll make up agreements and wills and everything possible in the legal sense to try and protect each other's rights, but it's all pretty academic.

We tried to get away with not giving anyone the document. Partner folded it up in her pocket, but when Dr. BusyBusyBusy came to see us pre-transfer he asked about it. I told him it made me cry. He apologized and held my hand. "It's the law," he said. "I need to have it. I'm sorry, Katie. I'm sorry." And I think he was.

I took my Valium and Motrin. Walked into the procedure room, and laid on that table, legs all akimbo, a white blanket covering me up. Dr. BBB talked to us about the quality of the fertilized eggs and whether we should consider changing the number transferred. Partner rubbed my arm, and I said a few prayers silently when Dr. BBB slipped the blasts through the catheter, and as I was prone on that table afterward, looking into the green green eyes of my Partner, that stupid piece of paper faded. I just thought about us with some little peanuts and how our love would grow to new exponential proportions. And it will, and I understand that is the most important thing.

But I still get scared some days, and just keep hoping that someday people will be able to recognize love and not be threatened by it. In the words of k.d. lang, "And love as a philosophy is simple. And ours."