Father's Day

     Today is Father's Day, which is a day that typically passes without my knowing.  My own father divorced my mother when I was two years old, and I only have a handful of memories of meeting him throughout my life.  My mother re-married when I was about 10 years old, but my step-father was pretty disinterested in me, and we never really did any father-daughter type stuff.  The last time I saw him was when I was 18; I had been kicked out of the house while still in high school and I ran into him at the grocery store.  He asked me how college was.  He died about eleven years ago, and I did not find out until last year.  That's how close we were, and how close my family is in general.

This is the only photo I have of my father.  I found it on Facebook.

This is the only photo I have of my deceased step-dad.

     Despite my poor, or basically non-existent relationships with the father-type figures in my life, I don't really feel upset or bitter about any of it.  In fact, I can't really identify any strong emotions that I have toward either of these men.  It's almost as though I read about them years ago in a magazine article that I vaguely recall, they are that far removed from any center of emotion or personal feeling for me.  So, I generally don't give Father's Day a second thought.  Until this year. 
     I got up early this morning and went for a 13 mile run with our dog.  While on the bike path, on our way to the trail, I overheard some people talking about Father's Day, and it occurred to my that our soon-to-be-born son may very well one day become a father.  That's pretty mind-blowing to think of, especially since he is still a fetus.  According to our baby development phone app, he is currently the length of an ear of corn and weighs about 1.5 pounds.  But that little baby is growing.  And he will continue to grow until one day, he may be bigger than me.  It is my every hope that we will raise our son to have a healthy perspective on family and relationships, to realize that he matters and that he can create happiness with others.  I want for him to grow up strong and healthy, and if he chooses to raise a family of his own, I want him to be a great dad who enjoys each Father's Day by spending it with his child(ren).  
     I don't even know what our son looks like yet, but as I ran, I tried to imagine him as an adult, an wondered what kind of a person he will be.  I followed the river, looked at birds that flew over head, and I felt such happiness knowing that one day, I will take our son on this trail first in a papoose, then in a stroller, then on foot or bike, and maybe, perhaps, one day, he will lead a child down that same trail on Father's Day, wearing a big smile.  
     

He's Kicking!

     I finally got to feel our little one kick, and I am so excited for that.  We were sitting at home yesterday evening before going to bed, and I was in a goofy mood so I started singing a song I remember from childhood, The Story About Sammy.  My wife rolled her eyes and said, "Oh no!"  Of course, I wanted to continue torturing her, so I said that even if she didn't want to hear me sing the song, the baby most certainly did!  I got my phone, and searched for the song online.  Once I found it, I placed the phone next to her belly and pushed play.
     "Oh, great, you woke him up!" she said.  "He likes it!" I said.  To add to the fun, I made some fart noises near her belly by blowing air onto my arm.  Well, like most little kids, apparently our little one thinks this is hilarious.  He started kicking.  He's kicked before, but this time he kicked hard enough for me to feel him.  I was so happy to finally get to feel him move.  I think we will have to have a lot more silly songs and fart sounds very soon!

Fast Fetus!

I am so excited for our little one to be born this October.  And though he is still a tiny fetus, I am already proud of him.  

This past Saturday, my wife ran the Evaro Mountain Challenge 5K while 5 months pregnant.  That alone is an astounding feat in my opinion.  But, to top it off, she placed 2nd!  I think our little one will be fast!

We are very committed to doing the best that we can to teach our son that good health is important.  We will do everything that we can to encourage the development of good mental health, active physical health, and positive eating habits that we hope will give him a lifetime of happiness.  I can hardly wait to see who he will become!

Mother's Day

     This past Sunday was Mother's Day.  This year, that day had a new meaning for my wife and I as our little one continues to grow and get ready for his/her big debut.  I spent the sunny morning running in the mountains where the season's wildflowers are in full bloom, and when I came home, my wife and I ate whole wheat chocolate chip waffles with walnuts and bananas.  I love making waffles.  I gave my wife some comfy, summery maternity pajamas, and she surprised me with a bouquet of very colorful flowers on the kitchen table.
     The day after Mother's Day was our second and final ultrasound.  This is the one when they do the anatomy scan.  We got to see the baby rolling and kicking around, and we got to see the baby's internal organs and external body parts.  I was really impressed with his/her strong, active legs and lively feet.  My wife loved seeing the four chambers of the baby's heart beating and pumping.
     Seeing the baby move and hearing his/her heartbeat made me feel closer to the baby.  We also learned the baby's gender, and so now we know the baby's name.  We are keeping these as a surprise for others, but I love being able to call our little one by his/her name when I talk to him/her through the filter of my wife's blossoming belly.
     The next time we will get to see our baby will be for his/her birthday in October.  That seems like a long way off now, but if the next 4.5 months are anything like the first, they will go by quickly.

Heartbeats

Today, at my wife's prenatal doctor visit, we heard our baby's heartbeat for the very first time.  It was about 160 beats per minute.  Today was also the day of the Boston Marathon, and there were 2 bombs that exploded at the finish line, stopping several heartbeats, and probably increasing the heart rates of the runners who already had elevated heart rates due to the miles that they had just run.

My wife and I are both runners.  We've each done two half marathons, and several shorter races.  In fact, one of the first purchases we made for our yet-to-be-born baby was a jogging stroller so that we can take him or her out with us for runs when he or she is old enough.  We are hoping to share our love for the outdoors and physical exercise with our child whose heartbeat we heard today.  Neither my wife nor I are elite runners; women in our age group qualify to participate in Boston if they can run 26.2 miles in 3 hours and 35 minutes or less.  We are not part of the Boston community, and yet as runners, we are a part of that community.  It may sound strange to those who don't run, but runners share a common bond over the miles we run, the challenges we choose to take on, and the dedication we put into such an individual sport.  And because of this, I feel a connection to those runners and race spectators in Boston today.

It is a very strange juxtaposition to hear our child's heartbeat for the first time on a day when some of the best members of our running community were threatened and injured by bombings.  I am overjoyed and deeply disturbed at the same time.  It makes me worry about the kind of world our little one will grow up in. I know that bad things have happened all throughout history, and that this really is nothing new.  It just feels a lot more personal this time.

That's Not Soup!

Today, I cooked for several hours and I have no food to show for it.

I do, however, have a large stack of prefold diapers that are ready to go!  Prefold diapers are plain, cloth diapers, and when they are new, they are not very soft or absorbent.  So, you have to wash them 5-6 times in hot water.  Or, you can boil them, which is what I chose to do.  Boiling seemed like a better idea than multiple washes because it uses less water and less energy.

This is what a stack of 10, new, cotton diapers looks like right out of the package.  They are mostly flat, not so soft, and really too large to put on a baby.  We have a total of 60 diapers in both newborn size and regular size.  I don't know what a "regular" size baby is, but apparently that size applies to any baby that is no longer a newborn.  Regular is also a funny word to use when talking about diapers, but only because it makes me think of people on laxative commercials since I have a juvenile sense of humor.

I generally only get out the huge canning pot in late summer/early autumn when we are taking in tomatoes, beans, and other produce from the backyard by the basket full.  But today, it came in handy to boil about 10 diapers at a time.  I filled the canner with water, and set it boiling.  Once it was going pretty good, I added the diapers and boiled each batch for 30 minutes.  All in all, I boiled diapers on the stove for about 4 hours today.  Our dog, Bonny, sat diligently in front of the stove hoping I might give her a taste of what was cooking.  We kept telling her, "that's not soup!"  But, she didn't believe us.  In her mind, there was no way someone would spend that much time in front of the stove on a day off of work if they weren't cooking up something delicious.  We ate leftover pasta from the night before as the diapers continued to boil.  And boil.  And boil.



When the diapers were done cooking, I moved them to the washing machine to wash once in hot water and then tumble dry.  After the entire process was through, the diapers were much softer and fluffier than before. They had also shrunk down to the appropriate size, and they grew in thickness.  Here are the same 10 diapers pictured above, now having been boiled and washed.

Diapers are pretty expensive, cloth included.  I've read that the average baby goes through about 2,200 diapers per year, and that it's parents spend $1,500-$2,000 on diapers each year.  And that's just diapers, not wipes or anything else!  We spent $130 on enough cloth diapers to get our baby from birth through potty training thanks to a lady we met on Craig's List who had a great supply of cloth diapers that she had never used.  We think that cloth diapers are a great idea due to the money we will save, the comfort factor for our baby, and the lower impact on our environment.

Next up . . . dying the diapers in all the colors of the rainbow!

Marriage Equality

     After being with my wife for over 11 years, and after all that we've been through together, it's incredibly indignant to have our relationship status questioned at a national level. However, it is very heartening to see so many of our friends and family speak out in support of our relationship, and others' relationships. I am hoping that the Supreme Court will make the right decision regarding the two cases before it this week. But even if it doesn't, that will not change the strength and endurance of our relationship together, nor will it threaten the love that we share together and that we share with all who are on our side, and the side of so many other couples who just want to live happily.

          I very much hope that our child will be born to two parents who are legally married, and who can therefore offer him or her the full benefits and protections of our nation in addition to the love that we will certainly give to him or her.

Fetus Food!

         It's springtime here in Western Montana.  That means snow, rain, sun, repeat--sometimes within an hour.  One of the things we look forward to in our home during springtime is gardening season.  We grow a lot of veggies, fruit, and herbs as well as chickens for eggs and meat.  I'm really excited to be able to share our garden with our child, to teach him or her how plants grow, where food comes from, and how delicious and special homegrown food can be.

          For now, our child is still in utero.  But he or she needs healthy foods to grow and develop.  And springtime is a great time to finish off the bounty of last year to make sure there will be room for the goodies

to come this year.  So today, after a nice 6 mile run in the hills, I roasted a huge, 12 pound chicken that our hen, Tillie, raised from a tiny chick in our backyard.  Tillie will be wanting babies this spring too, and she is a terrific and skilled mother who keeps our backyard flock flush, our refrigerator filled with eggs, and our freezer stocked with meat.  It is a very special privilege to be able to eat healthy protein that was raised on our own land, and this privilege is made even more special since I know that it will help to nourish our baby's developing muscles and organs.

Along with our roasted chicken, I baked a raspberry ginger peach cobbler with a homemade granola topping.  We grew the raspberries in our backyard and froze them last summer, and we canned the peaches from a friend's peach orchard.  I used a little bit of honey to sweeten the cobbler, but it is mostly sweetened by the fruit since I want to help my wife prevent gestational diabetes.  Full of vitamins, fiber, and omega-3's, this dessert is both healthy and delicious.  I think our little one will love it!


When our child arrives and is ready for solid foods, I will use the seasonal fruits and vegetables that we grow to make homemade baby food.  But for now, I am happy to give our baby a little sneak preview of what's to come, even if he or she does have to eat it through an umbilical cord!

Telling the Family

"Um . . .on purpose?"

"Wait a minute; you're going to have to explain this one to me.  I don't understand how you people do that."

"I thought it would be a Chinese baby."

"Wow, that's unexpected."

"Oh, hm.  OK.  Yay.  I want to talk to you about this, but I'm really busy right now."


Those were the reactions of our family members when we told them that we are expecting our first child.  It's funny how when heterosexual couples get married or cohabit, people ask them when they are going to have children.  My wife and I have been together for 11 years, and no one has ever brought up the subject of children to us.  Everyone so far has seemed very surprised and a little confused when we announced the growing of our family.

But, for the most part, after the initial shock, we have had nothing but congratulations and well wishes from everyone.  It feels good to finally tell the family, as we are 10 weeks along, which is 25% of the way through the pregnancy, and keeping it a secret has been challenging.  We will tell friends and co-workers in 2 weeks, as long as our family can keep it off Facebook and prevent the beans from spilling prematurely.  

9 Weeks

     At 9 weeks, this is our child.  S/he has a beating heart, a brain, little arms & legs, and is growing every second of the day.

     Going to our first prenatal doctor visit was interesting.  First, we met with a financial representative to sign a bunch of paperwork and make a down payment on our baby.  It felt a lot like buying a car.  After we set up our payment plan, we went in for the ultrasound.  Our ultrasound technician was a woman who was probably in her late 50's or early 60's.  She splatted some lube on her little wand-camera, crammed it in, and was very matter-of-fact about every kooky thing she said.  "Well, there's your bug," she said when our baby sowed up on the screen.  It was exciting and reliving to get to see the baby, but it felt as though we were sharing an intensely private moment with some lady we had just met.  She kept pointing things out to us in the ultrasound and then saying, "But, please don't tell anyone I said that.  I always get into so much trouble but I never learn to keep quiet."  I wanted to give my wife a kiss, but when you're gay, you never know how people are going to react to very simple and natural exchanges of affection, so I refrained and instead asked questions as though I were in a biology class.  The most interesting answer: our baby came from an egg in my wife's right ovary.

     After the ultrasound we were sent into a room to wait for almost an hour.  After we had run out of ways to entertain ourselves with the surrounding medical displays and supplies, a crabby nurse came in and asked my if I was my wife's mother.  I am 1 year older than my wife.  I couldn't help myself, "What?  Are you serious?  Her mother?  Do I really look like I could be her mother?"  This probably wasn't the best way to start off with her, but I doubt she asks any men if they are their wives' fathers.  "Well you guys look alike," she said.  We do not look alike, and even if we did, I would have had to have been pregnant at 1 year old.  I kind of suspected that what she meant is that all lesbians look alike to her.  She asked a few general health questions, took blood pressure, and then luckily she left the room so that the real nurse practitioner could come in.  

     The nurse practitioner immediately recognized that we were a couple and congratulated us on our coming child.  She asked for my last name and said she wanted to be sure that she had the last name right for the baby.  As we talked, I learned that our nurse practitioner raises chickens and double digs her organic vegetable garden--I really liked this lady.  Plus, she was knowledgeable about nutrition and did not mind answering our questions.  It was a relief to finally speak with someone I felt I could trust and learn from.

     We then met with another person and were scheduled for something like 16 more visits, were sent to have my wife's blood drawn, and then let back into the shining world after about 4 hours with a free diaper and a photo of our very tiny, but steadily growing child.  It's amazing how the whole exchange was just another day at work for the people who helped us, but to us, it was a life-changing event that brought our little family face-to-face for the first time.

What? I have to adopt my own child?

     Today my wife and I met with an attorney to make sure that we have all of our legal rights and responsibilities in place before our baby is born.  When you're gay, you can't just get married, put your names on your child's birth certificate, and be a happy family.  You have to go through the courts and prove that you are worthy of only part of the rights that are given to married heterosexual couples.

     We learned today that we will need to go through the process of adopting our child.  Yes, the child that we decided to create and raise together, the child that my wife is creating with her own body must be adopted, specifically by me.  We must first indicate on the baby's birth certificate that the other parent is "unknown," even though I will be standing right there.  We must then go though a home study--that is, we have to have a stranger come into our home and decide if we are fit to be the parents of our own child.  The ironic thing about the home study is that even if they don't approve of our home, it is where our child will live since both my wife, who is the child's biological mother, and myself live there.  Then, we will have to go before a judge and declare that the baby's other parent has "abandoned" him or her and petition for the adoption.  Of course, there are plenty of legal fees associated with this.  So, money that we could have spent directly on our child will have to be spent on a lawyer, a home study, and legal filing fees instead.

     That's not all.  We will have to have an attorney help us to write a will and draw up a durable power of attorney to make sure that I can make medical decisions for my wife if she is hospitalized during her pregnancy, to make sure that we both can medically care for our child, and to make sure that if one of us dies, our child does not become a warden of the state.

     I am not happy about doing any of this.

     And, I am happy to do it all.

     It's a strange mixed-feeling of indignity and joy in preparing everything so that our child can have a happy life.  I'm happy we found an attorney who is understanding and can help us through these processes, but I'd rather be hiring her to help set up a college fund for our little one.  I'm trying to focus on the positive aspects rather than the frustrating ones, but that is going to take some real self-control.

Making the Food That Makes the Baby

There really isn't a whole lot I can do as the parent who is not making the baby within my own body.  I can watch, wait, worry, and even try to plan, but I feel like there is something more I should be doing.  Something to contribute to the over-all health & development of our little person, something to somehow help carry the burden of creating our child.

When reading about pregnancy, one topic I frequently notice is nutrition.  Pregnant mothers need to consume an average to 300 extra calories each day.  They also need to make sure that those calories come from nutrient-rich, healthy foods with plenty of iron, calcium, folate, and fiber.  The tiny developing baby inside my wife is eating what my wife eats, and is literally being constructed from the food.   As the family cook, this is something I can get involved with.  I can make the food that makes the baby.

Here is a quick lunch that I put together for the two of them.  It is red quinoa with kidney beans, kale, walnuts, and apples.  There is also olive oil, lemon, and herbs bringing the flavors together.

For dinner, I made a soup inspired by Julia Child's recipe for French onion soup.  A good soup takes all day to make, but it is always worth it.  This soup started by roasting some beef bones & onions in the oven, simmering them for 5 hours with other spices & vegetables, then straining the broth.  To serve, I filled the bowl with the soup, added a poached egg from our hens, and then grated some Swiss cheese onto the soup.  My cheese sank into the soup and did not form a gorgeous topping as Julia Child's did, but it still tasted nice.

In addition to foods that are good for developing babies, there are also foods that can harm them and which should be avoided.  Things like caffeine, alcohol, sprouts, and shellfish to name a few.  My wife particularly enjoys tea: black, green, and herbal.  But while pregnant, she has been advised to avoid consuming any tea.  Here in Montana, the winters are long and cold, and a hot cup of tea not only tastes good, but it also soothes and warms the whole body.  So, on this snowy February afternoon, while the stock for the soup was simmering, I concocted a couple of healthy mixtures my wife can use to substitute for nice cup of tea.  

The jar on the left is a suspension of vanilla beans, star anise, cinnamon sticks, and ginger in honey.  The jar on the right is a suspension of a lemon and ginger in honey.  It will steep in the refrigerator for a couple of days, and then it can be added by the spoonful to cups of hot water for "tea."

Honey, fresh ginger, and lemon slices can also be steeped in simmering water for about 10 minutes to make a satisfying tea substitute one cup at a time.  Ginger and lemon can help to ease nausea, which troubles some pregnant women.

I really like the idea that I can make the food that my wife will use to make our baby.  Our baby will be made of so much delicious food and love.  I'm excited to meet this little one and find out what his/her favorite foods will be.

We're Pregnant

We're pregnant.

OK, she's pregnant.  But, we're in this together and we're starting a family.  I am so happy.

It took some planning, but it was much easier than I had imagined it would be.  We selected a donor based upon blood type, health, and genetic history, filled out some paperwork, made an appointment with the OBGYN, and 2 weeks later: my wife is creating a little person inside of her body.

I have always known I wanted children.  To have a child with the woman I've loved for the past 11 years is the best thing I could have ever imagined for my life.

Now, it's time to get educated about everything baby and start making some plans.