(not my) parenting story

Jen and I were friends in university, and stay in a sporadic sort of touch via facebook, so I was excited to see this story about her family featured in Toronto Life. Go read. It's cool.

Call for submissions (a newly human first!)

Despite the giant pain in the ass that drafting and signing a donor contract turned out to be (a saga which I may someday relate, because it seems like it might be useful to somebody out there), I have to say that I really like my lawyer. I would happily and confidently recommend her to anyone in Toronto looking for a queer-friendly family lawyer. She is the bomb.

I'm aware that there's a whole bunch of stuff I want to tell you guys about our decision to have a baby and our process for getting there, actually, because when we started trying to do it I realized that I could find all kinds of stories about queer families, but no Canadian ones. I know a handful of queerfolk my age who have kids, but either I don't know them well enough to ask a bunch of crazily intrusive questions, or I failed to connect with them when we were in our information-gathering stage, and it was...kind of a crappy, alienating, lonely experience. If putting my story out in the world would make it less that way for other people, that would be a good thing to do.

So, writing about intending to write about something is a bit peculiar, but if I put it out there on the internet, I have to make it happen. It also allows me to petition you folks for your stories. Did your family come about in a way that was off the beaten path? D'you want to tell that story? If so, leave me a comment and I will figure out how to feature you as a guest blogger (or link to your blog, if you've already written about it.) I'm hoping for some specifically Canadian stories, 'cause our law is different, but I'm happy to hear from everyone. Tell your friends!

the sound that wonder makes

Casually, near the end of our appointment today, our midwife said "We might be able to hear the baby's heartbeat, if you're interested." spook and I were both like "Uh, yes." So I laid back on the sofa in her practice room and pulled my shirt up. "We might not be able to hear it, so I'm sorry if this takes forever." She put goo on the end of the doppler rod and placed it much lower than I would have guessed, over to the side toward my hipbones and then working toward the middle. There was a weird, echoey thup noise. "That's your heartbeat." she said. "That's the kind of sound we're listening for, but faster. Oh! There it is!" And there it was.

A tiny thupthupthupthupthupthupthup, like something small beating its wings.

grumble grumble grumble...huzzah!

Well, I seem to be feeling...marginally better. I'll take marginally; any margin is an improvement. It makes me laugh that I can tell I'm feeling better because I've started to be cross about all the mess at work. (Dear Christmas Shoppers, thank you for keeping me in a job through this early, scary bit of recession. Now do you suppose you could go away, just for a few days, so that I can clean up? With luck, by the time you come back I may be able to find your books on the shelves where they belong.)

Other things I was cross about this weekend: the fact that the Indianapolis Colts were replaced by clowns in their playoff game and lost like fools to San Diego. The Chargers played very well, but I'm unable to sit back and admire them because their quarterback is a douchebag, and now they're going to play my beloved Steelers so I have to watch his awful smarmy face for a whole other game. Peyton Manning could have saved me from all this.

I choose to view my crankiness as a good sign.