Wednesday, January 14, 2009
So its a Go...Now What??
So the plan is a GO but exactly what the plan entails has not been decided. The only progress that has been made so far includes opening a savings account for the conception and charting fertility with the infamous fertility website that many others seem to swear by. We have a financial goal in mind but just from reading other blogs on the same journey, I don’t think it will be enough. Hopefully we can get a lucky BFP within 3 tries. We’ve talked about trying at the end of this year or the beginning of next. Seems like such a long time to wait once you finally know you are going for it…probably not comparable to the torturing 2ww. I am convinced that SAVINGS TIME will fly by fast. So fast that when the time does arrive, it will land on me like a ton of bricks. Huge bricks of nervousness, excitement, fear and happiness all at once. When we actually stopped talking around the subject and became serious about going forward with having a baby together, I became so emotional. Being a mother means everything to me; to have the great opportunity of life growing inside of you and the privilege of shaping that little life into the very best person they can be. It’s so exciting to think of all the things that we will do and share with this child. You know how you experience or don’t experience things in your own childhood and it makes you say “I will never do that to my child or I will make sure I always do this for my child”? Well I have something like that of my own: As a child, I didn’t have the opportunity to experience much because we didn’t have much. My mother was so busy trying to keep us afloat all of our childhood that I kind of missed out on being exposed to different things that I may have taken an interest in such as learning to play music, arts, sports, and travel just to give a few examples . I did develop a passion for art as I became older by chance of taking this course my senior year in high school called Art History. It was Love. I’ve always been fascinated with playing the piano or any musical instrument and I wish I could have had lessons as a child. I’ve been too shy to try out for any sports or even get in the game so I never tried…though I did want to be a majorette and I did go to learn the rehearsal dance but I never went back for tryouts. I think that if I had a solid support system and positive reinforcement, I could have had the courage to try more things as a child/teenager. As far as travel, I touched the sand of the beach for the first time at age 21. It may not seem like things of great concern but not having the opportunity to experience things such as these mean a lot to me. I would like our child to have some sense of what they like and don’t like. I would like him/her to experience so many things early on. I believe those opportunities are so important in helping a child grow into an independent and well rounded person. Exposure to these things, for me, are as simple as taking them to the library, trips to the art or classic car museum, having them engaged in different sports or tap dance class, letting them pick out an instrument to play and taking them to theatrical plays, the beach, zoo and Disney.land. I am so ecstatic about making memories; I don’t think anything in this world could bring me greater joy. With that being said, I will have to give myself a reality check sometimes that kids just want to play outside too and don’t always need a special trip somewhere to enrich their lives. I also get nervous because children are nonrefundable. I will not be able to pick up and go as easily as now. This is a life decision, not just an 18yr one. I don’t think parenting stops when the child turns 18, that may be when you worry the most because it’s that time when you have to let them go and hope you did a good job with them. It’s just overwhelming to think that a person will be dependent on you for the rest of your life. There will be no such thing as “I need a break today; I’m just not feeling it today”. That is fine with me. I will get the reward of having this amazing child in my life every single day. I Love this child so very much and it’s not even growing inside me yet.
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Hi there,
ReplyDeleteI found your blog on lesbianfamily.org. Best of luck on your journey to conceive
I hope you don’t mind me writing to tell you about my book.
I am coeditor of a new anthology on queer parenting, just released in the United States: And Baby Makes More: Known Donors, Queer Parents and Our Unexpected Families. As we say on our cover copy, it’s “a funny and occasionally heartbreaking collection of personal essays that offers an intimate and unprecedented look at the relative risks and unexpected rewards of queer, do-it-yourself baby-making. While in many cases these are stories of finding (or not) the “right” biological stuff for baby making, they are also stories that call on us to re-conceive of family beyond biology.”
We’ve been getting great reviews from the likes of Bay Windows (“And Baby Makes More is a thoughtful, funny, and poignant volume about the variety of ways we define families today.”), Mombian (“... the kind of rich explorations of LGBTQ parenting we need more of today”), The Dominion (“The stories in this collection are loud and inspiring examples of courage, creativity and love and queer parenting. ... This book succeeds in the most urgent of the game: creating a space for the stories to be heard.”) and the Gay & Lesbian Review (“... diverse, poignant, and sometimes very funny.... surprising, enlightening and mandatory reading for any lesbians or gay men thinking of embarking on adventures in the wild world of parenthood.”)
I hope the anthology might be of interest to you, and to your extended circles of family and friends. We’d very much appreciate it if you would pass on the word to anyone you think might enjoy the book, which is available online and at many independent and alternative bookstores. You can find more information as well at my blog: http://mamanongrata.com/?page_id=303.
All the best,
Susan Goldberg