Being an adult is weird. I say that as a mid 30s person and I'm finally starting to feel like I'm an adult. I still don't know what I'm doing most of the time, but I've accepted it and recently came to understand that the 20 year olds around me are looking to me to see what the future is like and how to judge me and themselves.

At this point, my wife and I are trying for a baby and it's really emotional. We haven't even tried the insemination yet! It's so complicated from an emotional and logistical standpoint. Let me explain.

First, my wife had to talk to our doctor about her periods. She has always had irregular ones since she was young and she was finally at our first appointment diagnosed with pcos. This bright up conversations we have had already of "well it would be easier if Rain carried the cold, her cycle is regular". Yeah, no, I've NEVER wanted to carry a child. Even when I was pretending to be straight I would have rather adopted. I also don't want a child of my DNA. My brother and sister can, but I have too many genetic issues. Also, there are to many kids out there that need a parent that don't have one.

"You'll need to do legal work since you know who the donor will be." This makes sense, we'll get that done. This is just important to us since my wife never New her biological dad since she was a donor baby because her father was impotent. The fact that is someone I've been close to for 20 years is just the top of the cake. There was no way after talking to my brother that he or I wanted the baby to be his.

"You'll need to go to councilling with him and his wife to make sure every expectation is set". Also easy. We've been discussing this for at least 5 years before we even started this process. We talk about it whenever. I am their child's godmother, this will be nothing.

Now to actually get all this done, we are almost at a full year since this started. And a few times, I have had moments where I had to pull back my anger and frustration. I expected frustration and sadness when things weren't going right, but I didn't expect how gatekept I felt.

I live in the Midwestern united States in Iowa. Iowa has been really keen over the last 4 years in making things about the family... the Christian white straight family. Is been so frustrating and scary living here since covid. The amount of times I watch as the state legislation attempts to get rid of my rights, or preaches about saving natal lives and how we need more babies when they make it so difficult, even for straight people with some internal issues, to have children when people who don't want them are forced to have them. I don't even care if you are a pro-life person, it's not about that. It's about then focusing their attention on things that don't matter. How about we work on getting food to families in need? Or giving basic care to our mental health since iowa has some of THE WORST mental health in the country.

But I'm not here for that soap box. We were supposed to get the first two vials of semen a few weeks ago and the day of, the lab says he's there for testing... uh, no, we already did that? And so began the most frustrating miscommunication between so many doctors, my head still can't wrap around it. Now we might be able to try for the first time in November and my wife is understandably scared because she might be going into a geriatric pregnancy.

All of this has made me think for the first time I might need to go to therapy. But at the same time, I don't know if I actually need it and I don't want to waste 200$ just to be told I'm fine. And no, it's not covered until I used $5000 and maybe not even after that (iowa bad mental health help, remember?). We are still going to adopt, and I was expecting that to take years, this has just been insane.