Seriously? This may be my favorite picture in the whole LesbianFamily.org album. And there are some great pictures there. We would love to include yours!

This is what I hope will be the start of a list of blogs in Spanish by and about lesbian families. If anyone knows anyone else, please send them this way. Without further ado, I give you:

Julieta and her less-than-legal wife who are still in the planning stages over at http://willowsbrain.blogspot.com/.

Magui, Gabi, a three year relationship, a cat, a dog, and the desire to start a family in Argentina at http://quemarnaves.blogspot.com/

Florencia and Gabriela who are TTCing in Argentina at http://maternidadeslesbicas.blogspot.com/

Guza and Oruga waiting for their Juan in Argentina at http://saltorana.blogspot.com/

Tilvy and Andre have triplets Abril, Jazmin, and Santi who were born at 27 weeks and are still in the NICU, but doing well in Argentina at http://ellalostrillizosyyo.blogspot.com/

Ana and Paula with their 1 year old twins in Argentina at http://piedralibreparadosmamas.blogspot.com/

Cris and Ana with their twins Diego and Santi in Mexico at http://dosmamis.blogspot.com/

Roma, Triana, and their 4 year old son Tati in Argentina at http://mamispordos.blogspot.com/

I really need to ask myself why all my posts over here have my inability to perform up to my expectations and follow-through with my stated intentions as a primary theme.  It could be that I’m here to write about parenting and family creation and my path to parenting and family creation was full of the crumbling of my intentions and the flummoxing of my expectations (e.g.: our child will be conceived in a romantic moment between the two of us and our syringe; my child will eat only home-made, organic foods).  Or it could be that I’m lazy.  There are many people who will vouch that I’m just lazy.  See, I didn’t even post last week, and this week instead of getting a cheery and funny round-up of some of the intriguing posts made during this last week, you’re getting a emotion-laden discussion based on posts more than a week old, and we all know how quickly things can change in the blogosphere in a week.  Regardless, I am charging forward.

I was struck last week by the discussion on several blogs about different ways the not-getting-pregnant partner of a TTC couple feels as the time to conceive stretches out longer and longer.  Charlotte talked about the slow and painful realization that she and her partner need to switch rolls; Lo wrote of her feelings around Co’s decision to take a break month and how frustrating the TTC journey has been for her;  Jay wrote about her own stresses and grief over how tenuous her participation in the attempts to conceive her and Jay’s child feels and; E. shares a conversation that she and her partner have had about living in a 2 uteri home.  So I thought I’d add my own voice to the discussion.

When I first met Kristin I was set on getting pregnant within 2 years.  I was planning on being a single mother and then she came along, and she was not ready.  Further, she felt that the best way to build a family would be through adoption.  In one of our first serious discussion on family I told her that I would be happy to adopt as many children as we could care for, but that I was going to get pregnant and give birth at least once, and for us to be together she had to accept that.  And, eventually, she did.  But by the time we were ready to add to our family, she had great health insurance through her job and I had nothing.  Though intellectually I have no problem with lesbians going on Medicaid when pregnant because they can’t be insured through their partners, emotionally I have a strong working-class distaste for taking assistance from the government (this is only a distaste for myself taking such aid, I don’t have any problem at all with other people receiving aid).  So, even though I am older than Kristin and have a strong desire to be pregnant whereas Kristin did not, we decided that for us it made sense for her to be the first one of us to get pregnant.  So that’s what we did.  And I poured all my desire for pregnancy into getting her pregnant.  But the term “getting” implies control; as the not-getting-pregnant expectant mother, control was something I had to realize had been forfeited.  This realization took, um, until Julia was (I’m embarrassed to admit this) 14 months old. That’s right, folks, I have been free of the need to control Kristin’s TTC and pregnancy as a way to prove my value and worth to the family for a whole two months now. What can I say?  Letting control is all about faith, and I have never had an easy time with faith.

I was miserable and conflicted through the time we were trying to conceive Julia.  I felt like a 5^th wheel.  There were times when our donor was in the basement, producing his contribution, when I would look at Kristin readying herself on the bed and think that if I were gone Kristin could be getting the stuff direct from the source, as it were.  As time went on I began to be convinced that such directness would be the only way to produce a child.  I felt that my demands for intimacy during the process, my bumbling fingers, my extreme distaste for the semen, my conflicted emotions and thought processes were all contributing to the failure of our endeavor.  Such was the way I maintained a sense of control.  If I couldn’t control success, I could damn well claim credit for failure.

It didn’t get better when Kristin finally got pregnant.  Oh, yes, there was joy.  There was excitement.  There was tenderness and love.  But there was bitterness, too.  I lost my job.  My job was part-time and very flexible – I was able to work from home a great deal.  I had been consoling myself that I wasn’t to be the birthmother by saying that I was still to be the main caregiver.  When the company I worked for folded, I realized that I would have to get a full-time job to be able to make the same amount of money: I was no longer to be the main care-giver.  At that point I felt that the only thing I could offer our family was a paycheck and some emotional support.  But as my job search stretched out longer and longer I lost all sense of value.  Even the paycheck I thought I could give my family was in doubt at this point.  We were keeping our household afloat with my unemployment checks: I was on gov’t assistance. And with that reality I became jealous and bitter.  I was jealous that Kristin was pregnant.  Her pregnancy was a high-risk one and secretly I was certain that if I were the one pregnant everything would be smooth sailing.  Further, I had been hoping to be able to continue my education by getting accepted into the PhD Creative Writing program at the U: after months of being kept in limbo it was finally revealed to me that I had never been waitlisted, my rejection letter had simply never been sent.

As I sank beneath the turbulent and turgid (like this prose) emotions of depression, anger, bitterness, disappointment, worthlessness, and shame I became unable to support Kristin emotionally.  Oh, I tried, but I was too busy concealing all of the emotions I deemed to shameful to share with my partner.  Further, I did not know any other woman in my position.  All the lesbians who were mothers in my acquaintance had given birth to their children, and all of them were separated from their “deadbeat” “worthless” ex-partners.  If their ex-partners had any contact with their children, the bio mothers were hypercritical and resentful of such contact.  I think if I had some one to talk to, some other lesbian who had gotten children the way I was trying to get a child, I would have had a much easier time emotionally.  I needed someone I could reveal these emotions, who would tell me that they weren’t shameful, that they were natural, and not indications that I was unworthy to become a mother or be partnered to a woman about to give birth.

And now, I’m afraid, this post is getting too long.  To be continued…

Things are a changin’ in the online lesbian family (and friends) world.

First, a big welcome to baby Mia! HD went into labour on the 25th, and baby arrived on the 26th! Go see pictures, she’s super cute!

Congrats to Gretch and Jen (of Butterbeans and Baby Dreams) and Carey and Steph (of UterusX2) who have moved from Trying to Expecting!

More congrats to Renee and Shana (and kids O, J and A) who have been given word on December 14^th that they are the official adoption placement for their baby girl T!

In more adoption news, a big congrats to Natalie who now has two legal parents, Jen and Cait.

In early December, our family had our official second parent adoption hearing, so Dré also has two legal moms.

Some news from friends of the family: a big YAY for Bri (of Unwellness) who is expecting. Also, please send love, prayers and congrats to Mae and Matt (of Mae Midwest) whose little girl arrived early on December, 26th.

Please send positive thoughts to Shelly and Dee who found out that their baby girl has a fluid filled mass (cystic hygroma) on the side of her neck. They receive results from their tests on Wednesday.

Announcement!

Tomorrow, Monday November 13, the 2006 Weblog Awards open for nominations!

Mombian, Lesbian Dad and I have been discussing this for a few weeks, and we hope you’ll agree with our thought that it is time for us to REPRESENT in the parenting blog category!

If each one of you nominated your favorite lesbian family blog (or blogs) in the parenting blog section, can you imagine the visibility it would bring to families like ours?

Sure, we’ll be outnumbered, but the diversity and range of parenting blogs will be out there and noticed by a community within the blogosphere that we seldom reach, and who rarely think about us.

And who knows? One of us might even win!

PS - Let’s also nominate in the “best of the rest” categories designed for blogs with smaller readerships. The more visibility, the merrier! :)

Updates

Several of you mommies-to-be are ABOUT TO DROP, but so far, nothing in the blogosphere says that you’ve had the babies yet. GOOD LUCK! The Internet is rooting for you!

Congratulations to Married Lesbian Mom, who is moving from “trying” to “expecting!”

Sad goodbyes — late ones, since I haven’t been good about updating the categories lately — to Baby Krimpet, who has left off TTC. We’re sorry, and we’ll miss you.

Send good thoughts to B at http://www.seekingthestork.blogspot.com/, who’s mom is in the hospital with a 3 cm “mass” in her brain, discovered because of an unrelated trip to the ER for injuring her ankle.

A few of you left comments asking to be included in additional categories, and special thanks to Sarah & BB for pointing out 3 bloggers who I’d left out of the Global Families category!

Additionally, please welcome a few new blog, Jim, of Disciples from the Left (a sister blog to Straight , not Narrow), in Friends of the Family.

Does anyone know if the Quixotic Mamas have had their baby yet??? No posting since Sunday, which was 9 days past the due date.

Finally, LesbianFamily.org got an email from Emma & Jean:

My partner and I are ready to start a family and are looking for advice, resources and direction from other lesbian mothers/families. We are really at the beginning pros/cons of sperm donation vs. the trusted friend etc. Hoping you can help.

Friends? What’s your advice?

This site doesn’t have forums (yet?) but hopefully this post will spur some discussion that helps.

Also, I would spend some time clicking around the blogs in the “Trying” category. Those are the folks who are dealing with some of the same questions you’re asking. (Folks in other categories may have also been down this path, but those are the folks there now.)

One other place I’d look is Estelle’s blog — she’s generated a lot of interesting and maybe helpful discussion in thinking about whether or not to use the same unknown donor to try to conceive a second child. (There are more posts on the topic, but that one is a good place to start.)

More to come! But in case you aren’t reading these folks, check them out.

New to Babies:

• Adventures in Albania
• 2 Girls, 1 Orca, 1 Pukelo
• A Mixed Up Family
• Audrey’s World
• Busy TarP
• BYO Baby
• Insane Animals
• MommyDaddies
• Peter’s Cross Station
• RAZ-ma-taz
• The Life & Times of Twin Mommies
• The Mouse’s Nest
• two new mommies

New to Expecting!

• Not Your Mama’s Mamas (due any day now)
• Our Kids, Please
• Baby Krimpet
• MermaidGrrrl