I was impregnated by a woman in lime-green stretch pants

I was talking with my son this morning about the kids’ movie, Enchanted. He said he didn’t want to see it because a woman dies in the movie. He continued by describing a scene from a commercial where the princess bites into an apple and then falls down, appearing to be dead. I looked at him and reminded him that it’s like Snow White, and she’s not actually dead. “Snow Who?” he said. Which just reminded me that sometimes you’ve got to know the back story, the history (or, excuse me, I’m over 40, herstory), for things to make sense. Sometimes you have to begin at the beginning.

For lots of people the story is one we all know by heart: “When a man and a woman love each other very much…” - cue the sound of a tape screeching to a halt. This doesn’t work so well when you’ve been impregnated in a doctor’s office by a woman in lime-green stretch pants. I know that some lesbians had their children with men they loved very much. But this story never began there. It began in a mall food court, with one of those questions you ask when you’re kindasortaseriously dating someone: “Do you think you’d ever want to have kids?” Beware; this is always a trick question.

Fast-forward some years, past bobbling other people’s cute babies on my knees, past smiling at the headstrong little girls at the park (karma got me on that one eventually), to sitting in the lavender painted living room of this month’s host couple for Rainbow Families. Going to a Rainbow Families meeting without a child in tow is effectively the same thing as going with a six-foot-tall neon sign that says, “Oh! Tell Me Your Birth Story!” It’s an excuse to spend a frozen Midwest Sunday afternoon watching children hit each other (so cutely!) with toys, and nibble vegetarian casseroles. But it’s also information overload, listening to each couple’s route through the treacherous course of baby making. These courses can be divided into four stages: 1. The Quest For The Missing Ingredient 2. Timing is Everything 3. Is There Enough Ice Cream? and 4. Ouch.

Before you start on this path, while you’re sitting in that lavender living room, you’re not fully aware of the subtle mommy-jockeying that’s going on, the game of parental pole-position inherent in the oh-so polite debate over known vs. unknown sperm (there, I said it) donors, medicalized birthing vs. natural birthing, breastfeeding vs. bottle feeding, co-sleeping vs. cry it out, cloth vs. disposable, pacifier vs. thumb, working vs. staying home, siblings vs. only children, Snugli vs. sling, Melissa vs. Indigo Girls (hey, this was over ten years ago!), Star Wars vs. Star Trek. Without an actual child, one is merely a spectator in these contests. Any opinions voiced, while serving to defuse the escalation, result in a stare and a dismissing, “Mmhmm.” You don’t know anything yet.

But oh boy, you’re going to learn. To drive a car, you have to take a course, and complete a written and practical exam. To adopt a puppy, you have to show proof of residence, show current I.D., and often provide personal references. To have a baby, you have to be in the presence of sperm during the right 40 or so hours each month. No reference checks. No written exams. There are books, of course, but parenting books are like trying to draw a snowflake: each book is written about a specific kid or set of kids that the author has experienced. My snowflake might not look at all like their snowflake. As I sit munching tofu puffs, awash in a sea of information (children’s catalog modeling to start a college fund?), blissfully ignorant of the realities, Rainbow Parenting begins.

I could drag you through the process, debating color blindness vs. a family history of alcoholism, grousing about paying for sperm when there’s so much of it out there for free, having more blood drawn than a phlebotomist-in-training’s best friend, the months of sperm but no baby, and then the month, finally, when Aunt Flo failed to show up bearing her red flag. There is nothing like that two minutes suspended in time, knowing that behind the bathroom door is a stick you peed on that will tell you your future. Really, if the pregnancy test people were being honest about it, little blue letters would show up reading, “Life as you know it is over.”

Fast-forward some eleven years or so later, through many re-runs of diaper changing, adventures in breastfeeding, bed rest while pregnant with twins, so many episodes of diaper changing that it becomes laughable (conference call with the headset on mute, me on the floor changing two diapers?). But it’s all that baby stuff that it takes to get from a little blue line on the stick to someone who can actually, occasionally say “Thank you, Mom.” You get all the tedium of repetitive action, but also all the little snuggly people with fuzzy heads, and the wonder of their discoveries. Babymommyhood was a good chapter to experience, but like college or my 20s, I’m glad it was finite. We had a party at my house the day all my children finally completed the two steps necessary to graduate into big kidhood: take care of your own self in the bathroom, and buckle your own seatbelt.

This past holiday season I was definitely onto the next phase in parenting. I was treated to endless rounds of “Jingle bells, Batman smells” and discovered one of my sons had interpreted the lyrics of that old Christmas favorite as, “Deck the halls with bras of holly!” He has no idea what a ‘bough’ is, but a bra is what his sister doesn’t want him to see in the laundry. My eldest and I agreed we’re both scared of growing up, and that I’ll stick by her as she grows up if she’ll stick by me as I grow old. We began at the beginning, but I promise, this part has more humor value.

I’ll leave you with a description of the final page in my son’s pre-holiday-break journal that he brought home from school. At top is a detailed picture of the moon, with green highlighter lines coming out of it toward a man labeled, “Ceanta,” who is standing on a sleigh pulled by a red-nosed reindeer. Both man and reindeer are saying “PE.You,” as are people’s voices coming out of two houses below. The caption reads: “The moon is foorting. Ceanta dasint like it. But the moon will not stop.”

Too bad I had sent my Christmas cards already. Watch out for the moon.

Written by Darby Blue