pregnancy – Stories That Are All True

Describe your life in an alternate universe.

I am good at a lot of things. I’m going to write until I find something real. That might be in one scene, that might take a couple. Today is one of those days where I just have to start the tap running and hope something comes out. I am very low energy today, but I’m fried. I’ve written an entry every day for over a month- today is my 40th day in a row. I know that I am posting more than normal because I can’t find things as easy when I go back. 😉 I am dedicated to letting the past stay there, so I don’t link to anything. If you’ve missed it, good luck. It’s a different way of reading the web, and it is successful. That’s because people know they’re OG and can prove it. A true Fanagan knows what my life was like in 2013 and still does, so I can make jokes about things I’ve written without all of you knowing what I’m saying.

It creates intimacy, and it keeps blowback to a minimum because if someone didn’t read something about them, they generally won’t go look it up unless someone sends them a link. Trust me when I say that no one ever lets someone know when I’ve said something glowing about them. It’s a lot to want to escape from, which is why my inner circle is so small. I cannot have anyone in my circle who doesn’t understand that they are a complete person. That they are light and dark and angels and demons and hot sauce and peanut butter. All of ’em. None of us can truly be changed by the other, and no one gets changed by my silly web site, because they don’t pay attention to it unless they want to be here. There is no requirement on being a reader and being my friend. But when I don’t have friends who care about my writing, it makes me comfortable enough to continue. My writing matters. My personal relationship with every one of you does not.

If Hottie McHotterson wanted to define me by one entry and I was happy about it, it would have been “Go Tell the Bees,” preferably the audio version as I think it means more in my voice. I’d re-record it if I had spare time and server space, because I was so emotional the first time around. But it got me where I needed to be. Full of love, anger, remorse, grief….. and also joy. In one scene I told her about the day she was having a moment and I told her that we were sitting outside with a glass of wine in the sunshine, and we worked at GEICO.

That would be a good jumping off point if only because I’ve thought about that picnic for 10 years, and have imagined it many times. However, I can make our friendship look good. I can do nothing for working at GEICO.

So, I’ll write about what I could have done had my life followed the track that most people’s do. I used to be married, and I had all the hope in the world for that relationship. In fact, I was married twice on too much hope. With one, it was that we were the wrong personality type for each other. With the other, we were so much alike that we didn’t take our conflicts as seriously as they should have been taken for far too long to course correct. I’m going to write about being married to Kathleen, since it’s the closest to my real life now. I could have stayed in Alexandria after we met. It’s an alternate history that starts in college as opposed to 20 years ago.

I am alone in the doctor’s office. Kathleen would have come with me, but she’s at a softball game. I’m flipping through a magazine when she comes in. She’s smiling.

Leslie…. it took.

I say, “are you sure?” This woman has run three blood tests, but I’m asking if she’s sure….. #thankselizabethwarren

The doctor’s glasses slip a little on her nose and she looks at me like she’s gotten an A on the group project. “Your little monsters are going to own this town.” She knows she can say stuff like that to me, that I already feel like there has been some sort of alien invasion…. one that I can’t feel yet….. but she can. There are two heartbeats, both of them strong. We weren’t trying for twins, just a side effect of the implanted embroyos. We only did two, because Kathleen is Catholic and neither one of us wanted to think about having to remove them. I just hope that they turn out looking completely different from the jump. Otherwise, I will have to write their names with Sharpies on their foreheads. If I don’t, I know myself. One baby will get fat, one will look like it’s malnourished, all because I’m embarrassed that I don’t know which child is which. Thank God there’s not a chance they’re identical. There’s a chance they won’t even be the same race, because we didn’t use one donor. We chose based on education. Both donors majored in math- if I’m going to be of help in the homework department, it’s not there.

My doctor has noticed that I have left the conversation and that I am off in my own little world….. and when I get home, I’m going to blow up someone else’s. Oh, wait. I’m not going to need to go home to blow up someone’s world.

Kathleen is at work softball, but my mom and dad aren’t.

Kathleen is at work softball, but my sister isn’t.

That’s three whole ass phone calls to jump up and down and say “it’s twins” before I go home, because I know how my parents and sister are going to react. I cannot predict my wife, and I stopped trying long ago. I’m surprised she didn’t want to quit trying to have babies at all. She’s been distant lately, but I don’t care. The entire world fits into my tiny 5’2 frame.

I’m not in it for her reaction. I’m in it for my kids.’

It’s not that I think she won’t make a good mom. I don’t think she makes a very good wife, but she’s what I’ve got and I’ve made promises I intend to keep. Besides, I don’t really have to pay attention to her if I don’t feel like it. I have better things to focus on than who she’s screwing this week. If it makes her happy to have boy toys over a real relationship, I can only go with the flow. I cannot change her behavior. I can only change mine.

If I didn’t have to tell Kathleen I was pregnant, I probably wouldn’t. I wanted the real deal, and I got it….. but having everything costs something. If I had it to do over, I might have chosen differently. Now, it’s all a matter of dancing with who done brought me. I am only asking her to hold onto more hands when she twirls.

My doctor says “you’re not even really here anymore, are you?” I apologize and say, “I absolutely was not, but I am now. How do we do this?” She tells me to cut down on the pizza and beer (I found this banana cove one out in Fairfax…) is non-negotiable. I look at her and say, “I can understand why babies don’t like pizza, but why is beer a problem?” She laughs because she knows I’m joking and we start making a diet plan.

It will all go to shit later. I know it will. Kathleen and I do not have the emotional fortitude to fight through something like this. But right now? In this moment? She’s going to hear the most important words of her life and I get to say them.

“Sweetheart, I went to the doctor today…… and we’re going to need to do a lot of shopping. I’m not pregnant with a baby. I’m pregnant with two.”

She will look at me with the same wide-eyed wonder I gave my ob/gyn.

“Are you sure?”

Dana and I are both getting to that age where we’re starting to think about kids… and every. single. time. we both start yawning uncontrollably and change the subject. The fact that we can’t even talk about it for a half hour is a stunning monument to our indifference on the subject. We think we would be great parents, and we also think that we’re able to love the other children in our lives more when we don’t have kids of our own, so that whichever child is visiting us is our favorite and gets to feel special when mom and dad are gone.

The thing I struggle with the most is whether I’ll regret not having a kid that lives with us full time. The things that I thought I’d be terrible with have been proven wrong in babysitting Wi-Phi, and other things have popped up. For instance, I am more patient and kind with a screaming kid than you can possibly imagine. I go into this Zen-like state that makes me immune to getting rattled, because I know the baby will pick up on the fact that I’m anxious and use it to their advantage later. It’s just one day of your child raising you after another. That part I’m ok with.

I am not ok with writing about my own children, I’m anxious to the point of nausea over the thought of interacting with other parents at the PTA, and most of that has to do with the competitive things that I’ve watched parents do and say to each other over the years, and I hate that culture with a passion. I watch people write things about mothers on web sites that make you wonder who peed in their Wheaties this morning, because obviously something is terribly, terribly wrong.

I’m fighting against old tapes that say I can’t be a mother because I’m gay. I know plenty of lesbian mothers, but it’s funny how the things you grow up with tend to stick until you really explode them, and I haven’t had the time or desire to sit with that one, yet, because it’s one of those knotty problems that will cause me to ruminate ad nauseum (or as my friend Aaron and I call it, “moo all over the place”).

Frankly, I’m also indolent as fuck when I get home in the evenings and I am so glad that our stance on parenthood doesn’t change with a couple of beers between us. Oh, wow. I just hit the nail on the head and I didn’t even realize it was true until this minute. I don’t want to do it because I don’t want to do the work. I’m not talking about the work after the kid is born. I mean I don’t want to have to ask my male friends for sperm, I don’t want to go to a clinic and be poked and prodded until I get pregnant, and I don’t want to have to raise thousands and thousands of dollars for the privilege. If it had happened organically in my 20s, it would have been one thing. But I’m three years away from forty. In some ways, it feels like I’ve missed my window on purpose as a way of self-sabotage.

On the other hand, forty isn’t too old for pregnancy and delivery, and 58 seems just the right age for me to have a wise-cracking high school senior that I will have to drag out of the principal’s office by his ear while wearing my bathrobe.

There are all of these feelings swirling in both Dana and me as we pray for discernment, but at the same time, I think we both already know. We’re doing a great job by being those friends who can come through at a moment’s notice when their kids are sick or they’ve got vacation plans and the sitter cancels.

I have also learned through my abuser that you don’t have to be a kid’s parent to have influence in their lives… that it’s not important to the kid whether I’m related to them by blood. I can still impart all kinds of wisdom from the prophets… Finn, Jake, and Lumpy Space Princess.