Congratulations to Amanda, winner of the second And Baby Makes More
If you didn’t win, please stop by next Wednesday, as I will be giving away one more copy. (Please stop by next Tuesday, too, as it is Blogging for LGBT Families Day. If you have a blog, post something about LGBT families, then submit the link here and be sure to read everyone else’s posts—I’ll be showcasing them in a master list.)
In the meantime, here are a few more quotes from And Baby Makes More:
When my partner and I initially talked about having a baby, every option was on the table, including anonymous sperm donation. And it was an attractive, relatively sterile, no-strings-attached centrepiece.
Then we met a lesbian couple, their two kids and their known donor/Daddy. They were all having brunch together. It was a civilized, warm, mature gathering. They mentioned that they’d had a “rough patch” at the beginning of their parenting relationship but now felt like they were all benefiting. They could barely remember what the “rough patch” was about—something to do with the non-bio mom’s legal status. But now, there was clarity and respect. And scones.
And then, when our son Eli was born, and we were awash in the undertow of new parenthood, we went through our own “rough patch.” Don’t get me wrong: we were in bliss. And I was challenged to my core. Becoming first-time parents is straining and difficult in the best of times. But add to that negotiating a third party’s involvement when there are few role models to look to. It may throw you for a loop—when you’re already loopy on hormones.
—Diane Flacks, “It Ain’t a Rough Patch, Baby”
We all started out casually. We had the ingredients, and a recipe. I would be the oven. What’s not to work?
Love is accidental. It just happens, like pregnancies. As we all went along, love came too. Maybe it’s in the gesture of passing body fluids in jars to each other. Years of protecting something microscopic and imbued with possibility, that needs to be kept warm. Maybe the very idea of this child created an invisible web between us our families. We all hoped for him or her, making all four of us the child’s parent of a kind. We are held together by grief for someone who didn’t make it here. We each carved out space within ourselves to make room for this child—offered ourselves, our bodies as bridges, but some things don’t turn out the way you think. Bread that took all day to make burns, the cookies were made with salt instead of sugar, the cake never rises. All he or she had to do was get here—make it from the heat of our bodies, the tangle of our hope and love to the noise and mess that was waiting here.
—Shira Spector, “Enough”
By the time I met you I had revised my sperm donor criteria so many times, my list was becoming unmanageable. Somewhere along the way my simple desire — a man of colour that I like, respect, and admire — became not good enough. Suddenly I wanted someone who spoke Spanish, someone smart and creative, environmental, spiritual, aware. My gay male friends insisted I add good looking. Between the three candidates I had, the list was complete. But for all, there was one major piece missing—the feeling that a friend calls the “full body yes.” When I met you, my whole body said to me, “That’s him!” No list, no criteria—no information at all. It was not a decision I made with my head, it was a command from the core of my being.
—Annemarie Shrouder, “After ‘Yes'”
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