Just Expecting Greatness

Just Expecting Greatness…. That is what I named my Blog three years ago. Little did I know how true that could become for me in just 36 short months.

In the last three years I’ve gone from being a single parent of a fourteen year old girl, living in my house, enjoying lots of closet space and my own bathroom to now parenting a mini-grown up, getting married moving her house into my house, adding two step-dogs and now expecting a baby in just ten weeks. ALL IN THIRTY SIX SHORT MONTHS! But looking back at my very first public blog entry, reading it forward, and reading my personal journals – nothing has changed. I am still expecting greatness and in many ways, I’ve found it.

Our pastor approached me after church yesterday and asked (for sermon research purposes) what am I expecting from the journey we are about to embark on. It made me think about my expectations for myself, for my family, and for this new baby and my expectations still have not changed. I am just expecting greatness.

Greatness for me isn’t fame, money, a fancy job title or an expensive car. It’s not in an overpriced home, overpriced toys and over the limit credit cards.

Greatness for me is found in the other things. Things that others may never even notice. It’s not found in my daughter’s GPA – but in her humanity and desire to make a difference in the lives of others. It’s in her genuine smile and her open mind and heart. It’s in her sincerity and her ability to just be who she is. Even when that means ripped jeans, old converse and a hoodie. It’s in looking at her and knowing that while she may never have a clean room or be a great student, she really is a great person.

It’s looking at my spouse and knowing that every day she goes to her job, she does the best job she can. That she is reliable, honest and caring. That at home, no matter how our day went, at the end of every day I know that she’s brought me closer to the greatness I am trying to achieve in my own life.

For me it’s finding the value in my relationships. It’s trying hard to be a good spouse, mother, daughter and friend… even when I feel like I am failing miserably. It’s working hard to remember that the future doesn’t have to resemble the past. It’s trying to exceed someone’s expectations every day, even if that someone is only me.

For our new journey, the expectations are relatively high. For starters, we are quite literally expecting greatness. We chose the name Max Adric for our son. Max is my grandfather’s name and Adric was Lisa’s grandfather’s middle name. When we chose the name for it's family origins, we had no idea that the name Max means "The Greatest." So he already has a lot to live up to.

We’ve spent a lot of time and money preparing for this baby. We have surrounded ourselves with great family, great friends and great support system to bring him into the best world we can provide for him. I expect to have a beautiful labor and delivery. I expect to have the perfect birth story to tell and I fully expect to lose every ounce of baby weight before I go home from the hospital. Those expectations may be slightly unworthy of reality and we’ll continue to think positively and hope for the best, but once Max is here and in our arms I truly do expect great things to happen.

I expect that I will love him as much as I thought I could love no other child since the birth of my firstborn over seventeen years ago. I expect that we’ll show him how much we love him every single day for the rest of our lives – whether he wants us to or not. I expect that I’ll be better prepared for motherhood this time around. I expect that Allyssa and Lisa will be the perfect big sister and Mom and that Max will be a very happy and much loved baby. I expect that we’ll experience some growing pains as our family expands but will look at our children – one nearly an adult – and know that we are so incredibly blessed to have been given these children, any pain is definitely worth everything we have and will continue to gain.

My expectations for Max as he grows I can only assume will change as he gets older. For now, I expect that he will take on all of the positive traits that his family has to offer and become the little person he is meant to be. I expect that he’ll have Allyssa’s happy, carefree demeanor and positive outlook. I expect him to have Lisa’s sense of humor and charm. As he grows I expect him to have strong values and a sense of responsibility, not only for himself but for the things he can change in his world. I expect him to know how loved he is and to love back with all that he has. I expect him to be everything he was put here to be and more.

I imagine him to expect great things, even if his ideas of greatness don’t always match those of the rest of the world.

National Coming Out Day

Today was National Coming Out Day. A day when Americans should feel comfortable enough in their own skin to “come out,” as in, out of the closet. I myself, as well as my spouse are already very comfortable in our skin and it is not a secret of any kind that we are gay. By choice we live in a very conservative state and an even more conservative county, but that does not and has not ever kept us from living our lives genuinely and we’ve never had any regrets about doing that. In fact, I oftentimes forget that our family is in a situation where we have to “come out” at all. We live like our neighbors, we work, we have a well-adjusted child, we belong to an amazing church and we have incredible friends – most of whom are not gay at all.

We have never felt personally discriminated against and while this is truly a wonderful thing it makes you forget the really important ways that the gay community IS discriminated against. This is not a political post per se, and most of you know, I don’t use the rainbow card often – but sitting in my attorney’s office two days before National Coming Out Day reminded me of why it’s important. Not only for us as gays and lesbians to live our lives genuinely, but for our straight friends and family to live that way too.

To date we’ve spent the better part of $10,000 to become pregnant with Max. TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS. To some people that is a new car, a down payment on a house or college tuition. We discussed the possibilities, pros and cons of having a baby long before we ever made an appointment with the fertility clinic. We had many conversations about how we would raise this child, the issues we might face being a two mom household with an infant and how our family and friends would react. After the decision was finally made – we began our journey. A decision made with such care and thought, we made the step and ten thousand very well spent dollars later, we are pregnant with our son.

Most people, even some of the most educated people I know are baffled by the amount of money it took and believe me when I tell you I know we were lucky to have gotten pregnant for that amount of money. We have friends who have spent double or even triple that to become parents. The even more unfathomable piece to that is that we are not done spending money to be parents.

We sat in our attorney’s office on Friday afternoon to determine the steps we have to go through to make Lisa Max’s LEGAL parent. After all the time, thought and money we’ve put into the decision to become parents, in the eyes of the law, Lisa is still not considered to be Max’s parent. If she were a man and we had met in a bar, had a one night stand and I had gotten pregnant – THEN she’d be his legal parent but the law doesn’t see our diligence, care and determination to be parents as a good enough reason to allow Lisa to parent. Instead, we have to go through an adoption process. Yes, Lisa will have to adopt our baby.

That may seem like an easy answer, but in the state of Georgia – of 159 counties there are only FOUR counties where a same-gender second parent adoption has been granted and the county we live in is not one of those counties. This means our family has to establish a “residence” in one of the other counties so that we may file our adoption papers there. It can be a temporary residence, but one has to be established. So the house that I have owned for six years, the taxes I have paid for six years, the community that I have supported for six years…. None of that matters, because I am a pregnant lesbian.

The laws set up to protect the sanctity of marriage against the gays are discriminating against our children. If for any reason we were unable to follow through with a second parent adoption, Max would be born with only one legal parent – and if anything were to happen to me, Lisa could be living without her son and Max would be living without his other mom. So we paid our $500.00 consult / start up fee and when Max is born we’ll pay another $1500.00 to give Lisa the legal rights to the son she so desperately wanted. We’ll also be paying to give Max the rights to his Mom.

Next time a vote for gay marriage comes up in your state, think about the other ways these laws discriminate against gay and lesbian families and most importantly, their (presumably) straight children.

21 Weeks... and counting.

I can hardly believe it's been 21 weeks already! Finding out you're pregnant literally on your tenth day after conception can make time go by a little slowly - but looking back on the last 21 weeks -- it hasn't been so bad.

My pregnancy has continued to be one of the easiest things I've ever done and I still feel great! Aside from the occasional heartburn, it's been a really wonderful experience! We had our anatomy scan two weeks ago and found out that we are indeed having a boy! Lisa LITERALLY jumped up and down and has been grinning from ear to ear ever since. Allyssa is also excited to be having a baby brother and we are all preparing for how life will change once we have a little one in the house. He may be the one who needs to prepare since we've been testosterone free for over a decade! :)

We finally decided on a name for our little man last weekend. In the running were; Mason, Sawyer, Kellen and Max and Grant. We finally agreed on Max. Max is my grandfathers name and the middle name, Adric - was Lisa's grandfather's middle name.

SO... In just 19 weeks he'll be here. Max Adric Bailey. I can only hope the last half of my pregnancy goes as wonderfully smooth as the first half has!

Birthday Breakfast

Today was our 4th Annual Birthday Breakfast. For those that don’t know, birthday breakfast typically takes place on Allyssa’s birthday. We get up early, we pick up two of Allyssa’s best friends and then we go to Cracker Barrel. The girls are always in their pajamas and Allyssa is always wearing a tiara. There have been talks of adding boas or a birthday sash and I think the idea of going into C.B. in a wagon even came up once, although that never materialized. Cracker Barrel is never really crowded at 6:30 in the morning, but we are always the youngest people in there.

We’ve done Birthday Breakfast since Allyssa was a freshman, a tradition I wish we’d had begun earlier. From the silly, Layla wishing for a serenade from E.W. until K.S. stole him away – which we established this morning wasn’t necessarily a bad thing since E.W. turned out to be a dirt bag. To the serious, which I won’t discuss here but the one I’m talking about will know who she is and what it was. I think we’ve covered it all. They laugh with each other, they laugh at each other and they make each other laugh.

Not a whole lot has changed since our first Birthday Breakfast. Physically, they all look about the same. I think Layla will always have long curly red hair and while Allison’s hair has purple streaks in it at the moment, the girls just are who they are and have been since the day I met them. I watched the girls this morning and much like that first birthday breakfast four years ago, the girls were happy and excited. Allison ate off everyone’s plate and probably could have eaten more, Layla pretended she would share the last bite of the birthday cake and ice cream but then scooped it all up and finished it off herself. Allyssa had us all on the verge of wetting our pants when our crabby waitress decided to sing Happy Birthday in hushed tones and then Allyssa proceeded to imitate her with amazing accuracy.

I watched the girls and thought about the kind of women they are becoming and the kind of friends they have been to Allyssa. I thought of her other best friend Megan who goes to a different school and couldn’t attend birthday breakfast and wondered how one child, my child, has managed to surround herself with such good kids. I thought of their families and the friendship their own parents have shown us. I wondered if their parents know what amazing young women they've all turned out to be. Megan with her strong values, intelligence and ability to make us all laugh, Allison with her determination, naiveté and ability to laugh at herself, Layla with an incredible sense of self, her convictions and her ability to make light of any situation and Allyssa with her sense of humor, open mind and genuinely sweet spirit. I thought of the other “friends” Allyssa has had along the way – the ones that I knew very early on would be trouble and thought about all the reasons these four turned out different.

I was saddened by the thought that for next years birthday breakfast I just might be alone since the girls could very well all be away at different colleges. I thought about how much these girls mean to Allyssa and how much their friendship to her has meant to me. I thought about how truly blessed my daughter is to have such strong, amazing young women as her best friends. I thought of my own best friends from junior high and high school, some who are still dear friends to this day and hoped that these girls know what a true gift their friendship is.

Nameless Peanut

Nameless Peanut. That is what we are calling our baby. Nameless Peanut Bailey. We don't know what we are having yet, we can't agree on a name and at last look our little fetus resembled a peanut. So there ya go...

We were 9 weeks and three days pregnant when we met our midwife for the first time. We thought we would get to hear the heartbeat but couldn't so she let us look at NPB instead. We sat in the ultrasound room waiting on our midwife (who is ABSOLUTELY amazing by the way) and were talking and laughing. The midwife came in and we started looking for NPB and there he/she was! Moving around like he/she was doing the Cha Cha Slide and posing for the ultrasound camera.

I looked at Lisa and was reminded how much my life had changed in the last three years. I was reminded with every laugh how blessed I am to have found who I believe to be my souls mate and how incredibly lucky we both are to be experiencing this together. I thought of our friends and family and realized how deeply loved this child will be. I thought of Allyssa and how I would have loved to have had an older sister who will be as great as she will be! I thought of our parents and know that even though they sometimes struggle with our family make up, they'll continue to be the most terrific grandparents a child could ask for. I thought about our house, our cars and our neighborhood. I thought about how much we have to offer this child and how much this child will have to offer us. As the midwife printed off our picture and turned off the ultrasound machine I thought about how in love we are with our little peanut and he / she doesn't even have a name yet!

All is well in pregnancy land.

Pregnant...Again.

So… I’m pregnant. Again. I haven’t been pregnant in almost seventeen years, but this time I’m pregnant on purpose. If you are a reader of my blog or just a friend, you probably know about my first pregnancy so I won’t bore you again with all the details, but will update new readers on the basic facts: I was a relatively responsible teenager, on birth control pills, even took them every day, had sex three times and was pregnant at seventeen. It was shocking, difficult and frightening at times – but sixteen years later I have an incredibly amazing daughter to show for it. There are several past blogs with details about how great she is if you’re interested.

So here I am again… Much older, I hope to be much wiser and 8 weeks pregnant. (By the time you read this blog I am more likely to be 12-14 weeks pregnant.)

It is absolutely mind-boggling how things change in seventeen years! I was speaking to my friend Cerena on the phone last night. She gave birth to her first daughter the day after I gave birth to mine. A few years later she had a son and ten years after that she had another son and now has an additional daughter who is two. We discussed how different our grown up pregnancies were from our teen pregnancies. When I was pregnant with Allyssa I had zero fear of anything other than gaining weight and my skin breaking out. I didn’t fear miscarriage, genetic disorders or SIDS. I didn’t obsess over the size of my fetus, my HcG levels, how fast or slow the heart rate was and whether or not I should eat certain cheeses. With the Internet and age, I’ve learned to obsess (rather well, I might add) about all those things and more. I have visited more pregnancy web sites than I ever would have imagined existed. I have read about the baby’s development from week 4 to week 40 more times than I can count and have the “How Big Is My Baby” chart memorized. For the record, Baby Bailey is about the size of a grape this week! When I was pregnant with my daughter, I threw up daily from week 7 to week 18. When I reached week seven of this pregnancy and wasn’t sick, I was instantly worried (not relieved) that something must be wrong. With every ache, cramp and twinge, I am certain that something could be going wrong and on most occasions I’ll spontaneously burst out in tears.

This brings me to hormones…. When I was pregnant at seventeen, I didn’t notice any changes to my body – other than my jeans were too tight and that throwing up thing. I didn’t recognize the difference in my emotions; I was a seventeen year old girl, I was probably already moody. At 35, things are very different. For instance, Braves player Jeff Francoeur was traded to the Mets last week. The Mets played the Braves at home last night and when Francoeur came up to bat, the Atlanta crowd gave him a standing ovation and the pitcher stepped off the mound to give him a few seconds to take everything in. I wasn’t at the game, didn’t even watch it on TV. I am a Braves fan and I guess Jeff Francoeur is a good guy but don’t know for sure. However, when I heard the sports news on the radio and heard the DJ talk about the crowd and the standing ovation. I literally cried. AND I recognized that it was ridiculous – which I think might make me even crazier! I cry over my Pastors blogs, I cry over movies, television shows and commercials. I cried yesterday after my conversation with Cerena and she told me she loved it that her last two didn’t sleep all night because she wanted to have more time with them. I’ve turned into my own water source!

Other than the obsessing, crying and the need for an 8:00 pm bedtime… my pregnancy is going great and we can’t wait for the next 32 weeks!

Moving on to Plan B

So we've had three more fertility cycles since my last post (Soooooo???? February 2009) my intention was to write and write until I couldn't write anymore and document the entire process. However, the failed cycles cut a lot deeper than I ever thought they would and I was simply tired of talking about it. So I stopped.

We started our Journey To Baby Bailey in May of 2008, so EVERY MONTH for over a year I've been poked, prodded and / or peed on a stick to check my ovulation and in three of the cycles to check for pregnancy and frankly - I was over it. I thought when we started this we would try until we got pregnant. SEVERAL thousand dollars later and countless hours of tears, I was done. I thought I was stronger but I just didn't have it in me.

I went through all of the emotions and with each failed cycle it got worse. I looked around at countless children who are not adequately cared for by their parents and wondered how someone like that could have not one... but two... or three or more children but we couldn't manage to get one. I heard the good news of friends and family members who were adding to their families and wondered why it seemed so easy for the rest of the world but it wasn't happening for us?

After the third failed cycle, I admitted defeat and we talked about ending our fertility treatments. We talked about money, we talked about the emotional aspect and we talked about regret. At that point we decided to give it one more try. I knew for the sake of my amazing family, I should try one more time. We had enough room in the budget for one more round and I felt like Lisa deserved that. I have a child and know that there is nothing better (to me) than being that child's mom but Lisa didn't know what that was like. I felt like I owed it to her, myself and our family to try again... and we did.

I spent the week of the pending insemination irritated and almost angry. I was angry at the money we had spent. I was angry at the results and I was angry that almost a year of my life had been lost to failed fertility treatment. The day of the insemination (one of two – since our doctor inseminates twice per ovulation) I waited in the doctors office and was looking around with the understanding that this would be one of the last times I sat in this office for this procedure. I was relieved. When I was called back and the doctor came in she said, “It’s good to see you.” I said, “It’s good to see you too, but I’m really getting tired of hanging out with you people.” She laughed. I told her I was on my way to Six Flags that morning when I got the Smiley Face indicating ovulation and asked her if it was okay to go forward with our day as planned. She said yes… and we completed the procedure in silence. I was bored. I didn’t lie there staring at the ceiling like before with visions of chubby faced babies and pacifiers running through my head. I stared at the ceiling tiles and wondered how long the line to Superman would be when we finally got to Six Flags. My mind and heart had clearly moved on. It was then I made the decision to move on to Plan B.

Plan B is what a lot of 35 year olds dream of. It’s having raised your child, sent her off to college, having no bills except the mortgage and vacationing at very cool places a couple of times a year with NO KIDS, all before the ripe old age of thirty-six! It's moving in town because you don't care what school district you live in, it's driving a two-door, staying up late and sleeping in until noon. It’s eating where you want and not wondering if the restaurant has a kids menu or a high chair. It’s laughing on the inside when your friends with infants can’t hang out past eleven because the babysitter has a curfew. It’s long motorcycle rides and overnight trips to nowhere, for no reason. It’s wearing your “good” clothes because you know they won’t get spit up on and it’s having a family, a career and a savings account and never again having to clean up a toddlers vomit. The more I thought about Plan B, the more I was getting used to it. If we couldn’t have another child we might as well be young enough to enjoy our empty nest! Separately, if my wonderfully amazing daughter follows the plan I have in mind for her – she’d still make me a Grandma before I hit fifty and I’ve heard that is an even better alternative. You can send those kids home! Yes, I had decided... Plan B was a good way to go.

I finished the first week following insemination and truthfully never really thought of it again. We talked about the new car we were going to be buying now that our sixteen year old had taken over the family sedan and decided where we would go on Allyssa’s graduation cruise. I went to work and shared with the one co-worker and friend who knew we had gone ahead with the fourth and final try that I truly had gotten over it. I was very ready for another negative pregnancy test so that I could move on with my life, so that I could get busy on Plan B! I even continued to use the Espresso machine that I got for Mother’s Day and had adjusted (rather excitedly) to the fact that I will never in my life have to change a diaper unless I just want to. The second week I could feel the elation in knowing that on Monday, June 15th (the day after we got confirmation from the fertility clinic that we were once again negative) my life would continue on, KNOWING not WONDERING that we would continue to be blessed with the one and only child that we already have.

Friday, June 12th at 4:30 AM I got up to get ready for work. I walked into the bathroom and looked at the pregnancy tests staring at me from the cabinet. I decided to take one since we were having dinner with friends the next day and I was more than happy to be able to indulge in a margarita… or three. In less than five minutes, Plan B went out the window with one word…. “Pregnant.” I picked up the Clear Blue Easy and looked at it again. I stared at it for what felt like an hour but I am sure was less than a minute. My eyes filled with tears and I went and woke Lisa with the news. I was physically shaking when I told her and we both agreed that it was a very bizarre feeling to be so completely surprised to be pregnant when we had been trying so hard to become that way.

So… Plan B has now reverted back to what THIS particular 35 year old is now dreaming of. Morning sickness, weight gain, out of control emotions and child birth. Late nights, early mornings, diapers, spit up and sneakers instead of four inch heels. An SUV instead of a two-door and a nursery instead of an office. Chubby cheeks, toothless grins, the smell of baby lotion and the sight of tiny toes. Watching a child grow into an amazing young person like their older sister who is a happy, healthy, extremely well-adjusted sixteen year old who will be seventeen when she FINALLY gets a sibling. Having it all… my family, my career and a baby that will have cost us more to get him / her here than it will cost us in his / her first year of life… all the while I will love every single second of it. Morning sickness and all!

Seniors 2010

Seniors 2010... that is what I heard and saw all weekend long. When my daughter excitedly talked to her friends on the phone about the impending first day of school and the fact that they are now Seniors. More than one of her friends who are on my Facebook friends list commented on the fact in their Facebook status updates. From my faux daughter Allision - "I'm not excited about school tomorrow, but I'm a Senior!!" From someone else that will remain anonymous - "Seniors 2010 - F*@K Yeah!" And my favorite from my would be adopted son Evan - ... "I've already got Senioritis!" Allyssa's update was an inside joke from our Annual Mother / Daughter weekend.... That thankfully did not include the F word.

It's hard to believe that my daughter is a Senior in high school. I remember my Mom telling me that time flies. She wasn't lying. On an almost daily basis it feels like yesterday that we were going to pre-school. For twelve years I've driven Allyssa to school on the first day. Even last year when she had friends that were driving I still drove her and faux daughter Allison to school. I always expect a hug and a kiss and last year, the front of the school was packed with kids and she didn't want to hug and kiss me goodbye. I told her that if she didn't, I would start honking the horn until she did. She laughed (although I wasn't kidding) and promptly gave me a hug and a kiss.

Yesterday on our way home from Mother / Daughter weekend we talked about the upcoming school week and talked about clothes, friends and lunch. Allyssa stopped and said, "Oh! This is the first year I get to drive to school!" I said, "Oh yeah! Did you get your parking permit?" "No, we pick them up in the morning! But this is the first year you won't have to drive me to school!" The very second she finished her sentence I could feel the lump in my throat and my face begin to get red. I knew I was going to cry right then... And I did.

This morning I woke Allyssa up as I was leaving for work. I went in and sat on the side of her bed for a minute. I looked at the child who on her first day of Kindegarten was just over 35 pounds. The child who for five basketball seasons was dwarfed by other girls her age. The child whose first pair of soccer cleats had to be ordered because I couldn't find them to fit her tiny feet. I looked at my child now, standing as tall (or as short) as I am, the child who wears the same size shoe I do and the child who is now old enough to work, drive and date. I touched the side of her face and told her it was time to wake up. She opened one eye and gave me a half smile and closed her eyes again. I kissed her cheek, reminded her of the time and told her to have a great day. I stood up and looked at my child, the child who lives for music, text messaging and chinese food. My child who no longer needs a ride on the first day of school and who will never again be bullied into hugging and kissing her Mom goodbye in the school parking lot. I turned to walk away and she said in a half asleep voice, "Momma... I love you." I looked back and saw my teenager. A kid who doesn't have a mean bone in her body, a kid with a great sense of humor, who loves her friends and even still loves her family. A kid who even though she can't remember to feed the dogs or hang up her towel is still by all accounts (not just that of her Mother) one of the greatest teenagers around!

Times... They just might be changing...

I spent my entire weekend in church. Friday night I was at a wedding rehearsal to meter the lighting for the wedding I was to shoot the next day. Saturday I arrived an hour and a half before the wedding to prepare and shoot the details. As I prepared, I watched as everyone else also prepared. The wedding planner was gathering last minute items, waiting on the caterer and lighting candles. The musician arrived and was tuning her guitar. The sound guy was setting up her mic and the cake was coming in the door. The minutes passed quickly and before I knew it, the right song was playing and I knew it was time. The candles lit, the music perfect, the pastor entered and the attendants followed. The couple’s song began and they entered the church together. Hand in hand they walked down the aisle and met the pastor at the front of the church, in front of the communion table. This wasn’t my first job as a wedding photographer, but it was my first experience in the UCC Church setting.

The pastor gave the standard announcement and the couple joined hands and prayed. There were a couple of readings and a short homily. The pastor invited the wedding guests to stand and offer their support to the couple and then the couple passed their wedding rings around the church so that every individual could bless the rings in their own way. As the photographer, all of this is kind of a blur. I am not sure if I have the order of events correct and I am not even sure if there may have been another song in there somewhere. As the photographer, you get lost in the moment of the frame and lose some of the experience....

Sunday we slept in but I made my way toward the church at 12:30 for Confirmation Class. No... I am not being confirmed at 35 years old. I was actually asked to be a confirmation mentor. A thought that still gives me pause.... Me. A confirmation MENTOR?? A MENTOR FOR A TEENAGER? I was pregnant at 17, married at 18 and divorced at 20. Ten years ago I discovered my inner Lesbian and last year ran off an married a woman! Am I really fit to be anyone's mentor? Apparently at my church they think I am. I sat in the class and listened. I listened as the kids, some wiser than they should be at fourteen talked about how they haven't been welcomed at other churches because of the religious beliefs of their parents among other things. I looked around and listened to these middle and high school students talk about what they thought prayer was, what they thought worship was and what part of worship was important to them. We talked about communion and what it means to some of us and why we think it's important to each of us as individuals. We gave our reasons and my own personal reason brought me back to the wedding on Saturday...

With the couple smiling from ear to ear, I changed my lens and the pastor prepared for communion. The communion prayer was said and everyone was welcomed to the communion table. I heard the pastor say, “No matter where you are on life’s journey, you are welcome here.” Or at least I thought I heard that, I really can’t be sure, I know I've heard it before – but at the moment when communion began – I moved to the back of the church and had one of only a handful of still moments to myself. No lens to obstruct my vision, no person making a request for a family photo, just me in the back of a church, looking at the enormous cross behind the pulpit, watching as two women were being married. Where two women were serving their friends and family communion. Where the female pastor blessed the rings and welcomed ALL to the table. Where the wedding guests came from all walks of life and all came together to celebrate the love of two people, even if those two people were of the same gender. I looked at the church, my church. I looked at the pastor, my pastor and I looked to the front of the church where my daughter and my own spouse sat and realized how unbelievably blessed I am to have found such an amazing community to be a part of.

Re-Married... Withouth a Divorce

I officially made it through my first year of marriage! I think it’s safe to say that it exceeded my expectations – because frankly, I had none. I made a great choice and hoped for the best... and it worked! In the past year we’ve had personal successes and personal failures. We’ve laughed, cried and laughed some more. All in all, it’s been a really great twelve months.

When we were originally planning our wedding we had every intention on going to the great state of Massachusetts, the only state at the time to allow and recognize same-sex marriage. However, they had a residency loophole so we decided just to do our wedding our way and legalize it some other day. Just one short year later with Massachusetts no longer requiring residency we now have FOUR states that have marched into the 21st Century and are allowing and fully recognizing same-sex marriages. So... We flew into Boston a week ago last Friday and did the tourist thing for three days. After that we headed out to Cape Cod to hang with some friends and to get RE-Married on our anniversary.

In order to get married on our actual anniversary, we needed a waiver from a local courthouse excuse us from the three day requirement Massachusetts has for marriage licenses. As we walked up to the courthouse is a VERY small town called Barnstable on Cape Cod, I could feel just the slightest bit of nervousness. I am completely open and honest about my personal life, but I have spent most of my adult life in the South and I would NOT feel good about going into the courthouse in my county with my female partner and inquiring about a marriage license.

We walked in and were greeted by a female Deputy who appeared to be straight; she smiled and asked in a very heavy New England accent if we knew where we needed to be. I told her we were there to get a waiver for the marriage license. I thought she was going to come across the table and hug us both! She smiled and told us what floor we needed to be on and what we needed to ask for. She congratulated us and sent us on our way. In the court clerk’s office, we received the same response and had our waiver signed by the judge in less than 20 minutes. We proceeded to the Town Clerk's office in the town we planned to marry in and received an almost warmer response with the clerk offering up romantic spots for walks along the beach.

Lisa and I finished preparing for our "Re-Marriage" feeling a little surprised and also a little saddened. We were surprised that EVERYONE we came in contact with; male, female, old, young – they all gave us the same response – sincere congratulations and well wishes. At the same time we were saddened that there are 46 other states (our own home state included) that wouldn’t recognize our union and in most cases have and continue to adamantly fight against same-sex marriage.

With that, Wednesday, April 8th Lisa and I celebrated our first anniversary as a married couple saying our religious (and legal) vows with a UCC Pastor on a rock jetty in Provincetown Massachusetts. It was a lot colder on Cape Cod than it was last year in Key West but we made it through the year and now have a legal marriage license to prove it! Maybe on our second anniversary we will have recognition in our own state??

A girl can dream can’t she??

Funny Face Pancakes

It’s never been a question of whether my daughter was going to attend college, she’s always known it was an expectation and she’s always wanted to go. She’s maintained that she wants to teach since about the third grade and that is still her goal. However, while looking at my third grader, with her braids and bruised shins, far more interested in softball and soccer than school - none of that really seemed like a reality. Driving nearly 200 miles from home last Thursday to her first college visit it all suddenly seemed very real. Very real.

We left our house at 6:30 AM. The campus tour didn’t begin until 11:00 but for those of you not living in Atlanta I-75 traffic can never be underestimated. We made it through the city without even a tap of the brakes, so we knew we’d be early. We stopped on the way down at an IHop for breakfast. When Allyssa was younger, she used to love the Funny Face Pancakes. We went in to the restaurant and she was still excited to order the Funny Face Pancake. Much to her dismay, they were on the children’s menu – for kids 12 and under. We talked about the unfairness of life in general and when the waitress came Allyssa ordered the regular Chocolate Chip Pancakes – but had “a small request.” “Can you please ask them to make it a Funny Face Pancake? I used to love ordering those, but they are on the kids menu.” I laughed and thought about how the lady must think the kid is crazy but then she turned to me and said, “It’s so nice to see a teenager who is still interested in being a kid.” As she turned and walked toward the kitchen I looked at Allyssa and agreed…. It is really nice.

After Allyssa’s carb overload at breakfast she promptly fell asleep in the car. As I drove in silence I realized how far away from home we were. In the physical sense, we were literally in the middle of the state and in the middle of nowhere. But in the general sense, I looked at my sleeping child and wondered where the time had gone. How on earth could I have a daughter old enough to be visiting colleges? I thought about how both our lives had changed so much in the last sixteen and a half years and how far away we were from where we had started.

We arrived in the small (VERY SMALL) college town about an hour before the tour was to start. Allyssa woke up in time to realize that we had left the city or any indication of a city in the IHop parking lot. We drove around the town to see where the important landmarks were. Target, Publix, the AT&T store, the mall… We found that all those places were thirty miles away. However, there was a Piggly Wiggly, (which is a very small grocery store) a Dollar General, CVS, Walgreens and a gas station. There were also the two token fast food restaurants right across the street from the college.

When we pulled into the parking space in front of the college, I looked around at the students and felt the lump in my throat. I closed my eyes and vowed not to start crying in front of her. We went to the information center and waited for the tour to start. We were joined by three other families and our group was led by a second year female student with an accent so thick I had to ask her to repeat herself, more than once. I looked around the campus at all the other kids. They didn’t look like my daughter. They looked older, smarter and more independent. I quickly (and sadly) realized those were things I wanted for my daughter, even though the realization stung just a tiny bit.

We learned about the schools history, the class sizes and campus life in general. We toured several of the buildings, a couple of cafeterias and one of the dorms. I learned that college kids eat a lot better than one would have thought and that unless you maintain a 3.0 you live in a co-ed dorm. I watched as Allyssa interacted and asked questions. I could see the excitement in her eyes when we toured the Drama building and looked in the theatre. My minds eye took me back to the days when she would beg me to come watch her performance of the Little Mermaid’s Under the Sea – but she didn’t know the words, so she sang it as, “I’m not a C.” Or when her very soulful (eyes closed and everything) rendition of Swing Low Sweet Chariot turned into Swing Low Sweet Cherries On. I thought of my nine year old quoting every line – voices included – to Dana Carvey’s Master of Disguise for what felt like days on end and how much I JUST WANTED IT TO STOP!!! I smiled to myself and wondered if I could get her to do just a couple of the lines again.

When the tour was over, we headed home, Allyssa grinning from ear to ear. She was very excited about the school, what it had to offer and the reality of the fact that in the fall of 2010, she’ll be a college student if not there, somewhere. I was genuinely happy for my daughter but as she went back to sleep somewhere around Macon, I went ahead and let the tears fall because while we have our good days and bad days just like every other family in America, not only do I really love that kid but I really like her a lot too!

Soooo??

Sooo.... it's been over a month since my last post and most of you already know, we are not pregnant. While I can almost actually HEAR the disappointment... it's okay... really. Admittedly, I was disappointed at first, but had some pretty good indications that I wasn't pregnant before the actual test. So I had about a week to get over it. We are getting prepared for another cycle. SO... keep your fingers crossed for us.

Separately, I am back on the Clomid! WOO HOO! (See post from December 19th.) Except THIS time - as luck would have it, I get to have an INCREASED dosage. Which let me tell you is EFFEN AWESOME! (I know sarcasm is hard to read in email... but if you DIDN'T get it... THAT was meant to be sarcastic.)

So this time (so far, I am only one day into the med cycle)
I've been a raging bitch, (although I could attribute that to another situation) I can't sleep, and when I actually WAS sleeping, I was having the most bizarre dreams that I am not sure that I wouldn't rather be awake. BUT the best part is I've been extremely tired since about four hours after my dose - which was at 9:00 Saturday morning. It's currently 2:00 on Sunday MORNING! Which really helps with the aggression factor.

All that to say this: No, we're not pregnant and PLEASE pray (or whatever you do) for me (AND my family's) sanity while we go on to day two of the Clomid.

Only three more days to go....

The Wait Is On

I’ve always wondered about the people that know the exact date their child / children were conceived. Are they so Type A that nothing can be spontaneous, are they working really hard at building a family or is their sex life THAT non-existent? I never really thought about the fact there is another sexless option, that is until we started going through our Quest for Baby Bailey.

Two weeks ago our journey took us to the final phase of our first cycle of treatment, the insemination. After countless vials of blood, multiple ultrasounds and hundreds of dollars, we were ready to inseminate. Since we made the decision to grow our family, I have had some pretty strong impressions of how things were going to go. Being a very traditional oldest child, Type A personality myself, I knew that every vision I had of the entire process would certainly be exactly the way things would go. I hadn’t thought much about the testing phases, or the drugs, but I had ideas about the insemination.

Surprisingly, (since I am a lesbian with friends who have become pregnant this way) I had NO real idea of how the actual insemination would be but in my minds eye it was going to be beautiful! I would wake up, get another smiley face on the little pink stick and call for the appointment. It would be a wonderfully warm day, the sun would be shining and all things in nature would be in perfect harmony as we walked into the fertility clinic. Hand in hand we’d laugh and joke about the names we discussed, visiting with other parents-to-be while we waited to be called back. The exam room would be warmer than usual and have a soft glow to it that I hadn’t noticed before. We’d briefly talk to the doctor and would lovingly look into each others eyes while the painless process was taking place. Anyone who has done it knows that is exactly how it goes, right??

Anyone who knows me knows I firmly believe that every single thing that happens in your life happens for a reason. I believe that there are lessons in everything and if you fail to learn the lesson, you’ll continue to encounter situations in which the lesson can be learned again. Knowing this, I have yet to wrap my head around this life lesson – Everything does not revolve around me AND things will not always happen the way that I think they should. (Regardless of the fact that my way is almost always the best way!!)

This is where I’ll stop. I’ve written and re-written this blog… and just didn’t really find anything interesting or amusing about the long drawn out version… so the short of it is this: The insemination was not what I expected it to be. It was raining outside, Lisa wasn’t able to join me, the room wasn’t warm and the procedure wasn’t painless. Hell, I was (hopefully) getting pregnant and they didn’t even dim the lights and turn on some music and let me tell you, for the amount of money, that (insert expletive here) should be included! Nevertheless, it’s done…. And now we wait.