Aunt Emma is significant in Beckyas life for being the only member of her generation (Emmaas, that is) to know that Becky is a lesbian. Though Becky was quite close with her maternal grandmothera"and I, myself, spent many an overnight with the two of them, watching Murder, She Wrote and eating ice-cream sodasa"Becky never told her she was gay. By the time Becky came out to Aunt Emma, her grandmother was a few
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years gone and Emma was the familyas new matriarch, stubbornly adding years to her life at least in part so that she might claim a real estate investment that is rightfully hers. Becky told Emma she was pregnant, that she and I would be raising a child together, and how it was she had gotten pregnant. (aAunt Emma asked!a) The only remorse Emma expressed to Becky that day on the phone was about not having had children herself. Ninety-five knows what counts. Aunt Emma blessed Becky and me and our budding family, and now here we are driving, with the windows closed and the air conditioning blasting, through a state that would just as soon see our little lesbian family return from whence it came (or so we suspect thanks to all that we had read about its disregard for the rights of same-s.e.x parents).
Iam not at all uncomfortable about meeting Aunt Emma. Itas country clubs I donat like. I donat like groups of people who have paid large sums of money to bask in exclusivity. It reminds me that I donat have tons of money and that as a lesbian performance artist of the oae"ensive variety, I likely am one of the very people they wish to exclude.
Well, you can run but you canat hide. Theo is negotiating with the valet and Becky has taken Phoebe into the ladiesa room for a diaper change. So itas me, the tattooed (theyare all covered) rebel heart-mommy whose hand Aunt Emma takes and glides through the plush lobby to show oae" to all her cronies.
aThis is my niece,a Aunt Emma boasts to each octo- and nonagenerian along our path. aThis is my niece from New York!a Aunt Emma is proud as a peac.o.c.k and Iam as flattered, though not entirely sure she knows itas me and not Becky she is escorting.
The introductions are endless. Aunt Emma is the mayor of Golfville, a starlet on opening night. With each silver- (or blue-) haired nod in our direction, I realize the status our visit has bestowed on Emma. A golf club/housing development such as this is not unlike a nursing home in that its residents are, for the most part, fragile seniors living out the remainder of their years far from the children and grandchildren they long to be near. Each young face that enters their world represents a dream come true for one among them; a son or daughter or grandchild has come to visit!
For Emma, nieces and nephews are as close as it comes. Iave never seen anyone beam as much as Aunt Emma on this February morning. She squeezes my hand from time to time and I squeeze back.
It seems to take forever for Becky and Phoebe to return, but when at last they do, Emma adds notches to her belt that likely will last her the rest of her life. She abandons the three of us and takes Phoebe on a teetering walk around the dining room. Theo, Becky, and I are not sure which one of them will fall first. Thankfully, both make it back to the table without gravity conquering either of their ages.
Brunch goes as brunches go. Everyone in the dining room coos and caws over Phoebe, who, if I do say so myself, is irresistible with her strawberry curls, bright blue eyes, and glorious smile. We order coae"ee, share blintzes and bagels. Sure, Theoas sixty and Becky and I are in our early forties, but with him along for the ride our little family raises no eyebrows.
As for the intangible, weare all Jewish except for Phoebe, who is half-Jewish due to the fact that there were no Jewish donors available when we were shopping for sperm. The Jewish thing helps me feel a bit more at home. Though there is no temple on the premises, and the club is nonsectarian, every single person we encounter appears Jewish. They resemble so much my own cadre of lox-loving relatives that I relax enough to oae"er to walk the fidgeting Miss Phoebe around the grounds so that Becky can enjoy some family time and a meal not eaten in fast-forward.
Only now, without Aunt Emma as our human nametag, our presence evokes an unusual reaction among the crowd.
aWhom do you belong to?a each person asks me as Phoebe and I smile and wave our way around the lobby, ladiesa room, valet station, and anywhere else that provides distraction.
aEmma Rosenbloom,a I say, happy to be adding more notches to Aunt Emmaas belt.
The answer satisfies, and I come to believe there is an actual score sheet somewhere on which a tally is being kept; Emma Rosenbloom, widow living on the tenth hole, had three visitors on February 5th. All were attractive and well-mannered.
aWeare amba.s.sadors,a I say to Phoebe. aRepresentatives of life and light and we are making Aunt Emmaas day!a With that in mind, I decide to earn Aunt Emma the biggest score possible. Phoebe will blow raspberries and coo precious baby-talk for as many people as we can find. I will cast aside my New York street-walk and stand erect and open. I will be kind and gentle and not at all paranoid, as Phoebe and I tell every last old folk who we are there to see.
Our plan works like a charm. In fifteen minutes Phoebe and I have announced our visit to almost twenty people. We think weare done with our mission, that twenty (ha!) is as good as itas going to get, and then we see it, just beyond the front deska"the be-all and end-all of our journey, the grand slam with bases loaded. Itas the canasta room.
Suace it to say the canasta room is huge, more like three big rooms all stuck together thanks to walls that have been slid open. There are fifty tables easy, maybe more, at each of which sit four women. Fifty times four, thatas two hundred bubbes over the age of seventy.
aJackpot,a I whisper in Phoebeas ear. aWe just hit the senior citizen jackpot.a Thanks to the fact that our beauteous, brilliant daughter also is so physically advanced at eleven months and counting that she walks on her own with only minimal diaculty, and with an adultas hands in hers with no trouble at all, we can position ourselves for maximum cuteness. I put Phoebe down in front of me, take both her hands in mine, and prepare for the big entrance.
The room is humming. Two hundred ladies playing canasta is an awesome sight and generates a sound similar to that of an open field in the dead of summer, a cricket kind of buzzing accompanied by the shu~e of cards, and an occasional clangor that breaks through beyond the din.
Phoebe giggles and gurgles with excitement. I have a grin on my face that actually is starting to hurt. In we walk. Letas get this show on the road.
Phoebe and I are not yet fully across the threshold into the plush redcarpeted gaming room when every single one of the two hundred salon- perfect heads turns to look at us.
aWho are you?a A woman asks, holding her cards in front of her.
aWeare visiting Emma Rosenbloom,a I announce, half expecting bells to go oae", balloons to drop from the ceiling, Ed McMahon to race forth with cameras and a check in Aunt Emmaas name.
aNo, who are you?a The woman repeats.
aMy name is Fern, and this is my daughter, Phoebe.a The room comes to a complete halt. Silence. Phoebe and I suddenly are engulfed in sheer and utter silence.
aI thought the other one was her mother,a the woman says without cracking a smile.
I am so taken oae" guard, so thrown oae" my benevolent course that there is nothing to do but tell the truth. aWe both are,a I say. aIam her mother, too.a aOh,a says the woman.
And with that, the room regains its hum, the ladies return to their games, and Phoebe drags me back to the front desk, where a woman, moments earlier, had shown her a picture of a kitty.
aYou didnat tell me you had visited the canasta room,a I say to Becky later.
The whole thing caused such an armpit stink, I have to change my shirt.
aThey loved Phoebe. We almost couldnat get ourselves out of there.a Apparently thatas what had taken Becky and Phoebe so long to return from the ladiesa rooma"they had taken a detour. Not only that, but the occasion filled her with so much Old World pleasurea"like dipping into a mikvaha"that simply remembering it evokes in her that moony hormonal glow Iave seen so much in the last year, her own private and well-deserved postpartum high.
aIf I had known, I never would have gone in there with Phoebe. Now Iave ruined Aunt Emmaas reputation because they all know she has a lesbo niece.a The glow dims. Becky is aghast. aAnd whatas wrong with that?a Right. What is wrong with that, you supposedly in-your-face, Iamgay-and-proud performance arteeste? Once again, Iam knocked oae" cen ter. How can a heart-mommy not believe in the heart?
Becky continues. aDid anyone care?a aThey didnat seem to,a I confess. aBut most of them probably couldnat hear me.a aThey heard you,a Becky says.
A week later, when weare nestled once again in our cozy, gay-friendly Brooklyn enclave (rather than amid the unsettling faces of our elders), Becky gets a call from Florida. Aunt Emma tells her how the ladies at the club canat stop talking about Phoebe, about how cute and happy she looked, how lucky Aunt Emma is, and how nice it was to meet her family.
aNinety-five knows what counts,a I say to Phoebe, to remind myself at forty-one.
Phoebe generously blows me the raspberry I deserve.
From the Outposts of Lesbian Parenting.
Robin Reagler.
I am the other mother. Earlier in the process of choosing to become a parent, I had hoped to be the mother, but this is the way it all worked out.
Four years loomed between the time when my partner, Marcia, and I first talked seriously about having a baby and the time the baby actually arrived. Because I am older than Marcia, and because I was the first to decide that I wanted to give birth, I was the first to try to conceive. I got pregnant twice, followed by two miscarriages. The miscarriages were brutal, for reasons beyond the loss and grief that Marcia and I shared. The doctors we worked with were h.o.m.ophobic and made comments that were thoughtless and inappropriate. One doctor expressed profound disbelief that our known-donoras wife had agreed to this arrangement. Another acted horrified that we planned to do our insemination at home. When I asked why, she claimed that it was not hygienica"as though the typical American husband excels in cleanliness. I kept shopping for new gynecologists. The ignorance that we discovered among medical professionals was shockinga"and this in Houston, Texas, a city known internationally for its superb medical center.
Then I turned forty; my metabolism stalled a bit, and my knees began to creak. We decided to reevaluate our baby-making plans. Although we live in a large American city and have many friends, we did not know any other lesbians engaged in the creation of families, except through adoption. One thing I have realized is that for gays and lesbians, isolation is a real possibility no matter where you live. Without a community to encourage us in our journey, we decided to call it quits.
And that was the end of that. We were sad, but we were content. Af ter all, we had a dog-child and a cat-child to keep our home animated. We could bike across Europe in the summers, snorkel the coast of Cozumel, and enjoy life without diaper genies, pacifiers, bibs, and Teletubbies.
Then, six months later, my partner walked in from her therapy appointment and announced that she would like to try to get pregnant. She hadnat really told me shead been considering this option. I was surprised and a little taken aback. If I felt alienated as the lesbian mom-to-be, how would it feel to be the lesbian mom-to-beas partner? Would I find myself even more isolated, not once, but twice removed from motherhood?
As it turned out, Marciaas pregnancy held a number of surprises for me. Maybe we learned from the first go-round or maybe we just lucked out, but Marciaas pregnancy did not push me to the edges or make me feel invisible, as I had feared it would. It actually put me in the center of the circlea"even more than my own pregnancies. This time around, for medical support, we turned to a group of midwives. The four women in the group were warm and supportive. Typically, a pregnancy checkup lasted as long as forty-five minutes, or longer if we had concernsa"this in comparison to the quick fifteen-minute appointments that characterize most visits to an ob-gyn. In addition to the factual questionsa"When was your last period? Have you experienced any spotting?a"they also inquired into our emotional experience of this life-altering process. How are you feeling about the pregnancy? Do you have support from your families? Do you know other lesbian families in the area?
Ours was not a high-tech medical experience, but Marcia got to make the birthing decision, and I think it was right for us. There were moments when the midwives walked into the examination room with their listening devices and tape measures, and I thought back to childhood telephonesa"you know, the two empty tin cans connected by string? But since Marcia was a healthy thirty-five-year-old, this was considered a low-risk pregnancy, and we really didnat miss the videotaped ultrasound or amniocentesis. The midwives always addressed the two of us as a family. We felt they were with us rather than above us, and the miracle of the approaching birth received our and their full attention.
The anestinga phenomenon was another part of Marciaas pregnancy that, paradoxically, helped me feel included rather than excluded. All the pregnancy books say that the biological mother will go through a zealous nesting period in which she buries herself in her home and makes necessary preparations: cleaning, organizing, and sorting. Unfortunately, my partner never quite got the urgea"but I did. While she borrowed a friendas beach house for a writing retreat, I caulked and painted and repaired. It was very satisfying. At the end of the two weeks, I went to the beach house, too. It was Mardi Gras and we celebrated Fat Tuesday with glee.
After the birth, I continued to feel like an intimate part of the family circle. Although we prepared for natural childbirth, 9,322 contractions and forty-eight hours into it, we gave up. Marcia had an emergency C-section ordered by the midwives. This meant that Marciaas activity was very restricted immediately following childbirth, so in the first few weeks I had a more momentous role in caring for baby Pearl than we expected. Eventually, Marcia took over more of the childcare responsibilities, and I returned to full-time work. But I stayed actively involved at the beginning and end of each day, and I began chronicling our new life in an online journal. The blog, which I call aThe Other Mother: Letters from the Outposts of Lesbian Parenting,a describes from my perspective the experiences and adventures of our nuclear family. Hands down, it is the most significant way yet that Iave found to feel the magnitude of my status as athe other mother.a The day of my second-parent adoption was a moment Iall never forget, but blogging, I must admit, is a daily high.
By breastfeeding and staying at home with our baby, Marcia definitely has a more intense, more amotherlya relationship to Pearl, but I donat feel like a dad or an admiring bystander. At midnight when Pearl cries, I am able to comfort her 60 percent of the time. For the other 40 percent, when I need Marciaas a.s.sistance, I do occasionally feel more aothera than amother.a But blogging saves me from self-doubt. It establishes my ethos as a mom. In the blogosphere, I am the sole narrator. I tell the story.
In the media, blogging sometimes gets a bad rap. A recent article in the New York Times implied that blogging moms are motivated by narcissism and exhibitionism. Actually, the reverse is true: blogging is about community, and the moms who blog are particularly supportive of one another. When I started my blog, my intended audience was family members, none of whom live nearby, but quickly I found myself amaking friendsa in the blogosphere. People got involved in our story. Iad post a yarn about onesies or diarrhea, and ten people would respond. Soon I aknewa mamas across the globe. We all know the saying, it takes a village to raise a child; on the Internet, I found a village of my own. The villagers are not all lesbians; in fact, over 60 percent are straight. Eventually I was invited to become a DotMom, and I am still the only lesbian in that online forum of twenty-five blogging mommies.
I could have used the blog to focus on the aothernessa of motherhood, but instead Iave chosen a more integrative approach. A few months ago a male political blogger posted his personal survey of a dozen mommy blogs head read and admired. When he got to mine, he concluded that it was just like the other stay-at-home-mom blogs, only the author happens to be a lesbian. I did write and thank him for mentioning me; then I politely explained that I have a full-time job and that many other blogging moms do, too. His a.s.sumption, though, did bring a secret smile to my face because it meant that my version of motherhood was recognized as equal.
My stories and questions about being a mom are not drastically different from others. Is the babyas rebel yell caused by teething or a cold? Does it make sense to freeze organic, pureed peas in ice-cube trays? How does one a.s.semble an ExcerSaucer? We all face the same challenges and rejoice over the same milestones. I have fun asking the readers questions. Sometimes I stick to parenting topics and sometimes itas more of a free-for-all. Polls such as, aWho is the s.e.xiest character on The L Word?a have gotten an enthusiastic response, as have the more predictable cries in the dark, such as: aWhat do we do? Our baby will only takes naps in the car!a I also add my politics into the mix, reflecting on or responding to the news of the day, but most of the straight blogging moms do that, too.
Years ago when I was working toward my bacheloras degree and living in a college dorm, at two oaclock each afternoon all the women would gather and watch a soap opera together. The television saga, absurd as it was, became a springboard for dialogue about every possible issue. Blogging creates a similar forum. People gather in cybers.p.a.ce and engage in meaningful conversations. While Marcia and our daughter have the neighborhood playgroup that has become their community, as a mom I have found my peer group online.
Marciaas relationship with Pearl is diae"erent from mine, but now that weare past breastfeeding and weaning, I suspect some of the distinction will blur. I also keep in mind that adiae"erenta is in fact okaya"I am Baba, and Marcia is Mama. One of Marciaas nicknames for Pearl, especially in the early morning hours, is Velcro. When she first wakes up, Pearl literally attaches herself to Marcia, clinging to a leg, a neck, whatever other appendage is available. One of my nicknames for Pearl, especially in the evening hours, is Gingerbread Baby, because after her bath she likes to arun, run, as fast as she cana naked through the house, and I chase her, little pajamas in hand. These rituals open and close each day for our fourteen-month-old daughter. The structure of her life makes her feel safe, makes her feel loved, by both of her moms.
Ident.i.ty is fluid. Over the last few years, I have changed, and I will continue to change. As the other mother, I am creating a role that feels right to my family and me. Now Marcia is pregnant again, and by the end of the year, we will add a second kiddo to the mix. Iam looking forward to meeting the new baby. The last ultrasound showed us another healthy girl. A colleague of mine announced that our home from now on will be called Girlville. The saga of our lesbian domesticity (aka, Girlville) can be followed at your own risk on the World Wide Web.
Parenting as a Subversive Activity.
Dawn Beckman.
Recently, I asked my sixteen-year-old son, Ben, whether he relates diae"erently to his two moms.
aWell, yeah,a he replied. aSusie is always on me about studying and stuae".a I reminded him that he and I have had some heated discussions about the same subject.
aRight, but youare not like her!a I asked Ben if it makes a diae"erence that he and I are not blood relations. After thinking for a moment, he said, aWhen we went to that bar mitzvah last month [on my side of the family], I was thinking, aIam not really related to these people. So if thereas a really hot cousin . . .a a My ten-year-old daughter, Maya, had less to say on the subject. She stated simply, aI donat think about it.a I realize that, in recent years, I have rarely given thought to being a nonbiological mom. I do have daily thoughts and feelings about being a parent. I love my children deeply and intensely. I nurture and encourage them, and appreciate and enjoy them. I sometimes get exasperated and impatient with them. Occasionally I worry. In short, I am a parent like other parents.
Coming Out Twenty-five years ago, I would not have imagined that this would be my life. That was the early 1980s and I was about twenty-five years old. I had just summoned my courage and told my mother that I was a lesbian.
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In response my mom wailed, aWhat did I do wrong?a She lamented, aYouall never be happy.a She mourned, aYou wonat have children.a At the time, having children was not a subject to which I had given much thought. I was a radical lesbian feminist, a political activist! I did not want to conform to conventional middle-cla.s.s expectations, and I had no yearning to settle down and raise children.
Shortly after my less-than-satisfying coming-out experience with Mom, I attended my first Alternate Insemination (AI) workshop. I was at the Michigan Womynas Music Festival, with my girlfriend, Lauri. We both worked in daycare centers and Lauri wanted babies. The AI process as described by the workshop leaders sounded feasible, and intriguing, if a bit messy. I began to vaguely consider becoming a parent, although I had little desire to bear a child myself.
A year or two later, Lauri and I parted ways and I moved to Boston, where I met Susan, who was to become my life partner. Susan and I were both entering our thirties and moving toward establishing for ourselves more conventional lifestyles. We moved in together after a scandalously short courtship of eight months. After a few years, we exchanged commitment rings, privately, on a Provincetown beach, and we started talking about bringing children into our family.
Making a Baby Susanas and my decision making was most deliberate. Could we aae"ord to raise children? Barely. Would we be good parents? Hopefully. Would our children feel burdened by having lesbian parents? A diacult question. But, we asked ourselves, who can predict, or control, what will cause a child to feel diae"erent and uncomfortable?
We thought about the political implications, particularly within the queer community, of becoming lesbian parents. It was 1988, early in the AIDS epidemic, and we were part of the LGBT movement and culture, well outside the mainstream. As parents would we become less queer, less progressive, and ever more conventional and complacent? How much time and energy would we have for political work? Well, we sighed, the personal is political. As lesbian parents we will raise children with a different, more open worldview, children who one day might contribute to political and social change.
Less diacult was deciding how we would become parents. Susan would try to get pregnant first. She was a year older, and already had completed her masteras degree and started working as a nurse pract.i.tioner. I, in truth, remained ambivalent about being pregnant and giving birth. We turned to the Fenway Community Health Center in Boston for sperm and guidance. At this time, the lesbian baby boom was just beginning, and the Fenway had one of the first programs in the United States to oae"er AI to lesbians and single women. From there I picked up sperm and inseminated Susan at home, twice. Our son, Ben, was conceived in the second cycle. He was to become the ninth Fenway baby.
We were thrilled. We were scared, but we were united. I attended all of Susanas prenatal visits. I cooked for her and packed her lunches for work. We created a nursery in our second bedroom. We tried to antic.i.p.ate our parenting experience. Of necessity, we would both work. We would provide care and nurturing equally. Our child would have two mommies, no dad. He would call us Mommy Susie and Mommy Dawn. We would find him male role models and someone to teach him how to play ball.
At the beginning of Susanas pregnancy, I was starting my first job as a nurse at Boston City Hospital. I did not tell my colleagues that I was a lesbian. They were a diverse group, particularly in terms of race and cultural background. There was some tension about the (known) diae"erences, but, for the most part, that tension was unspoken. The largest and quite cohesive subgroup among them were young Irish Catholic mothers from South Boston.
While Susan could be vague with coworkers about the genesis of her pregnancy, I saw no way to arrange parental leave without coming out. So as Susanas due date approached, I asked to speak privately with my head nurse. I explained my family situation and asked for a week oae" immediately after the birth. It was an uncomfortable meeting, but my boss responded graciously to my request. The rest of the staae" was informed, though I donat now remember the process. There was more discomfort, and no baby shower, but my head nurse gave me a very nice cuddly blue winter outer garment for the baby.
Mommy Bath Ben was born four weeks early. He was tiny, five pounds one ounce, and voracious. Ben nursed every two to three hours, around the clock. Breast-feeding did not go smoothly. I tried to a.s.sist and support. I did the diaper changes, especially at night. I brought warm packs and helped arrange pillows. We thought that we could not possibly be more exhausted and stressed, until we were told that Ben had jaundice, requiring him to be readmitted to a hospital and treated with bilirubin lights. Now Susan was staying with Ben at the hospital at night and I was returning home alone. None of this was as I had imagined it.
Ben and Susan returned home after a few days. Both of our families converged on Boston to meet Ben and to attend his bris. Susan and I could not have imagined how very significant and wonderful this ancient Jewish ritual would be for us. It was the first time that our families had met each other. They were happy and supportive. Our friends were gathered around us. Ben was welcomed joyfully, and we were publicly recognized as a couple, and as a family.
Meanwhile, breastfeeding was still constant and fraught with diaculty. Susan worked with a lactation consultant. She joined a nursing motheras group. And I felt completely left out. Susan and I talked about my role. She understood my feelings. We decided that I would be the one to bathe Ben. Susan would be Mommy b.o.o.by, I would be Mommy Bath. We referred to each other as such. It was small consolation.
I didnat feel like the mommy. I wasnat seen as the mommy. But I wanted to be Benas mommy, too! I always insisted on pushing the stroller and on carrying Ben when we were out in public. Ben has my coloring, and when people guessed that I was his biological mom, my heart would soar, causing me to ask myself why it was that I cared what these strangers thought. In noticing that Susan, as a biological mom, naturally received attention, aarmation, and support, I discovered that I, too, had a deep need for validation from the outside world, as I took on the new, exciting, scary, and tiring role, and ident.i.ty, of parent, of mommy.
Upon returning to work, I found that I was sometimes so exhausted that I had diaculty concentrating. I realized that to ensure the safety of my patients, I would need to get some uninterrupted sleep. So on the nights before workdays, I slept on the couch. Again, this was not the family experience I had imagined. But things started to shift when Susanas maternity leave ended. Ben needed to take a bottle sometimes, although he never liked it. Finally I could feed him and care for him by myself. I was seen as his mommy when we were out on walks or errands, when I took him to daycare. I started to feel like a mom.
I wasnat immediately comfortable talking to my colleagues about my lesbian family. It didnat take too long, however, until I was commiserating with them about colic and teething and the endless laundry. We admired each otheras baby pictures, and we bonded. After all, we were all mommies. For me, this was a profound experience. My coworkers, who I had considered to be h.o.m.ophobic and generally intolerant, had opened their hearts and minds to me and my family. We had left labels aside and come to know each other a little. Indeed, the personal is political!
As Susan and I settled into our lives as working parents, increasingly I felt like an authentic mom. I was too busy to worry much about my precarious legal status. Susan and I did sign a formal parenting agreement, wills, and powers of attorney. Ben called us both aMom,a or more often, Susie and Dawn. Still, occasionally there were rough spots for me. The few stretches when Ben wanted only Susan to tend to him were painful. Once, a young dentist, whom we saw only once, expressed reluctance to accept my consent for him to treat Ben. And I couldnat sign the enrollment forms for public school. I did, however, accompany him to his cla.s.sroom on the first day of kindergarten. Ben didnat cry when we said goodbye. I did.
Infertility Susan and I both wanted a second child, and growing within me was a deep desire to carry that child. There had been some shifting of my internal emotional terrain: I now wanted to experience pregnancy and childbirth. At that point, in my late thirties, I all of a sudden seemed to hear the loud and inexorable ticking of my biological clock. It was deeply compelling, primal, and irresistible.
We started inseminating, first at home and then in the clinic. After many cycles, I underwent some fertility testing and them some surgery. A series of intrauterine inseminations followed, and then more testing. Finally, I went through several cycles of in vitro fertilization. I was surprised at my own willingness to go to this extreme. Part of me wanted to be able to give up, to let go, but I wanted to bear a child as much as I had ever wanted anything. The many, many months that I was trying to conceive were incredibly draining emotionally, and time kept ticking away. Susan and I were both nearing forty. Ben was four, and then five, years old. I wanted to start a masteras program in nursing, but had put it on hold, thinking that I would have a baby first.
In addition, Ben wanted a sibling, and would periodically remind us of that. We had already discussed with him the details of his conception, to prepare him for questions from curious cla.s.smates. We had talked about Mommyas egg, and sperm from a man who wanted to help us have a child, and medical visits. Now we a.s.sured him that I was seeing a doctor who was trying to help me become pregnant. Apparently, he mulled all of this over very carefully in his five-year-old mind, especially the part about needing sperm from a man. Because one day Ben asked me, aHave you seen your doctor?a aYes,a I replied.
aIs your doctor a man or a woman, Mom?a aA woman,a I told him.
aThatas the problem!a Ben explained impatiently.
Baby Sister After approximately four years, I gave up trying to conceive and applied to graduate school. Susan underwent intrauterine insemination, twice. She was pregnant again! We felt happy and lucky to be having a second child, but still, I carried a deep sense of loss.
It was now 1994 and lesbian and gay couples in Ma.s.sachusetts were successfully pet.i.tioning the courts for same-s.e.x second-parent adoptions. In this state, second-parent adoption had long allowed a single, heteros.e.xual parent, and a stepparent, to legally adopt their child(ren). While Susan was pregnant, we filed a pet.i.tion to adopt Ben, which was granted. We could have waited a few months to adopt both children at once, but knowing that I would never be a biological mother had reawakened my uncertainties and insecurities, and I felt a compelling need for legal recognition of my parental status.
Meanwhile, Susan began suae"ering premature contractions during this second pregnancy. At seven months, she was put on bed rest. I tried not to panic, either about the babyas health or about how I would keep up with work, school, and increased responsibility for household ch.o.r.es and our rambunctious son. I bought a microwave. We called on our friends, who were most generous in their response.
Our daughter, Maya, was born, at term, one day before Benas sixth birthday. I had just completed the first semester of a two-year graduate program. This was not the timing that we had planned. By now, though, we had learned that plans often change, that life and children proceed as they will, heedless of our grand designs. Breastfeeding was again fraught with diaculty and emotion. Coming out as a lesbian parent, however, was much easier. To some extent, times had changed, and to a great extent, I had changed.
By now, I had interacted with hundreds of people as a lesbian mom. Coming out was not really a choice. Our family was simply a presence: in our neighborhood, in Benas school and after school, and on the sidelines of soccer and T-ball games. Occasionally, we got confused looks or endured awkward moments, but in general, we were a family among families. I talked freely at work and school about my son and new daughter. For the most part, my colleagues and coworkers were accepting and supportive.
The group of family and friends that we welcomed to our home for Mayaas baby naming, and to celebrate her adoption, was a larger and more eclectic group than was present for Benas bris. We were making more and more connections within our community as our parenting journey progressed. Ben, of course, had found his own male role models, and had brought them and others into our lives. Parenting was bringing me to a diae"erent, more open view of the world; while I was able to teach things to my children, I was learning much more with them, and from them.
Politics, Family Style Weave met many children and parents over the years. There is often an easy parent-to-parent communication and understanding, even in early acquaintance, and I almost never feel that my credentials as a parent, or as a mom, are in question. I am also struck by how many nonbiological parents I meet. There are foster and adoptive parents and grandparents, aunts, sisters, and friends parenting children. Iave been in a number of situations in which another nonbiological parent, sometimes from a quite diae"erent cultural, cla.s.s, or religious background, has answered with an emphatic yes when someone asks me, aAre they really your children?a Recently I left my job, a place where I had worked for about eight years. My coworker, Jill, was escorting one of my patients to an exam room for her last visit with me.