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ed gender motherhood queer parenting toys 3 comments how many tears posted on april 1 2014 by queermommy mommy how many needles does it take to make a baby my eyes blinked open i d nearly nodded off on the acupuncture table my four year old was literally in my face his searching blue eyes and button nose clownishly upside down as he peered over me from the head of the table how many needles indeed the million dollar question how many cycles how many vials of donor sperm how blood tests ultrasounds ovulation predictor kits how many inseminations how many thousands of dollars flushed down the toilet before our son s younger sibling magically appeared the straight parents at preschool made it look so easy women with burgeoning bellies toddlers still in diapers running around the playground while their moms and dads dropped off and picked up their older brothers and sisters soon i kept telling myself it ll be us soon but as time marched on cycle after failed cycle doubt started to seep in what if this time i couldn t conceive i smiled up at our son on my very first visit to the acupuncturist he d looked on with alarm as the chinese doctor inserted over half a dozen needles into my skin as soon as she d left the room he d asked gravely mommy are you dying no honey i d reassured him mommy and mama are just trying to make a baby remember this time i gently clarified that it s not the needles themselves that make the baby they just help make mommy s body ready to carry the baby but how many he persisted his question no doubt fuelled more by impatience than by curiosity he had been spending the bulk of this year his last before kindergarten pushing his thomas trains around waiting areas and examining rooms as i pulled out all the stops to get pregnant amanda and i had now been at this for almost three years i wasn t getting any younger and we were down to our final last ditch efforts to create number two the clock was ticking in so many ways in a few short months our son would be at school all day i had taken a partial hiatus from my teaching job at the university my plan was to spend quality time with my boy to savour ever last minute of his waning early childhood as the prospects of having another child became increasingly dim i was all too painfully aware that this might be it but instead of the carefree days i d imagined playing together at home or at the park or at science world i d been dragging him to and from medical appointments we frequented the fertility clinic so regularly that the nurses and office support staff now greeted me by name this along with my bursting clinical file were not so subtle clues that it was taking me way too long to conceive and that any sane person would have called it quits by now there were also regular visits with the naturopath and the chiropractor each doing their part to coax my aging body to create another baby our son had won the heart of my acupuncturist who saw me at least three times a cycle they discussed trains and the sheer awesomeness of captain underpants his two main passions du jour she even passed on a blue and white striped thomas the tank engineering cap that her seven year old had outgrown our son was enthralled at an ivf consult he amused the clinic nurse by photographing her with the camera app on his leappad explorer he expertly sketched over the shot with his stylus adding neon pink hair and bright orange sunglasses the final portrait left her in stitches it s wonderful she hooted taking a moment to wipe her eyes and catch her breath before continuing to demonstrate how i was to inject myself with a slew of powerful hormones if nothing else our son was at least growing clear about how he d come into the world he d been in the room with amanda and me for countless iuis those months i d surged early or on a weekend and we couldn t snag last minute childcare he d even made a passionate expressive painting in art class that he told the teacher to title mommy and mama going to the hospital to make a baby at home he d proudly explained his masterpiece to his two moms pointing out the fact that we were both smiling because he was the baby we were about to create and that this made us so happy i d met amanda s eyes my heart so full it was about to burst and we d spontaneously joined together in a group hug sandwiching our little guy in the middle yes we d affirmed we love you so much indeed our son s conception and birth were two of the happiest moments of our lives together and yet i realized later as i revisited the beaming figures in his artwork i hadn t actually smiled on my way to an insemination in a long time when had i given up hope in a few short months it was over kindergarten began and by the end of october we d completed our last cycle in the end the transition into kindergarten was much less catastrophic than i d imagined i had this sense that our son would be swallowed up by the school system that he wouldn t be fully mine anymore i d forgotten the golden hours that were ours to share afterschool i d underestimated the important bonding time as we cycled to and from school his trail a bike hitched to the back of my norco and i d had no idea just how proud and excited i d be to watch him take his first tentative steps towards independence i wish i could say the same thing about the infertility i knew it was going to be deeply painful to stop trying and to close the door on a second child for good but there s no way i could have anticipated the intensity of the loss how grief would completely slam into me knock the wind out of me and bring me to my knees if our son s final year of early childhood was the year of medical appointments his kindergarten year was the year of grief how many needles does it take to make a baby how many tears to grieve a baby never conceived this past autumn i was interviewed by concordia journalism prof andrea hunter who is a doing a study on queer mommy blogs at that point my blog had been dormant for close to a year but she wanted to talk to me anyway two of the many questions she asked were is there anything you won t write about and as my friends family and followers have also been inquiring do you have plans to get your blog going again the answer to both questions is yes yes there are some places i don t want to go and some lines i don t want cross even though i ve written intimately about our experiences as a queer family my grief around my infertility is incredibly private it was not something i wanted to chronicle at least not as i was going through it after all how many ways are there to write i feel sad depressed defeated the last thing i wanted was my queer parenting blog to mutate into a blog solely about secondary infertility even though my experience of secondary infertility is very much coloured by my queerness would it have been such a struggle to conceive if we d had unlimited access to semen and the ability to try at home several times a cycle how much precious time was lost waiting for test results for vials of sperm and for our son s donor to reappear right out of the gate we were operating at a disadvantage as i was going through my year of grief it was hard for me to write about anything else queer or family related without it feeling faked or forced because the reality was the infertility was always there spilling a grey wash over everything everywhere i looked in my life from the daily sibling stroller brigade outside our son s elementary school to friends and close family giving birth there were constant reminders of what i did not have of how my own body had failed me and yes i do want to start blogging more regularly again and for the first time in a long while that seems possible our son is now in grade one and the year of grief has morphed into something new a year of letting go a year of daring to hope again as i watch our son grow increasingly confident and independent i too am able to start moving forward again in my life after being in a holding pattern for so long for the first time in a long time i have other things i want to write about experiences other than grief and secondary infertility but what i ve come to realize after that conversation with andrea which was incidentally followed by months of false writing starts is that in order to keep blogging i first need to account for my time away not to apologize for my absence or to dwell over what happened but to speak to that year of grief and to honour it as i now move forward posted in conception grief and loss kindergarten parenting preschool secondary infertility uncategorized tagged grief and loss infertility kindergarten lesbian mothers motherhood queer parenting secondary infertility 7 comments my first and last my one and only posted on november 16 2012 by queermommy so which one of you is his birthmother a fellow mom asks me outside the elementary school it s the second day of kindergarten and her words snap me out of my reverie i realize i m still staring forlornly at the double doors that have just swallowed my son as he filed proudly into the massive building with the rest of his class his new red backpack bouncing on his back she s trying to figure out our family when we d first arrived that morning my boy had happily greeted her son in recognition one of his first friends from yesterday and she didn t know what to make of me i d sensed her giving me the once over while we made small talk as though she were trying to place me then finally she d asked are you his mother yes then who was that other woman with him yesterday on the playground his other mom oh she d said clearly startled you mean you re like partners yes i d smiled willing myself to be patient amanda is my wife it wasn t as though she was trying to be rude her heteronormative assumptions had simply been smashed by my family unit and to her credit she was doing her best to take it all in stride but today the heaviness of my son s first proper day of school weighed on my heart and i wasn t in the mood to explain my family s queerness in fact at that very moment i was irritated by the fact that i perpetually have to do so and now the question about my son s birthmother i hesitate a beat wary of where this is going i am i say i thought so she smiles knowingly i couldn t help but notice you tearing up as you watched him go in i blanch was i that transparent i was the same when my daughter started kindergarten she gently confides it s so hard when we ve carried them in the womb i find myself at a loss for words clearly she s just trying to be sympathetic wanting to forge a connection with a fellow mother but she s unwittingly pushed some major buttons yes watching my son take this crucial step away from me towards independence is heart wrenching but his transition into kindergarten has also been really intense for amanda his non biological mom and having watched queer friends go through the same process with their adopted son a year earlier i know that it s equally loaded for adoptive moms too i want to say something but today i m just too tired today i just want to be left in peace to deal with own feelings around my son s fleeting childhood not deliver a crash course on diverse families 101 don t worry she says patting me on the arm completely misreading my silence it s much easier with the second one and now little does she know it she s just run a skewer straight through my heart a week before our son started kindergarten our doctor at the fertility clinic had confirmed that our conception journey was well and truly over after trying for number two for over three years it was time to get off the fertility rollercoaster for good too much time had now elapsed the most recent round of tests suggested ovarian failure even though we still had a final vial of donor sperm in storage there would be no second one and so as my son started kindergarten i was not only coming to terms with the end of his early childhood but also the end of hopes and dreams of a sibling of parenting another little one through those precious early years i d wanted to be done with our fertility journey well before kindergarten began so that regardless of outcome i could be fully present and ready to step forward with my son into this new phase of his life amanda and i had planned for a final cycle in may june for closure but due a bizarre series of twists that were completely beyond our control including the sudden permanent closure of our long standing fertility clinic less than two weeks before we were due to inseminate which precipitated the long arduous costly process of getting our records and donor sperm transferred to a new clinic the end kept getting postponed and now here we are it s the first week of kindergarten and i m raw with grief i can t even begin to explain to the well meaning mom standing next to me that the tears she d just witnessed moments earlier partly have to do with the fact that there won t be a second one that my son is my one and only that as he walked away from me into the school i was impacted by the enormity of this milestone not only because it s the first time but also because it s the last as i struggle to relate to this other parent it occurs to me that it s much easier to be out in my life as a queer mom than as a woman with secondary infertility i had no qualms clarifying to this individual that amanda is my partner and that my son has two moms but secondary infertility like primary infertility and pregnancy loss is such a private personal struggle an unrecognized unspoken grief i wasn t even going to begin to go there with a virtual stranger to fellow mothers who ve never given their fertility a second thought women like me are invisible to women with primary fertility my pain is often misunderstood at least you have one and yes i feel truly blessed to have my son in fact now more than ever but this does not diminish the anguish i m experiencing after the countless attempts to conceive after subjecting myself to escalating interventions that have left nothing but financial debt and an incredible physical toll on my body after three years of a hellish rollercoaster ride lurching me and amanda at break neck speed from hope to despair and back again up and down up and down with both the peaks and the valleys progressively plummeting with each crushing disappointment until finally we ve been forced to jump off before we completely crash as i stand there stricken in the school ground it also occurs to me that i m seeing everything through the grey lens of my infertility at the moment which is not only why my son s transition into kindergarten seems so heightened but also why a casual exchange with another parent can make me instantly irritated and vulnerable it explains why i bristled so intensely at said parent s earlier comments and assumptions about birthmothers because while my tell tale tears had nothing to do with being my son s birthmother they also had 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