Oh, That’s Where Babies Come From


Kristen’s Team Pick:

Babies are a magical wonderous creature and nowadays it seems like everyone is up in arms about how (and whether) gay parents have kids. Is there a stork involved? Can you get one mail order? If you collect enough kittens can you trade them in for a baby? These are all legitimate questions and luckily two lovely mothers-to-be decided to set the record straight with a pregnancy announcement for their family and friends.

Oh, that’s what the turkey baster is for.

A & C have been chronicling their journey into the land of baby-making at Lez Be Mamas since March. So if you happen to be curious about what it’s like when two ladies decide to make the leap to motherhood, you should check it out. If these women are this cute and creative when it comes to announcing their soon-to-be tot, I can only imagine what an interesting childhood said baby will have once they show up! Or at least pop in around April 2013 to see whether the mamas used enough sugar or puppy dog tails in their baby brew.

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Kristen

Hailing from Vancouver, Kristen's still trying to figure out how to survive Montreal's Real Legitimate Canadian Winter. So far she's discovered that warm socks, giant toques and Tabby kittens all play a role in her survival. Her ultimate goal is to rank higher than KStew in the "Kristen + Autostraddle" Google Search competition.

Kristen has written 139 articles for us.

41 Comments

  1. I feel like the person trading multiple kittens for only one child is really on the losing end of the bargain…

  2. That was really adorable. I had a lot of feelings and was not expecting to be so moved. Awwwwwwwwe.

  3. How f*cking adorable. This how my future spawn will be taught about their siblings-to-be. Gay baby army ya’ll.

  4. Omigod omigod omigod omigod this is so relevant to my interests for reasons omigod omigod omigod.

  5. The video is cute & creative, but I had many mixed feelings as an adult adoptee. Seeing something that makes light of the origin of adoptees & people who were conceived via donors/surrogates can be triggering. For example, stork jokes & trading kittens for babies might be funny if your parents didn’t pay thousands of dollars for you. Sometimes as adults we come to have very complex feelings regarding the circumstances of our birth & while I don’t mean to be a negative nancy here, most people don’t understand this can be a very sensitive topic.

    • My parents admitted I was a mistake. Parents who actually go out of their way to pay a surrogate/insemination or adopt, REALLY want kids. So I look at it as just the opposite,someone who didn’t come into their family the “natural” way is probably wanted much more than most who did.

      • Good point CP! I was also an accident, which my aunt decided to inform me of recently (super Catholic extra baby when my parents wanted to be done. Oops.)

        Also, I would like address the earlier point–these parents probably DID pay thousands of dollars for this baby (donor sperm) and this was still cute and funny…right?

        • right, but that seems kind of invalidating of Ash’s less positive feelings. I mean, I’m glad, and I imagine she might also be, that you can see it that way, but as people who weren’t adopted or carried by a surrogate or conceived via donor sperm or what have you, you don’t really get to decide how people who did come into the world under those circumstances should see it.

          sometimes AS gets kind of monolithic in the comments department and it worries me.

          ash, thank you for bringing another point of view to the table! i do wonder about how adults feel who were brought into this world in ‘non-traditional’ ways.

          • I just…don’t see lightheartedness as ‘making light’ of the situation in any way. If you read their blog they clearly really wanted a baby and went through a lot of work to conceive and use donor sperm (although I guess they had luck pretty early).

            Maybe I don’t understand the part that’s triggering. Is it the turkey baster joke? Is it the whole thing? Do they not actually get to treat the situation with humor, even though they are the ones who went through the work? Should they be somber about the baby announcement? How does this relate to adoption?

            These are serious questions, I’m not being flippant. This is one thing I actually don’t understand. Maybe Ash can come back and enlighten me, if they want to. I know it’s clearly a very complex topic but I thought it was treated with a really good amount of cute/humor.

            Again, coming from the perspective of the extra “dad didn’t get a vasectomy before you” kid–I’d like to try to see this from a different perspective.

          • Sorry it took me a while to get back & first let me clarify that I realize no one (including the couple who made the videa) intended any harm.

            I just wanted to point out that for some people who come to their family via “unconventional” or “non-traditional” ways we can have very complex views surrounding the circumstances of our birth & so these topics/reactions to these topics can be triggering.

            For example, although adoption is generally seen as a happy event, a child first has to experience a great deal of misfortune in order to even be available for adoption. I did not come to my parents via a stork, it was not cute or happy that I first had to lose my entire family, culture, & identity in order to gain another.

            People conceived via a donor were obviously not made in a cauldron via magic. I can’t speak for them, but sometimes they never get to know their other fathers, mothers, siblings, families, even if they want to. Sometimes they can have hundreds of half-siblings due to being born through an unregulated industry.

            I just hope people will read this & consider when the circumstances surrounding your birth can be that complex, it can be triggering to see people joking about babies made in cauldrons, brought to parents by storks, or even seeing a chorus of “AWWWWWWs.”

            I’m not saying it is inherently wrong, bad, or the couple shouldn’t be happy — just trying to add to the discussion a perspective that too often goes unseen.

          • I wanted to share this video because a&c highlight and celebrate “untraditional” procreation and family building. I hope you understand that I did not mean those jokes negatively. These conversations are important to have as long as everyone is willing to try to see the other side.

            Although I came into this world the conventional way, I will not be using those methods if/when I decide to have my own. If my kids (or my friends’ kids) ask where they came from there will be no mention of “just a glimmer in daddy’s eye” and we’ll probably explain it like this until they’re old enough to understand what a zygote is. I actually look forward to a time when the birds and the bees convo is expanded upon to reflect the complexity of family building and I thought these euphemisms were a step in that direction.

          • I think you raise really valid points here – there are positive ways to think about a situation like being adopted, but that doesn’t mean everyone who is adopted feels that way about it.

            I also think that it’s very important to discuss different points of view, even in a “lighthearted” post like this, but while we shouldn’t invalidate someone’s less-than-positive feelings, it is also kind of invalidating to say that this couple’s way of making their announcement is wrong and “making light” of the situation. I don’t know their specific situation but I imagine journeys like theirs can be very difficult at times, and I think it’s important to respect their way of talking about it too.

      • Having money & the desire to have children doesn’t automatically make you a better parent or mean you love your children more. Yes, there are lots of loving & wonderful families made this way, but there are also plenty of people who have been adopted/donor conceived & abused or neglected. We should all try to keep that in mind so we don’t make sweeping generalizations about any type of family.

        • Kristin, I couldn’t reply directly to you (still getting used to the forum & my above comment was meant for CP).

          I know you didn’t mean anyone to take those comments negatively, & I hope you don’t mind me expressing my mixed feelings while reading this post & the comments. :)

        • I have a feeling you are merely playing the devils advocate here… your original issue with the video was that some people come into families in different ways and that can bring about a lot of painful memories depending on the situation. Which is a valid point. Now you’re saying that those who have babies using alternative methods can also be bad parents, which is true, but, it is just as true that people who have babies the old fashioned way can be awful parents too. I was merely pointing out that in the situation of adoption or in-vitro/insemination the people conceiving or adopting that child really want a kid (regardless of how they are as parents) and you can’t accidentally adopt a child or undergo in-vitro. However, with intercourse there is a possibility of accidentally conceiving a child.

          • I’m really not trying to play devils advocate. This subject is very personal to me & I have many friends who were conceived this way who have shared that they have much in common with my experience as an adopted person.

            People have a lot of preconceived notions about our families & what I almost always find lost in the discourse is an understanding of the ways children/future adults can be impacted by the experience of becoming a part of a family in a non-traditional way.

            You assume I was more wanted than children who were unplanned, but try reconciling the notion of being “wanted” as a child when you realize that your’re not really as special as they say, cos if the conditions were only slightly different your parents would have chosen to love someone else & you would have been easily overlooked, left in fostercare, an orphanage, or never born without so much a second thought.

            Try being a kid & wrapping your head around having three or four parents while all of society feels they have a right to tell you only two should be important to you. Or how grateful you should be for being so wanted.

            My intention is not to offend anyone here or imply any wrongdoing by bringing up these things. I am truly happy for the family in the video & I am sure they will make lovely parents & a wonderful family.

            But how do you think we (the children from these families) feel when we hear people so casually joke about the circumstances of our births, or “Awww” at something that can be seen by some as othering. You don’t think it can be triggering that all the “different kids” need cute anecdotes to understand they are different but still loved? That can be triggering & I was hoping people here would consider that when they are discussing these topics in the future. That is all.

  6. After thinking about it again, how much do I love how this is like, genderqueer baby making.

    THROW ALL THE MASCULINE AND FEMININE THINGS IN, I DO WHAT I WANT.

  7. While this is adorbs and all..It’s also very helpful in that I now have a list of what NOT to keep readily available in my kitchen. I’ve been known to drink too much and them whip myself up a snack. Even with lesbians, “accidents” happen!

  8. A here of A&C (the one carrying in the video that was posted). Just wanted to say “thank you” for all of the support, open dialogue and feedback to our video. We are excited and honored to raise a child together. A lot of research went into the steps prior to conception (and a lot of acupuncture to which I attribute our fairly quick conception). And a lot of research, dialogue and leaning on our community will go into raising this child.

    And while we certainly are not taking our pregnancy lightly, we are having fun and being creative along the way. Thank you again for all of your support and feedback. The conversations regarding adoption and other “unconventional means” to being a family are not only important, but very appreciated!

Comments are closed.