The story of your birth

We usually tell Leigh a story before she goes to bed. Often the stories involve Baba (grandma) and Baba kitty (grandma's cat) and usually a lion and a giraffe who have to go potty before their naps. But one of her favorites is the story of how she was born, which I thought would be interesting after the discussion about divulging who is the birthing mother on yesterday's post. FYI, I am "Ima" and Lyn is "Mama."

Before you were born, you lived in Ima's belly. We were very excited to meet you, and we were waiting for you to come out for a long time. Finally, it was time for you to be born. You were working really hard and Ima was working really hard, and then Ima gave a big push and you came out. Mama caught you in her arms and held you. Mama and Ima wrapped you up in blankets so that you wouldn't be cold, and then we thought you looked a little scared so we sang you a song, the same song we sing you every night before bed [we then generally launch into our bedtime song (here's an elaborate version of the same song) and it's off to bed].

Leigh will bring up this story from time to time or ask about the time she lived in my belly, but she doesn't seem to think it's a big deal. I'll be interested to see what happens when she figures out that Lyn has a baby in her belly. We haven't talked to her about it directly, but she's clearly picking things up because she told us the other night that she was going to have a baby and her sister was going to get it for her!

The inevitable awkward questions

Gail's post got me thinking about how we handle the inevitable somewhat awkward conversations that come up due to our family structure. As she wrote, we've both noticed they come up much more now that we're back in pregnancy (and later, little baby) land. I noticed some time ago that we had developed some mix of official and unofficial guidelines:

1) Before Leigh's arrival we decided that divulging who gave birth to her was not forbidden. I understand why some families choose this route, but we feel strongly that Leigh should not have to feel secretive about her family structure, and so we need to model that for her (though see comment 4 on how we handle donor questions, which is different).

2) That said, when discussing such matters, we are careful in our language. We do not say that Gail is Leigh's "bio-mom"--rather we might say that Gail nursed Leigh, or that Gail gave birth to Leigh, so that her genetic link (and fallout from that link) is not also presented as representing her motherhood of Leigh. Her motherhood of Leigh is based on the same stuff mine is, the day in and day out love and hands on parenting. Along the same lines, I don't refer to myself in casual conversation as Leigh's "non-bio-mom." I'm just a mom (or Mama as the case may be). That said, in conversation with peer parents around the nitty gritty issues that come up around buidling our family this way, I will refer to myself as a non-bio-mom or and "NGP" (non-gestational-parent, my dad coined that one)--but only with people who understand our family structure.

3) In response to subtle prying on first meetings, say someone new at the playground, or a new work colleague, I usually don't divulge information on how we formed our family, either regarding our donor, or who carried Leigh. I understand people are curious, but you need to wait until at least a second meeting. We want people to see both of us parenting before we give information that might lead you to decide one of us is the "real" mom. My least favorite type of prying is resemblance talk. Seriously. I hate it when Gail and I show up somewhere with Leigh, and someone pointedly makes a comment about her hair or eye color (brown and brown) and then says she looks just like me (red and blue), pointedly staring at me for clarifying information, while Gail is standing right there (with her brown hair and brown eyes--yes, this really happens). It really drives me crazy and I make special note of who does such things and vow never to give them any tidbit of information ever. However, if I'm out with Leigh alone, and someone casually says she looks like me, I secretly glow and take it as a compliment.

4) We do not provide any details on donor information (other than we went with frozen). Not which bank. No tidbits from the profile. Nothing about appearance. We feel very strongly that that information belongs to our kid(s) and they should decide who should know and how to handle the information as they grow. It belongs to them, not us. And if anyone asks, that is what we tell them. I know other families handle this differently, meeting up with donor siblings early for example, and sharing all information freely from infancy, and I can see the attraction there. But for us, it feels a little wrong to have a whole slew of people knowing potentially sensitive information about Leigh that she doesn't even understand yet. Note, this does not contradict number 1, because we don't feel that Leigh should have to be secretive about her donor information. But we don't want to decide for her who and what people outside of our family will know. If another queer couple or single mom working towards TTC asks us how we made decisions around donor selection, we will definitely talk to them about it, and will probably give them more info (e.g. the thinking we did on ID release vs. not), but that is only for folks trying to work their way through the same decisions.

I'm sure there are more unofficial or official guidelines that I'm not really thinking of right now. Most of this stuff we just make up as we go along really. And we have no idea yet how this will shift as Leigh grows and understands more about her family. But for now, it works. I'd love to hear other folks thoughts on those inevitable awkward questions.

Weekend Update

Thanks to all for the well wishes for us relative newcomers to lesbian parent blog-land. Sorry for the radio silence over the weekend. We don't do computers on shabbat and Sunday often gets away from us. There has been no appearance of AF (my usual day to start would have been Saturday). We succumbed to two more tests (Sat and Sun) and they are getting darker. (We don't remember using so many with Leigh. I think that's because we were apart for about 4 days just after the positive, and couldn't egg each other on). I quit temping, at Gail's "suggestion" (it came with a very stern look that makes suggestion seem like an understatement. I know she's right. We killed ourselves over every tiny temp fluctuation with Leigh, until our midwife made the rather obvious suggestion that we chuck the thermometer).

On symptom watch we have: (1) general queasiness, particularly in the subway, (2) fatigue (but not yet the bone-crushing sort I've heard about), (3) strangely bigger/heavy boobs, and freakily sensitive nipples.

Gail needs a symptom watch too, as she has been perhaps more tired than I am, and both of us are dumb as posts, walking around bumping into things. She keeps saying "I shouldn't feel like this...you're the one with the hormones" to which I say pish posh. I was a mess when we found out about Leigh. A really happy mess. So fall apart as much as you need to, but let's try not to both completely de-convolve at exactly the same time. I think we both feel like the whole world should quit moving for just a second while we figure out what is going on. That's not really possible with a toddler on board.

I've been back and forth about whether or not to head in for a beta (I'm 14 dpo today). On principle, I would prefer not to. In general, if things seem fine, Gail and I do better with less information. We had virtually no prenatal testing with Leigh, not even an ultrasound. When Leigh was a baby, we told our pediatrician not to give us any info about Leigh's height/weight percentiles or developmental schedule unless she was worried. We just didn't want to think about it unless we needed to, don't want to constantly compare her to other kids, and figure the worry is better spent when there is an actual problem. Yes, I know we're kind of freaks, but it is how we work best. I called the clinic this morning, and they don't seem to want a blood test, so for now we're skipping it.

We're already having to do some thinking about who/how/when to tell (other than, you know, the whole internet and the couple friends in-the-know). There are several people that we are going to need to tell basically ASAP about this, even though it might be better to wait. My family is planning a huge get-together far away just before the due date (assuming this sticks) that my sisters are already shopping for plane tickets for. So for logistical reasons, my family needs to know, in case we can either change time or location of get-together to make it workable for us. My work places me near some potentially hazardous chemicals, depending on how we structure experiments, so I need to have a talk with my bosses sooner than later for health reasons. Especially since we're in the initial stages of planning some work right now and can plan it to be much safer if I speak up now. Ugh. I sort of can't even think about it, though for now it's a nice problem to have.

This turned into a rather scattered post, but we are a bit befuddled here, and are likely to remain so for a bit (or indefinitely?). Ah, so befuddled, that I forgot to say "shana tova" to other folks who celebrate Rosh Hashanah. May you have a sweet new year. We have much to be thankful for and look forward to here at first time second time.