Welcome to the second edition of Baby Steps, my little blog about a human baby that will be born in February and will live in our home and eat our food and cry all night but also, ideally, look very cute in onesies! Last time we talked about how we got pregnant and today we’re talking about how we told people and how, as we discovered on a trip home to see Gretchen’s family, the topic of pregnancy has a lot of potential when it comes to having conversations and strengthening ties with heterosexuals.
But first — in Baby Steps #1, I invited questions and suggestions and one of them was “I’d love to hear more about Gretchen’s journey from not wanting to be a parent to being one.” So let’s start there!
Gretchen’s Journey From Not Wanting To Be a Parent To Being One
by Gretchen
Let me start with the caveat that I’ve always loved kids. In general, kids tend to really enjoy me too, although I’ve never taken an official poll. Part of this is practice — I was a lifeguard and a swim coach for a decade, and that involved kids all day long, sunrise to sunset, all summer, every summer. Not being a mom by any stretch, but a lot of training to see if I’d be the right fit for a full-time role.
There wasn’t any point in my training where I thought, Ok yes! I’m ready for a lifetime subscription. I’m the only gay person alive who hasn’t been to therapy, so I’ve got no clue what’s going on in the dark recesses of my soul, but if I had to take a guess, it would be my kid ownership aversion had more to do with a broad fear of commitment than a fear of parenting. So what changed?
- I got a dog.
- I got sober.
- I got a girlfriend (Upgrade: Wife)
The dog.
Probably you’re thinking I got a normal dog who does normal dog things and that helped me to see I could love something outside of myself. You are wrong. I did not get a normal dog who does normal dog things. I got the world’s neediest dog. The most dog that has ever dogged in the history of dog. If scientists could peer inside my dog’s brain they would see fireworks and car explosions, bombs dropping and volcanos erupting. When I adopted her at 8 weeks old they said her mom had pretty serious behavioral problems, and I thought so what? So does mine!
Penn’s love language is mauling. She will jump on your face and nip at your ears and rip off your shirt and stick her whole head in your armpit before you even get the chance to ask “Oh, what type of dog is it?” She isn’t a type, she is wholly original, the first of her kind. Penn is easily one of the worst dogs I’ve ever met, and I’ve never loved anything more in my whole stupid life. I can’t take her to many places, I can’t have people over, she’s contracted all sorts of expensive and rare illnesses that perplex even the brightest vets, MANY doctors have urged me to consider drugging her FULL TIME, and yet. AND YET! I LOVE HER SO MUCH. If I can love a dog like this, I started to really wonder how much could I love a BABY.
The drinking.
Before July 2021, I loved getting drunk. When I wasn’t drinking, I was either hungover, or really looking forward to being drunk again. I was still showing up for my life, but I wasn’t really all that invested. My rock bottom was a nightmare with consequences I am still unpacking today, but ultimately, it saved me. Today I’m over three years sober. Having a wife and a family is, in large part, sponsored by Sobriety™. Sobriety™: Start your free trial today!
The wife.
Sobriety and a dog are wonderful but the real tipping point for me was my wife Riese. Riese is so sure I am going to be a great parent. Who told her this? Where did she get this idea? No one knows. Still, her confidence in my child-rearing abilities is unwavering. I’m not sure when it happened, but over the course of our relationship, a concept that had, for decades, sounded terrifying suddenly sounded pretty fucking cute. A LITTLE FAMILY WITH MY BEST GIRL. Maybe that’s what happens when you’re with the right person. You’re empowered to do all sorts of incredible acts of blind faith. The other day Riese made a salad that was just like, cantaloupe and cucumbers and tomatoes and several herbs of multiple varieties? Fucking weird. Was I really skeptical? Yeah. But did I eat it? UH YEAH I DID. AND IT WAS ACTUALLY PRETTY GOOD. That’s life. Doubting the recipe, and knowing deep down you should try it anyway.
I don’t think we’ll make that salad again though. It took like three hours. I’m pregnant. I can’t wait three hours for cantaloupe.
Note from Riese: this is the salad
And I Am Not Telling You: How and When We Told The First People That We Told
everything is back to being by Riese now
I was definitely less eager to tell other people than Gretchen was, although not telling people is so isolating. Every time we told anybody, I’d panic internally that this was another person who we’d have to follow up with if anything went wrong. I remembered how grateful I’d felt after my miscarriage that I’d only told a few people. This time, until the end of the first trimester — I told Laneia. Just Laneia. That was it.
At 13 weeks, two major things happened: Gretchen was allowed to get her hair done (she was very upset about her roots) and we told our Moms. My Mom is a lesbian so everything made sense to her, but we had a lot to explain to Gretchen’s family about how exactly she became pregnant.
That weekend was our friend Lucy’s birthday party which’d be attended by most of our 9-person group chat and Gretchen really wanted to tell them — these are the human beings who realistically will be the most present in our kid’s life. They’re also the people we’d had to lie to about why we didn’t go see Twisters 4-D. You could argue (and I have when attempting to promote a very niche Halloween costume idea) that in fact we are the Bette and Tina of the group, the first of the queers to make a baby.
So we gathered our small cadre of close friends in Lucy’s little living room while beer pong and pizza continued raging outside and we told them and everybody was just so fucking happy for us, and also for themselves. Childcare was generously volunteered. There was just so much joy and so much love. “I need to get a carseat!” Lucy exclaimed. “Should we all apply for parental leave?” Rachel asked.
We now call it the “group baby” and everybody’s eagerly anticipating their opportunity to touch his little feet.
Similarly to our group chat, it felt weird that I’d yet to tell Drew and Kayla since I talk to them all day every day. At 14 weeks, Drew was coming over for dinner so I told her and Kayla at the end of our editorial meeting the day before, like the perfectly work/life balanced person that I am.
My ex-girlfriend and now-close-friend Tara — who I’d been talking to about the whole fertility journey we’d been on for the past few years, as her (now ex) wife also was getting pregnant via ART in her 40s, and had endured multiple miscarriages — also visited me that week, and I told her. We were driving to The Broad and she teared up and said she was so happy for me and wished she could hug me without risking a traffic accident.
(To step out of the timeline for a minute — I didn’t tell anyone else until after 20 weeks, except my therapist and people we saw in person together in LA. Miscarriage trauma aside, I do think it would’ve felt easier or more natural for me to tell people if I’d been the pregnant one or had provided sperm, even though I know that’s a very heteronormative feeling I should not be having! Was I unjustly haunted by the ghost of Melvin Porter’s response to Bette announcing Tina’s pregnancy in episode 106 of The L Word? Let me know in the comments.)
At 15 weeks, the night before we were flying to Philadelphia to visit Gretchen’s family and undoubtedly tell even more people — my dog, the love of my life, my best friend and esteemed chihuahua Carol Aird Bernard Sullivan — was hit by a car and killed while under the care of a dogsitter.
Which brings us to our first pregnant journey to see straight family members and friends.
From Awkward Silences to Baby Talk: The Social Miracle of Pregnancy
Riese: Whenever you’re going to visit your family you have like, a few stories in your pocket of what you’re gonna talk about. Historically with your family, we leaned on our gay kickball league a lot, since sports are a universal language. So we were heading to Pennsylvania with these two things to talk about, and one was the best news ever —
Gretchen: And one was the absolute worst news ever.
Riese: But it was also really interesting because since I’ve been a grown up, being gay and living in various cities and working online, whenever I’d venture outside of my little bubble, there wasn’t a ton about my life that was compelling conversation fodder, because it is so gay, and so online, and so specific politically. You know what I mean?
Gretchen: Right, my Mom has no idea what I do in my job. Something something the internet.
Riese: But when you come home and you’re gay, but you’re having a baby — now we’ve got some material!
Gretchen: Then the ears perk up! The heterosexuals come alive. They are like, “We know what it’s like. We can relate.”
Riese: “Pregnancy? I’ve had one.”
Gretchen: “We have done that ourselves.” And a lot of them have experienced the death of a pet. So we’d never had a more relatable life.
Riese: But also, no one believed you about being pregnant.
Gretchen: They definitely believed us about the dog because we couldn’t stop crying. But the thing about saying you’re pregnant when you’re me is that everything I say sounds just vaguely sarcastic. But this begs the question, in what world is a joke, “I’m pregnant,” funny? What’s the punchline?
Riese: Well you do like to fuck with people a little bit. So I think they thought that was what you were doing, but I’m also just like….. “That wouldn’t really be that funny.”
Gretchen: That would be messed up.
Riese: It would be kind of weird!
Gretchen: So what I learned is people think I’m weird.
Riese: And that you make really bad jokes, apparently.
Gretchen: Really, really bad jokes.
Riese: Really half-baked jokes with no real punch to them.
Gretchen: “I’m pregnant,” bu-dum-bum! Isn’t that hilarious? What’s the punchline? Yeah, so a lot of me announcing I’m pregnant to people is convincing them that I am, that truly I am. It really did happen, and it’s happening.
Riese: My favorite part was at the restaurant when your friend didn’t believe that you were pregnant. And your mom was like, “Stand up. Show them the bump, stand up.” And there’s no bump.
Gretchen: Flat as a board.
Riese: Everyone was just looking at you like, “Is this the joke?” But once they knew we were serious, everyone was just so excited for us. Which has been our experience through all of it.
Does the Baby Know When You Are Sad?
Riese: Then there was the Carol of it all. This intense loss we were grappling with at the same time that we were anticipating this enormous gain.
Gretchen: Eventually I did Google, “Can the baby feel sad if you’re crying all the time?”
Riese: It turns out they can.
Gretchen: So I told Riese, I said, “I am really sad about this, but we’re going to have to pull it together a little.” The velocity at which tears were shooting from my face—
Riese: Yeah, I’ve never seen you cry like that before.
Gretchen: I was just starting to get concerned that that level of intense feeling was going to impact the kid, which I know sounds a little crazy. But I think a lot of things have shifted about how I do and behave in the world now, where I have to think, “What’s this going to do to this human life that is swimming around in there?”
It’s weird. … I’m not moved on. I’m never going to be. It’s the saddest thing. It’s awful. But I think I had to learn how to keep it a little bit more in check because I felt like, ultimately, I have a job.
Riese: Part of what was hard was that I had definitely visualized Carol and the baby existing at the same time.
Gretchen: Yeah, of course.
Riese: I was so excited for really cute pictures of Carol and Banana! And I was just really excited for the relationship that would blossom.
Gretchen: Me too.
Riese: While, meanwhile, we are genuinely concerned that your dog will kill the baby.
Gretchen: Correct.
Riese: It was weird because I was reconnecting with a lot of people after Carol died — friends reaching out who I’d not talked to in a while, even family — and was talking to them about this huge thing, while not talking about this other huge thing! Because how do I just randomly bring that up, you know? Especially when people asked me if I’d get another dog. Because if not for the baby, I’d 100% be immediately adopting a Carol Junior. So instead there is just a hole in our hearts that will never be filled.
Gretchen: I’m going to cry again!
Participating In the Normal Structures of Family Life On This Earth
It does feel, truly, so weird, because pretty much since I started my life as a chaotic queer blogger in my mid-twenties, I’ve struggled to talk about it with anyone outside of my bubble. I could talk about our gay camp, or my gay website, but there wasn’t much my conversation partner could contribute. My work and personal problems were often too niche to effectively or engagingly communicate, or it was stuff I actually really couldn’t talk about — the few years of attempting pregnancy, Gretchen’s sobriety stuff. I also worked so much that there was rarely much happening in my life besides, well, work. Now, suddenly, there is so much to say! We moved in together, my dog was killed, Gretchen’s pregnant, we got married.
In 2015, my ex and I got engaged, moved to Michigan and bought a house and I felt, then, too, this sudden opening up around me, coupled with a new willingness within me to lean into conversations with people outside of my bubble. Suddenly there was house stuff and wedding stuff and that was so much stuff! But (obviously) that ended, and what ensued was not just more complicated, but also very depressing.
I don’t mean any shade to straight people when I say that suddenly there’s so much to talk to them about now because honestly, I really like it. I love having this familiar structure, this world-worn topic we can dine out on together that enables me to connect more closely with people I love who I’ve often felt distant from. It’s a jumping off point, anyhow, a baseline of understanding on which a lot of the weirder things about my life weave their way in, naturally.
Yes, I do think sometimes about queer theorists have approached this topic. I think about how, as Sarah Schulman writes, “social legitimacy exists only in the realms in which we resemble straight people and their concerns,” and how parenthood and marriage both become a way of making our lives legible to heterosexuals and The Family Unit, even if our version of those institutions have their own structures and nuances. I know it’s a politically fraught scenario. But in reality, in practice? It’s actually really nice.
Through loss and through this incredible future gain, I’ve been able to reconnect with so many people I’d lost touch with, and connect more with straight and queer friends who’ve also had kids. And then also there’s this, here, now, with all of you. That’s pretty nice too!
Again I remain so eager and excited to hear from you in the comments with any questions or suggestions! For people who’ve been through this before — how did you tell people and when? Has pregnancy changed your relationship to the heterosexual world?
Comments
First of all, Gretchen! No therapy?? Never?? You seem so well-adjusted I’m in shock. Second of all, even as the president of the Penn fan club I can acknowledge she is difficult. Third of all, dying at the melon salad.
yes luckily despite no therapy she is 100% mentally well adjusted in all areas. and one thing that happened with the salad is it made me reconsider melon which i had previously scorned, so that’s personal growth
This is such a great piece, I will definitely be coming back to re-read this column in the future if I ever end up starting a family. In the absence of any sage parenting wisdom to share, I’ll instead say that it’s extremely valid to be haunted by Melvin and his complete disdain for Miss Kennard!
thank you for your validation ❤️
miss kennard haunts my dreams :(
Gretchen, fear of parenting being actually a fear of commitment. Interesting! That dinged something in my brain. Thank you.
i will hear him say “miss kennard” at least daily for the rest of my life
This was my question! Thank you for a helpful and entertaining response Gretchen :o) No therapy is quite a gay achievement! Though I will say that we used a couples therapist to support us through a tough life patch and it made our relationship so much better so it’s definitely worth it to unlock new levels of joy which have continued though life outside of our marriage has continued to hurl rocks at us. Plus you discover how many assumptions you make about how life works that are very yours/your families/culture and NOT the same as your partner, which is fascinating.
I totally relate to the answer – cats were a required condition of marriage and as it turns out, the anti-cat press was totally wrong and they’re loving and adorable. My wife is also convinced I’ll be a great parent for reasons that are not entirely clear to me. Though babies do happily stare at me a lot (which is evidence that could go either way but I think is hair related vs “you’re evil”).
I work in HR so a large part of my job is parents complaining at me about how hard it is. That has not been enticing, but more recently we’ve had multiple friends talk about how awesome it is, which was very helpful in my journey to not thinking this is a terrible idea.
PS: if you truly are the Bette and Tina of the friend group, please include the transcript of the inevitable intervention in a future episode of this series.
unfortunately / fortunately we’re not that kind of bette + tina — just the kind that are the first to have kids! and where gretchen is slightly shorter than me and has the same haircut as tina did back then and i am often similar to bette in ways that aren’t fantastic but nevertheless are what they are…. i think our version of the intervention will be the baby shower lol, because gretchen doesn’t like to be the center of attention….
I’m not pregnant right now (I’m sure I might be in the future), but I totally relate to having more to talk about with straight people when it comes to wedding planning! My fiancée and I are getting married in May, and all the straight folks in our lives are like WEDDING PLANNING. LET’S TALK ABOUT EVERY DETAIL OF IT. Which is fine and often fun! But sometimes exhausting and anxiety-inducing. (Has anyone ever planned a wedding and felt like they were always on top of things??) It’s funny that it’s one of the things that straight couples latch onto as a topic of conversation.
(Also, congratulations Riese and Gretchen, I’m so happy for y’all and Banana!)
thank you!!!!!
yes! my ex’s family even made us a wedding pinterest board lol, it was the talk of the town — even though we hadn’t done a single thing to make it happen ourselves yet.
In the last year I have: bought a house, gotten married, gotten a niece via my sister, and adopted a dog. And absolutely there is suddenly soooo much more to talk about! With straight people yes, but all people really. As someone who can’t stand small talk, I agree it really is nice to have some built in safe topics of conversation that I literally always want to talk about!
congratulations on all of the above! right, i HATE small talk and am also extremely bad at it, i would avoid phone calls ’cause I couldn’t think of what i would talk about on the phone call, even if i really wanted to hear from the person i was talking to. with my close friends i’ve known forever who don’t live in LA, there’s always tons to catch up on ’cause i can get into the details. but with like — randomly having dinner with my partner’s cousin who’s in town! my hairdresser!, people i just met at a party! stuff like that, it’s just so much easier with all this material. i didn’t realize how my fear of “nothing major to add” was contributing to my already constant social anxiety.
This thing you are experiencing in regards to your “straight community”and your queer one will only continue too. My weekends are divided into spending time with my queer softball team and playground play dates with my toddler’s preschool class and their straight parents (the gay dads never show). It’s definitely a very odd experience in a lot of ways. The two social groups are vastly different and my wife and I probably act a bit differently depending on who we are with.
Also, as my wife and I share some physical attributes (similar build, hair color, height, etc) as each other (and seems you both do as well), get ready to enjoy all of the straight parents never knowing which of you is which.
Have you both decided what you want your kid to call you? We didn’t figure it out until ours started talking!
im curious – what does your kid call you?
my spouse is non-binary (they/them) and not really that interested in binary titles – we were thinking pear (for parent) for them when the kid’s a little older but i think they’re happy with whatever babbling (e.g. dada) the baby calls them at first. i use she/they pronouns and like the title of mom for myself when they’re older but idk if i like mama or mami or even dada myself? i just wonder how much influence we actually will have over what they call us as a little baby first learning to talk?
My nb partner uses “Baba” as an alternative to the usual Mama/Dada early parent names; it’s also very easy to say for the littles, who will pick it up sooner than you think! And you will DEFINITELY have influence over this—our kiddo is not yet old enough to correct people, but is confused when other people use “Dada” or “Dad” in their binary reading of my partner. We also know two other nb parents, one other Baba and a Bibi.
I go by mama and my wife uses mom (we both use she/her pronouns). Originally we were both mama since it’s easier to say than mom and hoped we could transition together to mom when our kid got older (since to us, mama sounds kind of babyish). But the same name thing got too confusing for him at 18 months. He started called us by our first names! It was funny for about 2 days but when they start yelling your government name when you’re sleeping at the top of their lungs, it’s less cute. So we pivoted to mama / mom. Hoping I can join on the mom train tomorrow when he is a little older and it’s easier to understand. We’ll see! Btw Pear is really sweet ❤️
haha yes, correct call on our physical similarities! i can’t wait to be mixed up <3
i actually want to be called dad but i think gretchen also would prefer to be dad and i don’t know why mom feels weird to me. maybe it will feel normal when i become one.?
first off i’m so so sorry about carol! I feel like experiencing such immense grief around the loss of a loved one is often made even harder when simultaneously holding such excitement and joy preparing to welcome a new family member into the world; i know it was a little while ago but i also know grief like that doesn’t really fade and just wanted to say i’m still sending y’all so much love <3
also because we did ivf we had some amount of reassurance around genetic testing etc and did end up slowly telling some close friends and family earlier on but i feel you on waiting to tell !! we just had a perfect 20 week anatomy scan and fetal echo (standard for ivf) but are still keeping the pregnancy much on the DL (i also barely have a bump so it's not like it's hard to hide). but idk i'm just like still mentally prepared for catastrophe? and i have not even gone through pregnancy loss (although i do think i have some small amount of 2nd hand trauma from taking care of many pregnant patients miscarrying in the ER plus also have a currently-unmedicated anxiety disorder so there is also that lol).
but i've really been debating whether to ever do a social media announcement (pregnancy vs birth vs both vs none) and am curious about y'alls take on this and your baby on (or not on) social media in general!
also question in terms of the donor stuff – i'm curious if y'all plan to connect with other families who used the same donor? we already found one who used ours and has a 5mo old now and it's really sweet but i know everyone has different feelings!
thank you, it is so hard and awful but i am glad that there’s also something positive that we’re looking forward to, as strange as it all feels sitting inside me at the same time.
and yeah we’ve had a lot of extra tests and monitoring since technically gretchen is ‘high risk’ cuz of her age and meds, and everything comes out okay — but it really wasn’t until maybe a month ago that i really fully 100% settled into “this is really happening.” also i bet you have SO much second-hand trauma from taking care of so many pregnant patients miscarrying! i feel like that would stick with me forever.
gretchen is not a social media person, she uses her account almost entirely just for her art and not for life updates or anything, and then i’m a person who started having social media accounts at all because it was part of my work and what i was expected to do for the website, for my own brand-building as a writer, etc, and then i took a step back from insta for a minute because i had some shit to work through, and carol dying was kinda the first time i used instagram as a way to communicate personal news to people in my life (me and gretchen getting married was the second time) and it was really nice to use it in that way i realized? idk, i have such a weird relationship to social media and really only realized its effectiveness as a method of sharing personal news like, a few months ago. we haven’t put this column on autostraddle instagram yet in part cuz i’m not really sure how i want to do that because i think that will in a way be the big social announcement. i think it depends so much on your own relationship to it. i do like seeing other people being pregnant and having babies though, it spreads a little joy around. i do think we’ll post when the baby is actually born. but were it not for this column, i’m not sure if we’d post about it before then. we’ve gone back and forth about it a lot and haven’t really settled on it.
donors — i do know that this is a thing but i don’t know how people actually do it… i think i’d be interested in doing it if i could though? how did you figure out that you had donor siblings?
I continue to love the shit out of this series! Because of our own history with miscarriage we kept the initial news to ourselves longer than we had the first time I got the little plus sign on the test, but I’m bad at keeping my own secrets so it didn’t last super long. When we did start telling people, it was mostly just family of origin and chosen family up until we got past the 20 week scan. Then it was kind of off to the races. Something that ended up being very interesting for me was that I’m a fat woman, and so while I do think there was a point where I was pretty clearly pregnant (especially if you knew me) there were people I worked with who were surprised to learn I was pregnant when I was talking about going on parental leave in two weeks. It was a trip.
I completely agree about being pregnant suddenly giving you something to talk to straight people about. Though the conversations are sometimes weird and fraught. I work at a queer organization that tends to skew younger and so a lot of people seemed kindly puzzled by my interest in having children. My wife on the other hand works in tech and was the only queer at her organization at the time and so had a very different experience. I think we would have liked to switch places (she’s definitely an introvert and I’m much more of an extrovert), but it was not to be. I’ve always known I wanted to be a parent and so navigating this surrounded by people who have little to no interest was weird. I will say I think the interacting with straights gets more interesting after the kid is here, because it’s like you’ve entered a secret parent club. I lock eyes with other parents now if my kid is screaming in public or their kid is melting down on an airplane and just feel a sense of kinship and “you’ve got this” energy that is so powerful. It’s also still weird sometimes (the number of people at daycares that treated the idea of having a kid with two moms as completing their bingo card was unsettling).
I also love that you kind of both want to be dad! I’ve always be good with mama/mom, but my wife was not in to it and waffled for a long time about what she wanted to be called. Ultimately she went with Momo (which is a long running joke in my family about us combining our names and also the honorific our nephews use for us) and our kiddo has just in the last few weeks really gotten good at calling us Mama and Momo. Sometimes she practices in the car or at dinner just saying each of our names and waiting for us to respond. Both adorable and exhausting. But that’s toddlers for you.
Can’t wait to read more about your journey!! <3
I also struggled with reeling in the sads! We had four deaths while I was pregnant, including my grandma, my partner’s dad, and a really good friend who was a mom of a baby and a toddler. Brutal business. I really didn’t want to tell people about the pregnancy at first because I also felt it would go away, or people would perceive me differently than I wanted to be perceived, but once the deaths came pouring in I was like, let’s look away from the void and talk about this exciting thing instead. We didn’t want to buy baby clothes because hand me downs exist, but it was big for family morale