Woke up early thinking about a friend’s question. Couldn’t get it outa my head, so had to get up and post.
Q: “Non-bio moms, how did you deal with your partner’s pregnancy–or anticipation of your partner’s pregnancy?”
Regarding pregnancy, I do remember feeling a fleeting sense of detachment, before I found my role in it all. For me, my role became doing everything to take care of her - go shopping and make dinners when she came home and couldn’t do anything but go to bed, give her massages, and generally just be the one who felt normal. When we were trying (for so, so long…), I decided to be the one who dealt with the swimmers - called the bank, picked it up, took it back, etc. I decided that if the pregnancy was going to happen inside of her body, what could my body do to be a part of it all? I thank E. for willingly giving up a lot of the outside tasks and just be able to trust me to handle them (of course, I think she was just glad to not have to add them to her plate already full with charting, etc.).
The task-keeping spilled over to pregnancy. I keep the list of “to do’s” for baby prep, also because I just have more time on my hands. I cross out the weekly calendar on our fridge - honestly, if E. did it instead, I wouldn’t be happy (this might be a surprise to E!). In other words, we’ve found our roles: E. is growing our baby, taking care of her body, and doing her own mental prep to prepare for birth (as well as many other mental processes I’m sure I’m not aware of). I’m keeping us on-task, prepared, and offer her the emotional support when she needs it.
I think I’ve come to realize my role as the non-bio mom perhaps more quickly than most because of our exposure to the children in our lives. I’ve slowly been able to piece together what I’ll uniquely have to offer our child, which has been a great comfort to me. After all, if we are non-traditional families, we are creating our own maps, and thus the creating can take quite the time and effort. For example, I’ve noticed that when our nephew picks up a book and is asking the group of us to read it to him, I’m usually the one to happily agree. I’ll read it to him 5 times if he’s into it. I just can’t say “no” to reading a book to a child - I’m that passionate about reading. Not surprising, since I’m also usually the one to usually take an extra second to try and explain a new idea to him, trying to catch a “teaching moment” if I can. I think I’m also more the “rough-houser” in terms of play than E. Sometimes I think these all add up to being more “dad-ish” qualities, but I think they just happen to be what I’m more interested in.
In other words, my advice would be not to focus on what you aren’t (bio-mom), but what unique gifts you have to give as a parent. As an adult, I can see the different, but equally important qualities I got from each of my parents. This comforts me to know that our child will get the same from us. This realization didn’t come right away, but throughout the length of pregnancy (thank god for those 40 weeks!!), and in the end I just had to admit that E. will have a different relationship with our child because she is giving birth, period. But I’m free to form my own relationship, and that quickly became exciting to me. We each offer different things, but they are both so important.
No doubt it’s all a process, and I’m sure I’ll be re-defining it as time goes on (and baby actually gets here already!). I hope any of this helps, friends.
That is an awesome assessment of the process. I kept thinking, yeah, me too! I too have found the roles that fit me best and have made a conscious decision to focus on what I bring to the picture verses what I don’t get. Great post.
This is a great post (I posted a sort-of response over at wearefambly). Have you considered checking about cross-posting at lesbianfamily.org? This is the sort of thing I would have loved to read when my wife was pregnant (we have a 16 month old) and maybe more folks who need it could find it there.
I love you, A. I think you are fantastic, and I am so glad to read about your process in becoming a parent and all of the complexities and, in some ways, simplicities, of what that is. For someone who is still in the TTC phase, I do sometimes have thoughts/fears about what this will all mean for me. As I read others’ maps, I learn how to find my way in this process, too. Thank you for sharing this.
thank you for that….I am so worried about this part of it all