Category Archive

grown ups

Is it too soon to try to conceive?

My husband and I got married last month, but we have been living together for two years. We both have part-time jobs, we own our own coffee business, and we rent a nice apartment. I am 22, but I have always wanted kids. A lot of our friends and family tell us to wait a few years before we have kids. Wait til we have more money, wait til we have a house, etc. I see where they are coming from, but I also think we could manage having children now too.

The catch-22 of working motherhood

Now what’s the catch-22? Typically, the kids are so desperate for my attention when we are together that they resort to whining and crying and just generally being awful in order to get that attention. Surprising absolutely no one, that kind of behavior only annoys the shit out of me and makes me irritable. Which means I’m short-tempered. Which does absolutely nothing for my ability to properly deal with their whiny behavior. Which means it only gets worse. Which makes me tell them to just leavemealone! And the cycle starts again.

It’s time to talk about leading and teaching our kids by example

We want so much for our kids, don’t we? We want them to have what we wanted when we were younger, we want them to participate in life and enjoy every waking moment. We want them to learn, grow, thrive. We want their dreams to be sweet, we want the world to be kind to them. I think we end up feeling that if we throw money at our bag of wishes and wants for our children, somehow it will come to fruition. If we do THIS wonderful thing, THEN we’ll get that wonderful result.

“Don’t do that in public!” I’m paranoid about my public Mom persona

But we worry, don’t we, about what people think? Even parents of the easiest children contend with the occasional wicked tantrum, or a disaster of an eating out attempt, or a terrible diaper blow-out in the airport. Here I am, you think. With my pants down and all my dirty laundry hanging out.

Where will I fit into the life of my partner-of-only-a-year’s child?

Last year I met a fabulous genderqueer person with whom I fell into bed unexpectedly one night and fell in love with almost as quickly — a person who told me in the very first hour or two of serious conversation, right before serious cuddling became serious sex, that he was planning to get pregnant and become a single mom within a year. And I surprised myself by instantly thinking “That’s interesting… where do I fit in? How can I be part of this? Who do I want to be?”

Because we’re queer and gender non-normative, we have a wonderful terrifying freedom to design our own family structure. Who will we be together? He (who just as happily goes by she) is set on being Mom or Mama or Mother to the Real Live Baby he’s growing inside him. My role is not set. Do I want to be a Dad, a Daddy, a Papa, or a Pops? Or an Uncle K or a KayPaw or just K? Do I want to be a parent or only the partner of one? And who does the Real Live Baby, and the Real Live Baby’s mother, want me to be?

Do you have any advice for becoming a surrogate?

I am very heavily considering becoming a gestational surrogate: I have had two pregnancies, of which both were a total boring cake walk and both deliveries were quick and easy. I had someone mention that I’m built for having babies, and I did enjoy being pregnant very much.

I’m pregnant and feeling lost — Am I just a “vessel” now?

Whilst I understand that this curiousity is normal, and that the doctors are doing their best to look after Geekling, I’ve started to feel very… well… not “me.” You know, the girl who likes to bake far too many cakes, who loves to geek out on the sofa with a few episodes of Doctor Who, the teacher who loves to get down on the floor with kids and go on school trips, the geocacher, the London girl living in the German countryside who suffers from wanderlust… where did she go? Is she gone for good? Am I just a “vessel” now?

A surprise pregnancy, understanding boyfriend, and a new family

Aiden will know that my boyfriend is not his biological father. He will also know how much more this means to his mommy: he’s not here because he has to be, he is here because he wants to be. That kind of love and dedication, the willingness to put aside DNA and open your heart, is what makes a family.