Posted on 03/05/2008 12:21:57 PM PST by SmithL
Pregnancy is a roller coaster, whether it's you who's expecting or your wife whose belly is blooming. But when you're the "other mother," the life partner of the pregnant woman, you're in largely uncharted waters.
So when Jaime Jenett's partner, Laura Fitch, became pregnant, Jenett began looking for a support group of other "Other Mothers." And not finding one, Jenett did what comes naturally. The health program coordinator for John Muir's Women's Health Center in Walnut Creek decided to started one.
Eighteen women showed up the first week at Berkeley's Crepevine cafe. Some had newborns, others were anticipating the birth of their first child. And at first, everyone had similar concerns.
"They were concerned about feeling disconnected," says Jenett. "That no one would recognize them. They'd be invisible. I had the same fears."
Those are common concerns, says Kristin Kali, a midwife with Maia Midwifery, an Orinda preconception and birthing support organization with an international reputation. Founder Stephanie Brill wrote the book on lesbian conception and birth, and Kali's clientele hails from not just Northern California, but across the country and overseas.
Whether or not a soon-to-be expectant couple realizes it, says Kali, they're about to wade into a sea of emotionally weighty issues surrounding conception, delivery and child-rearing. Whose sperm? Who gets pregnant first? And what about the biological bond, the legalities, logistics Jenett found that some of the most supportive, helpful advice came from women who had been through the experience, women whose partners had recently given birth. Soon, they told her, you will be an integral part of that baby's life, but at first, you have to "put your ego on hold."
"The first six weeks are about that really intense biological connection," she says. "That's my biggest anxiety. Where do I fit?"
Lesbian births are not as unusual now as they were a decade ago when San Francisco psychiatrist Julie Stahl's daughter was born.
"I felt like I was inventing the wheel doing it," she says. "I wasn't telling people."
And Stahl's partner, the nonbiological mother, felt very ambivalent.
"Once you have a real child, the other parent bonds to the child," says Stahl. "But early on, it's a different experience."
For any new parent, birth conjures up primal emotions, says Kali. But it can be especially complicated for the nonbiological mom.
"There's a lot of worry about not having a biological connection." says Kali. "Even the terminology "" nonbiological mother, other mother "" is very negative. But I don't know how to say it (differently)."
The biological anxiety is one shared by many heterosexual fathers whose wives have undergone artificial insemination.
"When it's a known donor, there are a lot of intricacies," says Kali. "To the nonbiological parent, it can feel a little like competition. The birth mother's excited. The nonbiological's not so sure. There's no place in our culture for affirming a parent who doesn't have a biological connection."
Some women ask a male relative to donate his sperm. Some choose a sperm bank donor whose ethnic background, physical appearance and personality match the other mother's, so there is a physical resemblance. And some opt for in vitro fertilization, so they can have the nonbiological mother's fertilized egg implanted in her partner's womb.
Jenett and Fitch chose a known donor, the husband of a friend, because Jenett has friends who never knew their biological parents.
"I saw how much space it takes up in their heads," she says.
They wanted a wonderful man who would serve not as an involved parent, but as a distant uncle of sorts. They were blown away when their friends offered, saying "Why would we not do this for you?"
There are so many issues, says Kali, as couples struggle "" or delight "" in their relationships with extended family, friends and each other. But one that hits clients out of left field can be the underlying emotions in the hospital delivery room.
"Different people have different levels of 'outness' they walk with through their normal lives," she says. "If they're way out, they're going to carry that into the hospital. Someone more guarded is less likely to be as loving and affectionate to their partner "" and lots of love and touching and support is what gets a baby born. This is your role, and it's really important in the labor room."
But it's hard to keep your head when confronted with your own "internalized homophobia," she says. It's helpful to talk the possibility through with your doula, your doctor or other support person. Tell them, says Kali, "I may feel inhibited. Can you help me to feel safe?"
Actually, says Stahl, the San Francisco psychiatrist, "Parenthood is like a constant coming out "" at school, at the orthodontist, filling out forms. Mother/father? No, mother/mother. All that kind of stuff."
Jenett agrees. She laughs as she describes being "outed" by her excited colleagues, who can't wait to tell the world about the baby boy who will arrive in just a few weeks.
"I'm excited to just have a baby, to have a different perspective on the world," says Jenett. "Kids make you slow down and smell the roses "" so cliched but so true. We're excited to raise a man, and so fortunate to have wonderful men in our lives."
Among those wonderful men: her 89-year-old Texan grandfather who has already sent his yet-to-be-born great-grandson a present.
What a nasty charade. I refuse to go along with calling that other person a “mother.”
sick, sick, sick
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this is sick manure.
There is no “other mother”
There is ONE mother and an unknown father.
The child was intentionally made fatherless so this “woman” could protect her sexual gratification fetish. PERIOD.
Funny watching lesbian women have to deal with the same issues men have to just put up with. They start sympathy and support groups. Worried about being invisible and where they fit in. Any guy complains, ‘suck it up’ and ‘you didn’t give birth’ and all that. Guys aren’t allowed to be self-absorbed. Not saying it’s a bad thing, but just shows you differences between men and women when women want to be men. They can’t be men and suck it up, precisely because they are women. They aren’t used to people telling them to ‘just deal with it and grow a pair’. They’d break down and start weeping about feelings and how horrible you were treating them...
And it dramatically increases the odds of a genetic disaster.
Their kids are going to be the ones needing support groups.
Like they really had to add that.
no ones cares about children anymore...they are just little gift boxes from Nordstrums.....to be used as an accessory or flaunted or lent out on occassion.....
but if it feels "right" its okay then....
I think they mean a biological relative of the “other mother”, so there would be a genetic connection and possibly a physical resemblance to BOTH “mothers”
Yea. I don't recall there being a support group available for me when I was a new father. Not that I ever looked for one.
Support groups must be a typical woman thing.
The problem is this becomes our problem too.
My grandchildren have “playmates” that have 2 “mothers”. At this point they do not “get it” but at some point the questions will come.
My daughter can not “punish” the child because of the sin of the parent, yet we do not want to “normalize “ this disjointed family.
How sad this is for the child !
When God lets the hammer fall on our Babylon, we should recall dreck such as this and not fault His justice.
ewwwwww. I guess the baby’s name is Heather.
That is one ugly couple. Did she get the turkey baster drunk first?
That’s just the point. You wouldn’t have thought to look for one. If you did, people would say “Suck it up”, “It’s not about you,” and basically not have ANY sympathy for you.
That’s why it’s so wrong for women to act as men. They want all the respect and responsibility that they think is so great about being a guy, but they also want to keep all the lady ‘perks’ and be treated with kid gloves and they just B1TCH about it when you don’t.
You don’t get people’s respect by demanding their sympathy and having coffee-clutch cry sessions together about how life is so unfair and you’re feeling ignored or unfulfilled.
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