My wriggly baby

We had our 20 week scan this week. It was incredible to see the baby in such detail, although it wasn't easy for the radiographer to do all her checks because our little one is a real wriggler. You can see in the photo above, the baby is facing downwards - that's the head on the right. Happily, the scan went well and baby is developing well.

R is beginning to feel the baby moving around now, which is quite exciting for us both. I feel much more at ease as well. As readers of my previous posts will know, I have done a lot of thinking about the kind of parent I will be, and the impact of my not having a biological connection to my child. But, as time goes on, these worries and thoughts have receded. Having been through the pregnancy every step of the way with R, I really feel like this baby is every bit as much mine as it is hers.

Our time now is spent on practicalities - making room for a cot, getting rid of stuff we don't need, and making connections with other parents-to-be. One of the great things about living where we do is that we are able to be part of a gay families group which meets at our local LGBT Community Centre. It has been a great source of support, and I have no doubt that this will continue.

Call the Midwife!

So perhaps our midwife doesn't actually look like this... But we are off to see her tomorrow. R is now 17 weeks pregnant so tomorrow we are going to check in with our midwife at the local GP surgery.

I'm feeling quite excited, as we should be able to hear the baby's heart beat for the first time. It's an odd thing really, expecting a baby. R's tummy is definitely growing, and we have seen the little baby on a scan screen, but sometimes you can forget there's a real little person in there. I'm looking forward to hearing our child tomorrow for the very first time. I am sure that will make everything feel very real.

There is also that sense of anxiety that comes before any check up or scan. Everyone knows that these appointments are to just reassure everyone that mummy and baby are doing well, but you can't help but think about what happens if that isn't the case.

No doubt poor R will have to give lots of samples of blood for testing and the inevitable wee in a pot. I will sit and try and ask useful questions and smooth her brow if that seems necessary. I would like to think that we will leave the clinic wiser as to our little baby's health and happiness.

Top ten comments on discovering you are expecting a baby

When you discover that a friend is expecting a baby, what do you say? Think carefully, and then read the comments below. These are the ones that R and I now have stock answers for...

1. Well, that will change your life forever. Yes, marvellous, thank you for that, we hadn't realised...
2. Is it a boy or a girl? We don't know yet.
3. Will you find out? Yes, but we don't mind either way.
4. Well, make the most of any sleep you get now, in a few months you won't get any. Excellent, that's very helpful. Thank you.
5. When is it due? September.
6. Did you have IVF? This is one for those of us who don't have an obvious man in our lives. The answer is no.
7. Ooh, children are a gift aren't they? Yes they are. But I am not sure I need to hear that phrase ever again.
8. Let me tell you about my traumatic/unpleasant/painful/tragic childbirth story... No, please don't.
9. To R when she is feeling ghastly: Oh you look really well. Nope, she's not, she feels like death warmed up. Thanks though.
10. Will you move to a bigger place? No - having a child is hard work enough without moving house too. 

I am tempted now to refer everyone to this link. Yes, I know I sound churlish. In fact I am totally guilty of some of the above myself. Perhaps we could come up with some alternatives?

Donor etiquette...

I had an odd thought the other day...

Someone I know who is in a same sex relationship asked if me and R might share some of our conception experiences. I of course said yes - anything we can do to ease someone else's path. We were fortunate to have similar help from friends.

It was at that point I thought that we had the perfect sperm donor to recommend - as though I was recommending a lumber or something. A very odd concept.

What is the etiquette here?!

What does the donor look like?

No one has actually asked me directly what our sperm donor looks like, but I do know that my Aunt, once I had shared our good news, immediately called my parents and asked them.

She wanted to know his colouring, his build and, no doubt, his intelligence. There is, undoubtedly, something curious about having a child enabled by someone you barely know. Incidentally my parents replied that they didn't know and that it really wasn't relevant to them. Full marks!

If we had conceived through a clinic, the donor's appearance would just have been summarised on clinical notes, whereas we met ours on a number of occasions. I must confess to feeling very fond of our donor. For all sorts of reasons it would be impractical to be friends with him going forward, but in another life I can see how we could have been friends. That said, I do wonder if my fondness comes from his selfless generosity.

Fred (as discussed before, not his real name) is in a relationship and doesn't want children. He does however see the challenges some people face who want them, and enjoys helping them. He doesn't want a formal role in the child's life, and that is fine with us. Both R and I have very good male friends and are close with our own fathers, so our baby will have no shortage of male role models. In addition, he or she will have two loving parents who worked very hard to have a child. This truly was no accident. A lot of thought went into it.

So I'm not going to describe our donor here, beyond saying that he is a kind and generous man who has enabled our dreams to come true.

The fear...

Are you expecting a baby? Is your partner expecting one? Or perhaps you are soon to adopt a child. Whatever your scenario, at some point you will come across 'the fear'.

It began quite early on for me. Our lovely two bedroom flat is already a bit of a squeeze, and in order to fit in a baby and all the ensuing detritus, we're going to need to either move somewhere bigger or do a life laundry. In order to prevent nervous breakdowns all round, we have opted for the former. This all sounds perfectly reasonable, but of course pregnancy is nature's way of setting a ticking time bomb that you have no control over. We have just five months left now to sort out our lives. Hence, 'the fear'.

'The fear' is that hot sweaty sensation you get in the night when you realise you have no idea where you're going to put a folded buggy.

'The fear' is the moment that people ask which nursery you will use - yes, apparently we should already know this.

'The fear' is that growing sensation that nothing will be the same again.

I am slowly learning that I will not be a perfect parent, nor indeed is it possible to be one. With this lesson, 'the fear' gets smaller, although I will no doubt still wake up in a cold sweat tonight about whether or not to get a bumbo seat...

My thoughts on Mothering Sunday

Here in the UK it is Mother's Day, or as my own Mum prefers to call it, Mothering Sunday. It does make it sound more spiritual, although it does make me feel as though we ought to mark it in church or something which we haven't done.

R and I sent our own Mothers' cards, and we also sent each other little 'mum-to-be' cards. It's funny to think that, all being well, by Mother's Day 2014 we will have a little baby of our own.

As those of you who have read previous posts will know, I started this blog to try and make sense of my role as the non-biological child that my wife, R, is currently pregnant with. We are 15 weeks pregnant today and contemplating how our lives will change. One of the wonderful things I have discovered about writing this blog, is how many people feel similarly to me. It has been fantastic reading comments and tweets from people sharing their very diverse experiences.

One thing that has become abundantly clear, and that I have found enormously comforting, has been that while I won't share the biological and birth giving connection to my child that my wife has, I will have my own bond with my son or daughter, she she will not have. We will have our own very special roles, neither one more important than the other. This has been a rather delightful revelation to me. So, no, the child won't have my green eyes, but it may well share my sense of humour. And while R will have the connection of breast feeding, I will be the one, while R is on maternity leave, that the baby will enjoy returning home from work.

Finally, this Mothering Sunday, I'd just like to take a moment to think about those who aren't mums and wish they were, or those whose mums are no longer with us. I always think this must be a very tough time for them.

But we're not infertile!

As I mentioned in an earlier post, at the beginning of the process we did look into having artificial insemination at a clinic. We would need to pay for it, but we reasoned that the expert care and experience of the doctors would be an advantage. In addition the sperm would be pre-screened and legalities would all be covered.

Simple yes?

We had high hopes initially, in spite of the letter that invited us to the 'Infertility Clinic'. It felt a touch negative, but we swept that aside and looked forward to finding out all about our options of starting a family.

We went in to see the doctor, who didn't even look up from his papers as he said "female couple looking for artificial insemination yes?" We sat down, a bit unnerved by his detached approach. He then proceeded to tell R all the many millions of tests she would need, some uncomfortable and invasive. This all seemed a bit like overkill. Surely she didn't need those tests unless we thought there was a problem? Apparently not. She was treated like every other woman who darkened his door, and that's not about his commitment to equality, but a reflection of his assumption that all women are the same. They are not.

We asked him to slow down and talk through exactly what each test was, what it involved and why it was necessary. Then, without asking, he booked R in for them. I could see she was already beginning to feel upset. This was not the happy, exciting open discussion we had been looking for.

We left, feeling that this simply was not for us. I hasten to add at this point that I suspect had we seen someone else or been to a different clinic things may have been very different. The things that clinics such as this are able to do for couples with fertility issues is incredible. Even so, I suspect they're not overly keen on being seen in the 'infertility' clinic...

So, we put the clinic on the back burner. We would revisit should we have trouble conceiving. We have been massively fortunate to be able to conceive with minimal medical input, but still, there must have been better way that appointment could have gone.

So in this day and age it's easy to get LGBT children's books right?

We've been thinking through all the 'stuff' we're going to need for when the baby arrives. The life laundry has begun, and we're already saying farewell to surplus objects that seemed like a good idea at the time. Why we felt the need to have three spare mobile phones hanging around is a mystery to me...

I was reassured yesterday that babies actually don't need that much stuff, and in fact a lot of the perceived need is market driven. That is a useful thing to keep in mind. Facebook hasn't worked out I'm going to be a mother yet, so I have yet to have the pleasure of constant baby ads. The wedding ones last year were bad enough...

One thing we do want to do though is make sure we have plenty of story books for both our child and others that show other families 'like us'. Sadly, they are depressingly thin on the ground. I've had to resort to Amazon. One of my faves is Mommy, Mama and Me by Leslie Newman. It is American, as many of these books are - nothing wrong with that, although some of the references don't quite work. But finding a British one seems nigh on impossible. The most beautiful that I know is And Tango Makes Three, based on the true story of two boy penguins in a New York City zoo who brought up a baby penguin. There is a theatrical interpretation of that story at our local arts centre this weekend and we're really looking forward to going, along with some other LGBT parents and parents-to-be.

Delightfully, I have found that some classics have been reinterpreted - for example Goldilocks and the three bears who are now two mums and baby bear. But in all fairness, I could count on one hand the number that I found. Am I looking in the wrong place?

If you have any suggestions of books for any children under 10 which include LGBT characters, please, I implore you, let me know!

What's DNA got to do with being a parent?

It wasn't until I was expecting a baby to which I will have no genetic connection that I realised how obsessed we were as a culture with biological inheritance.

For example, how often do you hear phrases like:

• She looks just like you...
• Oh he doesn't look anything like his dad does he?
• Well they are your flesh and blood after all
• And blood is thicker than water...
• Oh he takes after his grandfather

I'm sure that I have uttered all of the above - which is shameful because apart from anything else they are all such unoriginal cliches (but I digress) - without even thinking about it. 

I know rationally that of course I will be bringing up mine and R's child as its mother - or Mama to be more precise. But, will I ever legitimately be able to see myself in him or her?

A friend recently reassured me about this, having been through the same experience. Indeed, I am sure many step parents can relate to this too, although the dynamics are different there again. She reminded me that ultimately a child's behaviour, outlook on life and future are down to their upbringing. Yes, there are genetic predispositions, but it will be my actions that will have every bit as much of an impact as R's.

One thing I never worry about is whether I will love my baby. Ten years ago I worked with children with special needs who needed respite care. It was a chance for them to get away from their parents, and a chance for their parents to have a breather. I remember one particular afternoon spending time with a boy of 12 who had very severe learning and physical disabilities. His communication consisted of being able to demonstrate that he was happy or not. I spent an afternoon watching television with him and trying to make him laugh. It was a couple of days before Christmas, and I remember very strongly feeling a real connection with him. His home life wasn't always as good as it might be, and I recall simply wanting to take him away from it all, and thinking how proud I would be of him were he my child. That had nothing to do with biology.

So, what *do* you do when the sperm donor comes round?

The first time our sperm donor came over to our home to make his donation, we ran round tidying up and anxiously tried to work out where he would like to provide his sample. It was a toss up (apologies) between the spare room and the bathroom. We got our special wide rimmed specimen pot ordered online ready and sat on the sofa nervously.

When Fred (not his real name) arrived, we talked slightly nervously, before asking where he would like to 'do it'. He opted for the spare room. We gave him the plastic container and watched him disappear down the hall. The door shut and there was silence. In fact there was far too much silence. What if we heard him 'donating'?! I immediately put on a CD and R went into the kitchen to empty the dishwasher, wondering if we should have provided him with some 'reading' material.

After about 15 minutes Fred re-emerged, having left the sample on the bedside cabinet. I offered him tea and a biscuit - I felt it was only right. That's what they do when you give blood right? He declined the offer politely and went on his way, wishing us luck.

It was at this point that the technical bit started. I was in charge of the sperm, so I collected it and wrapped the pot in tissue. It is important it doesn't get too hot or cold. It is best when left for about half an hour. I suspect this is deeply scientific, but don't ask me why! Then, well, it's about insertion. The most important piece of equipment you will ever need is a sense of humour...

We were fortunate to get pregnant after just a few months. On the last donation Fred apologised for there being 'less than usual'. I immediately reassured him that it was still infinitely more than I would be able to produce...

Why I'm mama, not mummy

This is our little teeny tiny baby, cosy inside mummy's tummy. We had our 12 week scan today. It was incredible. It's amazing to think about how well developed it is already, even if it is only 7cm long!

But today I wanted to write a bit about why I started this blog. I will be mama to our little tot when it is born, although I will have no genetic link with him or her. This won't make me any less of a parent. In fact, in the eyes of the law, all is good. Both mine and R's names will be on the birth certificate.

However, this is all about so much more than legal status. I will become mama to a little baby in the Autumn of 2013, but when I looked around for resources for other women in my position, I struggled to find anything. Look online and there is heaps of stuff about how to get pregnant, different options for parenting, how to legally protect yourself etc. But there is very little about people like me. The 'other' parent. There is no one to talk to about those late night worries which include:

• I have more of a genetic link to my sister's child than my own
• People might judge us for choosing not to have an active father present
• Will I be a good enough parent? (ok, fair enough, all parents go through that one!)
• If people see me with the baby and assume I gave birth, should I correct them?
• Will I be able to pass on valuable parts of me through social interactions alone?

This is not an exhaustive list, but it gives you a general idea. Generally, rationally, I can answer all of those fairly easily. But, still, there is a lack of support out there. So, this is what my blog will be about. Finding that support.

Back to the beginning

Me and R knew even before we got married that we wanted children, so it was simply a case of working out how to do it. We had several options:

1. Pay for artificial insemination at a hospital, using 'anonymous' sperm. I use parentheses because at 18 any child conceived with donor sperm in this way can still get in touch with the sperm donor.
2. Ask a friend to donate sperm to us without taking on parental responsibility and inseminate at home.
3. Use a third party website to identify a local sperm donor and inseminate at home.

We both knew that R would be giving birth, so I took the decision initially that I would prefer option 1. It seemed the most 'scientific' and legally protected. However, after an unpleasant appointment at the 'infertility clinic' (in spite of no evidence of infertility), and a potential cost of £750 a go, we had a rethink. How hard could doing it ourselves be?

So to option 2. A friend had flippantly suggested to me that he would be willing to help some months before. I went back to him in the cold light of day to see if the passage of time and sobriety might have made him think better of his offer. It hadn't. So we started to plan how it would work. Several months later though he felt unable to continue for personal reasons. It was a real blow. Not his fault, but it definitely brought home to us how much we wanted this child, and how invested we were in the process.

And finally... Option 3 was the one I was least keen on. Basically, it felt like just getting in touch with a stranger and asking him for sperm. It felt odd. I changed my view though after speaking to a friend who had done just that. She pointed out that it wasn't that different from the clinic option, if much cheaper and less exact. We'd have full control over the donor, and as civil partners we'd have legal rights as parents.

So option 3 it was. We set about putting together a profile. It was a whole step into a different dimension to online dating, although there were definite similarities. For example, when we'd found someone we thought we liked and had exchanged photos, we arranged to meet. Inevitably it was in a public place - a cafe. Somewhere safe. This was as much for his benefit as ours. There we sat, teapot full, expectations high, and in he sauntered. Thankfully he looked like his photo, and not like some weirdo. Not of course that looks have any correlation with weirdness. But I digress... We had a lovely chat and resolved, by the end of it, that he could be our sperm donor. 

The whole process from option 1 to 3 took us about eight months. It's at times like that I question people who say gay parents cannot provide for a child. We have to work so much harder and think about it so much more to become parents in the first place!

The sleepless nights begin early

No one tells you that the sleepless nights begin almost as soon as you discover that you are pregnant.

In December 2012 R and I found out that we are expecting a baby. This wasn't a complete surprise as we have been trying since September 2012. However, given that I am also a woman, and we have employed the services of a sperm donor, we figured it would take longer than it has done. I will come back to that process at a later date...

Since we've found out, poor R has succumbed to the somewhat dubious experience of what is, flippantly, termed 'morning sickness'. The initial excitement has now been replaced by me trying to offer R dry crackers, and her rolling her eyes, which now have bags under them, and looking as though she's going to be sick. As someone who has always been very healthy, the fact that she has spent the last few weeks virtually bedbound thanks to nausea and dizziness is something of a shock to us both.

I have become more of a house wife than I ever was, now finding myself in charge of all cooking and domestic tasks. When I'm not trying to find something she'll eat without wretching, I'm fetching her a mug of water that is at the precise temperature that she can swallow comfortably - that is luke warm. It is good to feel useful though. For the first few days, I was wondering what my job was going to be in the next few months as R did all the important growing stuff.

With R feeling so unwell, I have abandoned my usual heavy sleeping routine for a very light sleep that means I wake up every time she sighs or shifts in any way in bed, in case she needs me to do something for her. I know that once the baby is born we'll have our fair share of sleepless nights, but suffering sleep deprivation this early on I was not expecting!