Queer, Pregnant and Parenting January, February and March 2012 - Page 21

[TineyDreams]

PPS: DP had a dream that we were having twins!....she didn't tell me anything, until I told her that about the dream I had....about twins...on the same night...(I don't think we're ready for twins btw!) I thought it was hilarious, thought I'd share.

[planet]

Hey everyone!

I've been following all of your stories but haven't posted in awhile; I haven't had much time to spend on the computer lately.  This forum is so cool - it is wonderfully comforting to hear about your varied experiences!  Many of them give me hope & inspiration for the future!

Dandy, I am SO happy for you guys that you had a wonderful ultrasound!!  SO very exciting!!! :)  I'm glad to hear that early pregnancy is treating you well. (For those of you who don't know, Dandy & I got our BFPs on the same day in January, and we are walking in similar places on our paths - pretty awesome!).

TineyDreams, I'm not sure if I had a chance to say CONGRATULATIONS to you!!!  So exciting!  I think it is so normal to have fears about how a baby will change our relationships (we have been talking about ours quite a bit lately), and it sounds like you're doing a great job taking care of yourself around those fears (getting support, reading that book, etc.)  Thanks for the book recommendation, btw!  I'm going to share it with my partner - though he's trans & doesn't identify as a lesbian, the stories might still be helpful.  I don't know of any other books but will share if I come across any.

Gumshoe, I loved your story about Cuba and the crawling, but *especially* the transformer fiction featuring robot sex.  I'm a 7th grade language arts teacher, and I have a fond appreciation for those literary miracles that can happen in adolescence! :)

LibraryLady, those photos are too fabulous.  I LOVE them!

Carmen, I'm so glad that you guys heard back from your KD, and that he was so supportive and thoughtful.  Thank goodness!  I'm crossing my fingers that your next ultrasound will move things forward, either way.  Thinking of you.

Hello to everyone else!  Hope you are doing well.

AFM, early pregnancy is treating us well so far!  7 weeks 4 days.  I haven't really had any nausea or morning sickness so far.  Instead, I have The Hunger.  I eat everything in sight!  My partner is amazed by how much I've been eating.  Also by how tired I've been - for the most part I haven't been able to keep my eyes open past 9pm (except last night we went out to a show and I managed to stay awake through the whole thing, ride my bicycle home and watch an episode of a show before crashing at 11pm - Woah!). 

We told my parents on Thursday and it was really sweet - my mom cried and my dad just quietly smiled & smiled.  They told us the birth stories of me and my older brother, and my mom shared what it was like for her to be pregnant.  With both of us, she had very fast, almost painless labor, and so did her sisters, so I am seriously hoping that I have the same experience!

We've interviewed some midwives and chose one who is phenomenal!  We have friends who've used them and were very happy.  I'm going to schedule my first prenatal appointment today - I'm not sure when they'll want to see us, but I just can't wait to start getting care and I am especially excited for that first ultrasound! And I'm crossing my fingers for great news when we finally do have it.

Thinking of all of you and sending lots of love! xoxo

[prettyisa]

Confessions of the (Other) Mother is the other one I can think of off the top of my head. It's a series of short essays by all kinds of non-gestational moms. If I think of more I'll add them!

[DesertSunsets]

We got the Confessions of the (Other) Mother, and I know that some people like it a lot.  But for what it's worth, I *really* hated it.  It felt to me that the majority of the stories were less than positive and I am not into reading that kind of stuff when I'm already concerned about being negative.  But that's just my opinion.  Good luck finding more books!  I look forward to seeing more suggestions. 

Isa, you asked about the donor sibs we found.  No, none of them live close to us.  One is in Washington state, one in Texas, one in Georgia and one in Missouri.  Two lesbian couples and two single moms.  There is a fifth sibling that I found on NW's sibling registry, but she hasn't responded to us yet.  The other sibs I found via NW's forum, actually.  None of the four families are on NW's sibling registry, and I've scanned the DSR and haven't seen any posts from people using the same donor as us.  Soon I'll purchase the lifetime membership and make a posting and see if I get any bites. 

I was slightly disappointed to discover that of the four sibs, only one is a little girl.  We'll be thrilled no matter who comes into our lives, but we are hoping to have both a son and a daughter.  I am certain that if we end up with only sons, we will be completely without regret, but we just aren't there yet.  

[onemommyonemama]

The other mother - I think it is a worthwhile read. I agree with Desert that there are some less than positive stories, and some stories where I really didn't identify with the writer or their relationship dynamic, etc... but it was great to read through and get a variety of experiences. It helped me to think 'would that be an issue for us?' 'would I want to do that/not do that?', etc... It also helped realize some important questions to ask our midwives around hospital care, rights, etc...

We live in a super queer city in Canada, and our hospital has many 2 mom fams come through. Even still I was asked whether I was a friend/sister several times over our 3/4 day stay after our Csection. The anaesthesiologist right behind us during the csection said - so are you her friend? just before we were meeting our little one. No one tried to remove me from the room or anything. But they were annoying. I was having to spell out for a number of our nurses, etc... that I was a parent - could make simple decisions, could leave the room with the babe when DW was sleeping, etc... if we end up in the hospital this time, I will post a sign on the door or something. It wasn't a huge deal, but I would want to avoid this for my DW if possible if we end up in the hospital again.

I mostly love to read blogs though. First time second time is a good one. THey also have a number of links to other NGP blogs. I spent time looking around and following links to find some blogs that resonated. I loved reading Totally Smitten Mama (a GP of 3 who then became NGP) but her blog doesn't seem to be up right now.

[smilingsara]

isa (and everyone): I think I've settled on Soren Dare. I feel really good about the name, just hope it fits him! I was pestered by my folks for some name ideas sunday when we saw them. I gave them a few ideas, some they laughed at and some they liked. Mom suggested Cooper and also likes Orin. I'm now not really worried on the name front, but more on the dad bullying me about circumcision. He said its the most important thing in a jewish boys life. I told him shay isn't and he's jewish. Well he doesnt seem to believe that he is jewish because his parents aren't jewish. I told him I'm shays mom and I'm jewish. He then corrected it to biologically not jewish. I'm really heart broken over all of this. I don't want to cut soren but I dont want my dad to bully me about it or not see shay or soren as jewish for really stupid reasons. 

[dandylez]

sara, I once saw a great article against circumcision by a Rabbi. It was a long time ago, and I can't find it anymore, but there's other great resources out there:

http://www.jewsagainstcircumcision.org/

http://jewishcircumcision.org/

Maybe reading these would help your dad? I'm sorry that you're going through this.

[LibraryLady]

Ugh~ Sara! My heart goes out to you for the family ignunce you're going through. Reason 9,000 I'm glad my family was never religious. Just causes problems.  I hope you get it settled to your satisfaction. I'd say 'remember that it's your choice and you don't have to give in' but you seem to know that already!!  Good name, too!

Hello to all others. I'm super busy today, but thinking of you all xox

[prettyisa]

Seraf—one of my earlier ‘sewing’ projects was a quilt my mom helped me make. She cut out rectangles of plain fabric, drew borders for me not to go onto, and gave me fabric crayons to draw whatever I wanted. Then she made it into a quilt. I thought it was the coolest thing ever! She never let me near the pedals when she was sewing, though—I had to wait until I was big enough to use the whole damn machine…

Sara—First off, I love Soren as a name. My step-uncle is Soren (my stepmom is Freyja—their parents were into the Norse gods for a while there, I guess) and I always thought it was a really cool name. Secondly, I’m so sorry your dad is being weird about the boys. I’ve been dealing with a minor amount of anxiety about whether to circumcise or not, but in the end I’m not Jewish enough to go through with it—I don’t feel like the custom would be meaningful enough to me to go through with it, and if it’s a boy he can always decide to do it later if he thinks it’s important. But it’s a hard choice, especially for people who are more religious than I am.
I also find the ‘biological mom only’ applications of who counts as Jewish deeply offensive. Being half Jewish (the ‘right’ half, I’ve learned) means always deciding whether to call old people on their jerky question when they ask which parent is the Jewish one, so they can judge whether you ‘count’ or not. If you had adopted a baby from a non-Jewish birthparent they wouldn’t have dared to say that the kid isn’t really Jewish, would they? Honestly, if it were me (and feel free to ignore the hell out of this, of course), I would skip the bris. They can do it before their bar mitzvahs if they feel like it’s important, and I think that having Soren circumcised and not Shay would just underscore your dad’s belief that Shay isn’t really Jewish. The whole thing sucks, and I wish you lots of good luck in deciding what the right choice is for all of you! (oh, and please dear god don’t let this start a flame war with random people from all over the site coming in to yell about circumcising. I live in fear.)

Library—it snowed here, today! Sorry you missed the photo opportunity—how did they turn out? I have visions of you wearing a sleeping bag in the library, topped off with a cardigan, natch.

Tiney—I think most docs wait a little longer on the ultrasounds unless you’ve been going to an RE (which I can’t remember if you ended up doing). Also, I think worrying about that stuff is totally normal—because we are doing all of it, for sure!

Planet—hi! What a sweet response from your parents! And I hope your first appointment goes wonderfully!

Desert—I liked it more than my wife did—and I liked it better than most of the queer mom books I’ve come across, I think because I liked that it seemed less sugar-coated than some of the (mostly fairly old now) memoirs I’ve come across. I can understand why you wouldn’t be into it, though! After I read your post I went and dutifully added myself to the NW forum. There’s one sibling listed, but the woman is due in…October 2012. Which means she’s only a couple weeks pregnant, right? So no luck for me in finding out whether our donor makes pretty babies. I guess we got him too early—so we’ll be the test case!

OMOM—good to know on the hospital staff. Maybe we’ll make it more explicit that DP is, in fact, also the mom. Our midwife and doula know, obviously, and no one has been phased when we show up for classes, but I think a little 2-mom sign might help in case random nurses don’t get the memo…

AFM—another weekend, another pile of chores done! Unfortunately I am not feeling nesty, which means that I had to suck it up and just do home improvement because it needed to get done and not because I feel a deep desire to do it. So now my hands are all cut up, but we’ve got a closet divider to keep the kiddo out of the furnace, most of a built-in bookshelf, new and improved lightswitches, better curtain rods, and about a billion other teensy annoying little things fixed. Including the underfloor heating in our bathroom, which hasn’t worked in the 2 years since we decided to splurge on it. And oh my god it is so nice. SO nice. SO NICE to go and stand on marble tile in the morning and not have it be freezing! Totally worth the three effing times I had to change out the thermostat to get it to work! 8 months today. I can't believe how fast this is going!

[DesertSunsets]

Isa, I just wanted to add that not only are we registered on NW's sibling registry, but I actually created a username with the donor number in it and posted that I was looking for donor families. That got the best response by far. The people there can be somewhat volatile at times, particularly about others they believe to be "baby shopping", so I made it clear that I wasn't. Lo and behold, I was contacted by one woman who told me about three other families. Sometimes you can also have good luck by doing a forum search on your donor number.

Also, I completely understand wanting a book that isn't sugarcoated. In that regard, Other Mother is a good choice and Omom, I thought your point about making you think about potential issues (both relationship and care-related) was well-made. It did have some value to me, I can see that in hindsight. It just left a bad taste in my mouth. Thank you for all your different points!

[onemommyonemama]

sara - love the name Soren Dare. Flows well, and love it so much. Powerful and creative :)

that is so crappy - how your dad is separating your sons by their biology and 'jewishness'. i hope that he realizes how hurtful his ideas are - to you, to your family, to these little ones - and that he realizes very soon! It isn't your job to change your parenting and choices to make your dad less of a bully. and yeah - I wonder how circumsizing both or either of your sons will change the larger picture of how he classifies them - and how he sees you as mom to them.

I do think that many people in our families feel this in small and other ways, but don't say anything. Both our families are still sorting as this babe approaches. My mom has said things like 'it is different, this is my daughter carrying this time' and then gone back and explained that she would never love this babe more than DD- but this child is "different" to her. I'm sure others are sorting through stuff like that but don't say anything.

isa - here is hoping it isn't an issue :)  We were so prepped for home birth that we didn't spend a lot of time preparing for a long hospital stay.

desert - out of the donor sibs on the site, all are girls for our donor but one. Other friends have more of a 50 50 split with their donor sibs. I wonder if just many people aren't posting. Or we just have X powered sperm (probably because of when it was frozen or something?). Who knows :)

[lisedea]

I am sorry Sara. Please don't let your dad bully you into something you don't want to do. Eventually, he will have to get over it.

[DesertSunsets]

Carmen, I just wanted to stop in and tell you that you're on my mind today. I don't know when your appointment is, but I am sending you love and strength.

[seraf]

Carmen, Thinking of you today.
 

Originally Posted by lisedea 

I am sorry Sara. Please don't let your dad bully you into something you don't want to do. Eventually, he will have to get over it.

I said the same thing.  Actually I told her not to let me bully her either.

I haven't read much about NGP stuff.  Do I have to?  Will it be on the test? Will someone let me see their notes or can I just wing it?

[carmen358]

Thanks for the good thoughts. Quick update, peanut didn't grow very much and there was no heartbeat. RE said I can wait, take a medication (Misoprostol) or get a D&C. I'm going to get an acupuncture appointment set up for Monday and if that doesn't work I'll take the medication...he said it works within a day for 90% of women. He also gave me the option of collecting the sac/embryo for testing as I've never done that. If the tests don't show any abnormality then he said we're left with trying to figure out what caused it and if the tests show what's wrong then it will at least give confirmation of what he thinks happened. I'm going to try to do it but it sounds rather disturbing to me so I'll see how I do when the time comes. He still feels strongly that it's just an age related chromosomal issue and is confident I can catch a "good" egg.

Thank you SO much for the support. I'm going to bow out of this thread and lurk again. I will likely turn up in TTC in April sometime. DD was conceived in April so that seems like a good time to try.

[qmama42]

Oh Carmen, big hugs to you today. Whatever you decide, I hope you find peace and healing.

[prettyisa]

Carmen--lots of love to you in making the decision. I hope you'll be back on this thread to stay very soon!

[justrose13]

big hugs, Carmen

[seraf]

Hugs Carmen. 

[dandylez]

I'm so sorry, Carmen. Sending my love and thoughts.