GTKY 1/3/14 Edi.!

2MamazInSeattle · January 2014

Happy 2014! Join in this week's Getting to Know You post! It's fun, easy and FREE!

1. When and where is your next vacation planned? If nothing is on the books, what would you plan if you could?
2. What are 1-3 of your guilty pleasures? Could be anything - food, things you pay people to do so you don't have to, etc.
3. What sperm bank did you use?
4. What traits do you hope your child gets/doesn't get from your donor that you lack/have?
5. What are you up to this weekend?

BONUS: PIP us something - maybe a childhood pic of your donor? Or, anything!

2MamazInSeattle · January 2014

1. When and where is your next vacation planned? If nothing is on the books, what would you plan if you could?

We are headed to hot'n'sexy Collinston, LA for J's gramma's 90th birthday in mid-February, followed up by a few days in scintillating Little Rock, AR (where she's from). Then - the carrot - we are going to New Orleans for 4 days! We will be there for some Mardi Gras parades and plan to eat eat eat while there. Her college pal is driving down from Fayetteville, AR w/her bf to join us too. I'm actually really excited (about the NOLA part). We're also thinking about a Maui babymoon in April or May (that's our go-to for warm weather spot - easy direct flight from here).

2. What are 1-3 of your guilty pleasures? Could be anything - food, things you pay people to do so you don't have to, etc.

Housecleaner! We have my former boss's husband clean our house each week. It's $75 each time but honestly, money can buy happiness! It was the single area of constant strife for us when we moved in together, and frankly neither of us are neat to begin with (which is part of the problem...). We are forced to "clean for the cleaner" each week which forces us to manage our clutter (J runs her three coffeeshops out of our house and there is just a lot of paper!). And, he's our gay-husband too - he does things like fixing the faucet, hanging smoke alarms, and does the cat litter and will even clean out our chicken coop! Love!

3. What sperm bank did you use?

CCB. Donor #12762.- See PIP!

4. What traits do you hope your child gets/doesn't get from your donor that you lack/have?

We used two donors - both egg donor and sperm donor - so we did get to have a little fun concocting a human. Honestly getting an egg donor is hard - you cannot be too attached and in the end, "she's available" pretty much lands you with who you get (though nowadays frozen eggs are becoming much more prevalent, but we did a fresh cycle). So we waited to get our ED and then balanced her our with our sperm donor. Our egg donor did meet some things I wanted - particularly was tall (5'10) and skinny, smart and empathetic. Our male donor was 5'11, also skinny, but very musical, creative, etc. which was really important to us. We are both creative and wanted some aspect of that in our child. I swear I got the eastern european fat gene, and it has been my greatest struggle in life, so breeding for a predisposition to easily maintaining a healthy weight was important to me.

5. What are you up to this weekend?

Nothing, except perhaps being depressed about that feeling of being shot out of a cannon on Monday at work. While I did work 3 days this week, it was/is lazy work...not many people are back. Monday will be big. And, frankly, I went in the office yesterday and worked in honestly about 4 hours and thought I was going to fall over from being tired/wiped out. I think perhaps I haven't felt as tired this pregnancy because I've been off work week's 5, 6 and into 7. Fortunately a co-worker has a loveseat in his office and I went and laid down for 15 minutes. I think he'll be seeing a lot of me!

Christmas decorations are down already, house is clean (see #2) so just chilling. Yoga, walk around Greenlake, and maybe cook something light and healthy after so much holiday food!

BONUS: PIP us something - maybe a childhood pic of your donor? Or, anything!

Here's our male donor. I'm more protective of our egg donor because she lives here in Seattle, and we've exchanged letters, etc. and I just feel protective. She's got blonde curly hair and green eyes - we are both brown hair/brown eyed girls, so we wanted to hopefully get that from our dude. Anyhow, here he is:

JGY · January 2014

1. When and where is your next vacation planned? If nothing is on the books, what would you plan if you could?

Well, I don't think we're going to get to do it based on S's work schedule, but we have a bunch of old Rugby pals who vacation together every couple of years. This year they're going to Mexico for a week and renting townhomes. Last trip was a cruise, and there was 1 kid (18 months) that went along. This year there will be at least 9 kiddos. It would be SOOO much fun. I'm contemplating going without S (and taking Gabe) but I'm not convinced that I'd really be okay with that. I'm bummed that the timing is what it is but the group accomodated our schedule last trip and it meant others couldn't attend. This time it's their turn.

Instead of the trip, we may end up heading to Phoenix in early April to visit some family. That will still be fun, just not the same.

(I should have mentioned that this group of rugby pals is now spread out all over the USA. So it's not like we could all just get together for a Saturday night or anything)

2. What are 1-3 of your guilty pleasures? Could be anything - food, things you pay people to do so you don't have to, etc.

I second the house cleaning. And I'll admit that it's something my parents are paying for on our behalf right now. It was one of their gifts to us when Gabe was born and it is AWESOME!

Also, gummy bears have become a total guilty pleasure for me. I've never had a sweet tooth, but now all of a sudden I have developed some cravings. I don't know if it's being 40 (almost) or having a kid. But I can't live without them.

Lastly, TV. In general. Like, I hate to admit it, but we have it on in the background most of the time. I know things are going to have to change SOON with Gabe getting older. But right now, I just really kind of enjoy it.

3. What sperm bank did you use?

We used Fairfax. They were great, but expensive.

4. What traits do you hope your child gets/doesn't get from your donor that you lack/have?

We chose a donor that seemed to share a lot of similarities with S. So I guess I hope that Gabe gets most of those things - Sciency brain, broader body frame, funny, athletic. I guess if I had to pick one thing, it would be the sense of humor. S is seriously quick with her humor and our donor described himself as a comedian. We like to laugh in our house.

5. What are you up to this weekend?

Swimming lessons start tomorrow! I'm so excited. Also I have the first rehearsal for the choir that I sing with every winter. It's a lot of work, but a ton of fun and a great organization. We select a different charity partner each year and the whole point of the group is to perform 2 benefit concerts for that charity. The whole program is selected and designed around the focus of that charity and what they do. It's always fascinating and super rewarding. Plus it'll be something that I'm doing on my own without the kid. That break each week will be good for both of us.

BONUS: PIP us something - maybe a childhood pic of your donor? Or, anything!

Here's our donor at age 2. Pretty cute!!

Jazibel · January 2014

1. Our next vacation will just be a long weekend. We plan on driving down to LA to visit our friends (they have a toddler Kaden's age and are 19 weeks pregnant by the same donor). I'd also like to squeeze in a visit to Disneyland (it's free on your birthday and my birthday is that weekend). :-)

2. Guilty pleasure #1 - we set up our flat screen monitor in the Living room to watch movies on New Years... And have yet to take if down. I like watching Netflix, etc on the " big screen". #2 - is biofreeze menthol gel for my back, the doc said it's ok (in limited use) and it makes my back feel so much better... #3 - ice cream or other sweets, I wasn't really into eating a lot of sweets this pregnancy until the last month or so and I think I need to cut back :-P.

3. Back in 2008/2009 we used Rainbow Flag Sperm Bank, which is a very small bank whose donors are WTBK gay men, we then switched to the Sperm Bank of California, before moving on to use a known donor/ fresh sperm.

4. Our donor E, is very outgoing and funny and easy to talk to. He has many friends, both men & women. I hope that K & O inherit some of that easy going, gregarious nature. I can be outgoing, but more commonly so when I feel comfortable.
He's tall 6'5" (being tall was a requirement for EV) whereas I'm 5'4" so inheriting some of the donors height would be great too. He also cuts hair (and recently gave EV a great hair cut). K loves hair too which is funny to see. Many of E's traits are similar to EV, in fact they get along fabulously. For example we went out to breakfast a while back (when K was still inutero) and we were sitting in the car outside the cafe when a bicyclist rode past and sponateoulsy fell into some bushes (for seemingly no reason). The person wasn't hurt and EV and E were cracking up for a long time, whereas I was more upset (ok it could have been pregnancy hormones).
He's also the kind of person who was easy going enough (but still reliable) to come over a tiny "1 bedroom" apartment in SF with 4 lesbians and 2 toddlers to make 2 "deposits" so we could get knocked up. And after all that it worked. He's 4 for 4 (our friends first cycle was a cp). I truly heart the guy.

5. I'm not sure what we're doing this weekend yet. If the weather holds (60-70s) I'd like to go to the beach :-)

Pip of E as a baby.

redrockmama · January 2014

1. When and where is your next vacation planned? If nothing is on the books, what would you plan if you could?

Well it looks like we are planning on having a baby shower in Little Rock in April. I'm really looking forward to seeing all of our friends out there and the ones that can make it from other parts of the country.

We have also talked about making it down to Arizona to visit friends who manage a lodge/resort in the mountains down there. It would be a great babymoon, we just need to plan it and go.

2. What are 1-3 of your guilty pleasures? Could be anything - food, things you pay people to do so you don't have to, etc.

Ice cream. I love it and could eat it every single day

Breadsticks, again could eat them all the time

I guess I have a lot of food guilty pleasures..I'll try to think of a non food one

Pretty Little Liars, it's silly but I really like it

3. What sperm bank did you use?

We used Pacific Reproductive Services

4. What traits do you hope your child gets/doesn't get from your donor that you lack/have?

Hmmm well we tried to find a donor that resembled my wife and it turns out that he's really like both of us, which is good because we decided to use the same donor for both our kids. He says he has good vocal range, J and I both think it would be the best thing ever to be able to sing so we hope the kid gets that ability from him. I hope at least one of our kids has green/hazel eyes like J and the donor. Mine are brown so I am doubting the baby I'm carrying will. We did pick a donor with a darker skin tone, like J. I tan easily but I'm really white in the winter. I think her skin is beautiful so I hope the baby gets that from the donor too.

5. What are you up to this weekend?

We don't really have any plans. We finally got what we needed to do our pregnancy announcement photo so we will do that and hopefully get that ready to be sent out to folks. Other than that nothing much. My sister is here from Seattle to more or less say goodbye to our stepmom so we'll probably spend some time with her and the fam.

BONUS: PIP us something - maybe a childhood pic of your donor? Or, anything!

We only have an adult photo of the donor so I'll have to find one of me or J. Ok here is my, my sister, dad and our giant dog playing in a lake many many years ago.

shelly2314 · January 2014

Happy 2014! Join in this week's Getting to Know You post! It's fun, easy and FREE!

1. When and where is your next vacation planned? If nothing is on the books, what would you plan if you could? We are actually looking at taking a cruise to the Caribbean in March during my Spring Break...really can't wait!!!!
2. What are 1-3 of your guilty pleasures? Could be anything - food, things you pay people to do so you don't have to, etc. Oh, so difficult to pick just three....LOVE OREOS AND MILK, Massage and Pedicure package, and a nap and reading a great book on a cold and rainy day
3. What sperm bank did you use? We use California Cryobank
4. What traits do you hope your child gets/doesn't get from your donor that you lack/have? We hope for someone with mathematical genius LOL, ummm, really just looking for athleticism and intelligence
5. What are you up to this weekend? We starting our weekend with some acupuncture (my first time so we shall see), then repticon on Sat to get some f/t rats for our snake, then Sunday will either be a softball tournament or dinner with MIL and SIL

BONUS: PIP us something - maybe a childhood pic of your donor? Or, anything! Here is my hopefully, someday baby's momma!!

trisholio · January 2014

1. When and where is your next vacation planned? If nothing is on the books, what would you plan if you could?

As of right now we do not have one planned. We keep saying we are going to take a vacation for our anniversary, but since our due date is only a week from our anniversary this year I am pretty sure that is not going to work out. Maybe a long weekend in a cabin this winter would be great!

2. What are 1-3 of your guilty pleasures? Could be anything - food, things you pay people to do so you don't have to, etc.

I have the worst sweet tooth and have been eating cookies like crazy! Also ice cream is one of my top fav foods

Naps are one of my guilty pleasures, I love my naps!

I would love to pay someone to clean my house! But since I am the stay at home one, it's my job :-(

3. What sperm bank did you use?

We have a known donor

4. What traits do you hope your child gets/doesn't get from your donor that you lack/have?

I hope our children are tall and athletic like our donor.

5. What are you up to this weekend?

Today we had our first respite care child. It's a different situation, but the birth mom is being investigated so other family has the baby right now. The family works and needs child care until they can find a day care, so I only have him during the day. He is 2 days older then the boy I already watch. So I had two 9 month olds all day day, one got picked up and another got dropped off for me to babysit until 11pm tonight. So I (and my wonderful wife) have watched 3 boys all the same age for a total of 15 hours today. We are going to be tired! I do not believe we have any plans tomorrow, probably sleep at this point! Sunday my wife and a friend are going to women's OSU basketball game while I watch their little one. It is just a weekend of babies and craziness

ball.and.chain · January 2014

1. When and where is your next vacation planned? If nothing is on the books, what would you plan if you could?

I need to stockpile a bit of vacation if I'm going to get 12w paid maternity leave, so I can only afford to take one week off (plus a couple of days here and there) before the baby (hopefully!) arrives. It'll probably be March-April, but I think it's either going to be a staycation/home improvement fest or if we can wait until late April, we could go to my dad's summer house in Maine (the road closes during the winter). We need to save money for house stuff (electrical work), we just bought a snow-blower, and of course the baby will eat up plenty. I don't foresee us going anywhere that's not basically free (Maine or NJ to visit ILs) for a while. That said, if money were no object, I'd plan a trip to California to visit my aunt and cousins there. They are only an hour or two from @herbabymama so I'd have to swing down and meet baby C while I was there!

2. What are 1-3 of your guilty pleasures? Could be anything - food, things you pay people to do so you don't have to, etc.

Only 1-3?

Any and all sweets, Sex and the City reruns, naps.

3. What sperm bank did you use?

California Cryobank

4. What traits do you hope your child gets/doesn't get from your donor that you lack/have?

We initially wanted someone with some of my wife's characteristics, but after we switched to a second donor I'm not sure it actually ended up that way. We did try to balance out some of my traits -- it was important to us to use someone who was on the thinner side, since I have fat genes, and I wanted someone with perfect vision, because mine is awful. Personality-wise, I am kind of a reading/humanities nerd so we looked for someone who seemed to have a bit more aptitude on the math/science side of things, like my wife. And because she is very athletic and looking forward to playing sports with our kid(s) -- as well as because it helps battle the aforementioned fat genes -- we wanted someone who was good at sports.

5. What are you up to this weekend?

My office was closed today due to snow, which is pretty rare, but I was glad not to have to leave the house (more because of the low temps than the snow itself). However I had a research project due today that I wasn't able to finish yesterday, so I spent several hours working on that. Tomorrow my wife and I are running errands and going out to lunch; we also need to work on cleaning up the house and putting away the last of the Christmas stuff. She works on Sunday and I don't have plans, so probably more cleaning/organizing and a gym trip.

StacyLH24 · January 2014

1. When and where is your next vacation planned? If nothing is on the books, what would you plan if you could?

We talked about going to Florida in March for Bike Week. I'm not positive that is still in the plans, but we would like to do something before a baby eventually (hopefully) arrives.

2. What are 1-3 of your guilty pleasures? Could be anything - food, things you pay people to do so you don't have to, etc.

We don't pay anyone to clean at this point, but I seriously contemplate it more and more. My guilty pleasures are: 1. sweets of most any kind, 2. pasta, good bread, pizza...

3. What sperm bank did you use?

North West Cryobank

4. What traits do you hope your child gets/doesn't get from your donor that you lack/have?

While I played some sports in HS and before, they weren't really my thing. Our donor is very athletically inclined and is part of the reason why I picked him. C was always very athletic growing up and it was important to me that our donor reflect her as much as possible.

5. What are you up to this weekend?

Well, we will surely have many conversations on whether or not to move forward with a full IVF cycle or not for our next go round. Other than that, we have our usual bowling league tomorrow night. We are meeting up on Sunday with a friend of C's from childhood. She has twins who are a year and a half old. She and her husband did IVF through the same RE's office we are using now. I'm sure this will be a large topic of conversation.

BONUS: PIP us something - maybe a childhood pic of your donor? Or, anything!

I don't have any pics of our donor at this point...or anything else to share either. I need some new pictures!

KH826 · January 2014

I am trying out my new iPad keyboard and hoping this allows me to post space breaks! If this ends up being one giant paragraph, I'm really sorry.... 1. We do not have any vacations planned. I need to save all of my time for maternity leave. I was hoping we would be able to take a babymoon, but it looks like that won't be in the cards. It's ok, certainly not the end of the world. Hopefully we can plan a nice vacation that we can take with the baby after Christmas since I will have a week off then (next time I will have time off other than maternity leave). We will just have to play it by ear... 2. My guilty pleasures are definitely food and TV. I love food of all sorts and could go on forever about different "cheat" foods I love. All things carbs at the moment, and usually ice cream, but I haven't wanted it much since being pregnant. In terms of TV, I love stupid reality TV, home renovation shows, and a long list of dramas that all fill up my DVR. I know we watch far too much TV, but I also know that will change dramatically once baby comes. 3. We used Northwest Cryo for this baby (and all our embryos in the freezer). We tried Fairfax for our first 3 IUI cycles, but then we switched donors and banks. 4. We also selected a donor who resembles (physically and otherwise) my wife. Some of those characteristics that I hope our child(ren) shares include creativity, a laid-back personality and a kind heart. I think our kids are just as likely to "inherit" those things from my wife as they are from a their donor -- perhaps more so from my wife who will be raising them as opposed to a genetically inherited trait. I don't know. This is a tough question for me. I don't think about our donor often. I think about this baby as mine and my wife's. Sometimes I forget that there is another party involved, even if just biologically. 5. I worked from home today due to snow, and my office ended up closing, so it was a super slow day. My wife was home too since schools were closed. We hung out with TV on in the background while I responded to emails. Then my wife shoveled and I made dinner. It was an uneventful day. Tomorrow we are tackling a LONG to-do list. If we get half of it done I will be thrilled. We shall see. Sunday my wife is going to a baby shower for one of her coworkers. I will probably do laundry, groceries and maybe a little maternity clothing shopping (still struggling with clothes and finding things that fit and look nice at this stage and the shape of my body...)

KH826 · January 2014

UGH! I give up -- I cannot for the life of me figure out how to post with spaces/space breaks on my iPad (even with the keyboard). I'm sorry I know how annoying it is. This is why I haven't responded to GTKY Friday in so long b/c I am usually on my iPad on Fridays/the weekends. SO annoying!

2MamazInSeattle · January 2014

@KH826, Please post, spaces or not! We heart you here.

One other idea is to try using a different browser. Firefox has worked best for me as IE 11 won't let me post at all! If you're using Safari, try Firefox, or vice versa. Just an idea!

kboydbowman · January 2014

1. When and where is your next vacation planned? If nothing is on the books, what would you plan if you could? Nowhere specific right now. We usually go to Myrtle Beach at the end of August with my mom but that may be out this year for obvious reasons!

2. What are 1-3 of your guilty pleasures? Could be anything - food, things you pay people to do so you don't have to, etc. We like going to the casino *way* too much. I like a lot of reality TV shows (Project Runway, Big Brother, Survivor, stuff like that). I am fully aware that my wife is being overly dramatic about what I can and cannot do (i.e. she won't let me lift anything more than 5 pounds) but I am milking it for all it's worth.

3. What sperm bank did you use? We didn't. We did in-home AI with a known donor for 10 months with no luck. With wife's permission we then did NI with another known donor and got pregnant on the first try.

4. What traits do you hope your child gets/doesn't get from your donor that you lack/have? I hope they are taller than me! Some athletic ability would be nice, too.

5. What are you up to this weekend? Typing up some assessment reports for one of my jobs, maybe unpacking a few more boxes, other than that, Bumping/interwebbing and maybe some reading.

kboydbowman · January 2014

trisholio said:

@trisholio - We got married in Buffalo (I did my undergrad there many moons ago) and I took the wife up to see Niagara Falls while we were there. Also, my first appointment is also on January 8th! I think I'm about a month ahead of you but that's still pretty cool - we can kvetch afterward!

pauljl · January 2014

@KH826 I skip GTKYs a lot too because my iPad squashes my paragraphs. Today I broke out the good old fashioned (literally) laptop. (It's kind of a relic).

1. When and where is your next vacation planned? If nothing is on the books, what would you plan if you could?

Our next big trip will be to Indiana to see DW's Grandma

I've never even met the woman, and we are finally financially stable enough to make the trip! Sweet Grandma has made me promise to make her a lasagna when I get there, since she's heard about them from other family

2. What are 1-3 of your guilty pleasures? Could be anything - food, things you pay people to do so you don't have to, etc.
1. SWEEETTTSSSS. Actually sweet/salty mix is even better.

2. I'm terrible about picking up little silly surprises for DW when I go out shopping. It could be something as small as a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup. I've always done it- the only thing that makes it guilty is that we were seriously broke for several years, and here I was buying silly treats!

3. What sperm bank did you use?
We have a very near and dear known donor. Who is actually on his way over to make a deposit tonight

4. What traits do you hope your child gets/doesn't get from your donor that you lack/have?
I hope that our kid looks like our donor. Our donor is related to DW, so it will be so cool to have a baby that looks like both of us. <------this makes me sound so shallow. I just feel like having a baby that has similar traits will make DW so happy. Although I know that she will love our future baby no matter what.

5. What are you up to this weekend?
We are going looking at some houses tomorrow! I can't WAIT!

maryoosa · January 2014

1. When and where is your next vacation planned? If nothing is on the books, what would you plan if you could?

Nothing official is on the books, but likely we'll be in PGH at some point soon, probably Indy in March for a work conference for me and a summer trip to Rehoboth for family beach time.

2. What are 1-3 of your guilty pleasures? Could be anything - food, things you pay people to do so you don't have to, etc.

Pedicures, Blow-outs, Being Chaufererd around.

3. What sperm bank did you use? When we were trying to get pregnant we used California and someplace in NY that I can't remember the name of. However, pregnancy was unsuccessful for us and instead we have a family through domestic infant adoption.

4. What traits do you hope your child gets/doesn't get from your donor that you lack/have?
Once again, we have a child through domestic infant adoption and I hope our son grows up to have the same kind and loving soul evident in his birth parent.

5. What are you up to this weekend? It's been a whole lot of nothing- snowed in from Friday- so Friday we hung out during a blizzard, yesterday we had a visit with our sons birth parent and birth parent's bf, then binge watched Master's of Sex, today we just kicked around doing nothing--finished a sabbatical application, cleaned, etc.

Jazibel · January 2014

@herbabymama & @ball.and.chain - I love the idea of a California visit. I'll keep my fingers crossed that we can make this dream a reality one day :-)

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