miscarriages

My friend had a miscarriage. She and I had been having trouble communicating without fighting because even the strongest of us can't avoid those feelings of jealousy when a friend can have a baby and we can't... Well, now she doesn't have a baby anymore, and we find ourselves feeling many of the same feelings towards our friends who are pregnant.

Now I find myself counseling her on how to work through her feelings about her miscarriage. I had one 6 years ago. I was only a few weeks to a month pregnant. Hadn't even told my spouse yet, which I still love because I never got the pity looks. And in reality, I'm really glad I had that miscarriage, because it meant that I didn't have a baby to tie me to that horrible relationship. And I was able to find C and have the beautiful relationship I have with her, the family we have here. But still sometimes when I hear the name I had already chosen for that baby, I feel my heart jump at times.

I've always been better at dealing with things when I can use them to help others. I'm a constant counselor. Actually, my therapist in high school spent HOURS trying to convince me to go into therapy as a profession. I've been through a lot and come out shining from most situations so I guess she felt I'd be good at it. Really, though, I'm happy just helping those I love. And because I can spend this time helping her work through her grief, I feel better about my own feelings.

Does it ever end?

That's what the girl said. And it's so how I feel.

Does it ever end?

C turns on "Cybill" for me (I'm a complete sitcom junkie) and the episode HAPPENS to be the one when her daughter has her baby.

EVERY blog is about babies, or pregnancy, or something.

Every time I turn around someone is talking about it, asking about it...

I'm very aware of when I ovulate so each month I know when our chance passes and we still don't have a donor decided.

I spent a beautiful evening just chilling with the girl. Talking. In that way one can only do with their best friend. It all felt so good.

Now I just want to curl up and cry because someone VERY close to me just said she wants to have a baby. She's not pregnant. She's not even trying. But the fact that I know she can just decide one month they're ready, and she and her husband can start trying. And for most couples it is just that easy...

Not so much for us. And it's exhausting to think about, exhausting to watch...

I wish C was awake... or that I could go back to the girl's place and just be held...

One day. All in good time. Everything happens when it's supposed to.

Blah blah blah.

my nephew

My sister stopped by today with my baby nephew. I think she just looks for excuses to show him off. :)

He's a sweetie. I adore him. I have fallen entirely in love with this child.

However, when he fell asleep on her and she said, "I could sit with him like this for hours if he'd stay asleep. It's my favorite thing in the world" my heart skipped a bit. And I just wanted to cry.

My relationship with my mom...

I have a very strained relationship with my mother. I'm on the phone with her as I write this. She has been having a lot of problems with diverticulitis. In a few weeks she's supposed to have surgery. Part of my problem with my mother is I've never felt like I could rely on her. She calls me to borrow money, she calls me to cry on my shoulder, she calls me because she is in pain and doesn't know what to do. I don't feel like I can call her for these things. The roles feel very reversed.

I don't have much of a relationship with my father at all. We are polite to each other. I don't honestly remember the last time I hugged him or the last time he told me he loved me. He's not accepting of the fact that I'm gay, and is openly against homosexual rights, gay marriage, etc.

Growing up I felt very much closer to my grandmother. My grandmother and my uncle were the first to say they accepted that I was gay, and loved me no matter what. The two of them and my aunt were my world growing up. Since both my uncle and my grandmother are gone I find myself missing that sort of parental relationship. I feel as though I'm ready to be on the other end of it. I want to be mom now. I want to have that mother/child bond that I've always felt was missing from my life. I accept that the chances of getting it with my own parents are slim, but I am ready to be the parent.

In our First Time Home Buyers Class last night they talked about "gift money" you can recieve from family to pay for a house.

My mother needs to borrow money from me this weekend...

This is a constant issue with me when it comes to my mother. We just talked for forty minutes. I can tell her about my friends new car, about the girl's granddaughter assuming we'll always come visit her on Sunday afternoon, about the weddings I'm photographing this summer... But I can't tell her I want a baby. I can't tell her that C and I are working on mounds of paperwork to protect our relationship since we can't be legally married. I can't tell her any of that...

I hope that when I have a child they feel they can rely on me. I don't want them to feel the role reversal that I've grown up with... At least, not until I'm really old and need someone to buy me Depends. :)

My Little World

I have never really traveled far from home. The furthest I've gone is New York state when I was 12. And honestly, I'm okay with that. I like my comforts of home. I would love to go to Australia, to England, to Paris. Those are the three biggies for me... However, I would trade that entirely for the opportunity to have a home filled with my family. I'm perfectly okay with never leaving the state my whole life, so long as I can have a baby, a home of my own, our pets, and the comforts I'm awarded by the love of C, the girl, and the rest of our family.

Homeowners

Tonight we start a class for First Time Homebuyers. It's four classes over the next two weeks. After we complete it we recieve a certificate that will give us all kinds of state help and benefits toward buying a house.

I would love to own a home before we have a baby, but that may not be possible. If not, at least soon afterward. I was moved a lot as a child, and never felt completely secure in my home. Because of this it has always been really important to me that my child have a secure home. I would love for our child to be able to go back to their childhood home as an adult and feel like it's still home, ya know?

So, tonight we start that process. Learning how to become homeowners.

The plan is to buy a house that has an inlaw apartment, and rent that out to the girl. The dream is to be in our yard with our child in the early afternoon, just as the girl is getting out of bed (she works an evening shift), and sitting with her while she drinks her coffee and C chases our little one around the yard. I picture a home with a lot of love and a lot of laughter, because in our little family we are never lacking in those...

He said no...

Time for step number 2...

Tomorrow...

I hold a lot of stock on what happens tomorrow.

There's a chance it could change our lives forever.

There's a chance we may still find ourselves waiting for an answer.

There's a chance we may spend tomorrow evening plotting a different course.

It's incredibly difficult to sleep with so many things waiting in the morning...

Having a Known Donor

We've said from the start that we would like to have a known donor. We want our donor to be "uncle" to our child. We want them to know, when they are older, who the donor was. We do NOT, however, want anyone else to know. We will know, the donor, his spouse (if he has one), and the notary who signs our paperwork. That's it. Part of our donor contract that we have written out states that none of us will tell anyone who the donor is.

I emailed a lawyer that has been helping in this, and who I plan to hire later if need be when C goes for second parent adoption. Her response was: "One thing you should know, as I’m sure you already do, is that having a known sperm donor is inherently risky, even if you have chosen this person carefully. This is virtually uncharted territory in Maine law, so there really isn’t a lot of guidance out there... Most of the reported cases concern relationships of ex-partners (gay and straight) to children after a break-up, but do not involve insemination. The obvious concern is that, while your donor may start out having no intent to parent the child at all, he may change his mind down the road and attempt to have a court award him parental rights."

As soon as the baby is born we'll be having the donor fill out paperwork terminating his rights to parent the child. The state of Maine does not require the father's name on the birth certificate, last I knew, so that won't be an issue.

I do have a fear of having the donor attempt to take our child. One of the big reasons (aside from the huge financial burden) that we are not adopting is because an overseas adoption is even more expensive, and a birth mother in the US has the right to change her mind within a certain amount of time after the baby is born. I just can't do it. I can't even fathom that.

Further down our list of possible donors is a man that I doubt we would ever choose. I think we'd hit a sperm bank before going with him. However he actually offered to us years before we thought of having children. Although I think he'd be a really good donor in most ways, I know he wants to have a daughter and only has a son now. I fear that if we had a daughter he would try to lay claim. I've discussed this with him, and he insists he wouldn't, but emotions can change a person. Just because now he don't feel he would doesn't mean that the sight of perfect little baby fingers wouldn't change his mind...

Bad Day Yesterday

The day started off innocently enough. I took a walk around the neighborhood with C discussing where we plan to start house shopping. It was nice, relaxing, beautiful. Then, about 11, I started getting horrible cramps. Hate PMS. I had only a four hour shift at work, which was awesome, but I had to work a pallet of 40lb bags of dog food. THEN my coworker lost track of time, took her lunch break too late, so there was no opportunity for me to take a 15 minute break.

On top of that, my manager announced wanting a store meeting this coming sunday at 6:30. Exactly when Donor #1 is supposed to be coming over to give us his answer. I told her I can't make it, she said she'll look into scheduling it for the next week. She really is a wonderful person, and I have to make sure I tell her that today since I'm in a better mood. But even though she's willing to reschedule it was just a punch in the stomach to have her say that. We've tried four times to get him over for dinner. We've asked the question, and we're just waiting for a dinner date to get his answer. It seemed like her announcing this meeting was just another roadblock. A frustrating roadblock. Just standing in our way, making this even more difficult than it needs to be.

It's not that I need him to say yes. I just need him to give us an answer so that we can move on to asking donor #2 if he does say no. Because the longer we take getting an answer from him, and the possibility of him not being willing to do it, make it that much longer before we can start trying to get pregnant, that much longer before we SUCCEED at getting pregnant... That much longer before we have the family we dream of.

But, this morning our parrot actually let me sleep until 8:30 (usually he wakes me as soon as C leaves for work at 6:30) and so I'm taking that as a sign that today will be a good day! I'm going to take a shower, fill my travel mug with coffee, and go for a walk to wake myself up. And I'm NOT going to think about babies for the next hour...

Legalities

There's so much legal stuff involved in lesbian parenting. We have to have a signed donor agreement, my partner has to adopt the baby after his/her birth, we have to make sure we're covered legally in case something happens to me during childbirth. I had someone say to me "well, why don't you just sleep with a guy?" Well, then he can claim the baby as his own, he can take away my parental rights if he wants. There are a lot of reasons I can't do that. But god, when I'm faced with a five page donor agreement that I have to go through line by line to be sure it's what we want... it's tempting.

Trials of Becoming Lesbian Moms

This is a way for me to record this process so that when we finally are moms we have something to show our child. This is a way for me to vent about the stress and the difficult aspects of the process. And a way for me to express my fears and my excitement.

My partner and I have been together for five years this June. For the sake of this blog, she will just be C. C and I were introduced through a friend. I consider our relationship to be a really good one. Not without it's share of issues, like any relationship, but we are honest with each other, we truly love each other and care for each other.

Another important person in this is our best friend, who we affectionately refer to as the girl. The girl lives right down the street from us. She has three children and quite a few grandchildren. To us, she is family. We have been friends for many years, and gone through more together than we sometimes want to remember.

And now, the real reason I'm writing today. The difficulties of becoming lesbian moms. Problem #1, finding sperm. On a tv show we watch one of the characters says something to the effect of "these guys'll leave this stuff in every public restroom in town, but you ask to use it and it's suddenly liquid gold". And ya know, when you're a lesbian wanting to have a baby, it feels that way.

We have asked donor choice #1. We are waiting for an answer. With any luck, he's coming over for dinner this coming Sunday, but we've been planning that for awhile. We'll see if he actually can make it this time. Seems like something always comes up and either he isn't available, or we aren't.

I never did want kids. A friend of mine, who is pregnant right now (like it seems all my friends are all of a sudden), pointed that out to me yesterday. And it's true, I swore I'd never have kids. But looking back I know that I said that because I didn't think I'd ever find someone like C. Someone I would want to have a child with. Someone who so deserves to be a mom. When we play with the girl's grandkids, and I watch C chasing them around it is so evident to me that she should be a parent. She should have her own child.

I will be the one carrying our baby. I also swore I would never get pregnant. So why am I planning to? Well, that's a decision that took a long time to make, and would bore you. But, circumstances being as they are, I plan to have our baby. The things that worry most women about getting pregnant don't worry me. I'm not concerned about weight gain, nor am I concerned about the physical changes to the body otherwise. I'm not afraid of giving birth, though that may change when it's actually closer to. My mother had five children, never had drugs with any one of us. And trust me, she has no pain tolerance. To me giving birth is natural, it's something that happens every day, and my body was created perfectly by mother nature to do it. So that isn't scary.

I am, however, afraid of losing my ability to take care of myself. I'm afraid of having to ask C and the girl to do things for me. I'm afraid of losing my upper body strength, which I take great pride in, because I won't be able to lift for awhile. I'm afraid of losing control of my emotions. I'm afraid of having to pee a lot. I'm afraid of people babying me.

And, my biggest fear, I'm afraid that people will jokingly refer to C as my husband. And that when they do I will get angry. And that my anger will be dismissed as pregnancy hormones, instead of taken for what it is. I don't have a great relationship with my parents and part of that is because I'm a lesbian so when people jokingly call C my husband I get very offended. I've had to work very hard to prove her as my wife to my family, and not as my roommate. So it feels like it is trivialized when people refer to her as my husband, even in jest.

I guess that's all I have to say at the moment. I don't know how often I will post here. And chances are good most of my posts here will be about frustration and anger. I'll try to post when there are good things, too...