Cats and Cradles

In one way, our family structure is quite simple. There’s Partner B, me, Critter, and Aster. Look how nuclear we are! We live in an ’80s townhouse with four cats instead having the traditional picket fence and golden retriever, but other than that, we’re practically a Rockwell painting. (Well, aside from the whole two-moms/queerness factor, but whatever.) On my side, there’s a set of grandparents and a uncle, and then some extended family. On PB’s there are grandparents, aunts and uncles and cousins galore, plus the extended family. There’s PB’s side and my side, but for the kids, they’re all just family.

From another angle, our family is complicated, mostly by genetics. I’ve talked about this some before, in terms of the donor siblings, and my own extended family. There’s also PB’s background.

PB is adopted, and mostly that’s just kind of a background fact of life, like the fact I wear glasses or that Critter breaks out if he wears clothes washed in detergents with dyes or perfumes. They are features, but not defining ones. But it is one of the facts about PB, and it complicates our family tree a little.

I try to be very careful talking about PB’s feelings on the matter (or any matter), because while I know what she has said to me, and my understanding of the situation, her feelings are her own, and this, in particular, is her story. (Note for readers who happen to be my wife: Honey, if you ever want to do a guest post, you’re more than welcome, by the way.) But. This isn’t just about her (it never is, when you’re a parent, is it?), and it’s something that I’ve been thinking about.

When PB was a young child, she informed her parents in no uncertain terms that she wanted to meet her birth parents as well. They obliged, and PB has been in touch with her birth mother and half-brother ever since (her birth father died a number of years ago, but she met him as well).(While there are many of my in-laws parenting choices that I do not agree with, I do agree with this one.) They are not close, PB and her birth family, although I wouldn’t describe them as being estranged, but I met them once, back when PB was pregnant with Critter. From where we live now, they are close enough to make visiting feasible, if not convenient, and we have talked about how, at some point, we should go and introduce her birth mother to the children. This has taken on a little more urgency now, as PB’s birth mother is having health problems, and we don’t want to deprive Critter, in particular, of the opportunity to meet someone to whom he is related.

And there’s the crux of the matter, at least for what I’ve been thinking about lately. Critter is related to her, by genetic ties if not exactly close family ones, and Aster isn’t. When we were talking about visiting one time, PB said something along the lines of “What if she (birth mother) wants to present herself as Critter’s grandmother? What if she wants to present herself as Critter’s grandmother, but not Aster’s?”.

I realize that there are modern families out there with halves and steps and exes who navigate this kind of thing all the time. But as I said above, that’s not generally our dynamic. I have two children, my parents have two grandchildren, my brother has a nephew and a niece, etc. PB’s parents are no less Aster’s grandparents than Critter’s, the cousins are equally shared, and so on.

But for people to whom one is primarily related by DNA rather than interaction and shared history (see also: my extended family on both sides), how does that work?

I am generally of the firm opinion that family as an idea should be inclusive rather than exclusive, and I’m not saying that these genetic relatives aren’t family… but they’re certainly not close family. I know more about some of my kids’ donor-siblings’ families than I do about my own third and fourth cousins. Their names, for one thing.

I don’t have an easy answer. I know that it’s important to us to be truthful with our children, and we do our best to do that in ways that they can understand, and as neutrally as possible. We exchanged holiday cards with a couple of the donor-sib families, and the kids wanted to know who the people in the pictures were. We told them the people’s names, and that seemed to satisfy them for the moment. When they’re a little older, or whenever they ask more, we’ll tell them that the kids share the same donor. I have trouble imagining us referring to them as siblings, at least until the kids are old enough to understand genetics a little better. At that point, we’ll probably take our cue from them. Critter, at least, knows that we got the sperm to make him and Aster from a donor, and that it was the same one. He has never expressed much interest beyond that.

Critter also knows that Mama grew in someone other than his Grandma’s uterus. We’ve tried to explain that the other people could make a baby, but weren’t ready to be parents, and that Grandma and Papa did want to be parents, so they became Mama’s parents. (It’s more complicated than that, of course, but he’s not yet five, and we’re doing our best to be both honest and understandable.) We can certainly introduce PB’s birth mother to the kids as the woman in whose uterus Mama grew, and I think they will more or less understand that (although Aster doesn’t really seem to care much about how babies arrive on the scene, and may not register it). I don’t know how she’ll want to introduce herself, though, and I’ll admit it concerns me a little.

Probably the kids won’t care, of course. To them, they are brother and sister not because they share a genetic progenitor, but because they are part of the same family and love each other. They already know that they are different people with different traits as well as shared ones; I don’t think another different trait would bother them all that much. But as parents who try very hard to create equity between their children, PB and I worry about it a bit.

We have friends with a family structure similar to ours, another two mom family where each mom carried one of the children. Every year in their holiday cards (and most of their other family pictures as well) each mom is holding the child she gave birth to, and it always bothers me just a little. Children shouldn’t be mine and yours, this side and that side, particularly not in a family with the same parents to whom they were born. I understand that our children have some different genes, but that seems to matter less among shared family members. For people who don’t define family based predominantly on genetics, though, with extended family members who are related based mostly on biology, it gets a little trickier. We’re still figuring out how to navigate our path.

Juliet and Boo Boo Butt, apparently. We’re very excited, as I’m sure you can imagine.

Sometimes we get the most fascinating views into our kids’ minds.

Critter has, as of a few months ago, decided that he wants to be a father someday. Or at least, probably he does. Sometimes he waffles a little, but mostly he says that he wants to be a dad when he grows up. He’s a little stumped by his lack of a uterus, however.

We have this book, What Makes a Baby, that friends of ours gave us back when I was pregnant with Aster. For anyone unfamiliar with the book, it talks about the necessary components of baby-making (sperm, egg, uterus) in a very neutral way. It is as fitting for a family using donor gametes, or a surrogate, or IVF, or adoption, or pretty much anything else you can think of, as it is for the “traditional” married-cis-couple-in-bed-with-the-lights-out-missionary-style kind of family-making. We read the book periodically, and we talk about how Critter grew in Mama’s uterus from her egg, and Aster grew in Mommy’s uterus from her egg, and how for both of them we got the sperm from the donor. We talk about how Dr. Awesome helped us bring the egg and sperm together in the uterus, and about how all our extended family was so happy that Critter and Aster were born. This book is why Critter, at two, could identify a diagram of a uterus in the OB/GYN office during a prenatal visit with Aster.

Critter understands that he does not have a uterus to grow a baby inside, and sometimes I think this makes him a little sad. Not that he’s unhappy being a boy, just that he seems to equate becoming a parent with having a uterus sometimes. (Aster, incidentally, periodically insists that she has a penis. I suppose we’re all a little fascinated by what we don’t have.)

We went to a water park over the holiday break, and afterwards, Critter and I were getting out of our swimwear when he asked me why I had boobs and he had nipples. (We’re generally accurate with our anatomical terms, but for some reasons we’ve always tended to say “boobs” rather than “breasts”.) I replied that I had boobs because I had the kind of body with a uterus to grow a baby, so I also had breasts to produce milk to feed a baby.

Critter said that he couldn’t have a baby, because he didn’t have a uterus.

I said that one didn’t need to personally contain a uterus in order to be a parent. To illustrate, I asked him if he had grown in my uterus.

“Yes”, he started to reply, and then caught himself and corrected that he had grown in Mama’s uterus. I could see the light beginning to dawn.

“And I’m your parent, right?” I asked.

He replied in the affirmative (like duh, Mom), and then confidently stated that he was going to marry his (female) friend B when they grow up, and grow babies in her uterus. I hope B is on board with this plan… (Partner B told me a couple weeks prior to this about how Critter and B had had a conversation about how someday they were going to get married and have children, and what those children’s names would be. I need to ask her about those names, because they were pretty great.)

Incidentally, we may have to start having conversations with Critter about how it’s always good to appreciate your partner for more than just their reproductive organs.

Critter seemed cheered up by this idea that parenthood =/= possessing a uterus, although later he did ask why some bodies didn’t have uteri. I reminded him that you also needed sperm to make a baby, and told him that he had a body that would presumably make sperm when he got older, and he seemed fine with that idea.

Several days ago, while playing with the brand-new set of play-dough that Santa brought him (which he immediate squished all together until all the colors turned in to one blob of gray, because sometimes it’s absolutely necessary to do the exact opposite of what your mothers are suggesting), Critter announced that he had made uterus. I think this is mostly because he happened to have squished the dough into a shape that vaguely resembled the organ, rather than representing his deep-seated need to possess a uterus of his own. Probably.

For anyone looking for an update on our attempts at number 3, the second cycle was a bust. Partner B’s period was a couple of days late, and very heavy, so it seems like a chemical pregnancy is a possibility, but nothing ever registered on the tests. Honestly, the biggest thing we’re both feeling at the moment it’s relief, though. I still think another child would be good long term, but right at the moment, between school and work and the family we already have, I’m feeling pretty much at capacity.

So we’re going to take the next couple of cycles off, and spend the holidays relaxing and enjoying ourselves as much as we can.

You know, once I finish the three term projects, two presentations, and one relatively minor paper between me and being able to relax. Sigh.

We plan and discuss.
Ah! The tank is here. Time to
Feel ambivalent.

(Inspired by/adapted from an email from PB.)

So, it’s 14 days post-ovulation, and all signs (and pee sticks) point to negative. We won’t receive the “official” confirmation from Partner B’s uterus until probably Thursday (she has a long luteal phase), but I’m willing to call it. I feel… fine about it. We’re planning to try again next month, also as low-key as we can make it, and then take a couple of months off to evaluate our options (and enjoy the holidays).

At the moment, I’m much more worried about the fact that PB and I are planning to travel this weekend… without the kids(!!!). They’ll be fine with PB’s parents. Really. I’m reasonably sure of this.

Also, because the timing of these things is always awesome, I have a paper due Sunday night, and another next Wednesday. I’ll get them done. It will be fine. I’m reasonably sure of this too. (Right? Right???)

And now, if you’ll excuse me, this literature review is not going to write itself. Sigh.

(I’m posting this without my usual proofreading/editing, because I’ve spent too much time already, writing this when I should have been writing a Problem Statement that’s due tomorrow. Apologies in advance.)

Y’all.

Y’all, Partner B and I have been talking about having (or at least trying to have) a third child for a while now. I know. We’re crazy. I work 80% of full time, I go to grad school full time, and I try to make it a priority to actually spend time with my wife and children. PB works about half time at the moment, but has the kids with her all the time, plus does her best to take care of the house and the cats and everything under the sun.

Critter is now in Pre-K, and Aster is (finally! touch wood) sleeping through the night in her own bed more nights than not. PB and I are not well-rested, but we’re at least not out-of-our-minds exhausted so much any more. So, time to chuck all that out the window, right? Or something?

Unlike with our first two, PB and I are both deeply ambivalent about a third child. We both knew from the start of our relationship that we wanted children, and we were both always clear that we wanted at least two. We always said “at least two, maybe three, possssibly four”. I think four is pretty much out (barring twins, or a sudden change of heart down the road), but three… well. I feel like there’s room for another person in our family, but I don’t feel like our family is exactly incomplete as it is.

There are many reasons adding a baby to our lives would not be a great idea. Here are a few:

• We are finally, finally starting to get enough rest to feel human again, rather than like mindless, staggering, bitter, zombies. Another baby means an express ticket back to zombie-land, at least for a few months, and most likely for a couple years.
• PB and I have a sex life again. It’s nice. It’s really nice, in fact, to have both the opportunity and the desire to connect with each other as romantic partners, and not just as two prisoners on the same work crew co-parents. Our relationship lately has been better than it’s been in a good while. Babies are rough.
• Babies. Man, babies. Is it terrible to admit that I’m less fond of babies than I am of kids? Critter and Aster are both sweet and funny and imaginative and can do things. I mean, things other than ingest and excrete. Fun things. PB says this too, that she always thought babies were her favorite age, but that the bloom is kind of off the rose on that one. If we could magically go from conception to an 18-month-old, this would be an entirely different conversation.
• Also, while we’re at it, pregnancy. Although PB really liked being pregnant (after she hit about 11 weeks, anyway), and has always wanted to do it again. But still. It’s demanding, and hard on the body, and there’s no guarantee that she would have as easy a time as she did with Critter. And there’s not a whole lot I could do to support her at the moment. I already feel stretched so thin I’m practically translucent a lot of the time.
• And prior to that, TTC. I don’t have the mental or emotional energy to really invest in trying to get someone pregnant right now.
• Any time I mention the idea of a third child around my parents, my mother points out that it would be an additional financial burden. (I get the feeling she’s not entirely in favor of this idea… Although I do know she loves her grandkids, and would love another one regardless, even if she’s not in love with the idea of another one.) She’s not wrong. Kids can be costly, and we’re already getting some parental help (and some school loans… sigh).
• Critter and Aster are starting to approach ages where we can do more things with them. Aster still takes naps, which limits us, but she probably won’t for all that much longer, and that will really change the game on what we can do in terms of family activities. Another baby would reset the clock on that front.
• Speaking of Critter and Aster, they have a really good relationship right now. They squabble, but they’re getting to the verge of being able to play together, and they clearly love each other a bunch. I worry (maybe needlessly) that a third child would disrupt that. Certainly there would be stress involved in a new baby, and I worry a little about things constantly turning into “the girl(s) vs the boy(s)” or the “older two vs. the younger one”, or “the younger two vs. the older one”. Three can be a challenging number.

So. There are lots of very good reasons not to have another. On the other hand, there are reasons we do (or at least might) want to as well:

• For the most part, our idea all along has been three. When we hung up baby pictures of the kids in the hallway outside their room, we both thought there was room for another picture. (This isn’t to say that we would have another child for decorating purposes. We’re not that insane.)
• Critter and Aster both love babies. I mean they LOOOOVE babies. They have a five-month old cousin, and they both adore him. Critter wants to hold him. Aster wants to kiss his head. Critter periodically will ask us when we can have another baby. (He inevitably does this on mornings after nights where no one has gotten a decent sleep. His timing is impeccable.)
• It’s probably a dumb reason, but we’ve hung onto most of our baby stuff. I don’t want to wake up every two hours with an infant again, but I would like to see another baby in the meerkat romper. Much like the pictures on the wall, I suspect this one is less about the physical object than the psychological space.
• Our sister-in-law (mother of the adored baby cousin) wants us to have a third to match her three. This is probably a worse reason than the meerkat romper (and isn’t really a factor, honest), but the symmetry does have a certain appeal.
• It feels somehow inevitable. This sounds like a terrible reason, I know. But there’s a line in a poem that I’ve always liked that goes “I feel my fate in what I cannot fear”, and this feels like that to me. As though at some level the decision has already been made, and it’s okay.
• Also, if we are going to do this, now is a pretty good time in terms of spacing. It’s not great on the “I am ridiculously busy” front, and we don’t exactly love the area we live in or have doctors or hospitals nearby that we know and love, but conceiving soon would put the spacing between Aster and the new baby (assuming all went to plan, at least) about the same as the spacing between Critter and Aster, which has been pretty good. Plus, there’s the thing about being limited by naps and attention spans and such, and I don’t want to constantly have to tell an 8-year-old Critter that we can’t do something because we have a baby, for example. Also, we’re not getting any younger.

So, after much discussion and debate and going back and forth, PB and I said what the hell. We still have some vials left, we obviously make great kids, we can give it a shot. Sort of. Because we decided that we’d do a couple of tries super low-key. Like, PB peed on sticks and we looked at her cervix a few times last month, and we called that charting. Yesterday, PB called up the storage place back in our old city, and had them send us an ICI vial. Today, I came home early, and inseminated her while Aster napped and Critter watched tv downstairs. Then she went off to work with the kids, and I have time to do some homework before going to class tonight. If this try doesn’t work (and statistically, it’s not very likely), and trying next cycle doesn’t work, then we’ll reevaluate. Do we really want this? If so, we’ll probably need to move on to medical assistance at that point, because we don’t have a whole lot of vials left. On the other hand, if we give it a shot and it doesn’t work, and we decide we’re comfortable with that, then at least we know, and that’s good too.

All the same, it’s totally possible if statistically unlikely that the fertilization tango could be occurring inside my wife’s reproductive bits right now. Weird.

When I was 15, I didn’t know anyone who was openly gay. I knew, as it turns out, a number of people who were queer, but none who identified themselves that way to my teenaged self. I knew, in a vague, hypothetical way, that there were queer people, out there, somewhere. I knew that intimacy between gay people was often illegal (a felony in my state, although so were quite a few acts between consenting straight people). I knew that being gay could render a parent “unfit” in court. The first time a read a novel with gay characters (a fantasy novel; fantasy and sci fi saved my adolescent self), it felt like touching a live wire. The idea that queer was a thing one could actually be, that it was a real narrative possibility, was revolutionary.

When I was 25, I knew quite a few queer people. I was even mostly okay with the idea that I was one of them, although I wasn’t out to a lot of people, including my family. I was always aware of what I said, what I didn’t say. The weight of the unspoken words was heavy. Marriage equality was the law in Massachusetts, but definitely not in my home state, where I still lived.  I figured that it might become legal across the country, eventually. I thought it would take a Supreme Court decision. I thought it would take a long time. I was partially right.

At 35, I know a lot of queer people. I’m open myself, with pretty much everyone. I’m still aware of the words I say, what I’m revealing about myself and who I’m revealing it to, but there’s not the same weight. I’ve been married to another woman for almost six years, with varying degrees of legality, depending on the day and our location. We have two kids, and paperwork signed by judges saying that we’re both the legal parents of both of them. Our marriage was legally recognized by the state we lived in before we moved a year ago, and by the state we moved to, and we’re legally considered married in both of our home states, as of last fall.

Today, the Supreme Court declared that our marriage, our family, is equal under the law across the country.

This morning, I woke up, nursed my toddler, left her snuggling in bed with my wife. I went to work. When the decision came out, some of my coworkers gathered near my desk to discuss the news. Everyone was happy about it, although there was some concern that one of our undergraduate student workers might take this occasion to get married without due consideration, at 20, just to celebrate, just because he could. (He could have yesterday, too; it’s been legal in this state for a few years.) Then my coworkers went on to discussing a dinosaur-related choose your own adventure story. I left work, went to the dentist. The dentist, who is new to us, had met Partner B a few weeks ago, and met the kids this morning, when Critter also had a check-up. He told me what a great family I had– what nice kids, what a good match PB and I seemed to be for each other. We discussed what good news this Supreme Court decision was. After my appointment, PB and I met up in the parking lot, so that she could drop off Aster, who has a fever, with me before going to work. We hugged briefly in the parking lot, noted that we’re now married across the country, and went our separate ways. Aster and I got frozen treats (to help with her sore throat, you know). My Facebook feed is full of rainbows and wedding pictures, and when I logged on to WordPress, there was a rainbow banner across the top. When PB and Critter get home tonight, I expect we’ll shower, put the kids to bed. Maybe break out that bottle of wine that’s been sitting around for a couple of weeks.

All in all, it’s been a pretty ordinary day with my wife and children, and that’s extraordinary.

That Critter and Aster are siblings is undeniable. Aster calls Critter “Bubba” (brother), and while he generally calls her by her name, he is quick to identify her as his sister. They bicker, and love each other, and sometimes, I swear they’re already conspiring together. Genetically they’re half-siblings, but there’s nothing “half” about their relationship.

Of course, they also aren’t each other’s only genetic half-siblings. Our donor is not exactly exclusively ours, and we knew that there are other families out there with children who share their paternal DNA with our kids. This has been largely theoretical knowledge (although we have seen pictures of some of the kids) up to this point, for a few reasons.

When we were still in planning mode, way back before Critter was born, I was a little… ambivalent, I guess, about this aspect of gamete donation. If the kids were interested, once they got old enough to have and express such an interest, we could seek out contact with siblings then, I figured. No need to do it before then. In retrospect, I think part of this had something to do with my own insecurities as a non-biological parent. It’s hard to feel like a “real” parent of a theoretical child (at least it was for me), and at the time, the idea of seeking out contact with people who would share a connection I lacked with our (non-existent) child made me feel even less like a real parent. Then, of course, Critter was actually born, and it was all-hands-on-deck time, and I very quickly realized there is nothing unreal about parenting, genes or no. Now “genetic tie” just kind of joins “maleness” and “extroversion” in the category of Things Critter and I Do Not Have In Common. There’s another, more significant, category of Things Critter and I DO Have In Common, including things like “love of gardening”, and “delight in having popcorn and cocoa and watching a movie” and (unfortunately) “sensitive skin”, and things all four of us share, like “love of books and cheese”. So we’re good.

But we still didn’t seek contact with any other families that share our donor. Part of this was inertia, but some of it had to do with supply and demand. You see, back when we purchased our initial vials in order to try to conceive Critter, we bought in bulk. We knew we wanted at least one more child, and that we preferred for them to share a donor. Other families did not take the same course of action, and in between when we first bought the vials and when we started trying to conceive Aster, our donor retired from the program. So there weren’t more available. There were, however, families who wanted more vials, for siblings of their own. For quite awhile, our vials were stored at the bank we bought them from, and the bank would tell people who asked that there were still purchased vials in storage (although not who they belonged to), and we know that there are people who knew this and wanted our vials, because they posted as much on the forums for our bank. So you can see how it might be a little awkward to introduce ourselves with “Hi! We’re the people with the remaining vials, and we’re keeping them at the moment because we want a sibling for our child as well, and we’re sorry you’re stuck, we really are, but we’re still hanging on to them”.

While we were trying to conceive Aster, though, we transferred all of our remaining vials to another facility, so the bank stopped having a record of them. And we used a bunch up, conceiving Aster. We still have a few, but we’re not ready to give them up, because we’re not sure if we want to try for a third child. (Because we’re crazy. And this is the subject of a whole post in itself.) But at least now the bank isn’t telling people that someone (us) has what they want.

A couple of months ago, I finally got around to reporting Aster’s birth to the sperm bank, and registering her in the donor sibling registry. Partner B, of course, being more on top of these things, had reported Critter a long time ago, although the registry listed nothing in addition to his donor number other than his sex and date of birth. I created a new email address for our family, and added that to the listing for Aster. (Since PB and I each carried a child, our sperm bank won’t let us register them together. Annoying, but we figured that if we added the same contact email for both, it would indicate shared family.

A few weeks ago, we got a contact email from someone else in the registry, who offered to put us in touch with a sibling group, if we were interested. This was back when I was in the weeds of end-of-semester madness, so I didn’t manage to respond for a while. I did eventually, though, and now we’re part of a private FB group. Most of the other families with our donor are on there too, and there are lots of pictures. Some of the kids bear a noticeable resemblance to one or the other of ours. Some of them kinda-sorta bear a resemblance if you squint and tilt your head.

It’s kind of a strange thing, seeing the names and faces of people whose families are related to yours in ways not currently described by our usual vocabulary. My wife’s mother is my mother-in-law, but what is the mother of my child’s donor-sibling to me? A simple answer is that it’s not about me, and it isn’t, really. It’s about the kids. But they’re all still young enough that their interactions are mediated by their parents, so the relationship-building between families falls largely to the parents as well. And while it’s not about me, in the same way that my wife’s mother is hers, and their relationship is not about me, I also have a relationship with my mother-in-law, because our lives overlap. And my life certainly overlaps with my children’s lives, and by extension, with the people to whom they are related.

I’ve always thought of family as an inclusive, rather than an exclusive, term. To quote the great Laurie Berkner, “When you’re in my heart, you’re in my family. When I’m in your heart, I’m in your family.” I find this a much better gauge of family-status than genetics, to be honest. I have a small number of first cousins (two, basically), and a very large number of more distant cousins (I have no idea, honestly). I only see the more distant cousins every decade or so, and we don’t have a whole lot besides DNA in common. Their ancestors shared history and experiences with my ancestors, but they and I do not so much share that. “Hey, I vaguely remember seeing you at my grandparents’ 50th anniversary party when I was in college, and you asked me if I had a boyfriend and I asked where the restroom was, and ducked out of the room” does not constitute a compelling shared past. I recognize that we’re related, but that’s about it. I do sometimes wonder if I shouldn’t seek out contact with some of them, just to maintain a tie between my branch of the family and theirs. Then I wonder why, and I don’t have a really good answer, aside from it potentially being useful if I ever need a kidney someday. (Kidding. Kinda.) We have friends who I am not related to but who I consider family, and people I am related to but who barely qualify as acquaintances in terms of shared history. (And I’m an English major- I’m all about the shared stories.)

So it doesn’t bother me exactly to extend my concept of family to this new group. But it’s still a little strange. I don’t want it to be, though. A big part of the reason that we reached out now, while the kids are young, before they’ve started asking about these things, is that we want it to be normal for them. Critter, at least, is already aware that his family has two moms, and that a lot of his peers’ families don’t. (Although he has another kid with a two-mom family[!!] in his preschool class. We’re very excited about this.) He knows, or at least we’ve discussed a little bit, that the sperm that helped make him and Aster came from a donor. He hasn’t asked about the donor, and I doubt it’s occurred to him that there might be other kids with the same donor. But he’s a curious kid, and I fully expect that eventually he will ask, as will Aster. And when we get there, I want it to be a normal feature of our family.

I’m pretty open about our family structure, and how our kids came to be. Not because I’m not a private person, not because it’s random people’s business whether we adopted, or used a bank, or “some guy down the street” (as I was once asked), but because I never want to give our kids the impression that there is anything secret or shameful about their origins. Certainly, they’ll figure out that a lot of families are different than ours (Critter already has some sense of this), and as they get older I want them to understand that their stories are theirs, and that other people aren’t entitled to those stories just because they’re curious, but it’s important to me that they never think of being donor-conceived as Something We Don’t Talk About. Being donor-conceived is just a part of their experience, and while it may be a little less common, society-wide, it’s normal for them.

Similarly, I want for PB and I to be able to work past any weirdness we may feel about the existence of our kids’ donor-siblings and their families, before we introduce the concept (or the people) to our kids. While there may not be a general terminology surrounding our relationships (I came across “halfsies” somewhere, referring to donor-siblings, but I’m not sure I really want to use it), the existence of these children related to ours will be a part of our children’s lives, and I want it to be normal for them. Much like meeting my in-laws, these people are strangers to me now, but they’re related to someone(s) I love, and so there’s not much for it but to expand my idea of family a little more.