Regarding what we call our KD: he (KD) picked a name that he wants our son to call him – a term of endearment for papa in Spanish. We are totally on board with that. It’s just the introducing him to other people thing that gets us all tangled up. I guess maybe calling him a special uncle would work! I feel like we’re really just marking time until our son is old enough to decide for himself how to navigate this verbal territory.

Both my partner and I have read the Cherrie Moraga book and we loved it. Kwynne, I’ll look forward to your post about it.

I know that a number of folks over at Rainbow Conceptions and on FF had put together a KD yahoo group – but that it didn’t end up with much activity. I’m sure other folks can speak to this and why they feel that happened, but I can say it saddens me that there isn’t a space for KDs to talk (opening up one here sounds really good!) We have 2 KDs who are friends with each other, and THEY don’t even talk to each other about it!

Our KDs are both straight and have pretty queer positive/lefty politics. I am assuming that the reason they don’t want too much fanfare about their “gift” is to normalize it. I know that they have both in one way or another stated how they feel that they have given us so little, and how they would hate for others to see their contribution as a reason to deny us as parents, which of course, happens so often for queer families.

ps – have any of you read Cherríe Moraga’s “Portrait of a Queer Motherhood?” Excellent, excellent book. She talks about negotiating a “queer contract” between herself, her partner and her donor and then talks about the evolving relationship that her donor has with her son. I love how it demonstrates the radicality that comes with queer family making, while explaining the need to reject homo/hetero normative models. Maybe I’ll post a bit about that sometime soon.

Meanwhile, A: we call our known donor a “Special Uncle.” I’ve heard that at least from one other quarter. This reflects a familial tie, but not a parental one, and that exactly describes what we feel. Insofar as “aunts” and “uncles” are often the names for dear people who help raise us or who are special special to our parents (whether they’re blood-related or not).

I wrote about this in a post last August. Let me know what you think!

he’s also taken to lurking on the lesbian ttc/parenting blogs, in order to find some insight about how the dynamics play out in real life.

maybe there is room for a kd corner on this site? some sort of forum for kds to find each other?

However, things have been fine, and I would even say they have been great. He loves our son in exactly the way (we think) he should – unconditionally and with great joy…and with a clear sense of all of our boundaries.

We’re definitely still negotiating some things – for example, how we (and others) refer to him in relation to our son. We have settled on referring to him as our son’s donor, but that seems a little too impersonal. We’re not quite comfortable with calling him our son’s father, either, and haven’t been able to come up with anything more creative. Any suggestions on this would be more than welcome!

Our donor doesn’t have kids of his own, and probably won’t. However, we would like to have at least one more with him. One of the things we value most about this situation is that our son will have a relationship with his other genetic half and his extended family, as well as all the history that comes along with that.

Thanks for writing about this. We don’t know many other families who have chosen this route and it’s wonderful to hear about others’ experiences.

Also, I’ve been wondering if there’s any kind of a support network for known donors out there. I have a feeling our donor would appreciate some contact with other men in similar situations. I’ve done some searching but haven’t come up with much…