383. Baby Daddy

Jumping right in and picking up from my last post. . .

THE FRO-ZONE

Mike had a vasectomy a long time ago. At my urging he stored some man juice. At the time he thought it was dumb, but I insisted. And fortunately at that time, I ruled!! Those were the days! LOL. Seriously though, I felt strongly that if something ever happened to me I didn’t want to deprive him, or some other woman, of at least having the option of having kids.

So Mike put some sperm on ice! It wasn’t that expensive to be storing it and, periodically when the bill came due Mike would talk about ending it. I kept insisting he hold on a few more years.  Then, when Kayla came into our lives as a lover and wife, we both felt, “Well, you never know.”  Even though Kayla was originally of the mindset of never having kids, we knew that mindset could change.   And right we were.

TELLING KAYLA

Kayla knew Mike had a vasectomy and her thoughts were to have a sperm donor. We purposely never told her of the Mike’s special savings account because we never wanted her to feel pressured to have to make a withdrawal. And even though she now wanted a baby, we were uncertain she would embrace the idea. Sharing this with her wasn’t easy for Mike and me. But we knew we had to tell her this was an option.

We were concerned she would feel pressured. That she would HAVE to say yes. We were also concerned the other way – that she would feel offended that we didn’t just assume that this was the way to go. Perhaps she would feel insulted such as, “Why wouldn’t I want that?” and “Why wouldn’t you want that for me?”    

While both of us were okay with whatever Kayla decided, we DID have a preference. It was our preference for Mike to be the father. We both consider Kayla a permanent presence in our life. If there is to be a child, why not Mike’s?

Mike handled the talking and there was a lot of prefacing the “surprise” with a lot of, “We support you.” So much so that she finally say, “I feel a giant ‘but’ coming, so what’s up?” Mike said something like, “It’s not a ‘but,’ it’s an ‘and.’ AND what would you say about the possibility of me being the father?”

The news made her cry. A lot. And for quite some time. And they were all happy tears. She didn’t give us an scintilla of grief for keeping this from her or from implying she had the option of saying no. This took her baby fever, and ours, from a fever to a full on possession! We all immediately went into overdrive on the planning and preparations.

I thought of stopping here and picking up on another post per my stated intentions of trying to make my posts smaller but more frequent. Oh well, that didn’t last. At least the smaller part. As for frequency, that remains to be seen (so far so good though). So. . . .

LOTS TO DO

Doctor visits! The insemination process is simple. She will have intra-uterine insemination (IUI). The date is semi-set for late July. Exact date will depend on when tests show it’s the optimal time for successful conception. If it takes on the first attempt, well — duh, baby in about nine months, around April. If it doesn’t take, we’ll repeat it and even repeat it again.

The doctor feels the chances are good as all the preliminary tests for Kayla look good and the tests done back when Mike made his “deposit” showed strong counts. But still, sometimes it can still take a few attempts. There enough Mike-spunk for probably six attempts.

In addition to the mechanics of conception, there are some legal things we are addressing. Mike is in charge of that. He has a family law attorney working on making sure everything gets addressed for everyone’s protection, especially for the child. Mike and Kayla will be the legal parents. And we will be updating wills and other things so that there is a blueprint to follow if live throws us a curve.

Family law as it pertains to non-monogamous/polyamorous parenting is in its’ infancy but evolving quickly. As the biological parents, Mike and Kayla are pretty much covered. Not being legally married can create some issues, but ones we are addressing in advance. And for me, well, we will just have to wait for laws to catch up with the wider reality of relationships.

It’s weird that the baby will have such an old father. I know, I know. You’re saying, “Jen, THAT ain’t the weird thing!” Okay, so yeah, the weird thing is my grandson will have an uncle that is younger than he is. What, that’s not it either? Then what is it?

Oh, you mean the whole, “The baby will have a dad with two submissive wives” thing? And the fact that MY husband is going to father a baby with another woman that I will take part in raising?

That’s not weird, that’s just practical. I can’t have any more babies coming out of me. That whole thing is shut-down, LOL.

It wasn’t as hard of a choice as you might have thought. I wish I was blogging back when we made this decision (which was only a few months ago) because honestly, I am so excited and at peace with this that I don’t recall all the dialogue, whether internal or with Mike and Kayla.

We’ve been reading books and articles on families raised in polyamory and we feel very much “ahead of the game” in the planning we’ve done. We’re pretty much ready!

Oh, and work-wise, Kayla plans to stay home. She will take as long as she can off, even an extended leave of absence, and then see. Maybe eventually work part-time from home, more freelance. No need to solve for this right now as we don’t know yet if the IUI will work.

WHO AM I?

We talked about titles. I mean, who am I to the baby? Kayla put that to rest and said, “You’re Mama Jen.” Works for me.

Yes, this is totally big news. The biggest! It changes the trajectory of the rest of our lives, and creates a trajectory for a soon-to-be human. We know that as the baby grows up we will have to make adjustments, but so does every family.

Oh, speaking of family. We haven’t shared this with anyone yet. Want to wait until Kayla is actually pregnant before announcing it.

Okay. Enough baby talk. Let’s talk about, oh, I don’t know… MY DD! Or more correctly, DD that’s for me! Next post.

NEXT: 384. WHAT’S UP WITH FAM AND FRIENDS