QueerBabyMaking in Rad Dad

Check out issue 13 of Rad Dad, in which J and I write about trans-parenting. You'll have to read it the old-fashioned way (that is, on paper), but come now, wouldn't it be nice to receive something in the mail?

Still here, just busy

New posts coming soon, really. And of course, the eagerly-awaited What "Girls" Look Like project will be up soon too.

Working on some dissertation and fellowship deadlines, but looking forward to spending more time on this infinitely more interesting project.

Ocean continues to thrive. Check her out at threeifbysea.

Okay, that's it...

Gayby Sightings

As mentioned in recent posts, while I am lucky enough to have a great community of queer friends and a burgeoning new group of parent friends, there is almost zero overlap between the two. Several of my queer friends are planning or actively trying to become parents, but for now, we've got the only gayby on the block.

Perhaps as a manifestation of my deep desire to bridge the gap between the queers and the 'rents, I hallucinate queer families everywhere I go. Two women with a baby carriage? Must be lesbian moms. Couple of dudes with toddlers? Hurray for gay dads! Inevitably, upon talking to them (or, eavesdropping on their conversations in the coffee shop), I discover that they are in fact sisters-in-law, friends from church, dads from the local neighborhood association taking the kids for the afternoon to give their wives a break. In my most significant faux pas, I mistakenly assumed that the butch woman standing in line behind me at airport security was partnered to the femme woman carrying a baby who was standing behind her. I was, of course, thrilled to see another queer family in transit. However, upon asking the butch woman how old her child was, she looked confused, and then laughed. "Oh no," she said, "that's not my baby!" The femme woman, on the other hand, looked utterly horrified, and awhile later I saw her and her husband (how had I missed him before??) boarding a plane to Salt Lake City. Right.

So the other day, when J and I were sitting in the local gay cafe sipping our coffees and chatting with a friend, I was thrilled to see a femme woman walk in carrying a young infant. Immediately, though, my excitement gave way to skepticism. Maybe she's just babysitting, I thought. Perhaps she doesn't know this is a gay cafe. A moment later, a butch woman walked in and joined her. I poked J. We stared blatantly, and lost all track of the conversation. Finally our friend suggested, why don't you go and say hello to them? And so, we did.

What's funny is how much we had to say to each other. We barely had time to sit down before the words were spilling out all over the place. Some of it was much the same conversation we have with our straight friends - breastfeeding and bottles, sleeping and teething, favorite toys and activities. But mixed in seamlessly with all that were the other realities of parenting that are indeed unique to queer families. The funny tanks that the vials of sperm arrive in, and what you say to the Fed Ex driver who delivers them. Second-parent adoptions and birth certificates. What we looked for in a sperm donor. How to find other queers with kids.

We left after exchanging numbers and emails, and as we walked to the car, J and I kept exchanging looks. Did that really happen? Did we just RUN INTO a pair of queer parents with a baby just a month younger than our own? We were giddy with excitement all evening.

Maybe it shouldn't matter. Parents are parents are parents, right? It felt so good though, just for a little while, to sit with a family that looked and felt a little bit more like our own.

The Things We Never Talk About: On Parenting and Isolation

There are, without a doubt, many difficult things about having a new baby. The sleep deprivation, the endless loads of laundry, the triumph of timing required just to get out the door. And don't even get me started on breastfeeding.

For me, however, the greatest challenge, thus far at least, has been the ways in which parenthood both ensures that you are never, ever alone, and simultaneously engenders a huge sense of isolation. Parenting is such an all-consuming act sometimes that the simplest of things - sitting alone in an armchair and reading a book; getting in the car and going for a spontaneous drive; stopping in at the local bar for an after-dinner drink - come to feel like unimaginable luxuries. It is so very hard to find the time to do the things one needs to do to feel like a normal human being.

Compounding this is the sense of isolation that results from not being able to socially engage in the same ways I could previously. Before I had Ocean, I listened to people talk about how their childless friends disappeared from their lives post-baby, and thought, oh no, that will never happen to me. After all, hadn't I been so intentional about crafting not just an embryo, but a whole sense of queer community? My friends were there through inseminations, miscarriages, and cycles that didn't take. They celebrated with me when I finally got those thrilling double lines on the home pregnancy test. My friends were there during the first trimester of nausea and depression, the excitement of ultrasounds and maternity wear, and the incredible experience that was giving birth.

And yet now, I often find myself feeling so utterly alone.

This past weekend, two separate events brought this all to the fore. First, on Saturday night, J and I packed up the baby and drove an hour to have dinner with some friends in another town. As part of our commitment to maintaining community, friendships, and our lives, even as we have become parents, we attempt to battle isolation by taking her with us everywhere. We are determined not to become those people who have a kid and never leave the house again. So we take her to parties. We take her to conferences. We take her to cafes and museums and the taqueria. We ignore bedtimes and sleep training and much of the conventional wisdom about how to take care of a baby. And usually, it works out.

Anyway, on Saturday night, she was tired and fussy. We took turns rocking her to sleep during during dinner. This meant that often one of us had to leave the table to try and calm her down, but it seemed worth it to spend time with friends. After the meal, I went to the kitchen to wash the dishes. J soothed her, and finally got her to sleep in the bedroom. Finally, we went to join our friends in the living room. After a whole day of fussy baby and traveling, I was so excited to sit around with other adults and just relax. And then one of our friends said, "Let's go out dancing!" "Yes," cried another. "Let's go!"

When I pointed out that we could not go dancing, someone asked, "Are you sure?"

Yup, pretty sure.

And so, J and I woke up the baby again, loaded her back in the car, and drove an hour to go home, while our friends went out dancing.

I know that they weren't trying to be rude. Indeed, they probably thought that, having a baby and all, we would want to go home anyway. But, I felt left out, sidelined, and sad. We had tried so hard to be the hip people with the portable baby, but we still got left behind.

Then, another thing happened. Browsing online, I found pictures of most of my friends at a holiday party to which we were not invited. The host, a casual friend of mine, is close to my ex, and obviously felt that inviting us would upset her. And, even as I completely understand all of the ways in which small town dyke drama plays itself out, and even as I know better than to take offense, I still felt so sad, so left out, indeed, so isolated. Parenting is so hard. It is the time in which one most needs connection, conversation, community, friendship. It is the time in which one most needs to spend an afternoon with a bunch of other happy people, laughing, talking, drinking wine and eggnog. Seeing pictures of my friends, all together and enjoying themselves, made me feel, once again, left behind.

Now, my experiences parenting have not been all about isolation. Indeed, I have met amazing people and made great new connections. Sometimes my bonds with people are based simply on our shared experiences of parenthood. But other times, they transcend that, and I find myself interacting with people who may indeed become real friends. There are, however, so many obstacles. As parents, we have less time to spend together, less time to do the work of really getting to know one another. And then too, almost all of the women I meet are, if not straight, at least married to men, and living lives that look very different from mine. I miss my queer community. I miss not having to explain myself, my life, my identity, my family. And most of all, I miss the comfort of daily interactions with people who know me so well that our conversations start from a place of unspoken, already understood common ground.

It's hard to write about these things. It's hard to say that this thing that I'm doing, this amazing thing, also makes me crazy and lonely and sad. I love my kid more than I can possibly express. Today, when, for the first time, she grabbed her elephant toy and repeatedly pulled it down to herself from its hanger, I wanted to cry with love and joy and pride. But sometimes, looking back through the glass at what I left behind, it's hard not to feel a sense of loss.

Submission deadline extended: What "Girls" Look Like

So, several people have mentioned that they want to dig out old childhood pictures while home over the holidays. In light of that, and in hopes of getting even more participation, I'm extending the deadline on the What "Girls" Look Like project. Send me all entries by January 10th, and I'll have them up by the end of January.

Also, please do spread the word about this. I'm hoping for a large and diverse response.

Thanks!

A blog of her own

I'm often conflicted about whether or not to post cute stories and pictures of Ocean here. On the one hand, she's pretty gosh darn adorable, and I want to record every new thing that she does. On the other hand, my project with this blog was never to become yet another queer inundating the internet with video recordings of her kid's first poop.

To balance these conflicting demands, J and I have set up a blog just for Ocean:

www.threeifbysea.blogspot.com

QueerBabyMaking will remain dedicated to my thoughts and reflections on the politics of making queer family. The new blog is the place to go if you're looking for pictures, stories, cuteness, etc. Enjoy!

He's the donor, not the dad.

I'm always surprised when it happens. Friends, family members, people who I think of as liberal, friendly, and relatively queer savvy ask questions like, "Well, what color is her dad's hair?"

Now, certainly I get these questions from strangers, and that, while sometimes exhausting, is a different story. But, when people who know that I conceived using sperm from a bank ask about the "dad" or the "father," it always throws me. To me it just seems so obvious- he's the donor, not the dad.

I know that people don't do it maliciously. It's simply not something that most people think about, and, outside of the circles of queer conception, I guess it's not really language that people use everyday. But to me, the notion of a dad, a father, is so far removed from a vial of frozen sperm donated by a person I'll never meet, that I can't help being startled, and yes, I admit it, slightly annoyed, every time someone uses those words.

And so every time I gently correct them, and say, "Oh, you mean the donor." Because, while I'm very grateful to that anonymous man for helping to me to make such an awesome kid, he most certainly is not the dad.