#11 on my 99 Things About Me list says I was 17 the first time I asked a doctor for a vasectomy. That sounds about right. There has never been a time in my life when I would have chosen to father a child. When my ex got pregnant we’d been together for five years, we owned a house, we were in what could be called a stable relationship. I can look back now and see I hadn’t been happy for a long time and the impending birth made me very unhappy. I took pictures of her belly every month, I was there for the birth, I tried to stay positive, but it wasn’t good times. I got fixed 6 months to the day after Mini was born. That was the earliest I could get a referral.

I have since learned that the difference between an accident and a surprise is a surprise is something you didn’t know you wanted until after you got it. I love my son, but his mother has spent the past 13 years marginalizing my involvement and influence. I never got to be this…

♀ pregnancy and child rearing experience is even sadder. She didn’t know her husband was gay and he was openly disgusted by her changing body. They split up when Junior was 6 weeks old. He never paid child support, was often drunk when he did see his kid and until I showed up was usually a real prick to ♀. She got her tubes tied a couple of months before we met.

Why am I telling you all this? One of the blogs that ♀ & I both read is activist on a mission to initiate change .  Jennifer is many things (and we’re planning on meeting her soon), but for the sake of this post she’s a pregnant blogger. She’s 36 and has a teenage daughter. Some of her posts have been about how much physically harder it is to be pregnant this time, but she and her man are madly in love and are both thrilled with her growing body and it’s making them even closer and they are both so completely into the entire experience.

We were out for a walk the other day and ♀ admitted that Jennifers posts made her feel jealous. Why, she asked, couldn’t I have been there to talk to her belly and take oodles of pictures and get her belly painted and to celebrate her changing shape and to be there with her when she delivered and raise a child who was just ours. Then she said she felt guilty about feeling that way because just before we got married she missed a period and I got upset and she knew that even if we were able to conceive it’s not something I would have ever wanted.

She’s right of course, but if we could turn back the clock 20 years and still have the relationship we have now I can imagine wanting those things too.

sss