We met in 2017. By 2019 we were talking seriously about kids. By 2020 we'd both been to the GP, both done bloodwork, and both come away with the same quiet sentence: your fertility is on the low side.
If you've heard it, you'll know how it lands. Not catastrophic. Not impossible. Just a seed of doubt pressed into a thing you'd assumed was a given.
Our GP gave us the most useful piece of advice we ever got
She said: "If you both want children, and you both have lower numbers, don't take turns. Try at the same time. You'll double your chances of someone being pregnant. You'll triple your chances of figuring out what's working."
It sounds obvious now. At the time it felt radical. We'd been planning who would go first, like waiting for a ride at the fairground.
The decision to try together, that's the moment our family really started. Long before anyone was pregnant.
The donor
We started looking for a donor and found one on Facebook. We started drafting out what he would be (a donor, with a continued relationship, with no parenting role) and what we would be (the parents, the decision-makers, full stop). We had it legally reviewed before we did anything else.
People sometimes ask if that conversation was awkward. It wasn't. It was easier than every conversation we'd been having around it.
Two months. Two tests.
I inseminated first. Kat inseminated twelve days later. We both tested two weeks after our respective dates. We both stood in the same bathroom and held two tests up, and there were lines on both of them, and we did not know what to say.
We have a video of that moment : )
Both pregnancies were straightforward. Both kids were born healthy. They are now five and five with all the same DNA, almost the same birthday, and entirely their own personalities. They call each other "brothers" or "sisters". We think that's about right.
What we'd tell you, if you're reading this somewhere in the middle of your own story
You don't need to be certain. We weren't. We were two people who wanted to get pregnant and were brave enough to try anyway, despite the low fertility badge given to us by life. Our doctor's odds said one of us would probably get pregnant. We were planning for one. We got two.
The timing matters more than anything else. If we'd gotten this wrong, neither of us would have conceived. Track your cycle. Use OPKs. Don't rely on calendar apps.
Have the hard conversations early. Donor role. Parenting role. What you'd do if it didn't work. We had those conversations in 2020. We've never had to have them again.
Find the people who get it. Most of our families and friends were lovely. Some weren't (especially some anon folks online). The few who weren't taught us how important the community of people who'd actually done this was. This is the reason this company exists.
Hapū Helpers is everything we wished was there when we started. We made it because we couldn't find it.
If you're somewhere in the middle of this (and lost), book a call with us. Even if you don't buy anything from us. Even if you're not sure what you want to ask. We've been where you are. We'd love to be the version of Hapū Helpers you needed.
