Journey to Same-Sex Parenthood

by Eric Rosswood

  Adopting as a lesbian was pretty much out of the question, as social services did not consider single people desirable parents—straight or gay—and most placements offered were hard-to-place kids, either because of age or social/emotional/medical issues. The political tenor of the times made it risky for social services to place children with gays for fear of the press if something went wrong. The gay community was fighting for acceptance on many fronts at that time and parenting seemed like either a frivolous or unattainable goal to some. It was not uncommon to hear lesbians attribute their political activism to being free of the burden of child-rearing. Gay men, along with fearing for their lives due to the AIDS crisis, were weighed down by the sorrow of believing that fatherhood was irretrievably lost to them, because of whom they loved and how they were perceived.

  I decided to take two different approaches to achieve parenthood and pursued both adoption/foster care and conception at the same time. I saw a flyer from our local social service agency looking for mental health professionals to participate in an experimental program creating therapeutic foster homes. The goal of the program was to place school-age children with social/emotional issues in a foster home environment, rather than in residential treatment. I applied and was accepted into the program along with my partner. In the group with us were three straight couples, two single women, one gay man and one gay male couple. We underwent an intensive ten-week training period, as well as certifications, background checks and home inspections. At the end of our training, we were each assigned a foster child. A seven-year-old girl was placed in my home.

  Unfortunately, the girl eventually moved to a residential treatment program after all. But the impact of her coming to live with us and then being taken away was profound. It made my partner and I realize that we were unprepared to deal with a child who had severe psychological trauma without significant resources. We didn’t know how to find those resources, how to ask for them or how to navigate the social service system well enough to get her and ourselves the support we needed. Although we understood she had needs that were beyond what we could provide, her move to residential treatment made us feel like failures, even more so when the agency advised us to sever all future contact with her, because it might have interfered with her ability to adjust to the new location. We were devastated. In time, we did wind up reconnecting and are currently in contact with her on social media.

  Although the child placed with us wound up moving to residential treatment and the program was not sustainable beyond a couple of years, bonds were created among the group. My partner and I became very close to the gay male couple and together we made plans for me to conceive a biological child that we could all parent together. Co-parent relationships were legally untested and we went to great lengths to be precise about our expectations and responsibilities, reducing everything to writing. We decided to have the two men act as donors and mix each sample to increase inclusion. Unfortunately, conception was more difficult and took longer than we expected. In the end, our parenting plan did not survive the stress and disappointment of several miscarriages.

  After the therapeutic foster home experiment, my partner and I decided to apply for the fost/adopt program through social services, hoping for the placement of an infant that we could ultimately adopt. Although social services did accept our application, we could not apply as a couple, so only I applied and I was considered the potential fost/adopt parent. When we asked for assurances that my application was going to be considered equally with all the others, we were told that there was no written policy as to how gay applicants were evaluated. We were granted a meeting with the head of the social service agency, along with some attorney friends of ours, in which we requested a written policy of non-discrimination to be crafted and incorporated into the consideration criteria for the fost/adopt program. And then we waited.

  While waiting for social services to call, we also continued trying to conceive. When we parted ways with our prospective co-parents, we were directed to a woman who served as a go-between for men willing to donate and women wanting to conceive. The go-between was important, because we wanted to be sure that any prospective donor was unknown to us and had no claim to our child. The legal system at that time was granting parental rights to donors and we were wary of any potential consequences of direct donation. We used this woman’s services several times, but with no success.

  Finally we heard of a doctor and a nurse practitioner who were willing to help women conceive. Part of a general medical practice, they were supportive to the community, provided the “go-between” protection we wanted and were in a position to treat any possible fertility issues. We began trying to conceive with them in mid-1982 and continued to pursue our application to fost/adopt a child. On the conception side, we had several miscarriages and I began taking fertility drugs. On the fost/adopt side, we kept in touch with social services and closely monitored our status on the “list,” as they called it.

  In August 1983, we received a call from social services. They had a four-month-old boy who had been rejected by another fost/adopt family, because both of his parents were schizophrenic. Although initially concerned about his family background, we agreed to meet him and were instantly smitten. We knew we had found our baby.

  Our son came home in September 1983, and we then began the eighteen-month process for me to become his legal mother. The same week our son arrived, I had another round of insemination scheduled. In addition to being on fertility drugs, we were also doing an intrauterine insemination in hopes of having a lasting pregnancy. In the excitement of the baby arriving, I forgot about the appointment and had to be reminded by a call from the doctor’s office. I kept the appointment, the insemination was successful and nine months later, in June 1984, I gave birth to a baby girl.

  The months between September 1983 and June 1984 were very hectic. Our son was still a foster child, so we felt a need to hide the pregnancy from our social worker for fear they might remove him. I always met with her sitting behind a table or holding my son in front of me. Our friends were astonished that we wanted two babies so close together and we received a lot of interest from women who wanted to know if we planned to give our son back if the new baby was a girl! This attitude was common at the time. I lived in fear that I might become the proud lesbian mother of multiple sons and an outcast in the community, because I had heard that fertility treatments often resulted in multiple births and insemination resulted in more male babies. I was so prepared to have a boy that when my daughter was born and the doctor told me she was a girl, I insisted he look again and show me, just to be sure.

  Our daughter’s birth certificate lists me as her only parent, because same-sex parents were not allowed in 1984. Our son’s adoption eventually came through, although I was the only one able to adopt, since second-parent same-sex adoptions were not allowed either. My partner and I separated in 1989 and the only official record of her parenting relationship to our children was that they both have her last name as their middle names. There continues to be no legal bond between her and the children she helped create a family for. When we separated, we researched making her connection legal, but were told it was too early in the process to bring a test case where the parents’ relationship had ended.

  Although we both moved on to have other relationships, we continued to raise the children jointly and shared custody. The school years involved changing forms from “mother and father” to “parent and parent,” the kids deciding which of their friends to “come out” to, which of us could be present at which event and us often navigating an unclear path of rules, regulations, preconceived notions and lack of knowledge. Through all of that, I believe I have learned as many lessons in understanding and tolerance as I may have taught. And over time, as the number of families like ours has increased and others have dedicated themselves to creating acceptance, that path has become much less difficult. Both of our kids graduated from a respected Catholic high school and went on to college. My
son is now a social worker, dedicated to working with homeless inner-city youth. My daughter is a wife, mother and account manager at a major food supplier.

  As my son prepared to graduate from high school with honors, I casually joked to a member of my congregation and a social worker that I thought I had proven I could do well with a foster child and was ready for another. Within weeks I met my next child, a twelve-year-old girl who had recently been orphaned. At the time, my son, daughter and I had recently moved into a house with my current partner. As a family, we agreed to meet this girl and decide if we thought she was a fit. They were all reluctant to move forward with bringing her into our family, but I strongly believed it was the right thing to do. She moved in shortly after her thirteenth birthday. This child is now twenty-six years old and has a master’s degree in special education. Her adoption became final in 2010, with both my partner and I listed as her legal parents.

  Our story is not over yet. I am now Nana to two beautiful grandchildren. My former partner remains as involved with them as she was with our own children, living with them and helping their parents juggle the demands of full-time work and parenting toddlers. My current spouse and I are also guardians to a wonderful fifteen-year-old boy who has been with us for the past six years. He is currently attending a Catholic all-boys high school, plays football and is the light of our lives.

  When you do the math, we have three mothers, four children, one son-in-law and two grandchildren. The four children have four different biological mothers and two of them have three lesbian moms, one of which is also a biological mom. My grandchildren have two biological parents, one grandfather and four grandmothers. To some this may read like an algebra word problem, but to me, this is family.

  Rob Watson

  SANTA CRUZ, CALIFORNIA

  The issue was apparent the minute I came out as gay to my mother. I was twenty-four years old and completely unable to control my alcohol intake. That was what had driven me to this unplanned confessional. She, full of scorn, made the pronouncement as much a threat as a regret: “You have always wanted to be a dad. How can you be something that will keep you from ever being that?”

  I don’t remember what I said to her. I do know that I didn’t have a real answer. Disclosing my orientation had nothing to do with my deep desire to have a family. I was drunk, I was angry and I was exposed. Her taunting inquiry did not shake my resolve. Yes, I was gay, but I was also going to live my life.

  It was not until much later, after many years of sobriety and when I was safely in a relationship with a man I adored that the real answer to that question emerged: I was not going to be kept from being a dad. I just wasn’t going to be a biological one.

  My partner and I had briefly discussed having kids before, but the time had not been right. Then, suddenly it was. The question turned from whether we wanted to be parents to how. In this society, those who fight against marriage equality and marginalize gay people have lifted up biological procreation to be exalted. In their view, it is a sanctioned activity and those who can do it should reap extra legal rewards.

  My own parents valued biological heritage and patriarchal tradition. Carrying on the family name was a noble cause. My father had researched and chronicled our family lineage going back three centuries. Since I was the only son, the continuation of him and our family branch was up to me. He only had a sister and none of her many children were going to carry the family name. Likewise, my sister’s son and daughter, who bore many of his and my traits, didn’t carry our surname, either.

  I could give my kids the family name, but not our genetics. This made the legacy motivation to have children very confusing. Was it all about legal names? Or was it about passing down our traits, which were then watered down and watered down again with each generation? The moment I walked into the foster care orientation meeting, those questions became irrelevant. As I took my seat, the game shifted. I was no longer a name bearer and the need to propel my DNA forth through time ceased to be an issue.

  Since my partner and I had past experiences with recovery from substance abuse, a process which created families from the wreckage of biological parents consumed by addiction seemed entirely appropriate. We knew the horrors and dysfunctions of alcohol and chemical abuse firsthand and held no judgment against those caught in its grip. We also felt enormous compassion for the innocents it threatened in its wake: the neglected and abused children of addicts. As we heard more about the process, we knew that being a part of this initiative was a clear mandate for us. The next few years were ones of preparation. We were trained, interrogated and inspected. Then we started to take temporary placements.

  Cell phones were not as sophisticated as today’s smartphones and it was the foster care system that first tied me to one of these devices. When a child entered the system, there was a list of ready families and the social worker went down the list until one of those families answered the call. Many of the cases were temporary, because the birthparents had made a mistake. With some training and commitment, they could reunite with their child.

  Other cases were going to be permanent, however. The parents of these children were in the throes of seriously dangerous addictive behavior, or worse, and even the most basic reunification milestones were unattainable. In those cases, a different procreation occurred: A family became “with child” through the twinkling of a cell phone, rather than a night of heterosexual mating.

  One day at work, my magic cell phone went off and when I answered, it was the procreation phone call of my family. A boy had been born. He was six weeks premature. His birthmother and father were heroin addicts and she had ingested the night before, sending her into labor.

  I was told I could meet my new son that evening. The birthparents were informed of our arrival so they could step away from the care unit and let us see him alone. As I drove to the hospital, it felt like I was in a dream state. That morning I had just been a gay guy with a partner and now, that evening, I was finally becoming a dad.

  The birthparents were not much into the rules. In spite of the request to give us a private moment with the baby, they were both there and greeted us at the door. It was shocking to meet them, not only because they were the birthparents of the child we were taking home the next day, but because they in no way looked like the people they had seemed to be on paper. I knew the nineteen-year-old birthmother had been addicted to heroin since she was sixteen and that it was her now-husband, two years older, who enticed her into first using the drug. They both had circulated on the street and with gangs.

  But the people we saw before us did not project that history. They looked like sweet-faced teens. She was in a fluffy pink bathrobe, her beautiful hair pulled back into a ponytail. He was kind and attentive.

  They did not have my attention for long. My focus was on the baby in the clear plastic incubator bed with IVs attached to his tiny extremities. Despite all the medical apparatus, he was beautiful. The baby had gotten most of the heroin out of his system and only needed painkillers for another day. I marveled at the human being I saw before me and wondered what natural survival mode could have propelled him to leave his mother’s body so early and free himself of those foreign narcotics.

  We chatted with his birthparents for a long while. They were amazingly traditional and ordinary. There were only a few telltale signs that they came from a different world. One was their litany of friends who had lost their children to the protective care system. The couple quizzed us as to whether we knew this child or that. Quietly I shook my head and wondered what it was like to be in a social environment where those separations were commonplace.

  The nurse brought my new son over in a blanket and I held him softly on my chest. I looked into his eyes and we connected. He was home; I was home. This was right. Deep in my heart, I knew this child was my son forever. He was named Jason. Loving, protecting and defending him was now my life’s calling. While I dutifully listened and took down instructions like an evening babysitter, I knew I was
embarking on the love of my life. I was a father. My son had fought his battle getting into this world and now it was up to me to help him the rest of the way. He never had to fight alone again.

  As I have shared stories of my family since that time, some people have claimed I did my son a disservice by being his father and a gay dad. They have asserted that depriving Jason of his birthparents was an act of violence against him. I understand that some groups petitioned advertisers to get The Fosters, a television program that depicts a family like mine, off the air. They think we are dangerous.

  But the birthparents were given over a year to get their act together and prepare themselves to raise a baby with special needs. They never spent much of that time bonding with Jason and he never actually knew them as parents. The birthmother went on to bear several more drug-exposed babies over the next few years, each one more severely exposed than the last. The birthfather ended up in prison. Neither kicked their heroin addiction and there were rumors that both had died of overdoses.

  I carried Jason in a sling on my chest for his first few months of life. He slept on my heartbeat. We had specific challenges to accomplish for him in terms of nourishment, keeping him calm, sleeping with and swaddling him to create security. Each of these was required for him to successfully develop into a healthy toddler.

  The intimacy of this process—our hearts so closely aligned, my daily, hourly prayers going into him and my dreams enveloping his—created a bond deeper than I had ever imagined. I can easily say this bond was greater than any I could have had with a child I biologically fathered. As Jason grew plump and healthy, our family flourished and our household exuded joy.