Under the Hood

Oh man, if I had an audience waiting with baited breath, they would be so excited because there is so much to report!

Basically, I would call the last week Experiments in Awkward Conversations.

There were, of course, the phone calls to every low-cost sexual health provider in the greater metro area regarding my friend's sperm, which I determined was primarily awkward because I am an adult inquiring about medical services for another adult AND I'm not his case worker. After a solid chat with my GP - who is an adorably awkward lesbian who just had a baby with her partner not so long ago - we decided to hold off on the semen analysis for a while. Her suggestion was to try 4 cycles and if we didn't get pregs by then, to investigate the semen analysis again.

Ok! Check!

On Friday, La and I went to see the lawyer who will be drafting our donor agreement, and probably helping with some additional estate documents as well. The awkward conversation that ensued here was less "ha ha how weird is it to be talking about my friend's wiener? ha ha" and more "fuck man, being a queer can sure make simple things a lot harder." In this case, we are working on drafting an agreement that BFF can sign, relinquishing his rights to the baby that his spermies create, defining the intended roles of both me and La, and setting us up to ensure that La will be the second parent - in whatever way is legal at that point. Apparently, Colorado has pretty good case law (read: some) in this field, which means our lawyer has been able to amend her contract to be specific and has reasonable assurance that it will cover our ass in case BFF gets all crazy which I just really can't imagine happening. But part of this is defining who we are (NOT MARRIED being chief among the list) by virtue of the law, which doesn't necessarily correlate with who we understand ourselves to be. It was eerily reminiscent of getting our basically meaningless domestic partnership certificate in Denver. The narrative went something like this:

"Do you, Andiepants, agree that La is your domestic partner, recognizing that this is no way constitutes a marriage, will be void immediately upon your or La's death, voided if either of you should get married, and basically means nothing but that you spent $50 supporting the infrastructure of the city and county of Denver?"
Yes. Yes I do.

The good news is that Colorado currently has second parent adoption, which means that worst case scenario, La can be on the birth certificate following a lengthy and expensive process to adopt her own child! Yay!
BUT! BEST case (which is not even that far from reality) La will be on the birth certificate as soon as the nugget is born if civil unions legislation passes (and it is looking mighty good this time around) and is in effect by the time the kiddo is born! Super honest not cynical YAY!

So, $250 and one hour long uncomfortable conversation later, we should have a contract on its way to us.

This morning I went to the aforementioned adorable lesbian doctor to get a pap and make sure all the initial pre-pregnancy tests have been run. Things are looking good, minus a slightly tilted cervix (aim low and to your right, was the issued advice) and the very slight possibility of an elevated prolactin level (for which a blood test was ordered.) Other than that, my vag is in excellent working condition!

Yay for functional vaginas and possibly awesome legislation!!

The Obligatory Political Post

La and I just went and voted at our new polling precinct! We recently moved from downtown to the almost barely suburbs, which means we are in a county and congressional district where our votes might actually make a difference in electing more progressive folk. Exciting! Of course, we are also 'blessed' to live in a swing state and have seen every commercial either the Romney or Obama campaigns ever produced. Last week I got more phone calls from Obama for America and national polling firms than I got from everyone else I know in the last month combined.

And now I'm going to sit at work and be totally distracted by anxiety! Really I know I am kind of a drama queen but usually I am well armed with some healthy cynicism about the role of big politics that I can blow this shit off. We survived Bush (sort of) so I guess we could potentially survive Romney. But maybe its my age, or the idea of having a child, or just being more necessarily involved with the kinds of systems that more readily intersect with the mainstream political world, but I am fucking scared. It feels like we have made some really incredible strides in the last few years, and I can't shrug the feeling that if the big R gets into office, its all down the shitter.

I'm white, and was raised in a middle class family and, while my income (plus my partners) do not put my family in a middle class tax bracket quite yet, we are well educated and decently privileged. I get that my ability to get (legally) married to my boo and have her on the birth certificate for the child we bear is like, at least halfway down the list of shitty things in America. Probably closer to the bottom quarter. So I don't want to be a single issue voter and I don't necessarily want to make my family into single issue voters either but, you know what, it still matters. It does. Life is hard enough without all of us trying to make it suck more for each other.

My best friend since high school, J, called me last night. We've been friends for 16 years and lived in different states for 10 of those, and still we have this thread of love and intimacy that just carries us through and wraps us up. I am super grateful for this gift of his friendship. He and his wife are 20 weeks pregnant, which is what he called to tell me. They are having a girl, which I am excited about because he is such a good dude - not in the 'oh he'll take care of his princess' good dude; no, J is going to fight to ensure his daughter has access to education and resources and is a total badass. I'm so incredibly psyched for him to be a dad.

More and more of my friends are having babies. On this day, I am both excited and terrified by that. Today, it seems, our nation is making a decision that could really, truly, deeply impact the lives of J's badass daughter and H's little unidentified banjo and maybe the baby that La and I have. I'm so glad that wonderful people are going to be raising wonderful babies. But I'm also terrified about what kind of a world we will be raising them in.