[you can read past entries here, here, here, and here.]
wow. this is my fifth pebble in the proverbial pond of blogging for lgbt families. and, boy am i ever grateful to do it–even if i am a day late, and full of scattered thoughts of themes.
my wife is away at a weekend retreat, cultivating a sense of herself as an individual human being. my minutes-away-from-four-year-old daughter and twenty-month old son are quiet in their rooms. maybe they are even asleep. (oh, simple hopes.) and so here i sit, cozy on the couch, dozing dog at my side, and i have just reread my previous posts.
i close my eyes and remember myself five years ago: four months away from my first pregnancy, hyper vigilant about all things ttc. my world was nothing but charts and basal thermometers; ovulation test sticks and pregnancy test sticks; peeing on said test sticks; awkward conversations about sperm and cervical mucus with everyone in my life; syringes with catheters. while we would never admit it then, the truth is that h and i never consumed such a ridiculous amount of cheap wine than when we were in the thick of all that baby insanity. and yet, somehow, a human was created: order out of chaos.
i distinctly remember the blanket of fear covering me then. on top of the universal fear one experiences when approaching the threshold of parenthood, sat a darker, heavier dread. i dreaded the unknowable risks of being other, of introducing a brand new person into the world with an invisible bullseye, while my country and state were in the midst of such an abhorrent, politically-manufactured “culture war”.
my hackles were raised already. no evil bastards were going to touch my innocent hypothetical child. i was prepared to fortify the walls of my home. but hell if i knew what that meant, really, or how to do it.
five years and two children later, the dread has diminished a bit, despite gay rights being resurrected as the polarizing issue this election cycle. because, hey! look how far we have come in such a short span of time: i’m legally married in a growing number of states! we have a president who publicly supports same sex marriage, and protection for families like mine! dadt is dead! even some republicans are finally shifting their political stance towards support of same sex marriage. this is the stuff my kids will learn in school.
more than the leaps forward in the realm of civil rights, however, my dread is diminished by the friends and family coming out of the woodwork to celebrate my fambly. through the miracle of facebook, people i’ve been connected to by the thinnest of threads have written words of love, support, encouragement, hope, and even awe of us. and every time, it has been unsolicited. when north carolina banned gay marriage, i received several emails to the effect of “this issue is personal now, because it is about you, and your family’s rights are important to me.” five years ago, i would have been afraid that these same people would judge my decision to have a family at all. now? they are the fortification protecting my home. and i am ever grateful.
…the boy is awake now, screaming to be removed from his crib. and so, i end this post without resolution, which feels appropriate.
we are fambly. 