Fail

So apparently I'm not the blogging bad ass I thought I was. I can't tell you how many times I tried to pull myself to the computer and blurt out some of the crazy shit swirling in my head. I have so many updates and want to tell you my hopes and dreams, but that nap tho...

So let's try again. I am strugglin ya'll. I am, we are in over our heads in babies and work, and yes more school. R has decided that she wants to become a physician's assistant and well, that's a hell of a lot more school. I was on board at first because we thought she was going to get in pretty quickly because well, she's indeed bad ass. However, 5 years ago, we did not take into account how skipping class to have futon sex would effect her gpa later on since she never thought she was going back. She was super supportive of me going back to get my BSN, it only seemed fair that I do the same. But now with two kiddos that require a lot more attention, it has become a thorn in my side. I'm trying not to resent her for it and want to be her cheerleader, but it is too much to handle at times. The boys are wide open and I need help often. It's hard on her too, she is working really hard to get her gpa up and so far is making all A's.  We work opposite shifts to keep babysitting costs down so we are literally two ships passing in the night. We already have a lacking love life and this is not helping. I have also picked up a second job because I wanted to push myself out of my comfort zone (so dumb) and she will soon start teaching at a local college over the summer to fluff up her application. Yes I know, we have bitten off more than we can chew, and I feel like I have written that here more than a few times. I just want the world for my boys and in case you haven't noticed, the world is getting more expensive. I keep telling myself it will be worth it in the end but am not quite convinced.

The boys are growing so damn fast. I work three days in a row and don't see them the whole time because they are sleeping when I get home and sleeping when I leave. When that third day comes, I feel like I have missed so much and I swear they've grown 10 feet. P has lost his sweet baby face and really looks like a big boy. It's weird. and sad. O is still so small. He's not even on the growth charts. The pediatrician swears he's fine. I don't think anything serious is wrong, it's just odd that he is so small, considering the amount he eats!

Big Boy P!

They are not speaking and we were worried about a speech delay. They say "here", "duck" and "dada" (oh the irony).  We work with them every day on talking, reading books, pointing etc. They do follow simple commands and can identify objects. But I feel like a failure because I don't think I give them as much time as they need. It's hard to divide attention between the two and one almost always seem to get more attention than the other. The pediatrician assured us this is normal but we insisted on seeing an audiologist. Well, they failed four hearing tests in two weeks! The doc said it could be a number of things including the fact that they always have ear infections and fluid all the time. So we opted for ear tubes and will go back for hearing test in two weeks. If they fail again then we move on to other things like speech therapy and possibly hearing aids, but I can tell a difference already! They are babbling a thousand times more. They call each other dada but don't call me or R momma. It's a little disheartening. I'm hoping it's coming soon. It's so hard not to compare them to each other and other babies too. Our friend has a 15 month old and he says like 15 words. It's really hard to not get jealous when we have playdates with him and he is talking.  I've been trying to teach them some sign language but that has gone over like a lead balloon so far. They will sign "all done" and "more" though so that's a start.

And in other news...I have no friends. Seriously. I used to. Then I got old, and married a woman and had kids and the group of people that we had things in common with got smaller and smaller. I do have a dear friend but we see less and less of each other.  A lot more of my old acquaintances are having babies now and I wonder if we will be brought back together because of that? You probably wouldn't think it if you met me, but I am shy. And I hate new things, oh and surprises. So basically I am grumpy cat in human form. I have joined facebook groups, twins clubs, babywearing clubs, gay parenting clubs, all in hopes of finding friends. I want to have more mom friends but I literally don't know how to make them. I feel like such a dork for even saying that! I may have 200 likes on a post and talk to 3 of those people in person. That's sad and I feel like I am failing. How can I be a good role model for my kids when I can't even make my own friends?  The few interactions I have had with other moms usually start out fine and end with them leaving quickly to "run an errand they forgot about" when the find out I have a wife. Maybe I am being paranoid. I would love more queer parent friends but there aren't that many around here. The struggle is real.  I often turn to these blogs because I feel so isolated in real life that it's nice to see families like ours really do exist. So I will continue to stalk my cyber friends here in the blogosphere until real people appear...that's not weird is it? I know everyone is different but do ya'll have trouble with this?

Bath time

Oh, please excuse the dripping noise. It's just the sound of my heart melting...

LOVE these Ikea kid towel ponchos!

Captain Bubble Beard!

Just a piece of paper

When I met R, I had never been with a woman, I was previously married, and swore I would never remarry again. When we became serious, I told her I wanted children but still didn't want to be married. After having been divorced, I felt that a marriage license wouldn't protect anything and it was "just a piece of paper." I will admit, looking back, I was still feeling burnt from my previous relationships. We did finally decide to get married and going to D.C. to get our license was one of the most exciting days of my life. That "piece of paper" meant more to me than anything- maybe because so many people told us we couldn't have it or maybe because this time I knew it was for keeps. We celebrated our anniversary this year without any fuss and we still haven't opened our love box and read our letters but I pulled out our license and looked at it for a while-and my heart smiled. It is certainly more than a piece of paper to me.
When we decided to have children, we knew we would have to take some action in order to protect our family. We didn't have a clue how much that would entail. We just happened to be at a rally and met a family lawyer that specialized in ART cases. We worked with her over the past year and finally as of August 19th we are both legally recognized as the parents of our own children. We got co-maternity agreements stating our intent to have children before we conceived.  Now, this sounds ridiculous of course but here's the thing: since we did reciprocal IVF and the state does not recognize our marriage, we were considered an egg donor and surrogate. Which technically means that if god forbid something happened to me, R might not get custody because up until the "adoption" she was not on the birth certificate, and if something were to happen to R, even though I am on the birth certificate, I am not biologically their mom so if her family wanted them, they could get custody over me. Now I know that many of you are thinking that going through all this for hypothetical situations is silly, but as a nurse and a military dependent I can tell you that parental death is very real and it doesn't make an announcement before visiting. It was important to us to be prepared. And even though our families are cool with our situation right now, death, divorce, or whatever, can change people in an instant. It can make people turn on their loved ones no matter how strong the bond was. Also, if by chance I lost my job, the boys would lose their insurance and R wouldn't be able to put them on hers. All of these possibilities left us with a sense of urgency to get our affairs in order. Along with filing for the adoption, we did living wills and health care power of attorneys for each other.
We also had to terminate our sperm donor's pseudo relationship. The case was actually us vs. John Doe because we used an anonymous donor. I'm not sure if they did this because it's protocol, or because from the outside it just looks like a couple doing a closed adoption versus two lesbians adopting their own children. We had visits with a social worker and a guardian ad litem. The visit with the social worker was short and sweet although I felt that she really could've cared less due to the fact that we actually had to pay her a lot of cash for the visit. She was eccentric and talked like Paula Dean ya'll. She walked through our house and made comments about how the boys had nicely shaped heads-and that all african american babies have nicely shaped heads so our babies must be mixed. She then proceeded to talk about her high profile custody case that had been in the national news. We were familiar with it and I was shocked she was a key player in this situation as she was just so, err, um, eccentric. She also shared that she had done IVF and was a foster parent and we had nothing to worry about. With that she flitted out of our lives never to be seen again. Her placement report was clearly from a template and she had left the previous couple's info in it because according to her we were a "lovely Caucasian couple raising their children and practicing Judaism." That couple does sound lovely, but it wasn't us, so we had to wait while our lawyer fixed all our paperwork and filed our court date. The guardian ad litem was also very nice and much more down to earth. Although she was named after a legume....Anyways the court date came and we were informed that we had to have a plan b in case the judge gave off a bad vibe. Plan b was to politely ask for a continuance and hope pray beg for a better judge. So the lawyers went in and talked to them before we came in to get a feel for her. Even through the home visits and all the paperwork and background checks I hadn't been nervous or even mad-until now. Here we were, nine months in with our sweet little boys, and after all we had been through to have them, it struck me that there may be people out there that still don't view us as a family. It also struck me that we could be denied and everything was in vain. That scared me and made me furious at the same time.  I couldn't imagine not being these little boys' mama.  It still chokes me up to think about  it.  Well those fears were quickly put to rest when they came out and said it was a go! We had to both testify about our family and how we conceived. It was indeed awkward. However, the judge was awesome and she thought our family was lovely. (We dressed them up in hopes that their cuteness would distract the judge ha!) It was bittersweet. I was happy we were finally going to be protected by this piece of paper but mad that we even needed it. We haven't gotten the new birth certificates yet but we were already warned that the R's name will be listed under "father". Our legal system has unfortunately not caught up with the times. It will be nice to have their new birth certificates with both our names even if they are just pieces of paper.