FUCK.

Our society is so bass-ackward. Meet M and I: two intelligent, capable, resourceful, and motivated people who want to have a baby, pay for it ourselves, and love it unconditionally. Now meet the morally corrupt system that is telling us we can't.

We have suffered a monumental setback today. For some reason that I can not understand, the cryobank decided to do a little digging into the mysterious nature of my relationship to KD. In their quest for discovery, they did not call KD or I, who would have been happy to reassure them. No, they called our nurse practitioner's office. Unfortunately, our nurse practitioner (the person that first sat me down and informed me of the bullshit laws that are designed to prevent single women and lesbians from conceiving AS WELL AS how to get around them), is out on vacation, so they reached the office manager (weasel) instead. He dutifully informed them that KD is in fact my brother-in-law, and I am attempting to become pregnant via artificial insemination.

And that was that. Our cryobank account has now been flagged as a "directed donation," and we have to put KD through another expensive and time-consuming battery of tests before we can receive any of the samples he has already deposited. The silver lining? We've got nothin' but time to do it in. As a directed donation, all samples are also subject to a SIX MONTH quarantine. That means that all the samples that KD went entirely above and beyond to accumulate in preparation for our next shipment (supposed to be going out in a mere five days) must now be held until the end of J A N U A R Y of 2 0 0 8.

The office manager called me to say that they were mandating quarantine and said he was "so confused" as to why this might be! I said it sounded like they found out we were not "intimate partners" and asked if he knew how that could have happened, since our NP told us what to say and we've never strayed from the story. "Oh," he said. "Well, I guess I told them then. I just read what was here in your chart." He proceeded to tell me how very sorry he was to have caused this situation, but he did not offer to help clean it up. I asked if the NP was available. My first thought was to see if she would be willing to call on our behalf, say that her office manager was confused, and "clear up" any "misunderstandings" that may have occured. This is when I learned she is out on vacation. I didn't have the presence of mind to ask when she would be back - the world had already begun to spin too fast for that.

I really don't know what to do. I can't fly to KD next week. I would miss ANYTHING work-related at this point, but I'm set to ovulate ON the opening night of a play I am in. I can't stomach the idea of taking another break for one month, let alone six. This past month off was too hard on me. Even if I could, we'd be crazy to miss out on one of our 3 post-HSG elevated fertility months. My best idea at this point is to call the cryobank tomorrow morning and feign ignorance. I'm just going to say that I'm calling to make shipping arrangements, and when they tell me about the minor change to my account status, I'm going to be outraged and demand to know how I can fix the mistake that the "clearly confused" office manager has made. How can they possibly ask me to prove that KD and I are intimate partners? Will the demand a demonstration? I think not. On one hand, I can't imagine this will work. On the other, I'd like to see how they can prevent it from working. I'm interested to see what kind of "proof" of intimacy they can possibly ask for, other than our word. The bottom line is that I don't know what else to do. I kind of feel like this is our only hope, and if it doesn't work, well, then we won't be any worse off than we are now, right?

I'm just so shocked and sad that in the midst of a society filled with so many unplanned, unwanted, and unloved children, someone would make this process so damn near impossible for people like M and I. What do they care how I want to get pregnant? Can't I just sign a frigging release saying I won't sue them if I get some horrible disease? Isn't that what lawyers are for, to write contracts like that? I'm so sick of people feeling that they have the right to make such intimate decisions for me and how M and I create our family. We're not hurting anyone. We're just trying to build OUR own family and not be discriminated against. Wouldn't these legislators efforts be better channeled into preventing teen pregnancy, treating babies born addicted to crack, or improving the foster care system. Damn it! Leave us alone already!

I shouldn't have written this right now. I should have let myself cool off. I'm just so...

Damn it.