Prequel Part 5

Like Uhauling. But with Sperm.

This post is part 5 in a series that tells the story of how my wife and I met the father of our son online and went on to have a baby. You can read the previous posts here.

If you aren’t a lesbian, or good friends with one, you might not get that title. But let me explain. Uhauling is what happens in lesbian relationships when we move-in together really fast. It comes from the old joke what did the lesbian bring to a second date? A Uhaul. Hardy-har-har.  Not all lesbians do this but many of us do. We meet, fall in love, move-in together, adopt cats and start processing the emotional ramifications of sperm donors versus adoption.  And those of us who are still together after all that processing go on to have babies.

A Uhaul parked on Gay Street in NYC.

What does this riveting look into the mating lives of lesbians have to do with meeting Andy you ask? Well, when we packed our car to drive to Montreal that day, making sure that we had our camera, wallets, and cash for parking, we also packed our (metaphorical) Uhaul.

Andy just seemed so great and we were so ready to make a baby! I had been tracking my cycle with a healthy dose of obsessive compulsiveness and I was scheduled to ovulate the next week. We talked nervously about whether or not we could suggest trying the week following our first meet. Would we look too eager? But we were getting ahead of ourselves. First, we needed to meet him. And we were nervous. Gosh were we nervous! It was going to be a really high-stakes first date!

I fretted about what to wear. What would convey attractive-cool-person but also mother-of-my-child? And what was Tracy going to wear? The control freak in me wanted to micromanage it all.

One thing you should know about my wife is that she is a time under-estimator. In order to be somewhere on time I have to employ a trick handed down to me from my father who used it on his time under-estimator wife – I tell her we need to be somewhere thirty minutes before we actually do. And since I am the social convener of our family it usually works and she’s none the wiser. But on this occasion she was in on the planning so she knew we were meeting Andy at 1 PM. I can’t tell you how much stress this gave me. I was panicked all week.

Finally, the morning arrived. I got up extra early and was ready and waiting an hour before we had to leave. Tracy, in her usual fashion, hit snooze about a zillion times, took her time in the bathroom, and was nowhere near ready when it was time to leave. I tried to keep my anxiety in check, having learned a long time ago that rushing her usually has the opposite effect.  We left the house only fifteen minutes later than we had hoped which had to be some kind of miracle. Except that Tracy then wanted to stop at Tim Horton’s for a coffee.  

I was annoyed with the time delay and then was even more annoyed when she returned to the car with her coffee and ended up spilling the extra large cup all over both of us. We were off to a great start.

We dried off and got back on the road.  I was very grateful that we were both in dark pants that didn’t show the spilled coffee.  About thirty minutes later we came upon our next delay – an ambulance in the road ahead was blocking both lanes. After what seemed like a very long wait an ambulance helicopter landed in front of us. Not long after that it flew away and the road cleared. I tried to remind myself that clearly somebody on that road had much worse problems than we did.

By the time we were driving again we were 45 minutes behind schedule. If you know me you know that my anxiety was high. And then Tracy needed to stop to pee. I guess from the half of an extra large coffee that we weren’t wearing. So we pulled over in Renaud Quebec and used the.grossest.bathroom.in.the.world. I almost wish I had a picture to prove that title but I’m more thankful that I don’t. I’m not even going to describe it to you. You’ll just have to take my word for it.

By the time we arrived at Le Club Sandwich in Montreal we were late and I was frazzled. But we didn’t have to worry because we still managed to beat Andy there. We sat down and ordered a drink to calm our nerves. I scanned the menu looking for a vegetarian option. But all I could find was this:

Yes, that's a vegetarian sandwich with chicken and bacon. And spelled wrong for good measure.

I couldn’t make that up.

A few laughs, a few sips of rum and coke, and a few minutes later we saw Andy walking quickly toward us. But more about that next time.

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