No one talks about how hard the journey to getting pregnant can be for same-sex couples

• As a same-sex couple, our journey to becoming parents involved more logistics.
• This is an adapted excerpt from "Not Another Parenthood Guide," a Coterie limited-edition book.

The following is an adapted excerpt from "Not Another Parenthood Guide," a book from Coterie's Becoming Parents campaign, with 100% of sales going to BabyQuest.

We started talking about having a family about a year after we got married. I don't think we were ready yet, but obviously, as a same-sex couple, there are way more logistics that go into doing it.

We met with a fertility doctor, did the whole process of finding a sperm donor, and I was taking prenatals and getting my body ready.

My wife wanted to have kids, but she never wanted to carry them. I was like, "Oh, I'll be pregnant, 100 percent." So that was an easy decision.

Deciding which route to go based on costs

We started with one cycle, totally unmedicated, just to see how everything worked. Then the doctors began to realize that my ovulation was super erratic, so they wanted to medicate me to give me a better chance at conceiving. It was very trying, for sure. Once the hormones got mixed into it, it was a whole new ball game.

After the fourth time, they ran more tests on me and basically called my condition "unexplained infertility" — whatever that means. It's just the most annoying sentence in fertility history, because it's like, how is anything unexplained?

We were kind of at a crossroads at four months. IVF can cost $30,000, and IUI is a few thousand every cycle, so we decided to just keep going with IUI.

We were on our last vial of sperm from our donor and went to purchase more, and found out that he had stopped donating. There was no more sperm available from him. We had to go through the whole process of finding a new sperm donor.

The perfect sperm donor doesn't exist

Our fertility doctor had explained that the perfect donor does not exist, telling us to "just pick three of the most important things for you, and then we'll narrow it down." I really wanted a Filipino sperm donor because we used my egg and I wanted the baby to look like both of us.

I think we knew we weren't totally sure about the first donor. But when we chose our second sperm donor, we just knew. We instantly felt it was a better match. With the fifth IUI, I'd had a chemical pregnancy. I took a pregnancy test, and it was positive and we were so excited. And then two days later, my blood work had a very low hCG.

On our sixth time, with this new sperm donor, I was thinking, "This is going to be our last time, and then we're taking a break. We'll go on vacation, we'll do something, and then do IVF again in a few months because I'm tapped out." Our fertility doctor agreed but said we were going to do two back-to-back IUIs — meaning the day you ovulate, you go in for one IUI, then 24 hours later, you go in and do another one. And at the time, my wife was out of town for work so I had to do it by myself.

I didn't even buy pregnancy tests because I was certain it wasn't going to work. My wife got me some just in case.

I took it and three minutes later there were two big, bold lines. It was hard to believe because I had gotten two positive results before that didn't work, so I was in this weird very excited, but also very reserved place. I literally probably took about 30 pregnancy tests. I took a pregnancy test every time I had to pee for two days until I got the blood test.

The pregnancy journey wasn't great, I'm not going to lie. I think because it took a lot of effort to get pregnant. I was so anxious at every checkup, every ultrasound, every everything.

I was just waiting for the other shoe to drop. I was very anxious and nervous until I hit about seven months and felt I could relax a little bit. I don't think that I really knew that was how I was going to feel. I kept wondering where my glow was. I started eating fast food. It was my secret treat: Taco Bell all day long.

I definitely felt very, very isolated when it was happening. I was miserable every month on these terrible hormones, and I didn't really know what to expect. I didn't know anyone that had gone through fertility treatments before, so I didn't have anyone to lean on.

I feel like now that we're on the other side of it, I could talk about fertility all day long. I don't like to give unsolicited advice because nobody wants that. But I'll listen and join a conversation with anyone that wants me to.

No one talks about how hard it is emotionally, physically, financially, mentally, everything about it is exhausting. It was a year for us, and it felt like an eternity.

Once we got that positive sign on the pregnancy test, everything, that sadness, all the worries, it all went away. Because that's the moment you've been waiting for. We just cried

From "Not Another Parenthood Guide," published on November 3, 2021, by Coterie. Copyright 2021.