Papa Can You Hear Me?

Sunshine, 19 months, has learned the word "Papa." She started calling her Grandpa "Papa" and we all thought it was sweet.

However, we discovered that she thinks men in general are "Papa."

Cue to Sunshine on the train in her stroller agressively pointing to strange men yelling "PAPA!! PAPPA!"

Fellow passengers found it hillarious.

Imagine if they knew the story of her conception!

Who's First?

I finally wrote the sperm bank and asked them if any families who used Sunshine's donor were registered with their contact list. We weren't going register, just yet. Even though we plan to, really want to, especially when Sunshine is young. We just want to know if others are on the list. I've been putting it off because the year was already overwhelming. I think I will feel attached to those kids. Will I? I think about them, I know they exist. I think about the donor, with a combination of 90% gratitude and 10% curiosity.

I thought that contacting people on the family list would be nice...a few emails, pictures, etc. I had a vision of nice lesbians families who we could visit with Sunshine, drama free. In my mind, these families all live in warm weather states. Since Sunshine will have always known about these kids, she might feel less of a loss about her biological roots (maybe? right?) and she would know more AI kids, more queer families.

So, I thought, hey, I will just check out to see if anyone else is registered and then we can decide from there.

The sperm bank people (best customer service of any place I have ever encountered) wrote back a nice response right away. No one is registered yet.

I felt surprisingly (a little) sad. I wonder when/if we will meet any of these families.

Home Work

Sunday, Sunshine turned one. I work at home on Thursday. This means that right now I have my work email open and I check voicemail constantly. I try to get things done, and I try to be more efficient the days I am in the office. I let close-to-walking Sunshine destroy my house and then at 3 p.m. (naptime!) I put it back together again. Right now she is playing with tupperware and greeting cards. A moment ago she was playing with the dogs water bowl (yuck!) and cans of seltzer water. The child is obsessed with opening drawers

This post interupted because Sunshine stole the mouse. She loves the mouse with its flashing light and obvious importance to me. Only the keyboard is better in her mind.

Ok, boss, I will try to work on the report as soon as I can grab dasjildsjakdsalkj;dd

Sigh. Happy Birthday, Kid. You eruioriuoewjsadkl;aj.

Summer Summary

Thanks everybody who filled out or passed on the LambdaLegal survey! And who asked how I was doing!I'm doing good, just not doing good at finding time for blogging.

My Sunshine is doing great. She is a cheerful little one, who often delights us with her expressions of sheer joy. She is a very big 9 month old baby who crawls and stands and eats solids. How'd that happen?! She doesn't talk much or say a lot of consonants (how much should I worry about those milestone charts?) but loves to interact. She does not sleep through the night, not even close. She wakes up several times just distraught. Not like "I want milk, I want comfort" but like.....distraught. Its so upsetting. And then each morning, she smiles and plays with her toys while we stumble around looking for caffeine.

Lovely partner is on maternity leave this summer and she loves that. She is shocked at how much fun she is having and how little she cares about missing work. Yesterday she told me she might want to be a housewife after all. (Okay, so that is two of us now, please send lotto tickets) Her maternity leave also greatly simplifies our general household stress level.

We had fun at Pride with Sunshine. We have a Lesbian Moms group. I think about being a lesbian about 90% less time then I think about being a Mom, though I see the way our queerness shapes many aspects of our parenting lives. Where we live, who we want to spend time with, how we worry. We frequently get asked all those questions lesbian moms talk about "What do you call yourselves?" (Who is Mommy vs. Momma etc) We get many questions about the donor's ethnicity and especially his size. It is not too big a problem right now. I know it will be harder as Sunshine starts to learn about homophobia. That is the part I hate.

Here's some things that would have been helpful for me to know earlier:

*Having a newborn is NOT what having a baby is like. It is what having a newborn is like. Knowing this would've saved me a lot of panic!

*It would've been helpful to know Sunshine earlier-ha! Then I think I would've handled newborn stress better. It was HER! Not some screaming ball of need.

*The damage that TTC can cause on a relationship between partners is not necessarily solved once the baby arrives. I neglected my relationship because of my TTC obsession. That decision has costs. Now I've got a lot of restoration work to do.

*Babies need to be a certain age/size before using booster seats in bistros. Request highchair. (You don't want to know how I learned this, except I will say I never felt like a worse Mom)

*Summer is better then winter. Okay, I ALWAYS knew that but life is such AMAZINGLY easier when you don't have to bundle a baby before you go outside.

Best wishes for a happy summer, everyone!

Survey on Unfair Health Care for LGBT folks

If you, like me, were told you couldn't get fertility treatment because you weren't heterosexual, please take this survey and let LambdaLegal know. Towards the end of the survey they ask this specific question.

I really want this issue to be picked up by a national advocacy organization and Lambda Legal does amazing work.

http://www.lambdalegal.org/take-action/partners-for-health-care-fairness/lgbt-and-hiv-health-care-fairness-survey.html

I don't think I have readers left, but on the off chance one of you sees this and can pass it on....

:) Sarah

Other Motherness

Yesterday I told my Lovely Partner that the babysitter said Sunshine likes to go to sleep with her hand around the babysitter's finger. I told the story in a "Isn't our baby the sweetest thing ever?" way.

Lovely said "She does that to Babysitter too?"

I nodded.

Lovely looked sad and said "Sunshine thinks of you as her family, but I'm just one of the other favorite babysitters."

And then I felt sad for Lovely, even though I don't think it is true. And if it IS true now, I am sure it will change.

In a not unrelated note, Lovely tells me about once a week how pissed she is at Re.becca Walker.

http://feministlawprofs.law.sc.edu/?p=3579

Our Life In a Series of Bullet Points

I did actually want to be a blogger. I enjoy it. It helps me sort out things. It is sort of like a memory book for me. But I haven't been able to find the energy. But, I'm keeping it-- going into dreaded bullet points.

*Sunshine is doing great. She is almost 6 months old (?!?). She is a happy smiley baby. If anyone reading this has a persistently screaming infant, take heart. It really can get so much better at 3.5 months.

*My boss came to me and said I can work at home one day a week for a while to spend more time with my baby. I'm unbelievably lucky. However, it has been a lot harder to work at home then I thought. Especially during the Nap Strikes! This baby really has a great future as a Union Organizer, I think.

*Before Sunshine was born, I used to think about being a queer family all the time. Now, I don't feel like I have had time to think. However, one day at work I unexpectedly encountered homophobia and it threw me off. The most disturbing thing was how matter-of-fact about it everyone was. I went to bed, worried about the day my innocent joyful looking daughter would feel pain at being in a stigmatized group.

*I did something stupid which could've, but didn't, lead to Sunshine being injured. It was the worst feeling.: A combination of fear, empathy for her pain, and feeling like the biggest dumbass in the world. Even though I was pretty sure she was fine, I took her to the doctor. The doctor gave me a hug and said "Don't beat yourself up, this happens to 98.7% of all babies." I think he was probably making that statistic up, but I really appreciated his reassurance and his hug. Thank you Compassionate Pediatrician!

*Sunshine is an enormous baby. I am not sure how this happened. I'm not small but the donor was not huge, either. I have not personally met anyone with a larger baby (22 lbs at 5.5 months). She has outgrown all her fuzzibunz, her infant car seat, her swing, bouncing chair, and almost all her 88 outfits we received at our baby shower.

*People have asked if having a baby changed the relationship between Lovely Partner and me. Yes. We have a common purpose and (usually) great teamwork, but its hard to have time for our relationship. We went out one night and had the grandest time! Other times, our conversations are all logistical--who needs to do what for the baby to be clothed, fed, dry, happy. In the morning, we are a parody of the "rushed parents getting ready for work" scenes in movies. At night, we have a series of Would You Rather conversations that go like this: Would you rather walk the dog/play with the baby/do the laundry OR give the baby a bath/ get the bottles ready for tomorrow/clean the dishes? To paraphrase Before Sunset, it sometimes feels like we are running a daycare together. So, I miss us sometimes.

*In general, I find the hardest thing about motherhood is not having enough time (or energy) for my other loved ones. See above. This includes any social gathering that Sunshine is at, when I have trouble giving my full attention to conversation. I feel rude constantly. This is especially hard because so many of people are out of town, we don't get to see everybody as much as we would like anyway.

*Since Sunshine was born, I have trouble watching movies or tv shows where anything bad happens to any person. So that eliminates a lot of movies/shows. Am I doomed to only watching romantic comedies for the rest of my life?

*I think about 55% of the stress of parenthood could be mitigated by more money. Maybe I am wrong. But if we could afford to have one of us stay home or pay someone to do more of our household tasks that would be huge. I also feel that if we won the lotto, we would try to have a sibling for Sunshine right away.

*I did, in fact, do the new motherhood cliche of accidentally wearing my shirt inside out to work.

*Sunshine's favorite toy is the webcam. I'm not kidding. She loves to see videos of her Grandmama but even more than that she loves to watch videos starring herself. She thinks she is supercute, and I agree.

*I still read yer blogs!