Confessions of the Other Mother Part 5

The patient said, half jokingly, aIam going to guilt trip Dawn about leaving us.a Jill, who is a first-generation immigrant, an evangelical Christian, and whose own family structure is quite complex, turned to the patient and said, aDonat give Dawn a hard time, sheas leaving so she can spend more time with her family, and theyare whatas most important to her.a My presence in the world as a lesbian mother seemed at that moment a small, but potent, example of parenting as a subversive activity. To me that implies much hope and potential. Because while there are some who would exclude and divide us with their self-righteous and self-serving talk about family values, here on the ground, at the gra.s.s-roots level, we are living our values, respectfully coexisting, and getting to know each other bit by bit.

Life as Mama.

Suzanne M. Johnson.

There was no question which one of us would have the baby. It wouldnat be me. There was no question which one of us would stay home with the baby if we could financially aae'ord it. It wouldnat be me.

For as far back as I can remember I dreamed of getting married, having children, having a nice house in a nice neighborhood and a job that I would be proud to have. As a child I watched television shows like The Brady Bunch, The Partridge Family, Leave It to Beaver, anda"my special favoritea"Nanny and the Professor. These shows fueled my dreams of the future, dreams I a.s.sumed most girls shared. It was only much later in life that I realized most girls werenat exactly dreaming the same dream. While I imagined myself Mike Brady, or s.h.i.+rley Partridgeas next husband, or Ward Cleaver, or the Professor, my peers were identifying with Mrs. Brady, s.h.i.+rley Partridge herself, June Cleaver, or Nanny. I didnat want to be these beautiful women; they seemed to have boring lives. But I did want to come home to them. I wanted to kiss and hug them. As a child, I didnat travel much beyond the idea of wanting to live with these women like married men dida"whatever that meant.

With marriage came babies, and that is where my imagination failed me. I knew I wanted to be a parent, but from the time I was a young child, the thought of being pregnant and giving birth repelled me.

My mother always said, aOh, youall change your mind when you get older. Youall see. Youall want to have children.a At age six or seven, I knew she was wrong. It was very clear to me, despite my anatomy, society, or even my mother saying otherwise, I knew my body wasnat going to do those things. As far as I could understand at the time, I wasnat going to be a mommy. I was going to be a daddy.

Growing up in the Midwest in the 1960s, in a white, middle-cla.s.s, 101.

Protestant family, ironically enabled me to believe that I could have whatever I wanted in life. The idea that I couldnat have what Mike, Ward, or the Professor had never even occurred to me. Why couldnat I marry s.h.i.+rley Partridge? So, as a young red-blooded American girl, I set out to make my dreams come true. No doubt about it, I was a baby d.y.k.e. Luckily, I was a baby d.y.k.e who had the good fortune of being born at a time when major social changes were about to occur and medical technology was about to explode in a way that would allow me to make my dreams come true.

I met my s.h.i.+rley Partridge (my partner, Beth) in my early twenties, while we were both pursuing our Ph.D.as in developmental psychology. As a young girl, Beth had dreamed of getting married and having babies. For as far back as she could remember she had wanted to be married and have the experience of being pregnant and giving birth. As writing and academic pursuits had always been her strength, she thought it might be nice if her husband were a college professor, or at least someone who enjoyed reading and learning as much as she did. She hoped to write and be able to stay home and take care of the family she had helped create. So when we met, our hopes and dreams came together very easily. There was just one twist: I wasnat a husband.

We developed a plan to turn our dreams into reality: after we were both done with our degrees, we would start our family. The day after she defended her dissertation, Beth made an appointment with the fertility clinic. Four months later, she was pregnant.

aThere it is. Thereas your baby. Itas got a good heartbeat and itas implanted in a good location. Congratulations! Looks like youave got a good baby in there.a The doctor reached out his hand to me. I looked at him, a little surprised. I thought he would want to shake Bethas hand. The baby was in her body. On the other hand it wasnat like he wasnat in contact with her already. He had a v.a.g.i.n.al probe seemingly halfway up her body. Not to mention I had spent endless hours poring over prospective sperm donors trying to match them to me on every conceivable physical trait and characteristic. As the days pa.s.sed I had become frustrated with the process and asked Beth to pick out the donor. Her response was clear: aListen, if Iam going to go through nine months of pregnancy and labor, you can pick out the sperm donor. If you were a man I wouldnat be able to tell you what sperm to give me on any given night. This is your job.a I took the doctoras hand and gave it a hearty shake. The sperm was mine, so to speak; at least, I had picked it out.

The months that followed were filled with extreme contrasts. Within the medical world and our personal world, I was the mama to be. I went to Bethas prenatal checkups. The receptionists and doctors were always as friendly with me as they were with Beth. We were an expectant couple like any other. Our friends and families eagerly awaited the arrival of our baby. Patiently, Beth would lie down every evening and let me read to Bailey. This would become our nighttime routine, as it remains ten years later. Soon I would cut the umbilical cord when Bailey was born and be the first to hold her. After ten years of being together, Beth and I were going to be the parents of a beautiful baby girl.

In the broader world, I was nothing in relation to this developing child or pregnant woman. It was 1994, and same-s.e.x second-parent adoption wasnat yet legal in New York State. The idea of marriage or civil unions was barely being discussed in any state. The college that employed me didnat have domestic-partner coverage, so when Beth stopped working to stay home with Bailey, neither of us would have medical insurance unless we could aae'ord to pay for it ourselves. After Bailey was born these inequities were the source of even greater displeasure. While individuals could be forgiven their naiveta"when we walked down the street with Bailey in her carriage, many people would comment on how pretty she was and then ask, aWhose is she?a I was angry and hurt by the laws that failed to acknowledge my presence. How was I, Mama, any less than any other mother or father in this country? Didnat I get up every morning and go to work? Didnat I bring home my paycheck every two weeks and support the household? Didnat I pay taxes to the state and federal governments? Wasnat I a faithful spouse? Wasnat I a loving and involved parent?

Legally, I was simply single with no dependents. On a personal level, life as a mama had been everything I thought it would be, but publicly it left a lot to be desired.

Beth and I went forward, pursuing some degree of legal recognition of my status. When we first met with our lawyers they told us that the State Supreme Court of New York was expected to soon hand down its ruling on same-s.e.x second-parent adoption. They recommended that we not get our hopes up, but if a favorable ruling was given I would be able to legally adopt Bailey just like any other coparent of the opposite s.e.x could. In the meantime, we could work on drawing up papers that would approximate the protections of legal parenthood.

We were both still sleeping when the phone rang early one morning soon after that meeting with the lawyers. Beth answered, still in half sleep.

I could hear the shouting voice on the other end. aDid you see the headlines in the paper?!a Beth paused, still not quite sure who it was on the other line.

aThe state supreme court ruled in favor of same-s.e.x second-parent adoption!!a It was our lawyer calling from her car. She was on her way to the oace to start the paperwork for my legal adoption of our daughter. I looked at Bailey, still sleeping in the middle of our bed. I was finally going to be recognized for who I really wasa"her mama.

The day of the adoption seemed very businesslike to me. Bailey, not quite a year old, was completely oblivious to the legal significance of the day. I was her mama and would continue to be her mama no matter what the state said. I followed her around the waiting area as we awaited our turn with the judge. Our lawyer made small talk with Beth and me as the minutes ticked by. Although I had been waiting for this day for a long time, and even doubted that it would ever come, I found myself feeling somewhat ungrateful. Why should I have to go through all of this extra expense and time? The three of us were a family whether the state defined us as such or not. Would a piece of paper really change anything?

My feelings quickly turned once we got into the courtroom. As the judge looked at us and asked me if I planned to provide for and take care of Bailey, it occurred to me that this was the first and only public recognition of our family we ever had received. My relations.h.i.+p with Beth and my relations.h.i.+p with Bailey were finally being recognized. Tears rolled down my face. So much for me being the defiant and angry lesbian. I was extremely grateful. I was Mama both privately and publicly now. As much as I would like to say this public recognition didnat aae'ect how I felt about my role as a parent and spouse, it did. It mattered completely. I had never felt more validated about the choices I had made in my life than I felt at that moment.

My little family had settled into a quiet routine. Beth loved being home and I loved going to work. Bailey loved having two happy parents and our undivided attention. I had received tenure, successfully lobbied the college to add domestic-partner coverage, and was now able to support the family financially. I never felt jealous of Bethas time with Bailey. I could see that we each served a significant role in her life. Yes, Beth was her biological mother, but I was every bit as significant to Bailey as Beth. My early mornings, evenings, and weekends were filled with aBailey time.a People who knew us well knew we were living life exactly as we had hoped, and the way that was best for us and Bailey. Then came baby number two.

I call Rowan our stealth baby. Much like a stealth aircraft, she flew in under the radar in more than one way. I know thatas hard to believe, since two lesbians canat spontaneously produce a child by accident, but in many ways Rowan was a surprise. It was the summer of 1996 and Bailey was approaching her second birthday. We had always planned to have two children and the time seemed right to begin trying. In my delusional belief that I can control every aspect of my life, I thought if we started inseminating during the summer, sometime in the fall Beth would conceive. My illogical logical thinking went something like this: it took us three times to get pregnant with Bailey; we were probably lucky with her; it would certainly take longer the second time; we couldnat be so lucky twice. Besides, the average number of tries it usually takes is six to nine attempts. At least I read that somewhere. So Beth becoming pregnant in the fall would be ideal. The baby would be born sometime in May or soon after, giving me plenty of time to be home with Beth, Bailey, and the new baby. (Having summers relatively free is one of the advantages of being a college professor.) So oae' we went to the clinic that June to start trying for baby number two.

Imagine my surprise when early in July Beth said, aYou know, I think I might take a pregnancy test.a I confidently responded that it would be a waste because there was no way she could be pregnant yet.

Oae' she went upstairs. Several minutes later she called from the top of the stairs. aI think you might want to look at this.a I looked up the stairs and stared at her. aBut itas only July. Youare not supposed to be pregnant yet. That would mean the baby would be born in the beginning of April. Thatas midterm time!a So much for well-laid plans.

In fact, so sure was I that our plans would go without a hitch, I had agreed to take on extra work that coming academic year for additional money. I was the sole provider now for the family and the extra cash would be helpful. It never occurred to me that the baby would come during an academic semester. How would I be able to spend time with the new baby, grading midterm exams, teaching extra courses, doing committee work, and still find time to be with Bailey and Beth?

Iam a control freak. Throw in a good amount of neuroses, and you get, I admit, something rather unpleasant at times. Beth, the more reasonable and relaxed of the two of us, comes in handy at these moments. With her rea.s.surances that everything would be fine, I began to breathe more evenly. Okay, so the baby would be born in Aprila"April 3, to be exact. The semester would be over soon thereafter, and then I would have plenty of time to be with the new baby. Sure, those four weeks or so would be hard, but I would have my time soon enough.

The night of March 2, I woke suddenly from sound sleep to find Beth standing by the bed looking down at me. aIam bleeding. Iam going to call the doctor.a So completely out of touch with what she had just said, I lay there and tried to figure out what she had been doing that would cause her to cut herself. Sheas bleeding? Had she been playing with knives? Trying to open something with scissors? Itas after midnight. What could she have been doing? Slowly it occurred to me. Oh my G.o.d, sheas bleeding!

By the time I got downstairs she was already hanging up the phone after speaking with our doctor. Beth looked at me and calmly said, aWe need to go to the hospital.a Panic immediately set in. She felt fine. There were no contractions, no pain, no other symptoms. So why was she bleeding? This wasnat in my plans, either. By the time we reached the hospital Beth was having mild contractions. Our doctor soon arrived and proceeded with an internal exam. She looked at Beth with a mildly surprised expression.

aHow are you feeling right now?a she asked. aAre you having any discomfort or pain?a Beth thought for a moment. aNo. I guess I feel a little crampy.a The doctor smiled and shook her head. aWell, youare a little over seven centimeters dilated. Youare having this baby tonight.a There was barely enough time to contemplate what dangers may or may not be facing our baby. It was one month to the day earlier than expected. Beth was quickly moved into a birthing room, the neonatal intensive care team was notified to stand by with their crash cart of emergency a.s.sistance just in case, and we all waited. The brief labor went oae' smoothly with one exception, that being my near-death experience. I guess my timing must have been oae' a bit because as one of Bethas stronger contractions came on I leaned in to oae'er her support and encouragement, just like a good mama. At the same time, she reached for the side rail of the bed to hold onto. Somehow she ended up grabbing hold of my neck, and when the contraction hit full force she started squeezing. I never until that moment realized how strong Beth was. I couldnat breathe. I mean, I really couldnat breathe. I could feel my blood trying its best to push up into my head. I started to get light-headed. The delivery nurse and our doctor looked at me, amused expressions on their faces. aHoney,a I said in a very raspy, weak voice. aHoney, I canat breathe.a As Beth pushed and panted she yelled, aI donat care!a Would I feel any diae'erently if I were in her position? Probably not. The contraction ended just as I started to see black. Beth released her grip and I could breathe again. As I looked down, out popped Rowan, one month early, healthy as could be. Now that was lucky.

Two days later Beth and Rowan were home and settling in. Bailey couldnat wait to have her mommy back and her little sister too. They were the picture of happiness. Two sweet little girls home with their mommy. My life was slowly becoming not as happy. I left home early and got home late. When I was home, I was more tired than usual because of the extra work. In the evenings and the weekends Bailey expected me to be there for her as I had been in the past, but now there was a little baby who needed as much of my attention as Bailey did. In some ways, I needed more time with Rowan than Bailey. I needed to establish a relations.h.i.+p with our new daughter. I felt like I didnat have the time I wanted and needed with any of them.

Beth got to be home all the time with the girls. She was seeing all the changes in Rowan with each day that pa.s.sed. I had hardly had a chance to look at her. Beth was able to play with Bailey each day. I felt my close bond with Bailey become distant. My dream of being a mama was beginning to not feel as good as it once had. I started to feel that being 100 percent available to my job, Beth, and our daughters was more than I could handle. No wonder so many fathers are remotely involved in their childrenas lives. No wonder so many marriages fail when there are young children involved. Itas hard to find time for each other when youare juggling work and parenting and a relations.h.i.+p at the same time.

I felt overwhelmed. I started to feel jealous of Bethas time with the children. I felt jealous of the fact that she didnat have outside responsibilities. She could give herself completely to the children. Itas not that I wanted to be home instead. I just wanted to be able to have as much time with them as she had. I was their mama. I didnat want to be the daddy, in the traditional sense of the word. Surprisingly, I wanted to be the mommy, without staying at home.

Those several months until the spring semester ended were some of the worst months ever in my life as a mama. I realized that my dreamed-about role as the working-outside-the-home parent wasnat all I had imagined it to be. Whether it was my rearing in 1960s Middle America, my own personal desires, or both, I felt the need to be home with my children more than I ever thought I would. The only little problem was, now what? Beth had oae'ered to go back to work part-time or full-time but I knew her heart really wasnat in it. That wasnat a solution. That would just create a diae'erent problem.

We came up with the answer early one morning in July. Bailey was almost three, and Rowan was now a big four months old. I had angrily gone to take a shower after watching the morning news, having just heard yet another talking head insinuating that people who are gay and lesbian (or as it was so dehumanizingly expressed on the air, athe gaysa) couldnat be good parents. My desire to set the world straight (pardon the pun) was overwhelming. I was tired of hearing my family maligned in the media. I was tired of hearing how two women or two men couldnat eae'ectively raise a healthy child. I looked through the shower door and saw Bailey playing on the floor, waiting for me patiently. Beth and Rowan had come in for a diaper change at some point as well. There they all were.

Out of the blue I said, aYou know, Beth, we should write a book. It seems like every day we hear something negative said about gay and lesbian parenting. Weare both developmental psychologists and weare lesbian parents. We know child development. We know about family functioning. We also know a thing or two about being lesbians. Who better to write about being lesbian parents than us?a When I said it, I was only half serious. It was more of a reaction to the momentary frustration with the world than a well-thought-out plan.

But Beth looked at me and said, in all seriousness, aYouare right. We should.a Her words just hung in the air. What had I said? Should we really write a book? Did we really have anything to oae'er people that they couldnat already get from someone else? As the steam circled around me it all became clear: we would write a book.

I cut back on my teaching and committee work that fall to make time to piece together ideas for a book, which soon turned into two books. We became a bit more frugal with our budget to compensate for the lost income, and I got more days at home to write, with the girls surrounding me in the background. But at least I was home. We set up a routine where Beth and I would alternate times in the day for writing. When Beth would write, I was the full-time mommy. We slowly started gluing my job and my family closer together. My fears of not living up to my expectations of being the parent I wanted to be and the life I wanted to live slowly fell away.

No more were there Mama jobs and Mommy jobsa"much to my childrenas initial dismay. The laundry didnat always get put back in the right places: aMama, these arenat my socks.a aMama, Mommy doesnat put my underwear in that drawer.a My cooking wasnat like Mommyas: aIt doesnat taste like this when Mommy makes it.a aI donat like it when one food touches another food on my plate!a aI donat like my sandwich cut down the middle. It has to be diagonal. I like triangles, not rectangles.a I did things in diae'erent ways than Mommy: aMommy always washes our hair first, not our bodies.a aMommy doesnat always make us wash our hands after we come inside from playing.a They got more used to me being at home and my peculiar ways. At the same time, I got more used to them in public and being the most out lesbian, next to Ellen, in my suburban world. When youare out and about in town with your children, most everyone refers to you as aMommy.a As in, aGive this to your mommy,a or aIsnat that nice, youare helping Mommy.a The comments are innocent enough, but in our family thatas not my name. So my daughters would frequently correct anyone and ev eryone who made that mistake.

aThatas not my mommy. Mommyas at home. Thatas my mama.a In case anyone in the entire tri-state region did not know Iam a lesbian, they did now. This would include the cas.h.i.+er at every store where we shop, the librarians at the public library, the Gymboree teachers, and complete strangers we would pa.s.s on the street who might have reason to talk to us. I quickly got used to being outed by my children and to the reactions others had. Interestingly, the most frequent initial response was permission (aWell, thatas okaya), followed by validation (aWell, arenat you lucky to have two mommies!a), at which point my children would correct them once again. aNo, I donat have two mommies. I have one mommy and one mama.a As time went on we settled in. After a while the girls started to catch on to my special strengths: aWe like it when you go grocery shopping. You get more treats.a aI like it when itas Mamaas day because we go for walks.a aWe like it when youare home because you watch cartoons with us.a aCan we go to the zoo today? How about the aquarium? Well, we havenat been to the Museum of Natural History in a while. Camon, Mama, you know you want to go.a Juggling more equally my role as provider and parent gave me the time I needed and wanted with the girls and gave them more time with me. And Beth? She got to become the writer she wanted to be.

For the next five years Beth and I divided work and family fairly evenly. We probably both worked harder during those years than we ever had, but somehow it didnat seem like it. We were both able to do what we loved. My life as a mama took on dimensions that I thought I would have never wanted, dimensions that I looked at unfavorably and uncomfortably when I was younger. How could I be content doing laundry? How could cooking for my family be a rewarding experience? How could I be satisfied just spending the day with my children, painting and drawing? The notion of being a ahousewifea like June Cleaver, Mrs. Brady, s.h.i.+rley Partridge, or Nanny had such negative connotations to me. This wasnat the mama I thought I desired but I discovered that it was part of the mama I wanted to be. I didnat want to be just Mike Brady, or the husband of s.h.i.+rley Partridge, or Ward Cleaver, or the Professor. In real life, those men were detached from their children. They were the providers for their families, period. They werenat really a parent to their children, beyond providing material goods. Thatas not a parent, and thatas not a mama.

Soon after our second book was published, Rowan started school. For the first time in nearly eight years Beth and I found our weekdays, ten months out of the year, totally kid free. Many of our friends suggested that we might have gone about doing things in a diae'erent order.

aGee, do you think it might have been easier to write these books if you waited until they were in school?a they asked.

Maybe, but if we had I wouldnat have become the mama I wanted to be.

When I started thinking about writing this piece, I asked our daughters, who are now ten and seven, a question Iave been wondering about myself. Whatas the diae'erence between a mommy and a mama?

Rowan quickly answered, aWell, mommies have the babies and mamas marry the mommies.a aAnything else?a I asked.

aWell.... mamas write and sign papers and mommies donat have to. You know, that adoption thing?a I smiled and said, aYes, I remember that adoption thing.a Bailey sat quietly, thinking about my question. aI donat know, Mama. Thatas like asking whatas the diae'erence between a chicken egg and an alligator egg. Theyare both eggs. Youare both moms. I donat think there is a diae'erence.a I couldnat have said it better.

Mr. Anonymous.

Nancy Abrams.

I am standing at the dairy case at Whole Foods Market, cradling a quart of organic whole milk in my hand, when I see him. He stands not three paces away, handling a block of cheese.

He hasnat seen me, I am certain. I take advantage of this momenta" while he is engrossed in the task of reading the label on what looks like a wedge of Jarlsberga"to watch him. I take in his solid height (about six feet tall), his posture (standing straight, but not stiae'), and his overall appearance (heas wearing a pair of jeans and a cotton jersey). But Iam not interested merely in what he wears or how he stands. My knowledge of him is far too intimate for that.

The slight downward swoop at the corner of his dark eyes is as familiar to me as my own face. I know the wet-sand color of his hair as if it were my hair. And standing this close to him, I suddenly recall the marine smell of his most private moments; a secret knowledge I share, most likely, only with his wife.

How I have yearned for him in the years that have piled between us. So many things Iave longed to tell him. For starters: Our daughter is sixteen years old now.

He drops the wedge of cheese into his basket and lifts his head toward me like someone who suddenly senses he is being watched. I am intentionally slow in withdrawing my gaze. I want to be caught.

He sees me and I recognize in his look the absent air with which one views a total stranger. I grab hold of my cart, knowing I have no right to feel scorned, and steer into the health and beauty aisle, where at last I can breathe.

113.

A few months after our daughter was born, my partner brought home a newspaper clipping and put it on the table in front of me. I was eating my lunch and looked without comprehending at the one-column photo she was pointing to. The light-complexioned man who was half-smiling was a stranger to me.

aThatas him,a she said.

Below the picture there was a short article about the store he managed three towns over from where we lived. I donat remember what it was about anymore. Maybe he had launched a unique sales promotion or maybe head won some civic award. I donat remember because I pushed the article away without reading it.

aI donat care,a I said, bitterness draping my words. aHeas irrelevant to me.a I wished those words to be true. I wished he were nothing more to me than the cow that gave up its milk for my tea. He, too, had provided me and my family with a life-giving fluid. I was grateful for that, I admitted to myself. Thanks to him, my partner and I had been able to start our family.

The night our daughter was conceived, a friend rang our front doorbell and handed me a wool sock shead carried under her down parka, close to the heat of her belly. She had been keeping warm the small puddle of liquid contained in an otherwise empty jar that she had slipped into the bulging sock.

I was sorry my partner and I had to go to so much trouble to stir new life into being. I was sorry we couldnata"sorry I couldnata"achieve this magic trick with my own power. But I accepted the jar and oae'ered a hasty goodbye to our friend, who was part of a chain of contacts consciously created so that we would never know the ident.i.ty of the man from whom wead acquired this gift. We couldnat aae'ord a sperm bank and we felt, back then, like we couldnat aae'ord to wait either. I rushed upstairs to the bedroom, where I giddily performed the act that would change all of our livesa"forever.

He didnat want to know us either. He planned to have a family of his own one day, we heard through our intermediary, and he didnat want the responsibility of someone elseas family too. This suited our needs perfectly. We didnat want to have to worry about him coming around someday a.s.serting patriarchal privileges in our matriarchal world.

I was particularly concerned about his remaining anonymous. I didnat want him around: not physically, not in my imagination. I didnat want his presence to remind me that I was linked neither by biology nor law (this was 1988, before two-parent adoptions, before civil unions and legal gay marriage) to my daughter.

I stared down at the newspaper clipping on the table before me. aWe agreed not to try to find out who he is,a I reminded my partner that day.

aIt was an accident. Rose was reading the paper and she saw the picture. She blurted it out without thinking.a Rose had been one of the friends wead charged with helping us to find an anonymous donor: A man with a clean bill of health and no qualms about staying out of our lives.

I made a move to grab the article. I meant to crumple it in my fist, to tear it from our lives. But my partner s.n.a.t.c.hed it from me. aOne day she might want to know,a she said, nodding her chin toward the closed bedroom door, behind which our infant daughter was napping.

In a Friendlyas restaurant some twelve years later, my daughter looked up from her laminated menu and asked me to tell her. By then her mother and I had been split up for a decade. It wasnat the harmonious divorce Iad hoped for. My partner, it turned out, suae'ered from mental illness. The quirks and extreme behaviors Iad written oae' as her aartistic streaka became more and more troublesome. In fact, they became intolerable.

Because I was related by neither blood nor law, I was at her mercy. I couldnat win when she denied me visiting privileges. I couldnat get custody of my daughter even when it was clear that my ex could no longer parent her.

On the occasion of this dinner at Friendlyas, my ex and I were on civil terms. My daughter was visiting for the summer, and we had been shopping for back-to-school clothes. Iad given in to her request for a dinner of a Friendlyas Fribble and french fries.

aJust tell me what he looks like,a she begged.

I tried to recall that tiny picture Iad glimpsed. aI donat know,a I said. aYour mother and I agreed the whole thing would be anonymous.a aMom says she knows who he is,a my daughter persisted.

aThinks she knows,a I said. In the years since, Iad convinced myself there was no way to be certain. There were two intermediaries, and wead used two diae'erent donors that month. We couldnat really be sure. That is, unless we compared that face in the newspaper clipping to the one that stared at me across the table.

aI wish youad asked me whether this should be anonymous,a she said, dragging a fry through a sea of ketchup. Her eyes looked sad, the way his did.

There were times when Iad stood before judges, begging for the right to see my daughter, times I appeared in court trying to regain custody so I could protect her from the insidious mental illness that pushed her other mother to make irrational decisions on our daughteras behalf, times I wished he would rush into the courtroom and declare his ident.i.ty. When a lawyer told me I didnat have a chance or when a judge said she had no reason to hear my case because I was a biological stranger in the eyes of the court, I thought of the one person who could succeed where I was destined to fail. In my desperation to be able to protect my daughter from the whims of her biological mother, I wished time after time that her biological father would seek us out; that he would shed the cloak of anonymity Iad so eagerly wrapped him in, and exercise the power of blood that I lackeda"for our daughteras sake. In my fantasy, after successfully wresting custody from my ex, he would transfer it to me, in exchange for an occasional Sunday visit.

Now here we were: he and I, wandering the aisles of the grocery store, more or less together. My daughter had been living with me for a couple of yearsa"her choice. I didnat need him to rescue me from regressive laws now. But I still needed him. A full-blown teenager, my daughter was strong willed and defiant. She was going to parties and breaking curfew. My democratic approach to mothering her was being tested and I became wistful for the authoritarian approach a coworker, a man who had been raised in a traditional culture with hard lines of right and wrong, took with his daughters. One day when I complained about the diaculties of raising a teenage girl, he shared his strategy with me. The night his daughteras first boyfriend was to pick her up for a date, my friend sat in the living room, polis.h.i.+ng his gun.

aPapi,a his daughter cried, athis is not a good time for you to clean your gun.a My friend looked at her as the doorbell rang.

aDaughter,a he said, as he glimpsed her suitor through the screen door, athis is a very good time for me to clean my gun.a Maybe, I thought, a father could succeed where I feared I was failing.

As I head to the checkout counter I look once more at my daughteras donor. Surely he doesnat own a gun, I tell myself. He wouldnat be the authoritarian father who could keep my daughter out of trouble.

His cart is filled with vegetables, fruits, bread, cheese, cartons, and bottles that crest over the top of the metal basket. He must still be married. He might have a child (another child) or maybe two or three. I could tap him on the shoulder and ask, aDo you know who I am?a I could say, aYour daughter has needed you.a I could say, aIave needed you.a Or, aThe judge would have listened to you. We could have gotten her sooner.a But I say nothing. He swipes his card through the credit card reader and pushes his cart toward the automatic door. It opens for him without a sound, and without a sound, it closes.

PART 2.

Mucking with the Stuff: Two Nonbios Become Bio, and Two Bios Turn Non.

TWJL.

Judy Gold.

When my elder son, Henry, was born, my mother didnat know what to tell her friends. All of a sudden she had a new grandson, and I hadnat given birth. Also, by that time, my partner, Sharon, and I had been together for a mere twelve years, so naturally my mother thought no one had any idea what was going on between us.

She told her friends, aJudithas roommate had a baby and Judith adopted him.a Yeah, Mom, we were splitting the rent, and I said, aOh, I should probably pay for half of that kid too, I mean itas an expense, right?a I just couldnat understand how she thought people would buy that story. She might as well have said, aJudithas roommate, sheas a lovely girla"she takes in the mail when Judith travelsa"well, she was walking down the street and there was this hypodermic needle flying around. It happened to have sperm in it and it accidentally landed in her v.a.g.i.n.a. She had a baby, and my Judith adopted it. So now I have another grandson.a Sharon gave birth to Henry and five years later I gave birth to our son Ben. Sharon had a C-section; I had v.a.g.i.n.al delivery because Iam the guy. Iall never forget how uncomfortable Sharon was after that C-section. She had so many st.i.tches, and hadnat left the house for six days when I suggested we take a short walk to the Judaica store so that we could pick up some yarmulkes for Henryas bris, which was two days later. I put Henry in the Baby Bjrn carriera"you know, the thing where you wear the baby and then you trip and fall and the baby dies. It took about forty-five minutes to walk the four blocks to the store.

Sharon was in terrible pain; she was leaning on the counter by the cash register trying to hold herself up as I got in line to pay. 121 I had the baby and the yarmulkes, and this woman comes over to me and says, aOh my G.o.d! That baby is sooo cute. Florence, come here and take a look.a Her friend Florence walks over. aHow adorable. How old is he?a I respond, aSix days.a aWhat! Six days old? So precious.a Then she took a good long look at me and said, aAnd you! Well, you look fabulous.a I said politely, aThank you.a With that, I received the dirtiest look Iad ever seen from Sharon. I paid for the yarmulkes and we walked outside to Broadway, whereupon Sharon looked over at me and muttered, af.u.c.k you, you f.u.c.king b.i.t.c.h.a I must admit that I deserved it. I really didnat know how painful childbirth wasa"that is, until I experienced it myself. As Henry got older he kept asking for a sibling and I knew I would regret it if I didnat get pregnant, so at the ripe old age of thirty-eight I did it.