Those questions and comments we get...sigh

[lunadoula]

I want to hear how you all have responded to weird/inappropriate/rude comments from friends, family, and strangers.

Who have you decided to be completely open with about who your donor was/is or how you got pregnant, which person in the relationship gave birth (for those who aren't single) etc ?

My partner made the mistake of sharing with her mother info about who we might use as a donor (I guess I forgot to be clear about that since we're still figuring it all out she should be more private) and her response was (evidently...- I wasn't there) something like "well wouldn't you feel like it was really Beth and ___(donor's____ baby then, not yours, if you know the donor?" : Thanks so much for your positive feedback, MIL. Plus, I don't even know how open we will want to be with extended family like cousins, aunts, etc. about the who/what/how questions of getting pregnant, etc.

Any comments?

[witt]

ah yes those comments

ok well we've had it pretty good, not too many comments. We get the "who's the real mum" alot. We have decided to just say we both are.

Funny story the other day I came out to a colleague (started new job) and she said I don't mind lesbians, as long as you know I'm not interested.

To which I replied well as long as you know I'm happily married.

GOD some people!!! AGHHHHHHHHH

[jgreer]

Comments: Past, Present, and Future

Since we don't have a baby yet, I can only speak on a limited basis.

DP and I have told several people that we will be trying. I've always given people the opportunity to ask any questions they want after telling them (because you know they have tons of questions), and let them know that I won't be offended by questions.

I have yet to be asked a question that I was offended by.

Most of the people in our families know what our plans are. DW told her parents and siblings.

I told my mom, my sister, my cousin's wife and thus my cousin (they are so supportive), and some friends that have no interaction with my family. That being said, I'm waiting until we start trying (or maybe even get pregnant) to tell the rest of my family (although I'm sure they'll hear it before that from the others - that's how close my family is).

As for distant relatives, I do have some in another state that come to visit once every year or so. They don't officially know anything about my private life, and I don't feel the need to share it with them. I might change my mind when I get pregnant, but until then it's really none of their business.

DW and I still have some things to talk about, in regard to how we'll handle questions from complete strangers, etc. But, I'm sure we'll come to an agreement and handle it just fine.

Generally I feel that if people want to make stupid comments, they have a right to, but in return I have a right to remove myself from their presence if it persists after I point out that the comment hurt.

If someone is knowingly abusing me or my family, they have no right to be around me.

If, however, someone makes a stupid comment because they weren't thinking, and it's a somewhat isolated incident, I'll let them know that it hurt and let it slide.

Greer

[max_4477]

We haven't gotten the "real mum" question...people around here are too careful trying to say the right thing, I think. They typically ask "Which one of you is...um...er..." and we'll say "the birth mom?" We don't have a problem sharing that (actually it's pretty glaringly obvious to anyone who can see) and haven't had issues with people treating dw like a lesser mum because of it.

The donor is much stickier - people are totally rude. I was single when I had dc and all sorts of people would ask me who the father was! Hello - RUDE? Or they would ask "is it anyone I know?" Depending on the person I woudl say things like "I doubt you know him, since I don't." "Oh, it could be one of millions of people, really. Just about anyone." or "I got pregnant with donor insemination." it really depended on whether I perceived them as just rude & nosy or whether they were trying to figure out how to support me.
...

[Kincaid]

Great question! Your experience with your mom is like what I myself worried about, and have seen often happen to other lesbian parents.

Identity of donor:
We decided not to tell anyone at this time the identity of our known donor. I knew that some folks would see the baby as mine and donor's and be looking at our son for "relatedness" to this other person. Our known donor is not a co-parent in any way, and we did not want the perception to creep in that he was a parent of our child. I knew my family would constantly be wondering if baby looks like "HIM" and that sort of thing, and we did not want that to taint me and DP establishing ourself as his sole parents.
We do plan on letting our son know loud and clear his origins, and at that time we will be more open with the extended family. By then they will have grown used to the idea that baby is half mine and half DP's. He's amost a year old and they are starting to make funny comments like "he has DP's hair color" and then they remember :LOL
For people outside the family - like the waitress we had last week who said "Are you lesbian moms! Did you order sperm off the internet! How did you pick which guy's sperm, did you see pictures?" There are dumb nosy people all the time. There is a line I walk between wanting to break down the stigma and oddness of donor assisted reproduction. So I don't want to act like it's secret or something we don't discuss. But you also don't want to tell strangers your personal stuff, KWIM? I think it's very similar to open adoption. People wanna know "the dirt" (like the scoop on birthmom), and you want to be open and not show shame or secrecy BUT you also don't want to tell personal info to someone who doesn't even know baby's middle name!
That is kinda my guage, by the way. If someone asks a personal question and they don't know my baby's middle name, then why the heck should I tell them personal info?

The most probing questions I have encountered are from other gay folks - DId you have an orgasm or not? Home or clinic? Washed or frozen? IUI or ICI vials? Medicated or unmedicated cycles? Pillow under the ass or no pillow? Instead cup or not? Being asked stuff like this can be pretty embarassing and weird.... cause to me it's a little like asking a straight couple what position they did the deed in when they got preggers! Asking on a message board is different, of course.... it's when people ask you the specifics in person that it is just weird. The other thing we get asked a lot by other gay folks is how "romantic" it was... It is like they want to know if it's like the little movie scripts or not. You'd never ask a straight couple if they got pregnant during a romantic evening and to share the details! So it feels weird when people ask me the specifics. I have also noticed it is kind of a competition among lesbian moms for the "dream" insemination. Which many of us know things don't quite work out with flowers and romance, and we resort to injections and cathaters in a lab.


Which one gave birth question:
So far, no one has asked us this. When DP has him during the day (she is the SAHM) people assume she delivered him. She's never corrected that. Actually, I have overheard her answering childbirth questions in the first person :LOL
When I am with them, people look at my hair falling out and loose skin and they know who birthed baby So when we are all together they direct the questions about birthin' to me.
I think because Julie is a SAHM to our son, the "who birthed him" question isn't a biggie to us. But when he's older and in school and DP doesn't have that SAH edge, I think we will be deliberately vague about who birthed him.

Agh, I wrote a lot :

[Kincaid]

Thought of one more thing:

I have seen lots of lesbian moms compare donor stats. I find that real weird! Like when we go to a playgroup and people are chit-chatting about their donors (yeah, our donor was 5'11 and brown eyes, Anglo-Saxon and a music teacher). That bugs me for some reason, and I don't know why. Probably because when you first meet another couple there is so many things to talk about and get to know, and chit-chat about the one person who is NOT present seems pointless and a weird focus to me. But I always see it happen. I have had people tell me what bank they used before even mentioning their kid's name!

[Kincaid]

double post

[tara]

Geez, Kincaid, some of the stuff people have asked you is so outrageous it's funny. People are so weird. :LOL

Our situation is different, and it may very well be because my partner is male. So, Jackson has a Daddy, even though all our friends and family know they aren't biologically related. And all our friends and family know that Uncle S. donated sperm. Nobody has ever looked at S. as a father figure, nobody has questioned my partner's parenthood. And both of our families have accepted S. as family, inviting him to family events and stuff like that.

Damn, I'm lucky.

[lunadoula]

Thank you everyone for your responses. What I'm realizing more than ever is how important it is and will be for us as a couple to consciously decide together what we will share and what will be private. Kincaid, I really appreciated your comments about deciding to not tell people who your donor is at this point, as well as what you said about the weirdness of people asking personal insemination info. Maybe the litmus test should be WWSPD? (What would straight people do?) :LOL Seriously though, I've realized that if we were straight I think people would be more reticent to share their opinion about some of these things, though DW said her mother is just like that and would probably say something no matter what! :LOL The big thing for us is that our potential donor is biracial, and we are both white. We feel like we will need to address this honestly with our families before the baby is born, so it will be pretty obvious who our donor is (he is the only man in our close circle of friends who is biracial). We're keeping stuff pretty private for now, since we haven't sat down and had a really serious conversation with him yet about donating (going to be doing this around December).

[witt]

one more question

forgot to add I have been asked quite a few times by people I don't know well, if I had "intercourse" with the father!!!!!

Why do people do that? Would they ask a straight couple the same intimate questions, I think not!!

AGGGHHHH again!

Oh by the way, we have had lots of positive responses too!

[lunadoula]

Originally Posted by witt

forgot to add I have been asked quite a few times by people I don't know well, if I had "intercourse" with the father!!!!!

So what do you say to that? Do you have some witty response now? :LOL

[mamimapster]

My number one most annoying Interchange ever post baby is : :
Who's the "real" Mother?
Answer "we are"
Who had her?
"She did" (I don't answer this anymore, However I wil answer complicated chidlbirth questions because I find the subject infinitely fascinating and make it clear that my Dp was in labor & it is all because I am totally into promoting Natural Childbirth & and I *Loved* being her Labor Support)
Ok, so she's the real mother, but she looks like you?
We are the real mothers, and yes she does look like me.
Who stays home with her?
I do.
So You're the real mother?
No we both are.
She had her. We both adopted her.

:blank look: stare, Well she's the prettiest baby I've ever seen.
Exit conversation.

We will never get into THAT kind of coversation again!

[Diane B]

You know, it must just be something in human nature that makes total strangers feel like they have the right to ask inappropriate, personal questions about our children. Complete strangers feel compelled to comment to us ALL THE TIME about our daughter, who is adopted and a different ethnicity than either of us. And our experience is shared by every transracial adoptive family I've ever met.

So we haven't got that many weird "two mommy" type of questions, (living in a progressive, metro area like we do) but we do get inappropriate adoption questions. I think it's good to remember that our children have a right to their own stories about how they came into the world, and until they are old enough to decide who gets to know the details, we can choose to keep personal information within our families, not out of shame, but out of respect.

[witt]

hear hear

yes I agree re our children having control over who knows their stories. We have carefully told family but I think people just get too nosy. Re the intercourse question I usually "you're joking aren't you?" that usually stops people in their tracks!


Actually amazingly for a country with only 4 million people, there are quite a few lesbian couples making babies! Well, in the main cities anyway! There are some parts of New Zealand you wouldn't want to venture

[Faerieshadow]

Ugh... I have also been asked if I had sex with the donor to conceive! : Unfortunately here in the south we are more likely to get comments like "That baby don' need to be in bed with two women, it ain't right" (a direct quote from one of DP's old coworkers regarding cosleeping) or this comment (another direct quote) from another coworker of hers who butted into a conversation - "Wait, you didn't birth that baby? That ain't your baby then." Such fine, educated minds there are here... :

A nice thing about DP's new job is that they have no idea she's not the birth mom ( we have no legal protection here btw) so they don't give her that kind of grief she was getting before.

Anyway, I'm not sure why people seem to think it is "ok" to ask all those personal questions about inseminating. Was it romantic, how did you do it, did you use a turkey baster!, oh and I loved the comment "I bet you were hoping for a girl since there's no daddy to help raise that little boy."

I'd like to let DS choose how he wants to portray his family, and what he wants to tell others. In the meantime only a very few people (namely MIL and my best friend) know who the donor actually was.

[tara]

Originally Posted by Faerieshadow

"I bet you were hoping for a girl since there's no daddy to help raise that little boy."

The world needs a generation of men raised by lesbians. And how.

[lunadoula]

what the heck is up with people asking if you had sex with the donor to conceive?!? are these family members, other dykes, stupid random people???

I just can't even imagine. It's like I need to start developing a list of witty answers already!

[Kincaid]

Originally Posted by lunadoula

I just can't even imagine. It's like I need to start developing a list of witty answers already!

One time I told a ditsy waitress that I "gave a guy a B.J. and swallowed instead of spit, and a baby grew in my tummy. It was so much cheaper than a fertility clinic." :

[wemoon]

I know this is a little unrelated to the topic at hand, but I didn't want to start a new thread about it...

But the comments that I'm dealing with right now, is having men asking if they can join in with my date and I It was really bad the other night, I felt threatened by a man who would not back down. My date told me to be very careful because she felt like this was someone not above rape. I was really scared, still am. I also just read in Girlfriends magazine about how two girls were waiting for a bus, some jerk tries to get *action* with them, they decline and he kills them!

So how do I deal with this??? It is really frightening that my sexuality gives men the idea that it is all for them :

[Faerieshadow]

Ugh Wemoon that's awful. We've gotten our share of men trying to "get in on the action" as well, luckily not one that seemed dangerous. One night a couple years ago we were out enjoying ourselves and this guy cam eover to our table and wouldn't leave us alone. He was asking all about our sex life, getting all turned on by thinking about it, talking about how he left his wife and baby at home to go out and have a good time, and then when we wouldn't "perform" for him and asked him to leave us alone, he started telling us he didn't agree with lesbians and thought it was gross. Yeah. Okay. Anyway, just wanted to say I'm sorry you had to deal with it. It is unfortunate that these days you have to almost be afraid to really stand up for yourself for fear the person is psychotic. :<

These days DP and I just go about our business and basically don't act too friendly or "welcoming" of conversation for the most part when out. Really sad that it has come to that point, and I'm sure we miss out on meeting lots of great people (of course these days with the baby it is more about seeing people in parks and grocery stores than anything else lol) but you can never be too careful, especially down here in the repressed south.