So your donor agreed, now what?

You either asked a friend, family member, co-worker ect to be your donor or maybe someone close to you came to you and offered. Either way you have a great start on your journey!

But now you might be asking “Now what?”

Dino-mite Sensory Bin!

Along with the toy rotation we have also started sensory bins. Our first one is a Rainbow Dinosaur Pasta bin!!

We started out by buying a box of dinosaur shaped Pasta, you can use any shape or brand of pasta you like. You will also need food coloring, white vinegar and a sandwich bag for each color you plan to use.

I didn’t take photos of the dying process but it was pretty simple.

• Split uncooked pasta evenly into sandwich bags
• For 3/4 cup of pasta we use 2 tsp white Vinegar
• 10 drops of food coloring (5 of each color for orange and purple)
• Mix the bag until the pasta is colored
• Lay on parchment paper to dry

I left it out for about 3 hours because I wanted the vinegar scent to dissipate before I put it in the bin. When we bought the 16QT Sterilite containers for the toy rotation we had two extra ones so I used one of those and put some measuring cups along with an old cupcake tin so he would have something to pour into.

To avoid him trying to dump the pasta bin we played with it on the table with him standing on a chair. He jumped right in to grab the measuring cups but it took him minute to start scooping. After showing him a few times he got the hang of it, mostly just moving it around inside the bin, but he occasionally would pour it into the other cups or the cupcake tin.

A few times he dumped the cup on the floor not realizing there was still pasta in it while he was getting the hang of how to old the cup. We spent 45 mins playing with before nap time.

Overall I’m thinking this is defiantly something he can build on! Learning how to hold the measuring cups and how to pour them, and we can expand on it by adding a coloring sorting element with the cupcake tins. Once we have the color sorting down we’ll introduce patterns with the shapes.

Daily Toy Rotation; The beginning!

Hello Everyone!! I know its Tuesday and this is kind of a “Mommy Monday Post” but I wanted to jump in with something light thats also a life update.

Things have been going great with Orion! I love having him here, even if I am so tired all the time just watching him run and explore the world! Part of this exploring has been making a HUGE mess in my living room! Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind the mess or even the 10 minute pick up at the end of the night. However what I do mind is the fact that he pulls all of the bins down then doesn’t really play with the toys once they are on the floor

Mary Poppins is my role Model: An update on how things are going since my friend and her one year old moved in.

Oh wow where has time gone! This post is going to be a bit long but here is an update on what’s been going on at my house.

It’s been about a month since my best friend Tara and her one year old son, Orion, moved back from Texas and in with me and Sami!! This crazy month all stated with my first plane ride down to Texas to help! Then the 21 hour car ride back to PA. Overall I can say it wasn’t bad, Orion was very well behaved in the back seat, his dad made the trip back with us and sat in the back with him which helped a lot. Since Tara was the only one who could drive we ended up stopping for the night Wednesday night. We still made it here early afternoon on Thursday though, this was mostly because Orion woke us up at 2:30am and we decided since we were up we might as well just get on the road. I was also able to add five more states to my states visited which takes me up to seventeen total states, the others are from PA to FL when I went to Disney. Most of my state map is states I’ve just driven through. 

The Softcup Method

So what is the Soft Disc Method? The softcup method uses any brand of mensural disk to hold semen close to the cervix for a longer period of time, roughly six hours but no more than twelve. This method can actually be used by straight and lesbian couples, since the overall method is the same there are just a few different steps.

Timing is everything

I bet in high school you were like me, thought no matter when if you had unprotected sex, you could get pregnant.

This post slightly curves off the typical Semen Saturday posts but still in the same ball park I feel. Looking back to high school when I was dating with and sleeping with boys, I like most high school girls was afraid of getting pregnant if I had unprotected sex. My parents, school and the media did their job of convincing me of that.

The TTC dark place

Happy New Year Everyone!

I had a bit of a rough end of the year emotionally. Right around Thanksgiving I stopped taking all four of my vitamins, Prenatal, Iron, B4, and Folic Acid. I had been taking them pretty religiously for about 150 days then I just stopped. I figured what’s the point when you don’t feel like your going to get pregnant anytime soon, due to outside forces and timing. When you’re trying to conceive it’s hard to see the year as 365 opportunities but instead it’s just 12 chances to get the only thing you want in life.

What Role is your donor going to play?

In this act we call life everyone has a role to play right? So you might be wondering what Role is your known donor is going to play if you’re using a known donor this question probably crosses your mind a lot. It’s easier if you use a sperm bank since the donor is unknown to you and to the child.

But as kids grow up they are going to ask questions, thats just a fact. So it’s better to be prepared early on with how you and your partner are going to answer these questions. With us it was simple, our donor is one of our best friends so there was no question even before he became our donor he would play the role of “Cool Uncle” “God father” ect…

Its Insemination Day!!!!

Sorry I haven’t posted much, I had lots planned then life happened and we put it on the back burner a bit but….

I can finally say that we are Officially trying to conceive! Our donor came over last night and we did the first run of insemination!! It was a bit messy but all in all it went smoothly!! Since we are good friends we just hung out drank a bit then he did his thing into the cup and we then took it into the bedroom and did our thing with the syringe.

The Science of Ovulation

What is ovulation you ask? Ovulation is when a mature egg is released to be fertilized to achieve pregnancy. An egg only survives for 12 to 24 hours once it is released. Lucky for us sperm is a little bit more resilient and it can survive for up to 5 days.

Tracking your ovulation is the way to get pregnant quick! There are a lot of apps that help predict when your ovulation will take place but its helps to know the science behind it. I will do another post soon on the different apps I use to help you keep track of everything.

Our Known Donor Agreement

This is the known donor agreement we are using. I did a lot of research of different examples and wording then I sat down and wrote up one that fit our needs and what we wanted out of the agreement.

Sperm: Where in the world do you get it from?

Silly seeing it written out right? But it’s the question on all of our minds right?

Depending on what route you plan to go you have lots of options at your disposal on how to procure sperm. All vary in price, inseminate location, risk factor, legal costs, and so much more.

Dear Daughter: Facebook Post

This is a facebook post going around and it was really touching so I figured I’d share it here for all the mommies of daughters out there! I hope to someday join you all raising a little sassy version of myself!

Abbreviations List

Here are some abbreviations you will more than likely see on this page.

I created a short cut to this list in the menu bar to make it easier to refer back.

Our Method – Known donor, At Home, ICI

Me and my wife are using a known donor because it was really important to us that in the future the child/children are able to have contact with their donor, even if they only seem him as the “Uncle” figure, and so we could ask questions about health and family history directly to the source and not via a biography. Our known donor is a good friend of ours so we will be using the ICI method at home. I have typed up a Known Donor Contract to which him, my wife and I will all signed in front of a notary. The Document outlines our full intentions of the process so there is no questioning it later on.

Introduction to Trying to Conceive

Two things to start out with 1. There are a million and a half acronyms when it comes to getting pregnant.. I will do my best to try and spell them out and will post a reference guild later on. 2. TTC is a very broad term, it can cover anyone female, male, gay, straight non binary who is starting the process of getting pregnant, or who’s partner is getting ready to get pregnant. For example a male who is married to a women can say him and his wife are TTC. But also two women can say they are TTC and women A will be the carrier.

Obligatory Welcome Post

I’m not going to be redundant and make a post about who I am and what the site is about. You can find all that info in the About Me Tab.

This post is going to jump right into what you guys can expect to see coming. I’m hoping to post a few times a week, this may not always happen. It will depend on how my schedule goes and what new information I have gathered to pass along to you guys.