“I felt I was gradually becoming like those newly married Indian women with henna on their hands at JFK or Heathrow… Of course, I didn’t look anything like them and my wedding bowtie was probably the only equivalent to their bridal henna, but I couldn’t help noticing parallels.”

So maybe my pregnancy path isn’t as simple and straightforward as baby books would have you believe it should be because I’m a poor QPoC with anxiety, but it has been an interesting worthwhile journey so far. I can’t wait until I can take the next step.

“Sometimes, when you’re in the business of parenting, you have to phone a friend for a bit of perspective and advice. Sometimes, you have to phone more than one.”

She didn’t say “I have suspected this for years and I still love you.” It went more like a Scared Straight kind of thing but instead of scaring me about drugs and a life of crime, she wanted to scare me straight, straight. “Just Say No to Lesbianism” straight.

“As a lesbian mom, it was especially hard to fight the urge to do the “right” thing, however slippery a concept that was, because I was representing a community, not just myself, I thought.”

Sometimes the gulf between my own experience and “typical” parents is the same as that between parents and non-parents. And yet, on a fundamental level it’s also the same joy and the same challenge that we all face.