I'm not sure where our queery ventures will take us and of course that means I'm not sure what our queery ventures blog will offer, but then, that's life. And if there's anything I've learned to embrace in life - and even find thrilling - is the not knowing, the openness to what the universe brings our way, the knowing things will happen as they're meant to, and the playing it by (y)ear! In my experience, that's the way to go and is sure to minimise stress, bring on the laughs, and keep the hopes and feels flying high!
That said, for a same sex couple, pregnancy isn't something that will 'just happen' without plenty of planning. And parenting isn't something that should be done without some thought put in to it. Plus, anyone who knows N and I will know that we don't do anything without giving a good amount of thought and research to take our best shot at whatever wet set our hearts on. This is definitely the biggest and best thing we've ever set our hearts on (except maybe each other!)
So much goes into deciding to become a parent - especially queer parents. Within the first weeks of N and I being together (back in 2005 when my hair was long enough to touch my belt and N only wore polo shirts and jeans) one of her good friends at the time said he was glad to meet me, coz I'd "be having our baby for us"! It freaked me out big time. A few years prior I was sure I'd never have kids. When he said that I wasn't so sure, but I knew I wasn't having them for this guy I'd just met. As I continued to mature I was more and more sure that I didn't want to have a baby out of my own queer body. As I realised my queer gender that option became even less likely. But I did know I wanted to be a parent. Biology was never a big deal to me, so adoption and fostering were a great option i was sure I'd look into one day. After years of us being together, N told me she was sure she wanted to have a baby. And then one day, I realised it was time for us to start the process we talked about previously only as a future endeavour. We would never feel like we had enough money, or had done enough travel, or knew enough about pregnancy and parenting. I was 30 and N was 34 so the longer we waited the higher risk of a pregnancy it could be for N and our prospective baby.
Time for lots of talking and thinking. Top of the list to think and talk about is SPERM. We all know what we need to make a baby human and as two female bodied queers we knew we had to figure out how to get it and on what terms we wanted it to come into our lives. After not-as-much-as-you'd-think-for-such-a-mega-thing talking, we knew what we were going to do. As with many things, N and I have similar criteria with similar solutions. We both wanted to approach a close friend who would want to be an important person in our child's lives, while not being a parent to our child. The more family and loved ones our child could have the better, so an uncle or god-parent -like figure that is willing to supply the gamete is what we were after! A big ask: give us the biggest gift of all and then hang around and love it... but not as much as us! Should be totes easy to find someone riiiight?! Well it WAS pretty much. Coz we are lucky queers. In fact it was almost a joke. No, really. It was. After we decided who we would approach, I was trying to figure out how to tell our good friend B what we were planning and ask him if he would be up for it. Then, while we were at a friend's goodbye gathering, it just came out -
Me: "We've decided to have a baby - N wants to get pregnant."
B: "wow that's excellent" (sarcastically) "are you gonna ask me for my sperm now?!"
Me: "YES ACTUALLY LOLZ"
Smoooooth huh? But we are lucky queers so it worked out just fine. Our first choice said yes, wanted a similar deal to us for how it all works, and also still wanted to trek around New Zealand in a campervan with us. So, in the most unsanitary accommodation of all the places we stayed, he wanked over his own good looks and N conceived while watching 'the One-Eyed Monster', a tasteful film about a penis-alien that kills most of the crew of a porn movie, until the 'older' actress saved the day with her keegling prowess.
Of course it wasn't really that simple - we actually took it seriously and, while we were over-all very lucky, there was much more to it:
In Western Australia it's not legal to 'exchange' sperm outside of a fertility clinic. You can fuck someone you've never met before and get pregnant, but a friend giving his sperm to friends, who have thought out their parenthood well and truly, to inseminate themselves is NOT OK IN WA! Go to another state in Australia and it would be a different story. In SA you even get health department guidelines telling you how to do at-home insemination safely.
But we still wanted to cross all our T's and dot all our i's so we still wanted to get the fertility clinic- mandated specialist counselling, write an agreement that we all signed like a contract (though it won't be legally binding, as we're not complying with the WA legislation, but it's good supporting documentation in a legal case if it ever came to that - just a precaution) so things were all spelled out. The counselling was not bad - Jane Irvine - and she gave us a few obscure hypothesies to consider of extreme but possible scenarios. We each had an appointment - B, and us as a couple - and then one with all three of us together. For it to qualify for the clinic criteria we had to do a follow up one all together six months later, which we intended to do. But haven't yet. Ultimately it just assured us that we really had thought out most aspects of what we were going into - none of us are lacking in the thinking-things-over department.
So we started trying. From April 2013; so we couldn't have a 2013 baby. And so N could get well - her goal was to lose 15/20kg and get off all her fibromyalgia meds. This was achieved by going vegan - see our other blog veganqueeryventures.blogspot.com for our vegan tips and fave foods.
And kept trying. But things couldn't take too long because B was leaving to travel the world in August. So by July we realised we needed to get some of his sperm on ice and go the way the government told us to. So we did. And while we continued to try at home, we had no luck, and B left his sperm in Perth and in August flew out for his adventure. In September we met up with him for the campervan trip around New Zealand that he and I had planned years before.
N didn't think those four weeks were going to time well with her cycle, but as queery lucky would have it, it did - in the last few days of our four week trip together, in the feral cabin at Palmerston North Holiday Park, once N had brought herself to even touch the furniture and sit on the unstable bed she conceived while watching a movie about a serial killer penis-alien. That's a story to write home about! Frankie doesn't really go to Hollywood - Palmerston North is where it's at! And so WA legislation didn't end up applying after all :) Told you we are lucky queers. Told you things happen for a reason and as they're meant to.
N and I returned to Perth and B continued his travels around the world. Then one night, a couple of weeks later, at work I got a text from N saying that she had a surprise for me. I'm renowned for being impatient, but luckily my work is a big attention seeker, so I was able to keep distracted until I got home - I didn't suspect this surprise at all. I got home and N held up a little white stick. It took a few seconds for me to realise what it was and what it meant and then I WAS EXCITED!! But it was only early days so we had to contain our excitement. This is the only thing in my life where I've been so excited, but not been able to tell everyone I could about it. That's how I work - an open book, a blabber mouth, a kid on Xmas a day, a Facebook status for all the good moments. But this one had to wait. No guarantees until 3 months, especially when you're pregnant at 35. We told our parents earlier than the 3 months though, and my mums reaction was one I'll never forget: she just cried and exclaimed "oh that's beautiful!" And apologised for her blubbering :) Our baby will be the first grandchild of my mum's and the first great grand child of my maternal grandma's. And for N's family our baby will be the only grandchild that lives here in Perth. Lots of excitement and lots of pressure! And for some of our chosen family, we're the oldies of the mob, so we're the first to be ready to be parents and Frankie will have lots of logical family as well as their biological family who has lots of love for our little bub.
And here we are. 39 weeks and 3 days. Waiting waiting waiting. My impatience is being tested. Of the best gift of my life. But really all of life is a gift. Including the pregnancy.
Heres the highlight moments of our pregnancy for love and lolz;
- Making lists of potential small human names and their meanings
- N crying about the free hand-me-down change table having imperfections on the aged paint-job and being afraid the baby won't come out because of it
- Researching and buying environmentally friendly baby products like nappies, wipes and nursing pads, and best of all, receiving the packages in the mail!
- N ripping the front bumper of the car off when reversing out of our garage for about the 2000th time
- Making the most of time with just the two of us watching our fave shows, walking the dogs, and having coffee and brunch dates
- Having the motivation to DIY renovate our kitchen - and have the walls between our kitchen, lounge and hallway removed to open up our house. The painting wasn't really a highlight, but the finished product definitely is.
- N crying about how bored she was at her new-ish, stress-free job at an organisation she loves
- Hearing our baby's heart beat, feeling them kick, and seeing them on the ultrasounds
- Watching N eat every kind of breakfast option as every meal of the day.
- Seeing people's surprise when they find out N is third trimester pregnant - and barely showing
- N almost pashing her brother - pregnant brain thinking it was me
There's so much more that I can't fit into a post. The insecurity about being the 'other' parent. The fear of fucking a small human up. The financial stress and pressure. And much more. Ill try to cover some of that in between naps and feeding in the times to come!
A couple of blogs I found useful for some perspective and reducing isolation;
http://beginningfromthestart.wordpress.com/ (in particular this post http://beginningfromthestart.wordpress.com/2013/07/05/gender-revelations/)
http://www.mamamia.com.au/parenting/lesbian-parenting/
