It’s been an amazing day. Rose and I have started pre-conception care. We’re buying and borrowing good books, looking for info on SA queer friendly lawyers (there’s paperwork involved with rainbow families!), working on diet and exercise, saving money, starting conversations with possible donors, discussing household and family structures, and starting the process of medical assessments. Today was a very medical day. I’ve had a bunch of tests done, including coping great with my first trans-vaginal ultrasound (to see how my womb health is going, considering that I have endometriosis) and I am so pleased! I was pretty nervous about it, and for the first time Rose and I were together for these tests, so we’re starting down the road of learning how to support each other through them. I’m so glad. Coping with medical touch can be a challenge but lots of hard work I’ve done over the years is fortunately paying off really well. Hurrah! I had to explain to Rose how not to fuss over me too much, because it spooks my inner kids and makes it all a lot harder to cope with. It was a ‘I’ve got my great big boots on and I can laugh anything off’ kind of day, and I’m damn proud of myself and very excited! I’m glad that we’re getting a chance to learn how to look after each other in medical fertility appointments before the really big ones where they’re listening for heartbeats or giving bad news.

We celebrated with chai lattes in my favourite local cafe, and went and bought a bag of 50 jonquils to plant in the garden. Flowers always feel like the perfect way to celebrate hopeful baby events. We have appointments coming up for further tests at Repromed, a local fertility clinic with a good reputation for being welcoming of queer couples. There’s challenges but it’s so exciting to be on the road! Even already, we’ve noticed the sense of vulnerability, how quickly we get excited and then crash when things don’t work out as we hope, a possible donor can’t be involved, or we can’t get test results for weeks. We’re moving quickly but being gentle too, laying lots of groundwork to be able to process events and take good care of each other. This can be really hard on couples! We want to ride it out together.