Four Years

I can hardly believe that four years have passed since the day I married my wife. It feels like yesterday. It feels like a lifetime ago. So much has happened.

This accidental magic captures how I feel with you. Photo: Sweetheart Empire (Kate O’Connor)

For our fourth Anniversary, aside from the silk/satin motif (silk screened pregnancy announcement tees, and silk pajamas), Allia made us a wedding video. Watching it takes me back to exactly how I felt in those moments. It perfectly encapsulates the magic of our day.

Why do I care about that? Partly because it feels momentous and nostalgic to look back at happiness that still feels tangible and vivid, partly because there are people who told me this would never happen.

Allia and Alison’s Wedding (for the video follow this link)

When I first came out, it was six years before gay marriage was legalized in Canada (2005). I was a teenager, but I remember one of my mom’s friends saying, sympathetically, ‘It’s so sad that Alison won’t have a wedding and you’ll never have grandkids.’ Politely, my mom replied, ‘Fuck that.’

Not quite in those words, but with the same rebellious denial of that assumption. I am my mother’s daughter (and my father’s) and neither raised me to believe that anything I truly wanted was out of reach. They are the biggest advocates, even before I came out, they raised me to see every possibility and to feel entitled to happiness, love and acceptance. Maybe this is why I work so fiercely, at work and at play, to try to make others believe that we all deserve love, dignity and acceptance.

When people asked questions like, “will you ever get married?” “which one of you will wear a suit?” “so, you don’t want to ever have kids?” or made statements like “that must have been so hard for your parents” – I responded to it as a challenge.

We had exactly the wedding I envisioned, a reflection of our relationship, two people – full of laughter, dancing, old traditions and quirky, personal touches. I come from a theatre background and although I wasn’t a Disney princess sort of little girl, it never occurred to me that I couldn’t have a dreamy wedding fit for a fairytale. We themed it like a performance, a show, a circus, with several acts and lots of spectacle. It was a romance and a comedy. And I have never felt more at ease, so relaxed and so happy, in front of my loved ones, looking into the eyes of the woman I love.

I hope we can raise a little one who feels that swell of love and support, and will see that look in our eyes, four years, ten, twenty… fifty years from now.

Happy anniversary, my love. Cheers to many, many more.

Ice Storms Are Good For Somethin’

We got so much done today.

Cooking: Allia made incredible coconut curry with jasmine rice. Second, she made egg white muffin tin frittatas for us to have this week.

I whipped up a batch of delish high-protein coconut angel food cake mini muffins. And for my round two I made a maple chia seed pudding. Now our fridge is full of food, including lots of papaya and fresh muscat grapes. It feels warm and happy inside even if it’s blustery out there.

On the heels of yesterday’s basement spring cleaning bonanza, we capitalized on our momentum and got all the junk that has piled up in the to-be nursery sorted out. My mom came this summer for a day and we set up the room – all except for the crib. Incidentally, it became a room with a closed door, perfect for stashing stuff out of sight. Aka a junk room.

Now it looks adorable. Allia finally agreed, after some ‘let’s not jinx it’ putting it off, to put together the crib.

I sat in the finished room, just basking. Holding a creepy old Cabbage Patch doll and feeling so proud of us. Stay tuned for some photos when it’s not so bleak outside!

I have been binge watching Lost in Space and doing so so much laundry.

13 Feels Lucky

 

We are still going strong. I’m thirteen weeks pregnant. Bring on the weird dreams, continual progesterone (the worst part of this, honestly), the food aversion and the maternity pants. I look back at amazing times we have had together, see above?

I keep trying to imagine what life will look like for us as we go forward, adding a new member to our family. I’ve been cleaning the basement, reorganizing, trying to make everything perfect, to assuage the anxiety that hits me around 7 pm each night – which is about the time I start to get really tired. 8:30 bed times. It’s really happening. Pre-natal yoga. Adjusting to having so much less than my usual energy.

Nesting. I know it’s a coping strategy; if I can just perfect my surroundings, all the things out of my control will feel more manageable. If I just keep moving, sharklike, I won’t let my fears catch up to me. Just a breath ahead of them.

There is an ice storm (of historic proportions, apparently) happening outside. I am busying myself, preparing for disaster… a house made chaotic by little hands and lots of spit up. I sometimes can’t believe that the me who relies on order and comfort at home, which gets me through the total insanity of my day-to-day work life and all the unpredictable things that come with working in place full of 2400 teenagers, is actively pursuing a massive, seismic change in our lives. The most beautiful chaos I can imagine.

Little baby, for you, I would turn my whole world upside down. I think I’m starting to let myself fall in love.

Things I Will Never Consider

I feel (again) like I should stop following the comment section on BabyCentre and just read What To Expect When You’re Expecting. Today I read a post from a mom desperately seeking advice:

“I am having another boy… and I’m so disappointed that I’m considering an abortion.”

One person responded that this seems like a bad April Fool’s joke. The reply to that was ‘be sensitive and support this mom, this is supposed to be a safe space.’

Trying to be balanced, while also staying real, I replied:

“I agree that this should be a safe, supportive place.

And it should also be safe for those who have had losses or struggled to get pregnant. It can be very difficult to hear that someone is considering aborting a pregnancy due to the gender/sex of their child (which is illegal in Canada I believe). I have no judgement for this mom and her struggle, nor for the other mother who is pointing out that this post could be triggering for some; having hopes and fears related to the life you see for yourself and your future child is normal, but I think it’s possible to see multiple sides of this issue with sensitivity and compassion. People’s advice to get support from a doctor and seek some relief from the depression she is experiencing is the most helpful and likely to help the initial poster to feel she is able to make a decision.”

What I didn’t say was: I have some questions – Do you consider how you will feel if you do keep this child and know that you publicly professed that you considered terminating the pregnancy? I would never advocate bottling up your feelings and not exploring your true emotions, but I also can’t help but project myself into the future and think ‘what will I do when I look at my child and consider these thoughts?’  When I say, I have no judgment, I mean: I don’t think you are a bad person. I will not tell another person what to do with their own body. But I do think there are some underlying questions and assumptions that need to be asked. It’s also really hard to post something so polarizing and expect only supportive, affirming replies.

There is a part of me that wants to ask: should you be having more kids, if the reason you want them depends on something so tied to fate and chance? When you get pregnant you KNOW it’s a fifty-fifty shot you will get one gender or the other (not considering intersex children). And you DON’T want another boy enough that you’d end a pregnancy to avoid that outcome? I can’t say that I understand that. It seems to imply that you believe there is something so inherent about what is between a child’s legs that their whole life and experience will be shaped by the assumptions around what gender means. All boys and all girls are different. Vastly. You could get any kind of ‘boy’ or ‘girl’ and your child, raised according to whatever gender you believe fits them, could transition as they grow up. Will your love hinge on their ability to fulfill a gender role you have built for them? Does your conception of having a ‘girl’ have such rigid expectations that you feel a boy-child could not fill the space you’ve built in your mind for them? What is it about having a girl that you think will be absent in your current situation? Other than a body part? Is your plan for her so wildly different that you will not experience joy in parenting the other? I would assume (I know the danger here) that you plan to raise a child who is loved, building their confidence, laughing and crying through the joy and struggles of their discovering and as they stumble. None of what I envision is prescribed by what colour or sports society thinks they should enjoy. I know enough people to KNOW that there are as many types of men and women as there are stars in the sky. I don’t know what I will get, but I hope that, starlike, they are bright and that they will fill me with wonder.

I do have preferences.  Obviously. I am attracted to women. I married a woman. And I hope for a little girl, and a boy, too, maybe one day. But if I found out I was having a healthy baby that would trump any fear or trepidation that I have about raising a child. I think my desire to have a girl is more about my own comfort. I know I can raise a strong, independent, feminist daughter. I am less sure that I will be able to impart the wisdom I have to share to a male child… but I will sure try. I think it’s harder to raise a good man, in many ways, than it is to raise a woman; it is hard to be a woman. But the bar for ‘goodness’ in men is embarrassingly low right now and my standards are high. My comfort and confidence are tied to my own preconceptions about gender and what it will mean for my offspring.

First and foremost, I don’t want it to be the most important thing about them. I want a child who is thoughtful, kind, critical, brave, empathetic and who trusts their intuition. My love will not be gender-dependent. I have to at least offer myself the same compassion that I will afford my child, as they learn and grown, knowing that we will not be perfect. I will also not be doing this alone.

I am so interested in your thoughts about your (future) child’s sex and your future hopes. Please share and also, please know that my passion may seem judgement-laden, heavy and convinced, but it’s more about the doubts I have experienced (that I will be good enough at this) that bristle when I see and hear other people who don’t seem to consider, as they question of ‘if they should have child X’ that maybe there are other questions they could ask: like why do I want to have this child? And what do I really believe about gender that makes me think one experience will be so different that I would forgo it altogether, rather than embrace a healthy child, irrespective of the chromosomes they happen to bear?
I have deliberately left out details of this mom’s story, to maintain privacy. Thank you for respecting that.