keepyourboehneroutofmyuterus:

newwavefeminism:

So i’m a huge Staceyann Chin fan, and I’ve been tracking her posts/updates on her recent decision to become a single lesbian parent through IVF. Here are a few interesting parts of her latest post on HuffPo - go read the whole thing! Because one of my sociology professors is currently pregnant with her second child, I hear a lot about the politics of pregnancy.

I am on bed rest, and don’t get out that often, so it’s always a shock to me, to have folks respond so strongly to my pregnancy. And now that my belly is miles ahead of the rest of me everybody knows on sight about my condition, which means I have no control over people’s reactions. Old women smile and ask how far along I am. Touchy-feely, granola types touch my belly uninvited and offer to give me reiki to open some chakra or other. Strangers assume me heterosexual and ask me about my husband, or “the father.” They are quite confused when I say I used a donor, that this kid does not have a father. Even in my obstetrician’s office I have to constantly correct the nurses who insist on calling me, Mrs. Chin. One day I got so tired of it that I sat up in my chair, and from the back of the room I shouted, “Nurse, I have told you a hundred times. I am not married. I am a single lesbian who got pregnant by artificial insemination. I don’t have a husband. I don’t have a boyfriend. I don’t even have a girlfriend. I’m doing this solo, so I’m definitely not a Mrs. anything. So could you please remember to say Ms. Chin?”

She mumbled an apology and handed me my receipt. As I walked back to my chair I reveled in the discomfort of the “legitimately pregnant” heterosexual women squirming in their chairs and avoiding my eyes. Later that day I got an email from a woman thanking me for speaking out. She is 44 years old, a lesbian and she did an IVF pregnancy. She said she could never be that out about her process, but that it made her feel visible to hear me articulate it in that space, with such pride. Her note brought home the irony of me assuming everyone in that waiting room heterosexual while I was protesting others doing the same to me.

—

I find myself saying, over and over again, “No. I’m lesbian, so I don’t have a male partner. And yes, I’m single, so I will be doing this alone. And I must point out that ‘alone’ does not mean I don’t have help. I expect my vast village of friends to be a part of our lives. But there is no father, no partner, no husband, no lover. Legal responsibilities are solely mine.” Everyday, I find myself needing to affirm that this was a willing choice, that though I may have moments of doubt or loneliness, I’m largely at peace with my path. I have to assure all sorts of people that this baby is wanted, and loved and will be amply provided for with respect to diapers, and discipline and encouragement and the space to be whatever he or she can be in our not-so-traditional family.

Because difficult or not, shared joy or sweet sorrow in solitude, I am awaiting his arrival, preparing for her presence, knowing with everything in me, how proud I am, how lucky I am, to be a single, Black, self-employed, radical, progressive, lesbian artist who is 31 weeks pregnant with a child she has wanted for more than a decade. That miracle is in itself a thing to celebrate, even if the experience has sent me back, reeling, to traverse the coming out process yet another time.

Choice is about SO MUCH MORE than abortion.