Wednesday 10 April 2013

Guest post: Mummy not mama for once!

B has asked me to write a guest post for this blog and I thought that readers might be interested to find out my story and how I became Mummy not Mama.

Before B and I got together I was in a relationship with a man for three years. As I've always wanted to have a child and had been clear about this I broached the subject with Peter (not his real name) after we'd been living together for a year or so. Although Peter was committed to me and our relationship he wasn't able to definitely commit to us having a child together and getting married and this was too open ended for me. It was for these reasons that I ended the relationship.

Where is this leading? Well, B and I had been friends for a couple of years already during this and knew where we both stood independently in relation to wanting to have a child and getting married before we got together. When we did get together a few months later this meant that we already knew having a child was important for both of us.

Some of my family, friends and colleagues were a bit surprised or confused when B and I got together however. I'm also not sure how well Peter and his family took the news at first. Although I've always been bisexual, B is my first relationship with a woman so maybe the concept of there being two mums for a child was completely new for some of those people. I remember that I had to learn about all the different options available to us to have a family as this was also quite new to me so I empathise with others when they don't really know or understand how it works. This is useful to have been through as if I ever get comments whereby people assume that we've used IVF I have more patience to try and explain to them how we went about getting pregnant (if they want to know).

It took a little while for some people to fully get it and my dad had to do a bit of explaining to some family members who were confused but for whatever reason hadn't felt they could ask me about it directly. I've always tried to be open about mine and B's experience and since I've become pregnant I find that it's best to make it clear that I'm happy for people to ask me as many questions about it as they like. I've found that lots of people are curious to find out more and I'm sure that this will help more widely with understanding and acceptance of children who have two mums.

So where do those slightly confused people in my life stand now? I think that they can see how happy I am and that they see beyond B's gender and just see her as being the best parent figure for our child that I could ask for. This is why I'm proud to be Mummy with a Mama not a man.



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