A Year Ago I Thought I Was Pregnant.

Reflections on polyamory, queer pregnancy and reconsidering parenthood.

A quick preamble before this post:

I’m back Stateside! It’s bittersweet, as all endings to vacations are, but I’m excited to have more capacity for the work that lays ahead of me. In my time away, I’ve been reflecting on Substack and what I’m trying to do here. My goals are twofold:  1) Publicly share my writing 2) Encourage others to invest in their own creative practice by sharing my process and what I’ve learned along the way.

I consider everything I do to be an experiment and hold the spirit of Iteration in all that I do. So for this next experiment, I’ll be posting my writing on Mondays, behind the subscription paywall with a nice little teaser for all, and  posting about my creative practice process on Fridays for Free/all Subscribers. 

I often imagine myself hiking up a mountain when it comes to my creative expression. The mountain is my entire life, and there are little plateaus along the way where I set up camp and settle in for a period of time. I’m settling into my flow of writing and painting and it is suddenly evident to me that I am someone in my 30’s who has never let go of their creative spirit. As I look around, I see that this is a rare accomplishment, one that I should be proud of, and I am. Simultaneously, I’m broken-hearted that people give up their creative pursuits and cast aside their hobbies that give them a creative outlet. I know that my creative practice has given me so much hope for my life, so much pleasure and joy in the process, not for the outcomes or the hopeful futures of being capital S Successful, but just the practice of playing and discovering and exploring. My creative practice has kept my Spirit alive. My pursuits have given me reason to stay on this Earth in my darkest moments. My creative practice has given me a deeper sense of connection to myself, my community, The Earth and The Cosmos. I want that for Everyone. 

There are a lot of people who could say I don’t have the credentials to teach anything. But I have made it to this plateau. I am still creating. I consider my workshops to be my offering that I will leave behind at this camp for the next set of campers. A handbook that says, “This is what I’ve learned so far.” I’m launching 90 Day Magic on September 1. The Conduit has been a foundation for this offering and will be more about implementation, accountability, community and focus. 

I’ll tell you more about it on Friday in our Creative Practice post, but I just want to plant the seed for you now. If you want to join the September 1st to November 30th, cohort, simply respond to this email or leave a comment below. It will be donation based, with a suggested donation of $90.  We will meet on Sunday evenings, with an optional co-working session on Wednesdays. We will set intentions and goals for the 90 Days with a visioning gathering at the start of our 90 Days and then weekly intentions and goals every week. We’ll use the principles of The Conduit - Values, Time, Energy, Money, Body, Mind, Soul and Community - to guide us for this 90 Day focus session. You can bring any goals you might have- they can be related to your creative practice or to your work, your personal goals for your life, or a smattering of all the above– whatever you want to focus on for 90 days. 

I hope you’ll join me. And now- onto the writing. 

---

A Year Ago I Thought I Was Pregnant. 

Reflections on polyamory, queer pregnancy and reconsidering parenthood. 

I have been both incredibly open with my pregnancy journey, and wildly guarded. When Couples Therapy aired in September 2019, my ex-wife and I shared our journey with the world. I’d spent months (years) convincing her to try for a baby with me. At this point, we were married, living in our dream apartment in Brooklyn, she had a good job, I had a small business that was flexible enough to accommodate children, and I thought we were ready to go. She had other ideas. She wanted more money in the bank, more stability, and to my surprise (I found out this information while filming our therapy sessions), she didn’t feel ready to become a mother when she had just become a woman. We’d been together 4 years. On our third date we had talked about children and some of the broad strokes of how we would raise them. I was delighted to know she had saved sperm prior to her transition– it showed me that she was serious about having kids. I was 23 when we met, 27 when we tried IUI for the first time. 

Part of the reason I agreed to go on Couples Therapy was because I was confident we would get pregnant right away. By the time we filmed in August of 2018, we had agreed to give it a go in October. I was young enough to think I had complete control over the narrative, not just on the show, but in my life. I daydreamed about the outcome- a queer couple who managed to make a family and live a beautiful, big, New York life. I fantasized about the ways I would be able to share this journey with my family via television, to prove to them that I had made it, that I had everything I could have ever wanted, without breaking my promises to myself that I would remain no-contact with the people who could not accept me for who I am. I held my mother in mind when I dressed for our sessions, making sure to put blush on my cheeks and lipstick on my lips, to make her proud, to show her how beautiful, how normal I turned out. 

the naked butt peeking out makes me laugh so hard. as painful as all of this is, i’m still glad i have this photo- the naive excitement on my face is priceless. October 2018.

That morning at the doctor’s office, the doctor pulled us in to tell us the sperm weren’t mobile and thawing them out had lost half of an already low count. She told us our chances were nearly 0%, but we moved forward anyway. The tech who did the procedure reassured us that it only takes one.