It was a popular lesbian fitness instructor in the US who first gave the Swedish couple the idea of freezing Karina’s eggs. And while that process was quite easy, it’s illegal in Sweden for one partner to carry the other partner’s eggs—which is what they had hoped to do.
Traveling to the US, their first IVF procedure resulted in their daughter, Bonnie. But two years later, and after an unsuccessful attempt at conceiving a sibling, they’re giving it one last chance.
CHRISTINA
She calls us ‘Mama’ with—and then the first name. So, well, our nickname, really. So I’m Mama Kiki. My name is Christina, and I’m called Kiki.
KARINA
Yes. And my name is Mama Akka, but we’re both ‘Mama’.
CHRISTINA
Yeah. But we’re both—
KARINA
Well, ‘Mommy’ sort of.
CHRISTINA
We met in school. You don’t call it school. University.
KARINA
Yes, university.
CHRISTINA
In the nursing school.
KARINA
We live in a house—
CHRISTINA
A big house.
KARINA
A big house, and we have a really big yard. We have about 30 or 40 apple trees.
CHRISTINA
We like it in the countryside.
KARINA
I wanted children earlier, I think.
CHRISTINA
Yeah.
KARINA
You know, when my little sister got children, and I felt like, “Oh, I should have had a child.” But then you weren’t ready.
CHRISTINA
No, I don’t think I was. If you get kids, then you have to answer all these questions, and you have to face people’s reactions, and you have to be really sure that you—I don’t know—I just wasn’t ready. And then one day, I was.
KARINA
We actually saw something on TV, that—
CHRISTINA
Jackie, Jackie Warner.
KARINA
Jackie Warner, actually, that she was going to save the eggs.
CHRISTINA
Yes.
KARINA
And then we thought that—and I don’t know if she talked about it, but then we came up with the idea, if one donates the egg to the other one.
CHRISTINA
I think we had that idea before, but we didn’t know how to go about it, how to do it. We didn’t know where. I mean, in Sweden, you can’t do it. It’s not legal. So it was—we had the idea, and we just didn’t know how to do it. And then we saw that.
KARINA
Kristina was going to work, and I was going to log in, and make that we could get in touch with some donor agency. And I found a donor agency where we could get a story about them. They were talking on a video. We had pictures. And we had a lot of information. The first thing I logged into, it was this guy. And I went, “It’s him. This is—this is him.”
CHRISTINA
Everybody at my work cried when I told them. “Ohhh,” they were so happy. “Ohhhh.” They were—that I was pregnant. They were just—no, they’ve been very accepting.
KARINA
Yes, they have. And they are really happy for our sake.
CHRISTINA
And Sweden is kind of—Sweden is a good, good country.
Sweden is kind of far ahead, I think. And my mother didn’t understand when I was—I gave her the ultrasound pictures. “Oh, this is your new grandchild.” “Are you buying a dog?”
She was like, “What?” She didn’t at all get it. And then she’s like, “Oh, oh.” She was so happy. She was very, very happy.
She’s a very happy child. She likes to be outside.
KARINA
And play a lot, yes.
CHRISTINA
Play a lot. She likes animals.
KARINA
She’s never still. She’s never—this is really a very long time for her to sit still.
CHRISTINA
Yeah, this is like the Olympics of sitting still. Really.
A gay couple have been longing for their children for a long time. So of course, children of lesbian, gay couple, they get a lot of love. We’ve waited a long time, and we really, really want our children.
KARINA
And we go to the playground with Bonnie every day.
CHRISTINA
Every morning.
KARINA
Every morning.
CHRISTINA
We’re both mothers. First of all.
KARINA
Yeah, first of all, we are both mothers. And Kristina is the biological mother, and I am the genetical mother.
So it’s my egg, but Kristina was carrying Bonnie.
Dr. KOLB Just a second here. That’s good. So you’re feeling okay.
CHRISTINA
Yes. My ovaries, I’m feeling them more now than I did the first days.
DR. KOLB That’s a good thing.
CHRISTINA
I think so as well.
KARINA
When we contacted Dr. Kolb, he told us that the age matters to the quality of the eggs. And since I’m older, he—
CHRISTINA
Suggested that—
KARINA
Suggested that we should start off with my eggs. If we wanted to switch later, to try the other way.
CHRISTINA
And the plan was really to switch now. But now, we decided that it would be better for Bonnie to have a—how do you call it?
KARINA
Sibling.
CHRISTINA
A sibling, her sibling. So—I’ll carry if this works out.
KARINA
Yes. So we do the same, because we have sperm saved from the same donor, and if you—we use my egg again, then we will have a sibling.
CHRISTINA
So Bonnie was our first. Then we were here six months ago, seven months ago. And that didn’t work out, and now we’re here again. But this will be the last—
KARINA
This is really the last time.
CHRISTINA
It’s all—it’s also a question of money, really, for us, because we come from—I mean, across the—
KARINA
Yeah, it’s not—just the payment for the treatment. It’s the trip, and we work, and stuff, that we have to—
CHRISTINA
It’s a big deal.
KARINA
It’s a big deal.
CHRISTINA
It’s a big thing to do, and it’s a big thing to plan.
KARINA
Plan, yes.
CHRISTINA
You have to—so this is it.
DR. KOLB The uterus here, the endometrium here. So when you’re pregnant, this is where the pregnancy will be. And this is—we’re going to put the embryos right in along here. So this looks really nice. It’s coming in well.
CHRISTINA
We want Bonnie to have a sibling, but it’s—
KARINA
And somebody to share the experience, to have gay parents, maybe, and to have a donor father, and—
CHRISTINA
And just to have a sibling, as well.
KARINA
And—yes.
DR. KOLB Once the follicles reach a mature size, then we can set up the egg retrieval. Okay. So we’re going to check that. And then afterwards, we’ll sit down and go through everything, as far as what our next steps are, and when the retrieval is going to fall.
KARINA
The process is that we are stimulating my eggs.
CHRISTINA
Yes, you’re on egg stimulation. And I started my medication in Sweden already. So I’m on a lot of hormones, I would say. And we go to Dr. Kolb’s—or to the clinic every—
KARINA
Third day, maybe.
CHRISTINA
Third day to do ultrasound and check on the eggs, see how they’re doing. And when, once they’re ready—
KARINA
The plan is to take them out.
CHRISTINA
Yes. Then they’ll come out and—
KARINA
And then fertilize them. So we hope that there will be some eggs, and fertilize them, good enough to put in Kristina.
CHRISTINA
Yes.
DR. KOLB I just wanted to reiterate for you that with the uterus and the lining, it looks excellent. It’s coming in really well. So we’re just going to hold your dose of the estrogen where it’s at now. The lining—
KARINA
But continue—
DR. KOLB Yes.
KARINA
Yes?
DR. KOLB No changes. So, and the fact that you’re responding really well, and you’re going a little bit slower, it’s not going to harm what we see with the lining here. So we’re in a good position, okay.
CHRISTINA
You have very high hopes, and you don’t know if it will work out, or—
KARINA
Yeah. So now we know what we miss out. As soon as we got Bonnie—now we know what it really means.
CHRISTINA
What it means if it doesn’t work out. What we lose, kind of. Had we been a straight couple, we would have had three kids already.
DR. KOLB So they’ll kind of help you on inventory. If we need to order more medications, that’s fine. If you’re running low for today, we can give you medications to continue, so it shouldn’t be a problem. Okay?
CHRISTINA
Are you satisfied with this? Or are you worried?
DR. KOLB I’m satisfied. There are—it’s a little bit of a slower cycle than you’ve had in the past. But once we went up on the dose of your medication, you’re doing fine. So it’s almost like this early part, where you had very little response—it’s almost like those days didn’t exist.
CHRISTINA
Good.
KARINA
It’s good.
CHRISTINA
Good. Yeah. I think it—we feel better now than yesterday.
KARINA
Yeah. We are more positive now than yesterday, because yesterday we were more tense about eggs, if they were growing or not. And today, it’s more positive. Really more positive.
CHRISTINA
And also because there are now 12 eggs. And there were only, what seven—
KARINA
Yeah, he couldn’t see them all…because they were so small. And today, he can count in more eggs, as well, and that’s good, because we had just—
CHRISTINA
And they will keep on growing for a few days, so—
KARINA
So, yes. Some people think that this is really—we just do it—go there, and we have a baby; walk out with a baby. And—
CHRISTINA
We go buy a baby.
KARINA
Yeah. But even—we are quite healthy. We don’t have any fertilization problems that we know of before. Even then, it’s not that good chances. And we hope—
CHRISTINA
But we’re positive.
KARINA
And we are positive.
CHRISTINA
We’re positive.
KARINA
We hope that we go home with a—
CHRISTINA
We have to be positive.
KARINA
With a baby.