Family Values

The belly is swelling and, at 27 weeks now, R can finally feel the baby kicking 'from the outside'. She's very excited about the prospect of having a little brother and adds new names to the list almost every day... the latest is 'Cous-Cous' which, even she accepts, may be best reserved for special nick-name status.

The ultrasound (at around 22 weeks) was an exciting turning point for all of us. M and R both attended and I'm sure we looked just like every other excited nuclear family. However, the presence of the inevitable video camera gave me license to explain that we wanted to film because 'our family is a little different‘. Nobody cared much but it was important to me that M wasn’t addressed as ‘my husband’ and we all got to be true to our happy selves.

The baby put on a good show, especially in response to R blowing raspberries on my belly, and we saw lots of kicking and stretching action. The sonographer was thorough in checking out the baby’s brain, hoping to eliminate ‘macrocephalus’ which R was born with; a ‘birth defect’ that led to brain surgery at 8 days old and a prognosis of ’severe disability’… fortunately they were overly pessimistic and R is as ‘normal’ as can be!

All seems well with the new bundle... but, let's face it, despite professing not to care, it was an interpretation of what's between the legs that everyone was awaiting with bated breath... And when we finally got a flash of his little willy... we were all delighted! R stated this is because ‘Well I’m a tom-boy… and anyway, boys are just more interesting!‘.

I was pleased because, even though I know it’s all going to be different this time around, ‘boy’ is like a definitive line in the sand. Henceforth, nothing will be the same. Obviously, despite my ongoing railing against ‘biological essentialism’, deep down I must think that parenting a boy will provide new challenges to those I’ve faced with a girl… surely the difference is mostly in the social construction of gender… and the individual personality of each child? That’s what I’d like to believe but I guess we’ll see ; )

Over the last few months I've been having lots of discussions with fairy godparents around 'expectations'. Some of it has been very confronting and hard to hear. A close friend put it something like this: ‘It’s not exactly ‘what’s in it for me?’ but I need to know exactly what you expect and what you’re thinking you’ll give in return… friendship is a two way street you know…’ Further digging revealed, whilst I thought I was making a generous and open-hearted invitation to be part of our family, others had interpreted this as typical of me ‘looking out for myself’. The worst character description was ’self-consumed’… which really stung.

This launched me upon a long period of soul-searching and reflection. Obviously ’self-consumed’ is a criticism that could be levelled at anyone with a BLOG (I mean, really, posting your diary entries in a public space? What makes you think anyone actually cares?). But I started thinking… fundamentally, at the end of the day, aren’t we all motivated primarily by selfish hopes, dreams and desires? Even when we think we’re being generous there’s obviously something in it for us… that warm-fuzzy feeling? Isn’t that a self-sustaining pay-off?

And what’s the difference between being self-reliant (read ’selfish’) and independent? We pay lip service to the importance of ‘looking after ourselves’ and ‘knowing when to ask for help’ but it seems, underneath it all, that might be a bad thing. Then I started thinking maybe it’s about balance… about how much one gives back. I have this notion of myself as being a loyal and good friend… sure, there are times when I take on too many commitments and am not around as often as I maybe should be… but I’m still passionate, ‘in the moment’ and honest, right?

Sometimes, after negotiating the emotional tight-ropes of relationships with daughter, angry-ex, unwell mum, and disapproving sister… I don’t feel like spending the hour between getting child to bed and collapsing into bed myself, making ‘how’re you going’ phone calls. Sometimes I consider myself lucky to strike a balance between ‘working to pay the rent’ and getting the dishes done and clothes washed… When I start making lists of what I’m responsible for I start hearing a familiar little bleating refrain… ‘I’m a single mum… no-one looks after my emotional needs… at least you lot have got someone to give you a snuggle at night!’.
I refuse to feel sorry for myself because this is the path I’ve chosen… but I guess I kind of assumed maybe the rest of the world would cut me a bit of slack. Especially my fairy godparents… #$%^!$!! How much worse is it going to be when I add a sleepless baby to the juggle. Now I’m thinking twice before asking anyone for any kind of support… it’s not exactly the utopian ideal I undertook in constructing the perfect ‘happy family’.

A naive awakening… everyone has expectations and the more people you add to the mix, the more people you need to discuss these expectations with. I thought the only good thing about being single was being unfettered by melodrama… Hmmph!

It seems there’s always strings attached but I guess, at the end of the day, despite everything, it’s a puppet show worth dancing in…

My little girl went back to her Dad’s tonight.

For the last 10 weeks or so she's been with me almost full time. We got on one another's nerves a lot, but tonight, when I look at her empty bed, tears well up and I feel the familiar splintering of my heart... A part of me screams ‘It’s not fair!’ whilst the other soothes with calm rational logic… ‘She’s OK with her Dad’ and ‘It’s good for you to have some time to yourself’.

Times like these I need a cuddle and I notice the empty half of my bed. One voice pipes up with ‘It’s just sex… that’s ALL you’re missing out on, and BTW don’t forget all the muddle; the emotional complications (all the things your friend’s whinge about!)’
The other voice, weaned on fairy stories and princesses that awake from deep slumber, wonders whether ‘You’ve just never experienced true love!’. Maybe there’s more to it than sharing a cup of tea and the paper on the weekend… maybe there really is such a thing as a ‘perfect fit’? A puzzle piece that might plug the gap and make peace of my eternal disquiet?

Then I pull myself together, remembering that lovers do not necessarily good nurturers make. What I need is a Mum. And again I’m overwhelmed with longing, fear, grief…

Last month we found out Mum has bowel cancer; this week she started chemo. In forcing myself to imagine the possibility of her not being with us forever, I start to list all the things that I wish were different between us.

I crave a closeness we haven’t shared for a long, long time. I know she loves me but, being me, I want more. I want her to accept my sexuality; my non-existent girlfriend; my yet-to-be-conceived baby… I want her to really ‘get me’… to come on the adventure with me (even if she secretly thinks the way I’m going about it is ‘a recipe for disaster’).

But, in articulating all this, I realise, once again, I'm making it all about me. So %$#!! self-indulgent! AND I want her to talk through the whole thing with me ON CAMERA!

I hope I never have a child like me!

Or maybe… maybe I’m pushing it in an effort to make our relationship the best that it can be. With my family, so adept at shoving things under the carpet, conversations on camera seem to have more depth and insight than many of the superficial ‘in transit’ ones we have every day… that’s why I’m doing it… so we can connect… captured for time immemorial on a tiny flip-out monitor.

Maybe then I won’t feel so alone. And, if I can help my family get it, get me… GET US… then maybe, slowly the ripples will spread, slowly, slowly, the world will change…

And my little girl won’t have to grow up feeling alone, like she doesn’t fit… I hope that she has no need to hide who she really is, or where she came from or whom she loves…

M and I had our first ‘go’ last week… I waited overhead in my bedroom, then we had a slightly awkward exchange of specimen jar at the bottom of the stairs. I peeked around the curtain to see his boyfriend J rolling camera, capturing our nervous hug and my giggled ‘thanks for this very special gift!’.

I think, unconsciously, I was hoping that filming the event (or parts of!) would provide ritual that would somehow reveal to us how we were supposed to act… but it was one of those situations, unlike just about any other I can think of, where we had absolutely no frame of reference… nothing to go by…

Even when I had sex for the first time (both gay and straight!) I had some idea of how to act… a combination of friends whispered confessions; descriptions in teen novels; stolen glimpses of pornos and of course Hollywood - muddled influences no doubt, but at least they served as reference points for someone else’s idea of a ‘code of conduct’… this, however, was just bizarre.

The second night was easier… we watched TV and talked politics. With the one night safely behind us and a new ritual established, I had a shower and was casually scrolling through e:mails when I heard M at the bottom of the stairs, sotto vocce… ‘Psst! It’s ready…’

So now we wait, we wait, for a very important date... and I mull over the fine points of difference between this and a slightly more romantic (and sexual!) encounter. I was surprised at first when I heard somebody else observe 'you guys really do love one another don’t you?’

I cringed a bit, hearing ‘lesbian lesson 101′ echo in my head (thou shalt not pass for straight… something about eating cake and heterosexual privilege?!)

… and now, slowly, I’ve come to terms with it. It’s not scary anymore… unconventional maybe, and not without it’s emotional risks, but tell me something worth having that doesn’t lay a claim on the heart?

Endless discussion has affirmed M and I are on the same page… writing a new story, inventing a new ‘family’… and waiting…

I am from a family of three parents: a mother and two dads. I decided to make this documentary to not only give the children of same-sex parented families a voice, but to show and express the extent to which same-sex parents and their children are not only excluded, but made to be invisible in environments such as child-care centres and primary and secondary schools. It is not only gay people who suffer discrimination; their families do as well, whether that be their parents, their children or the mother or father of their children. The people who participated in this workshop along side me responded to my story with open recognition, respect, and support, as did those people who have seen the completed material from the workshop. I hope that this documentary will be a step towards the recognition and inclusion of children and their same-sex parents.

Kate’s update: I have recently had more success with my digi-doc - an ex-teacher of mine has agreed to show the documentary at a staff meeting to encourage teachers to be aware of alternative family structures. Study of alternative family structures will also be added to curriculum for the subject Health Studies for year twelves at my old high school. All inspired by my story! Thanks again to Sonja and everyone else who helped me with it…

BLOG update:
Hope you all love Kate’s piece as much as I do… it still brings tears to my eyes when I watch it! And I think the success she has had in ‘getting it out there’ bodes well for the big picture dream of ‘change the world!’

Meanwhile, several people have posed the question: So, you preggers yet?
(Answer: No… we’re waiting out the 3 month turn-around on HIV/Hep C tests and will hopefully start ‘trying’ again in September)

As a result of the question and a couple of other conversations, I’ve realised I’ve been a little circumspect on the blog in the last couple of months… I’ve been so aware of treading carefully through volatile emotional terrain, needing for myself to be honest, and yet hoping as always to not cause offence; making sure everyone’s happy… hoping to ‘be liked’.

I made the mistake of supposing that sweeping generalisations would suffice in place of trying to pin down nuance and subjective complexities… I was trying for a summary that simultaneously embraced an audience of people I don’t know and people who know me very well… I guess it ain’t that surprising that I failed. Some things I have written have been hurtful and for that I need to apologise… both to those who’ve expressed their hurt and those who may still be nursing it…

You see, for me, there’s no such thing as a clean binary opposition between ‘political’ and ‘emotional’… just as there’s not between personal/political; spiritual/philosophical; ideal/real… It’s all just shades of gray… I don’t think I’ve ever used the word ‘complex’ so often as a ‘catch all’!

I realise that the journey I’m asking my friends and family to accompany me on is an extraordinary one… and sometimes, perhaps often, uncomfortable. I found myself trying to sell my Mum on the idea of ‘talking on camera’… “It’s cathartic; therapeutic; profound!” I spruik, “And best still, you get to be a part of something that might just make the world a better place for our kids! I really believe these stories have the power to make a difference!”

All that aside, I guess I have to acknowledge that not everyone needs/wants to sacrifice their privacy for what I perceive to be the ‘greater good’… and the risk I face, in asking them to do so, is that they may elect to take a ‘back seat’ in the baby quest and my life (at least whilst I have a camera trained on it…)
Is that a risk I’m willing to take?

Tanya’s blurb: The piece I made was intended for myself, my partner, my two daughters and my unborn child. It was therapeutic in its creation. A thrilling, exhilarating creative discovery of self expression.
Titled Perpetual Vision, it depicts my life’s journey in trying to conceive and successfully give birth to my biological child.
The feedback from making this has been HUGE! What’s more important to me has been my self development… I can’t recommend this expression of creative FREEDOM enough!

As you can gather, Tanya has become an inspired spokesperson for the digital-storytelling process… not only was it therapeutic in the making, when she’s shown her piece to family and friends, it has opened up a space for meaningful communication and profound sharing of each other’s life experiences.
In a similar vein, there’s currently a letter writing campaign being conducted in Victoria, aimed at motivating media, politicians and power brokers to take up the sweeping reforms recommended by the Victorian Law Reform Commission… (see ‘Love makes a Family’ link on the rhs of this page). I understand the experience has been empowering for all involved - asking child-care workers, grandparents, straight friends etc. to advocate for our families not only helps make us visible and valued… it strengthens our ties with the wider community, giving all of us the sense of connection we so sorely crave…

Witnessing the profound impact we each, individually, have the capacity to make is keeping me motivated! Soldiering on with development of the ‘Family Values’ project, both the digital storytelling component and the doco…

On less philosophical, more practical matters FEAST is hosting a forum in Adelaide this weekend… I’ll be speaking!

Getting In The Family Way
Want to have a baby? Be a parent? Thinking of fostering, co parenting, donating sperm, being part of a family with children? More and more of us are planning to have children and it does take planning! This Forum takes a practical look at what’s involved.
A panel of queer parents share info and experiences on getting pregnant, accessing fertility clinics, DIY, donors, fostering, donor involvement, being a gay Dad, single and non biological parenting, financial and legal issues, dealing with peoples reactions, support services in SA.

Sat 14 July 2 -3.30pm Caos Café 188 Hindley St. or more info at www.feast.org.au
Technorati Profile

So much has happened since I last posted that I’m going to summarise, in no particular order…

- went to Melbourne for Rainbow Families Symposium… got very inspired by all the well-informed, articulate, politically motivated and absolutely committed parents and researchers… now very able to respond to right wing ‘concerns’ over our families with responses informed by academic studies!
- in an effort to ‘gather data’ on ovulation, had 6 blood tests in 7 days… and have track marks to show for it. So weird how someone with my history of ‘experimentation’ should end up so surrounded by needles… at least the acupuncture is going well… - spent a lot of time negotiating with donors, both 'new' and 'old'... and couldn't post on the discussions until I'd cleared everything with both; kind of an ethical responsibility. Up shot is I'm electing to proceed with a very old friend who has an emotional commitment as opposed to the more ‘political commitment’ of my second donor (who will still be a ‘fairy god-parent’). This scenario has got ‘potential complications’ written all over it, and yet it ‘feels right’. I wonder again whether I am in fact a romantic fool in disguise as a cynic?
- dealing with family court phobias in further ongoing mediation. Made the very great leap (due acknowledgments - inspired by some self-development a la ‘Landmark Education’) to forgive ex for the way he’s been treating me… now moving on to possibilities of a more generous and confident/powerful relationship with him. Haven’t told Lawyer yet and am anticipating lots of muttering/tutt-tutting/howls of contemptuous laughter…
- can honestly say I feel liberated by the new ‘be true to thyself’ philosophy… can say/do/post anything and know that, whatever the criticism, I’ll be reconciled with me… realised how much of my life I’ve lived in fear of ‘bad mother/daughter/friend/filmmaker’ accusations… - got friends to lop off my hair on a camping trip... now I look more like the baby-dyke I feel like on the inside... don't appearances have a weird and wacky impact on identity? Meanwhile I finally turned 37 ;-/
- got some funding for the development of the doco/on-line project… not quite as much as we asked for, but a positive endorsement nevertheless and I’ll be able to pay a few people a little for all their labours on the project thus far…
- to come… lots of the digital storytelling participants are happy to upload their pieces so I’ll be posting them over the next couple of weeks - if you register for updates you won’t have to keep checking or wait for my e:mail reminders ; )
- thanks for comments and feedback from both public and private respondents… still curious as to why some of you have chosen to e:mail me privately with general thoughts that other readers may have enjoyed sharing… does anyone have any ideas on further on-line community building strategies we may like to consider if we get to go ahead and build the large scale ‘family tree’ site?

This is the piece I made for my sister during the digital storytelling workshop. When I showed Mum she cried… select quotes include “This is dynamite!” and “It could tear the family apart!” She said she was worried about the fact that people were identifiable (so I’ve blurred their faces) but she didn’t once address the content. I didn’t really get anywhere in defusing the situation and we finished with Mum saying “Well how did you expect me to react?” I said “I hoped you would be proud… I’m trying to start a positive discussion about it all… to mend some bridges…”

I was terrified about screening it for my sister and it was hard to find a time when the kids weren’t interuppting. I told her about the whole ‘pregnancy quest’ and doco stuff and tried to contextualise Mum’s reaction. Then I showed her everyone else’s piece…
When I finally I showed her mine, she cried… we hugged… she said she was sorry and that she’d had no idea that she’d hurt me. We agreed to ‘find a way to talk to the kids about it…’ That’s the last line in my piece and hopefully the first line in our families ongoing dialogue…

I still feel uncomfortable about being so brutally honest with them in a public space… I wonder how I’d feel if the tables were turned? I’d want the right to respond, but hopefully I’d accept the subjective emotional truth of what was being said. Isn’t that how the healing begins?

Has anyone else experienced stuff like this? How did you/they process it? Does putting it out there - in conversation with friends or in a social context on-line - make it better or worse?

Transcribing an interview with Dad last night… When I first told him I’d like to have another child he said he was ‘underwhelmed’. It’s that word that I’ve held onto rather than the advice he gave later… ‘You can’t spend your whole life worrying about what other people might think’.

I realised that’s exactly what I do… and a lot of this ‘I don’t fit/they don’t accept me’ angst is stuff that I hold onto and perpetuate…

Sure, they make judgements according to what they know, but if I close them out for fear of what they might think… I’m not really allowing them the opportunity to revise their attitudes towards me... or sexuality or conception…

And if my worst fear is that they won’t see things the same way I do then, so what? Is that really any worse than carrying around all this baggage and nursing all my resentments?

I need to say ‘Look, this is who I am… I’d like to have another child and this is how I’m going to do it. Like it or lump it… I’m going to be honest with Rosie so that I can help her deal head on with any issues that arise at school or with friends. You can choose to come with us on the journey or you can invent some complicated fictions for yourselves and Rosie’s cousins… either way both Rosie and I will continue to be open and truthful to ourselves…‘

Mum, Dad, Jean… I owe you an apology… all this time I’ve been operating on the assumption that you wouldn’t be up for it… Are you?

I wasn’t going to tell them until later… after all I wouldn’t if I was in a straight relationship would I? I’d just be having lots of sex and celebrating our success with them sometime after the first trimester ;-/

But several friends persuaded me that, if I wanted Mum and Dad to be involved in the baby’s life, I should start as I meant to continue, open and honest… after all, what was I scared of?

Basically I was scared that they wouldn’t approve… This is how the conversation went when I eventually told Dad on camera.

Sonja: Well one of the things that I wanted to talk to you about is… I’ve been thinking about it for a long time… and I talked to Mum about it ages ago but I haven’t done recently because she was ‘under-whelmed’ by the idea… is that I’d like to have another child…
Gramps: Mmm. (pause) Well, yes. (pause) That is under-whelming isn’t it?
Sonja: (pause) Well… why? (pause) Why is it under-whelming for you?

Mum refused to talk on camera (a decision I respected) but without the ‘interview’ excuse it was, in fact, quite hard to book a time when the three of us could sit down together and have a meaningful conversation… I explained the whole ‘fairy god-parent’ thing… said I knew their time was already pretty over-committed because they both still work full-time and look after my sister’s kids a fair bit…I wasn’t counting on them but I hoped they’d be involved… Mum accused me of positioning her ‘at the bottom of the ladder’… the conversation got quite tearful… and heated…

I said I’d never felt that they genuinely accepted me… she said I was just ‘too sensitive’. I tried to give them tangible examples…
I said ‘Remember that time my girlfriend came camping with us all at Christmas and you said ‘Fine, as long as you don’t touch one another in front of the kids? Do you think that was OK?’.
She said ‘Well yes, because it’s outside the norm…’
I said ‘Mum, being black or in a wheel chair is also outside the norm! What sort of message do you think you’re sending the kids… Rosie knew we were girlfriends and she didn’t have a problem with it… don’t you think it’s better for her to see me being happy and intimate with someone I love… than being fearful and uptight because some homophobe might have a problem with it?’
She said ‘Are you saying we’re homophobic?…’
I couldn’t even answer straight…
I think I just said ‘Sometimes you behave in a way that makes me feel like I don’t fit…’.
Still, it somehow got turned around into being my problem.

The thing is, I do know they love me… and at the end of the day they’ll be there for me and the kid… but that’s the problem with this sexuality stuff, it’s so goddamn SUBTLE! It’s NOT quite the same as race or gender… because, for me anyway, it’s not something I choose to make overtly visible.

Known or unknown? Involved or distant?

I debated these things endlessly and considered my number one priority - avoiding the angst and grief of family court that I’m still going through with Rosie. Obviously the easiest thing would be to go with an unknown donor so that I had complete control… only problem is that I’m probably still fertile and as such, in South Australia, I’m not eligible for treatment by one of the ART clinics (Assisted Reproductive Technology).

Apart from not fancying the expense and medical invasiveness of being treated interstate… I still held dear these romantic notions of a collective of loving friends and family members being around for the child… No matter how hard I might try and eliminate him from the picture, in my imagination I had a spot reserved for the biological father. It has always been my preference to be principal carer… but I liked the idea of the child knowing it’s ‘donor-dad’ as just one of a group of ‘fairy god-parents’.

I worked my way through a small list of a couple of prospective donors, but nobody saw it quite the way I did… and the one thing I dreaded most was conflict… so negotiations were always protracted as we tried to cover all possible eventualities and intangible expectations…

Evetually I found a local guy who was happy to be involved, but on my terms… and better still - we get along!

Check out the little paper bag the first specimen jar was delivered in!