An Australian email friend of mine told me about a TV programme that has recently aired on TV over there (the SBS network), called "2 Mums and a Dad". I can't find a downloadable version of it, but there is a podcast one can listen to here:
Interesting stuff!
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Monday, January 28, 2008
Introducing myself and Project X
This blog is to chart my progress at my Project X – having a child, by myself.
Having a child by myself, without a husband, boyfriend, or otherwise committed, male partner is obviously, not my ideal circumstance.
Some background about me: 30 years old, female, heterosexual, university-educated, left-leaning, middle-class, home-owner.
As a child and teenager I, like so many others, assumed that by the age of thirty or so, I would be nicely settled down with my Mr Right, either with a kid or two already, or kids on the way. At the age of nineteen, I was engaged to be married to my teenage sweetheart, and it seemed that my life would follow the pattern of my cousins and other relatives – early marriage, followed by a family. However, this early marriage was not to be. Although I loved M very much, and it still remains that this relationship is the happiest one I have ever been in, it turned out that he was hugely irresponsible. He was seven years older than me, but could not manage his finances at all. I was a university student in my final year, working full-time hours as a legal secretary to make ends meet. It ended up being me paying for the rent for the room in our shared house, me paying for the food, while he lurched from crisis to crisis, so eventually I ended the relationship. Ten years on, we are still good friends, and he is now married to someone probably more tolerant than me.
Over the next ten years I had a series of long-term relationships, all with men fundamentally flawed in some way. They all had their good points, in some cases many good points, which is why some relationships lasted a long time before I ended them.
No 2. D, English, 3 years – bone-idle, backside permanently welded to sofa, hands surgically attached to Playstation controls
No. 3, T, Japanese, 6 months – verbally and physically abusive
No. 4, M, Japanese, 6 months – dull, not physically attractive to me (chosen because I thought he would make a good husband and father)
No. 5, Y, Japanese, 1 year – severe alcohol and drug abuse problems
No. 6, K, American, 3 years – verbally abusive, hyper-critical, extremely controlling (I needed counselling to help me end this one).
I currently cannot decide if the problem is;
a) I make very poor choices in choosing men. (Please note these men’s flaws were not apparent to me until some months into the relationships, and they did all seem to be “normal” at the beginning.)
or
b) All men are fundamentally flawed to a degree similar to the above, but I am less tolerant than other women, and would rather (eventually) end a relationship than endure daily abuse, etc.
I have now been single for over a year, during which time I turned 30 years old - cue major mental crisis.
I have never had particular dreams of a white wedding, honeymoon, etc, but I have had the strong urge to be a mother, from my teenage years. I assumed that becoming a mother would be something that happened to me, probably in my twenties. My mother had me when she was 27 – even that age seemed old to be having a first child, to me, then. Me being a mother has always been part of my lifeplan.
I hoped that I would have a child with my highly intelligent and attractive ex, K. The tipping point that made me end the relationship was the realisation that if we did have a child together, it was more than likely that that child would be the object of abuse, along with me. We did discuss this, and he neatly turned the potential problem on its head – it would be my responsibility to remove the child while he was having one of his rages.
So since October 2006, I have had a variety of short-term relationships. I have found it extremely difficult to find a man who I am physically attracted to, who is relatively “unflawed”, and is compatible with me, let alone a man who is the above and a good potential father candidate.
Some examples of flaws which I have experienced and which are not acceptable:
- Physically abusive
- Will not pay his way, expects me to (because I inevitably earn more)
- Is too “busy” to see me more than once a week
- Spends the 48 hours of every weekend in an inebriated state
- Supports the BNP
- Regularly gets into fights while drinking
Some examples of minor flaws which I can deal with:
- Football fan
- A bit messy around the house
- Not that great at cooking
- Does not have a car
- Does not have a great salary
Trying to find a guy who is all the things in my criteria, has caused me a great deal of mental stress and has stopped me enjoying the dating process. What happened to dating guys who were hot, fun to be with, and made me feel alive? Shouldn’t that be what having relationships with the opposite sex is all about? All that fell by the wayside as I attempted to find a mate by a rational and logical process. In the end, I could not even enjoy sexual relations with guys I was dating, my head was so full of other stuff.
I know perfectly well that loves comes along when you least expect it to, that you can’t rush love, etc, etc – but what else am I supposed to do, when I only have a limited supply of eggs, which are regularly diminishing at a rate of one a month! My rationale for treating dating like a recruitment process was that I did not want to look back, as a childless 45 year old, and think “I could have tried harder."
Now I realise that all this was so much chasing my own tail. Throughout 2007, I made myself more and more miserable, in my short relationships with increasingly inadequate men. I found myself unable to concentrate on anything else in my life – such as my hobbies, friends, family, pets, and was increasingly swallowed up by the sense that I was some kind of failure who would never have a family of her own.
A few years ago, my gay brother, who was going through a “I want to have children” phase, asked me if I would consider being surrogate mother to a child fathered by his long-term partner, N. This did not appeal to me greatly, but I guess this is where the idea first started in my mind.
Then, sometime in 2006, I was on a plane either from London to LA (where K lives, and where I lived), or LA to London, and I came across a programme in the inflight entertainment called “Baby Race”, a Channel 4 documentary about women who have children by themselves, via various unorthodox routes. One woman, Ruth, was single, and had a child by her gay male friend, who lived overseas most of the time. I thought that was a pretty cool thing to do, in the absence of a partner, and tucked the concept away in my mind.
Now I reckon I have it all figured out. I will stop dating men who I am unattracted to, and find dull, just because I think they may make good husbands or fathers. Rather depressingly, it has been almost a year since I have had sexual relations with someone I was strongly physically attracted to. (I am not especially picky – tall, dark, handsome, works out regularly, decent teeth, has excellent personal hygiene – are my criteria).
I am sure that one day I will find my Mr Right, and that he is out there, but realistically, it is very unlikely that I will meet him in the timescale that I favour.
I strongly feel that now is the right time for me. I currently work from home, and have a fair amount of time on my hands. I have discussed this with my family, and they are prepared to help me out with this. I am infinitely patient. My home is large, with a spare room suitable for a nursery. I have a SUV suitable for child transportation. I have practised my parenting skills on a spaniel puppy, who is now a delightful and well-balanced adult individual. I can continue working from home and earning money while my child grows up. I am lucky enough to have an income that would support a baby and myself, comfortably.
There are several options open to me:
- Sperm bank. A rather depressing option for a red-blooded heterosexual female.
- Known donor. Ask someone I know, or find someone, who will donate to me.
- Coparenting partner. Find someone who also wants to be a parent, who will donate to me, and then be part of the child’s life.
At the moment I am concentrating on the third option, which seems the most preferable. Here are my reasons for finding a gay male/ gay male couple in order to do so:
- If there is no way I can get into a romantic relationship with this person, the problems in our personal relationship will never impact negatively upon the child’s life
- It seems preferable to me to find a gay guy who absolutely and positively who would love to become a father, and have a child with him, than bully and push some hetero guy I am in a relationship with, into becoming a father, largely against his will.
- It seems a shame for me to become a single parent, and my child to be fatherless, when there are some fantastic gay guys out there who would love the chance to become a father out there
This blog will follow my progress trying to find someone to help me conceive a child, and then coparent with. If I fail in this mission, I will consider finding a known donor, or possibly using a sperm bank – probably in the
I have not given up on finding Mr Right. I just feel it is unrealistic I will find him in the next year or two.
I have found very few resources in the
I do appreciate that what I am hoping to do is controversial and may stir up strong feelings in some people – I have already been told “Why can’t you just wait to find a husband” or “You’ve got ten years in you yet, what’s the rush?” by people that I know and love – so any outraged strangers who stumble on this may feel the urge to mince their words even less. So I will tell you in advance, I will not be approving any negative feedback, as the point of this blog is to distribute (UK specific if possible) information concerning becoming a single mother by choice (whether one is lesbian or hetero), rather than to seek approval for my decision from strangers.
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