The Kid: What Happened After My Boyfriend and I Decided to Go Get Pregnant by Dan Savage Read Free Book Online

better than one-. But I talked to Lesbian Single, too, because I have a hard time saying no to people, especially lesbians, and I was hedging my bets. If things didn't work out with Lesbian Couple, I would go with Lesbian Single. It wasn't my first choice, but I reasoned that the kid would still technically have two parents, although in separate apartments. If Lesbian Single and I ever found partners, the kid could have four. Besides, the last time I talked with Lesbian Couple, they were thinking about breaking up. Why shouldn't I talk to Lesbian Single?
    Lesbian Couple didn't see it my way. They hadn't broken up, that was just one option among many, and they were examining all their options during their decision process. While it was okayfor them to examine all their options, it wasn't okay for me to examine all of mine.
    Luckily, Lesbian Couple was angrier with Lesbian Single than they were with me. Lesbian Couple had let it be known on the Lesbian Grapevine that they had approached me about my sperm. Apparently, Lesbian Single knew they had dibs on my balls and had approached me anyway, fully aware that my balls had been spoken for. Add to this psychodrama the fact that Lesbian Single had once attempted to seduce half of Lesbian Couple away from the other half, and soon we were having meetings to process our anger and hurt feelings around these secondary issues, which delayed any further progress on processing our feelings around the primary issue, which was, as I understood it, the production of a human infant sometime before all three lesbians hit menopause.
    While all this was going on, I met Terry and fell in quick, decisive, boyish love. Soon after we started dating, we had a conversation about kids. Reproduced for you here is a complete and unabridged transcript of that conversation, so that it may be contrasted with the discussions characterized above.
    Dan: “You need to know I'm thinking about having kids.”
    Terry: “I love kids.”
    When the lesbians fell through, Terry and I started to examine our lesbian-free baby options. Which meant adoption.
    But I had one more chance to embrace the role of powerless sperm donor and true feminist man. When Terry and I moved into an apartment together, our new next-door neighbor—whom neither of us had met—slipped a note under our door. She'd seen us moving in and wondered if either of us had ever thought about being a dad. Apparently, watching us heft Terry's ten-thousand-pound couch into our apartment convinced her we had the right genetic stuff. She'd been looking for a sperm donor for some time, none of her straight male friends were interested, and so she thought she'd take a chance. Would we be interested?
    Thinking it odd to be asked by a complete stranger to make a baby, I immediately agreed to meet and discuss the matter. We had breakfast with our new next-door neighbor, and talked. She was straight, she was single, and she wanted kids. Straight Single didn't know us, but still, wouldn't it be great? We'd all be living next door to each other, the kid would have access to Mom and Dad, and Iwould have daily involvement, though she would be the sole legal guardian. She'd been trying to get preggers for some time and had done the frozen-sperm thing with no luck. Picking up the sperm, carrying it to the doc, climbing into the stirrups—the whole insemination thing was leaving her cold. And it wasn't working.
    So after her last unsuccessful trip to the fertility doc, Straight Single decided she needed fresh spunk, and she needed it now. She was almost forty-five. If we were going to do this, it would have to be soon. While it would be nice if we could all get to know each other first, waiting a year might make it impossible for her to have a baby at all. This was a rush order. Before we left, we agreed to meet again and talk some more, this time over drinks.
    When I got out of her apartment, and thawed out a bit, I couldn't shake the feeling that I was being sold a