Here’s what it’s like to have to unlearn everything I thought about familymaking
BY CASSIDY BAILEY, IMAGE BY GETTY IMAGES / CANVA
The concept of a nuclear family never mattered much to me. My younger brother and I were raised by a fierce single mom in a happy home. As a pre-teen, I was introduced to the man who would soon become my generous and funny stepdad, and by the time I was 16, the three-person family unit I knew as a child had doubled to include my fearless little brother and sister, too.
So, sometimes I struggle to reconcile with the fact that my very own imagination had, until recent years, unknowingly slipped into nuclear-family mode when I pictured the job, the house, the car, the wedding, the babies and…the husband. But what does that mean for me now as a bisexual woman in a relationship with another woman?
Well, for one, it means I have to wipe the predictive version of “my family” I’ve had programmed into my brain by a heteronormative society since my childhood. And secondly, get informed about what our options are.
Fertility is personal for all women, and confusing for many, too. While I’m very much still in the early stages of learning about my options, two things sit at the forefront of the increasing conversations my partner and I are having: time and money.
Like many, I’m unavoidably aware of the biological clock my body faces as a woman who would like to have children. Now, in a same-sex relationship, conception itself simply takes longer than it can for heterosexual couples, limiting – however slightly – the years we have to conceive through other methods.
There’s also a high cost, higher than natural conception certainly, associated with these options. And that’s as well as the cost of raising a child. I think it could be easy to find myself soaked in bitterness about this, when all I want is the same chance to have a family as anyone else, but I remain patient and hopeful.
While I know there are logical steps to follow to begin the journey to creating our family when my partner and I are ready, I have decided to give myself grace and time to adjust.
There’s also a third thing that having a different view of parenthood now I’m in a WLW relationship, means. I can enjoy that I picture something new now – and I’m outrageously excited. It’s good different. It’s exciting different. It’s “I can’t wait to raise a child that’s half mine and half hers in all the ways that really matter” different.
Sometimes I still catch myself imagining my future child with my green eyes, but her dark brown hair, my round cheeks and her delicate hands. But then I think, whether they look like me or her or unlike either of us, I hope they’ll have her creative mind and exceptional calmness. I hope they have my passion for reading and desire to know and learn from all people.
The family I have one day may look different now that I’m in a queer relationship. Yes, getting there might be more of a challenge in terms of time and money, but the roots have already been planted. If love were water, we’d have buckets to pour on our relationship. Until one day, in the not-so-distant future, it begins to bud for the upcoming bloom.
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