15 Months

Just wanted to post quickly to say that I'm not dead or anything, just super busy with school and work. (Not to mention the fact that I've got two new books -- The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory and Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult -- who has time for the Internet when your mind is dying to get back to sixteenth-century England?)

Aphrodite and I turned 15 months old on Monday, and celebrated by sneaking McDonald's double cheeseburgers into the discount theater to see Juno (which was really cute). It was a great date. We're pretty low-maintenance. :)

Thanks to everyone for the comments on the 'kid' post of two weeks ago. It sounds like the opinions are pretty evenly split as far as regrets. I have to admit, though, that as much as I love my new job, that if I end up working in pediatrics full-time, I might not want to come home to still more children. I see about 30 patients a day, sometimes more, and it's really making me appreciate 'grown-up conversation'. :) On the other hand, I was recently made aware of something that apparently happened last year (I'm always the last to find out about these things) -- bone marrow stem cells have been successfully turned into sperm cells. Not actual sperm, mind you, but the precursors -- and even Aphrodite has admitted that if she and I could have a biological child together, that that might raise the stakes.

Anyway -- anybody looking for a tasty piece of writing, head over to Jen's latest post -- it really struck a chord with me. As I posted there, I've never been with a woman other than Aphrodite and don't believe I ever will be, but I well remember this feeling of possibility in the beginning -- looking at women with a new level of consciousness, noticing the details about them in different ways, wondering what my life would have been like, what experiences I would have had, if I had known who I was years ago. I'm immeasurably grateful that Aphrodite was my first, and I never would have chosen to have it any other way, but my initial experiences with her 15 months ago did sort of open up this whole other world for me that I'd never considered with any seriousness, and Jen expresses that beautifully. Thanks to her for the beautiful writing.

Well, I'm off to school. Wednesday is my long day -- class, 4 hours at work, class again, then lab til 10pm. Ugh. I think I might have to throw my credit card debt to the winds and buy myself an iPhone as a reward when these prerequisites are finally over -- I cannot wait.

Little People

The new job is going great. Granted, I haven't done a whole lot yet -- heights, weights, head circumference, temperature, one throat culture -- but I absolutely love it. I got to help with measurements on a newborn Caesarian baby, take a history on a nine-year-old with abdominal pain, and even use my (admittedly now far less fluent) Spanish with one little boy who was afraid of his chickenpox shot. For the first time in, well, EVER, I'm actually looking forward to getting up and going to work every day.

It does beg the question, though -- what about children?

Well, what ABOUT children?

See, I have always wanted kids -- two, possibly three. Lately, I've been considering the possibility of just one. Aphrodite, though, has never really wanted children, for the (understandable, and quite possibly valid) reason that she wants her life to be her own. She wants to be able to set her schedule as she likes, travel when and where she wants to, and come home after the workday and spend all her free time with ME, not Junior. That makes total sense to me, and she's actually come perilously close to persuading me on several occasions -- after all, who would want to give up that freedom?

But for me, having children is almost an obligation. The idea of not doing it has flitted through my head now and then, and does so on an increasing basis these days, but I'm just not able to discount that 'someday' gut feeling. I've worked with kids of all ages for twelve years -- camps, daycares, babysitting -- ever since I first became a mother's helper to my favorite cousin, then a toddler, when I was eleven. (She's now 15 and a national swimming star -- my, how times fly.) I have always been drawn to children, and vice versa -- Aphrodite teases me that I just have to sit down in a room and they "flock" -- and more than that, I'm really, really good with them. I know with absolute certainty that I would be a fantastic mother, and I'm not overly concerned about the 'two moms' thing, either. But I do agree with Aphrodite to an extent -- I don't want my entire life to be taken over by a child. I want my adult life, too. She, having dated a man with a child, doesn't think that the two can coexist. I, knowing that her ex was a terrible, inconsistent parent who gave her a bad impression of the scenario, am clinging to the belief that one can have both.

It may happen that my 'work kids' -- the kids I'll treat as a PA -- may be enough for me. Lately, that feels more and more like a possibility. But what if that doesn't happen?

All you gay/lesbian couples out there -- and anyone else who wants to weigh in -- do you have any children? If so, what have you found -- do you totally lose your independence and 'couple time', or have you found ways to hang onto it? If you don't have kids, are you planning to have any? How many, and after how long? Natural (an option for the girls, I guess, anyway) or adopted? If adopted -- international or domestic? If natural -- how will you decide on a method/potential father?

This definitely isn't something Aphrodite and I can decide now, anyway -- neither of us is done with school, for a start, and our financial situation is far from secure. But I really want to hear others' thoughts on this topic, because the subject does come up from time to time, and we circle the same old barrels whenever it does. Can anyone inject some wisdom/advice/suggestions/humor into the fray?