Shawna, Sam, & Amy Interview
Shawna:
I’m here tonight with Amy and Sam, and I’m at their house interviewing them, and I’ve got lots of questions and it’s exciting. And hopefully… I haven’t interviewed two people before, so this will be new. I’ll just throw the questions out and you can just jump in, okay?
Amy:
Okay.
Sam:
Okay.
Shawna:
So I’m asking everyone what parenting name they use for themselves, if they identify as a mom?
Amy:
I do. Yes, I identify as a mom and my parenting name is Mom. Mommy. Mamay.
Shawna:
Mamay, I haven’t heard that one yet.
Amy:
Some versions of M-O-M and maybe a little… But usually with the “E” ending. The “E” or “Y.” The “E” sound and the “Y” letter.
Shawna:
And how come?
Amy:
Well, we talked about that a little before. We decided that…
Sam:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Amy:
That I was pretty comfortable with Mommy.
Shawna:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Amy:
And Mom. And Sam, you were more comfortable with Mama. And so it just kind of worked beautifully, because I felt like a little more, I don’t know, affinity for Mommy and Mom.
Sam:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Amy:
Although Mommy, I don’t know if I’ll always love Mommy.
Sam:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Amy:
At some age, I’m sure. [crosstalk 00:01:21] And sometimes now. Sometimes now, when I get the “Mommy,” there’s a slight eye roll in my mind.
Shawna:
Oh, like Mommy.
Amy:
Yes, when it’s a little needy.
Sam:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Amy:
Definitely.
Shawna:
So it’s something you decided before you even had your first child?
Amy:
Yeah.
Sam:
Yeah.
Amy:
To be, to be…
Shawna:
You’d lay around tonight, what should we call ourselves? [crosstalk 00:01:42]
Amy:
During the pregnancy. Yeah. I don’t think it was early stage.
Sam:
No.
Amy:
But it was probably like somewhere mid–
Sam:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Amy:
Mid pregnancy of our first child when I was pregnant. Yeah.
Sam:
And I go by Mama.
Shawna:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Do you have anything else to add about that?
Sam:
Yes. I identify as a mom.
Shawna:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Sam:
And I like Mama. Yeah, I didn’t really feel like Mommy. I’m not sure why. But yeah, so now that I’m Mama, and every once in a while, I’m Mom, so if they have to like–
Shawna:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Sam:
Say something formally, they’ll be like my other Mom.
Shawna:
Oh, yeah.
Sam:
So there’s Mom and Mom sometimes.
Amy:
Right.
Sam:
But Amy’s mostly Mom.
Amy:
Yeah.
Sam:
And I’m Mama.
Amy:
Yeah. Nat, our older kid is getting very comfortable saying “My other Mom,” but I noticed Joe saying that, too.
Sam:
Yeah.
Amy:
Like when describing the other, whoever the other Mom is, yeah.
Sam:
Yeah.
Shawna:
Oh, that’s interesting.
Amy:
Sort of knowing that that’s how other people go… Talk about moms.
Sam:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Amy:
Mothers, that is.
Sam:
Yeah.
Amy:
Yeah.
Shawna:
So you’re saying you, you have been pregnant? So my next question is that have you been pregnant to get the kids that you have? So who wants to start? [crosstalk 00:02:53] Yeah, Amy took it last time.
Sam:
Well, we both were pregnant to get the kids that we have. Yeah, Amy was pregnant with our first child. I had our second child. Yeah, I think that’s it, I guess. Yeah. We were both pregnant.
Shawna:
Yeah. How did you get pregnant?
Amy:
Oh, my turn.
Shawna:
Yeah.
Amy:
I guess, yeah, we got pregnant with… Gosh, now I can’t remember what IUI stands for, but anyway, artificial insemination.
Shawna:
Is it artificial? I thought it was something else. I thought that they had a better word that wasn’t so…
Amy:
That’s what I… It… Now what is…
Shawna:
I thought it was like alternative. Or like something else.
Amy:
Insemination.
Sam:
It’s intrauterine insemination.
Amy:
Intrauterine insemination. IUI.
Shawna:
So there’s no arti– it’s just intrauterine insemination.
Sam:
Yes.
Shawna:
Because then they used to say artificial about– [crosstalk 00:03:36].
Sam:
Yeah.
Shawna:
That sounds, that sounds so–
Amy:
It’s kind of outmoded.
Shawna:
Yeah.
Sam:
I think we called it that.
Shawna:
There’s nothing artificial about you. You were inseminated, right?
Sam:
Right, right. It’s just like, yeah. Yep. Sperm going–
Amy:
Yep.
Shawna:
Yep.
Amy:
We picked a donor through a bank. And the donor is anonymous. So the kids can elect to learn about the donor when they’re 18, if they choose. And so we picked this donor and then we did go to a fertility center to have the inseminations done.
Shawna:
And when you picked the donor, I mean, I actually already know the answer to this question, but I got to get you to say this. How did you choose that donor?
Amy:
You can handle this one.
Sam:
By… Well, there are a lot of donors, I mean, this is the backstory. A lot of donors are like college age.
Shawna:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Sure, sure. Because they needed to make some money, right?
Sam:
Yeah. So we chose someone who already had a child, who was a little bit older, and I think we liked his reasoning without… Some people have religious reasons–
Child 1:
Tickle, tickle, tickle!
Amy:
No, no, no. Don’t. No, don’t. Will you go downstairs? And Joe will come follow you because I need you to stay downstairs. Thank you. Joe will go where you go. But be careful on the stairs, please.
Child 1:
Remember the thing?
Sam:
So this person didn’t have any of this sort of like overly religious or overly narcissistic reasoning.
Shawna:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Sam:
Some people are like, I just want to pass my genes on.
Shawna:
Oh.
Sam:
So there’s some of that. And this guy was kind of like, I know what it’s like to have a child. And I thought about donating sperm before, but I didn’t. Now I feel like I sort of understand what it means.
Shawna:
Yeah.
Sam:
He sort of appealed to us. So we heard an audio recording and we saw pictures of what he looked like as a child.
Shawna:
Yeah. And do your children look like what he looks like as a child? Do you see him?
Sam:
Yes. Yeah.
Amy:
Yeah. Yeah.
Sam:
Yeah. They do.
Amy:
They do.
Shawna:
And you guys have a funny name that you refer to him as, too?
Amy:
Yeah.
Sam:
Yeah.
Shawna:
I always liked that.
Amy:
Yeah, well, the name that the bank also– [crosstalk 00:05:34].
Shawna:
A nom de sperm?
Sam:
Yeah, they use names to make it more rounded.
Amy:
I wish we had been creative enough to come up with this name because it’s–
Shawna:
Oh, yeah, it’s a good name.
Amy:
It’s such a good name. It’s Marcel.
Sam:
It’s silly.
Amy:
Yeah, and the donor was working as an actor.
Shawna:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Amy:
So I wonder if like–
Sam:
In musical theater.
Amy:
Yeah.
Sam:
Yeah.
Amy:
Marcel Marceau or I don’t know, some–
Shawna:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Like if he could get to choose the name.
Sam:
Yeah.
Amy:
Yeah.
Shawna:
That’s so fun.
Shawna:
Okay. So in this process or previously, were you ever pregnant before?
Amy:
No.
Shawna:
So each of you has been pregnant one time?
Sam:
Yes.
Shawna:
So you had not ever experienced any miscarriages or abortions or anything like that?
Amy:
No.
Shawna:
When you were thinking about getting pregnant, did you ever talk about what would happen if you needed to terminate a pregnancy?
Sam:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Shawna:
Because it wasn’t going well? Is that something you ever thought about or talked about together?
Amy:
A little. Well, we had a terrible day where we… We… During my pregnancy, and I’m… I was 42 at the time, so I knew that it was classified as a high risk pregnancy.
Shawna:
Geriatric pregnancy.
Amy:
Geriatric. And I had a geriatric uterus.
Shawna:
I had, yeah, yeah, I had to hear all about that geriatric pregnancy.
Amy:
Yep, you know all this.
Shawna:
Ah, it’s the worst.
Amy:
So we had decided to work with a pair of midwives and specifically one, but we were having a regular visit with her partner and she couldn’t find the heartbeat. And this was, I don’t know, 14 or 16 weeks.
Sam:
Yeah, scary.
Shawna:
Oh!
Amy:
She couldn’t find the heartbeat.
Shawna:
It’s so scary though.
Amy:
She very, very summarily said, I think you may have lost the pregnancy.
Shawna:
She said it like that?
Amy:
She said it like that.
Shawna:
Normally, because they couldn’t find my heartbeat at 10 weeks or something. And they’re like, oh, we just can’t find the heartbeat today. You know, and I… Of course you go to the dark thoughts, but they’re not supposed to just–
Amy:
No.
Shawna:
Oh, wow.
Amy:
Yeah. So we, we… Anyway, we did go get an ultrasound right away.
Shawna:
Yes.
Amy:
And found out that everything was actually fine. And so we talked about it, I think during that day.
Shawna:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Scary. [crosstalk 00:07:52]
Amy:
How will we bear this, a miscarriage. And I think because of the geriatric pregnancy, there were a lot of concerns of problems.
Sam:
Yeah.
Amy:
I think it’s, of course, a little over generated.
Shawna:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Amy:
So I feel like we knew each other’s mindsets that we would probably be horrified.
Sam:
Yeah.
Amy:
And saddened deeply. And we’re really, especially as soon as I became pregnant, or as soon as we even started talking all about it seriously, and knowing that we both were interested in parenting like that, that would be a hard decision, but also one that we could face. Yeah. Anyway, I think we kind of knew each others’ mindsets, that we wouldn’t have a moral opposed opposition to the choice to terminate. Of course, during that day there were thoughts, what has happened, even what have I done, briefly. And it was pretty hard to get through it, but I think just knowing each others’ mindset that we would have been able to make a decision if it felt important to terminate a pregnancy for the benefit, of course, of the fetus or us.
Shawna:
It’s interesting because right there you say fetus, and so that’s what I come up with a lot when I’m trying to write the book or when I’ve been talking to people, is that we go very freely between fetus and baby, and it feels like as mothers, it’s this idea of fruition. It’s like if we intend it to be a baby, then it is a baby. But that’s the part that feels trickier in talking with children about what words that we use.
Shawna:
We can [inaudible 00:01:44] going. I’ve been worried about it. I don’t know. It looks like it’s going okay.
Shawna:
Anyway, that’s my question, because I noticed everyone I’ve talked to so far feels really comfortable going back and forth. It’s cells, it’s a baby. It’s really all about what that person wants it to be, and I think that’s totally fair, but I’m wondering how to explore that as a concept.
Amy:
Right, that’s a really good point.
Shawna:
Especially if you’re thinking about … I’m thinking about the book in terms of five to eight, but really someone like Jo would still be in the … I still read books that are in five to eight for preschoolers, too. My question is about I notice people in their language going back and forth between fetus and baby, and I’m wondering how that would work in talking to kids, because it seems like it’s really complicated and we just sort of jump around with it. Do you have any thoughts?
Sam:
I have thoughts about that. I don’t know if I have thoughts about it. I mean, I think in terms of being pregnant myself and Amy being pregnant, it was kind of a task, a mental task, to think about fetus instead of a baby. So early, in me at least, there was a conceptualization of baby, so to say fetus felt strange.
Shawna:
Right, right, because this was your baby that you were growing. [crosstalk 00:03:37]
Sam:
And it was surprising to me how much it seemed like a baby so early. The ways we got pregnant, there were ultrasounds really early.
Shawna:
Because they wanted to make sure that it was implanted properly and it’s going okay.
Sam:
Right.
Jo:
I’m going to Jackson’s downstairs so we can dress up.
Shawna:
Be careful on the stairs.
Sam:
So you start conceiving of baby early. And I remember Jane Perkins was like, “Even though you can see the flutter of what will be a heart,” she was very careful to say to us, “It’s not a heartbeat.” But if you look at it on the monitor, your mind will say, “That’s a heartbeat.” I felt like she was sort of reminding me, “Hey, that’s not a baby yet and that’s not a heartbeat. That’s a flutter of what will be a heart.”
Shawna:
That’s so fascinating. I didn’t have any ultrasounds that early except for the time I had an ultrasound. When you go to have an abortion, they give you an ultrasound there, which is a really weird thing. They tell you you don’t have to look if you don’t want to, but it’s just part of the procedure. But that’s the only time I have seen something so small, some little bits of cells, because normally I would get them later when it was a big old baby.
Sam:
Baby, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Shawna:
I’m wondering, your kids are almost four and six, right?
Sam:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Shawna:
When you talk to them about their birth story or your pregnancy, what kinds of things do you tell them or what kinds of things do they ask? What are they so curious about?
Amy:
Go ahead.
Sam:
Well, they’re curious about being pregnant themselves. I don’t know that they ask a lot about our pregnancies.
Shawna:
Was Nat disappointed?
Amy:
He still is.
Sam:
Yeah, Nat really wants to have a baby in his belly.
Amy:
I think he’s still mourning that.
Sam:
He wonders if he has a uterus inside.
Amy:
Not quite accepting of it.
Sam:
Not quite there yet.
Shawna:
Oh, that makes me so sad. I haven’t heard of any boys who had that feeling. Oh. Well, you never know. In 25 years …
Sam:
That’s what we said. We said like, “Well, right now, people without a uterus can’t carry a baby, but we don’t know.”
Amy:
And I don’t think this adds or is problematic in his process, but he does know that we have a sperm donor and we went to a doctor. He knows some about it, and Jo has followed a little about that, too.
Shawna:
What things is she curious about? Has she asked any specific questions?
Amy:
What has she asked? Both of them are very …
Sam:
“Did I come out of your vagina?” is a big one.
Amy:
Yeah.
Sam:
Came out your vagina. [crosstalk 00:06:32]
Amy:
That’s a recent discussion with Jo especially.
Shawna:
Is it a C-section versus vaginal birth kind of question?
Sam:
Mm-hmm (affirmative), yeah. [crosstalk 00:06:40]
Amy:
We recently told Jo about the C-section for me, and she wanted to see my scar and so we showed her that. Then later, she said she didn’t want to have that happen.
Sam:
Yeah, she doesn’t want to have a baby.
Shawna:
It sounds scary to her.
Sam:
She’d rather have it come out her vagina. She hasn’t quite … They’re both bad.
Shawna:
That sounds just as scary to me! [crosstalk 00:07:03]
Amy:
And eventually I’ll tell her, “It went really great!” They used to think everything happened since their lives began. They didn’t have an idea of a pre-history, so to start to say that was before… I started this weird thing where I was like, “That was when you were a dream.” I’m not sure about that, but it sort of just is a history marker thing.
Shawna:
I say, “When you were still an egg inside me,” because they think that’s really funny that I’ve carried them around always. There’s infinite possibilities for them to come out in the world, and they came out these eggs.
Amy:
That’s lovely.
Shawna:
That’s kind of a miracle, right?
Amy:
Totally. Especially with these-
Shawna:
All these eggs.
Amy:
… geriatric-
Shawna:
Yeah, these geriatric pregnancies.
Sam:
The last of the eggs. [crosstalk 00:08:09]
Shawna:
Oh my goodness.
Amy:
That’s a good idea.
Shawna:
So these are some things they’re asking now. What are some things that you want them to know? If you were reading your children a book that talked about pregnancy and some of the outcomes of pregnancy, what would you want them to hear?
Amy:
I’ll just add, too, which is sort of more maybe to the last question, we did get a book from our doula.
Sam:
What Makes a Baby.
Amy:
What Makes a Baby, which we love, because it’s just bodies with uteruses usually can carry the baby.
Shawna:
Is that the one with the-
Sam:
Drawings.
Shawna:
Yes. Oh I love that. They do a really good job.
Amy:
That has been helpful, so helpful.
Sam:
Yeah.
Amy:
I don’t know what we would have done without that.
Sam:
Yeah, that’s a good one.
Amy:
Super helpful also just-
Shawna:
It’s really non-gender. They did a great job of that.
Amy:
Right, right. So that has been wonderful. But we haven’t really talked about terminated pregnancies, abortions, miscarriages.
Shawna:
Adoption? Has anybody talked about adoption? That’s the other thing I notice that people don’t seem to talk about very much either.
Amy:
A little. Just a little. I started a story to Nat. Like I tell him these continuous stories, and I somehow had an adoption narrative in it. Then he met some friends of ours, he met a friend who has two adopted kids.
Sam:
Oh right.
Amy:
So he knows a bunch. Well, I don’t know if we ever talked about it with Mora and Doug’s kids. But anyway, he knows a bunch of adopted kids, so we’re starting that. I’m enjoying that. I feel like it’s helpful to just be thinking about it. But we haven’t talked about the choice of terminating or spontaneous abortion. I think it would probably be good to have in our minds. What do you think, Sam?
Sam:
I don’t know. What do I think? What was the question? Have we talked about those things? No.
Shawna:
You haven’t talked about it, so I’m saying would you-
Sam:
No, and I don’t think I would have thought of it unless you were talking about this. Yeah, I think my associations to both are kind of upsetting. Like to a miscarriage and abortion, I have an upset feeling associated with both. So I think yeah, it would be hard. I’m trying to think of how … I can’t imagine there wouldn’t be an overtone of, I don’t know, some kind of sadness.
Shawna:
Yeah.
Sam:
Not that that means I wouldn’t want to do it, but I imagine there to be some, yeah, element of sadness or loss in either.
Shawna:
But I think that’s true. I think that most people experience-
Sam:
Yeah.
Shawna:
Even people who are very relieved when they have an abortion, they do report feeling [inaudible 00:11:34]. [crosstalk 00:11:36] But people that we know sort of in our age group too, often the people that I know that had abortions is because they have to, their pregnancy isn’t going well. So that’s a whole other thing. That’s another area where I could see it coming up, like you have a friend and all of a sudden they’re pregnant and then they’re not.
Sam:
Yeah, yeah. But I think too, especially … I mean, both, miscarriage and abortion, they seem so common. Then it sometimes seems, yeah, unusual that we wouldn’t talk about it as sort of commonplace. Yeah. I mean, having one and two pregnancies of pregnancy, yeah, I think both of us would have been so upset by a miscarriage or having to have an abortion. But they’re very planned pregnancies.
Shawna:
Yeah, yeah.
Sam:
Highly planned. So yeah, it’s a little outside. And two, we’re sort of mostly lesbians, so thinking about an unplanned pregnancy is not something that I’ve had to think about very much.
Amy:
It’s been a while.
Shawna:
I give that example all the time with [Beezus 00:13:01] when I told her about abortion. That’s her whole thing was in her whole mindset, she cannot picture ever doing that with a man. That just sounds disgusting. So anyone who’s-
Nat:
Mommy.
Amy:
Yes?
Nat:
I want to tell you something.
Amy:
Okay, real quick. I’m talking to-
Sam:
Well, I think both of us are not [inaudible 00:13:19].
Shawna:
That was her whole point, though. She couldn’t picture that happening to her.
Sam:
Yeah.
Shawna:
So she couldn’t relate. Or yeah, she hadn’t spent any time thinking about it.
Amy:
I’ll be right there, okay?
Sam:
What am I even having … I’m going to wait for Jo to leave.
Amy:
Go ahead. Head over to the potty. All right, I’ll come with you.
Sam:
Go with Jo.
Shawna:
I’m just going to hang out here.
Sam:
She’ll wait. But I was saying, so I’m a lesbian, but I’ve had sex with men. But even in those experiences, it was like a late thought that I should care about-
Shawna:
You’re like, “Oh, you can get pregnant when you do this!”
Sam:
Yeah. And I remember being like, “Oh, I should actually think about this. This could happen.” But it never would have really occurred to me. And now it doesn’t at all.
Shawna:
Yeah, yeah.
Sam:
There’s no accidental pregnancies. Yeah, there’s just none of that. But I mean, the same thing, this is unrelated, but it did not cross my mind that I would have a miscarriage either, and that totally could have happened. But I was not … It just wasn’t on my radar.
Shawna:
It didn’t cross my mind until my underwear were full of blood.
Sam:
Yeah, yeah.
Shawna:
But yeah, it’s not something you even think about. Would have never occurred to me.
Sam:
Yeah.
Shawna:
And I think it goes back to the whole thing of people don’t really talk about that. Once I had the miscarriage, then all of these friends of mine were like, “Oh yeah.”
Sam:
I had a miscarriage. Right.
Shawna:
Why don’t people say that first? Nobody tells you these things.
Sam:
I know. I feel like I only learned more recently, probably since the pregnancies, so many people have miscarriages.
Shawna:
Yes, yes. Well, and it was that way for me with abortion, too. Once I started talking about it-
Sam:
Yeah, yeah.
Amy:
So many people have had abortions.
Shawna:
… so many moms were just like, “Oh yeah, I’ve had two abortions.” And I was just like, “Wow, I never would have known that about you.” That goes back to the I shouldn’t have to know that about you, because that’s your private business, but it is, it’s just a very regular medical procedure. It’s so regular. So in thinking about this, is there anything that you wouldn’t want your children to know or anything you feel uncomfortable about? Like you feel like too much too soon?
Sam:
I feel like there is something about growth-
Nat:
[inaudible 00:15:58]
Shawna:
That’s cute.
Jo:
This is Nat’s old one.
Amy:
That’s … Oh yes.
Shawna:
I love it.
Jo:
[inaudible 00:16:08] cupcake one with donuts. That’s Nat’s old one, too. I want to go play [inaudible 00:16:14].
Shawna:
Okay.
Sam:
I mean, I think about how even, like what I was saying before, even the introduction of something typical and normal it seems like with a little kid, thinking about Jo and Nat, what would be, I don’t know how to think about this, but like a way to introduce something that interrupts the idea that as soon as there’s a pregnancy there’s a baby? And I think that feels sort of delicate. I imagine, I mean I don’t know this, but I imagine that the little ones conceive a pregnancy as baby.
Shawna:
Yes.
Sam:
Pregnancy/baby are one in the same. So how to introduce that seems very tricky.
Shawna:
So that’s a central question in my book. The child is asking their mom if she’s pregnant. Well, she doesn’t even ask. She’s like, “Oh, you’re having a baby,” and they go back and talk about that. But the pregnancy versus baby, because I’m really trying to separate those two things. That you can be pregnant … Beezus has a funny thing that she said. What did she say? She said it way better. She’s like, “I might be pregnant, but I’m not having a baby.”
Shawna:
But anyway, if we saw it as two different things from early on, then I feel like it speaks to this. But I think you’re right. I think our kids see pregnant people … You don’t know people are pregnant until you see them as pregnant, as a child, and that means people are talking about this baby that there is. It’s a really concrete thing.
Sam:
Yeah. Yeah.
Shawna:
And we’re all so excited about babies. We all talk about babies all the time. We play babies. We have baby toy, baby stuff. It’s kind of baby baby baby all the time.
Sam:
Totally.
Shawna:
So my question was is there anything you wouldn’t want your children to know about any of these things?
Amy:
I mean, I probably wouldn’t want them to know how many powerful forces are against abortion. If I could protect them from that, perhaps, but I know I can’t and feel like that’s sadly part of the story and part of being in this world and country. But other than that, I don’t think so. Actually, as we’re talking, I just remembered that my mother had an abortion sometime when I was a child, probably middle adolescence or something.
Shawna:
Did she tell you?
Amy:
She didn’t tell me until about, I don’t know, until sometime in my early twenties I think. Maybe college age. I think she was pretty … I think it was hard for her, really hard. The point that she told me, I was a little like, “Whoa, I’m a little surprised.”
Shawna:
I didn’t ask you for this information kind of thing.
Amy:
[crosstalk 00:19:14] Yeah, I was like a teenager.
Sam:
14.
Amy:
Yeah.
Shawna:
So is that one of her reasons she didn’t want to have more children? You guys were big kids and she wasn’t really looking-
Amy:
Yeah. A bunch of reasons. Primarily my brother and I were already in adolescent ages, and she didn’t want to have another baby. She was focused on work a lot and there were stressors or different sorts. Not so much material but there were different kinds of stressors.
Shawna:
Did she have easy access to abortion? Did she have to go somewhere, do some rigmarole?
Amy:
It was not that hard. Yeah. Living in the northeast US. It was just in state, in Connecticut. Like I said, I was kind of like, “Wow,” because she’s ambivalent about- [crosstalk 00:20:17] She’s a little conservative. She’s ambivalent about … She’s pretty pro-choice, but I think she’s ambivalent about some of her own processes and about feminism, so I think it was hard on her. So I think she felt sort of morally I guess guilty or just a little conflicted about it and about the ease of it. Like as if it should have been a little harder on her. Like she had to go through something hard.
Amy:
And that contrasted with a friend of mine in college who was pregnant and got an abortion, and I was a little struck by her like, “Of course,” and there’s no difficulty. And, “That’s of course what I will do.” And I was both impressed by it, like, “Whoa, that’s so bold,” because I wasn’t like that. I was sort of just a little timid in my life in different ways. And for her to just be like, “Of course I’m going to take care of myself,” and, “Of course this isn’t the time.” And just could not wait to have her …
Shawna:
I see you.
Sam:
Hey, Jo.
Amy:
And so-
Sam:
Oh my.
Amy:
What’s she doing? [crosstalk 00:21:40] She’s just showing us her costume?
Shawna:
She’s got her costume, yeah.
Sam:
Yeah. You want to show us? Show [Shawna 00:21:55] full on and then go back down and show [Minnow 00:21:59].
Jo:
But Minnow already saw it.
Sam:
Oh she did?
Shawna:
Did she like your costume?
Jo:
It’s not my costume.
Shawna:
Oh okay, sorry. Dress up? Is it the Rapunzel dress?
Jo:
Come. Come, Mama. [crosstalk 00:22:12]
Sam:
We have to finish our interview with Shawna.
Jo:
Mama, come.
Shawna:
We’re almost finished.
Sam:
We’re almost done.
Amy:
I can’t right now. I’m just finishing talking to Shawna.
Sam:
We have to finish doing our work. Show Shawna. She wants to see.
Shawna:
Oh I love it. I especially like the bow or ears. Ear bow?
Jo:
Nothing. Nothing.
Amy:
Nothing.
Shawna:
Do you want me to start coming over more often? Is it pretty exciting? [crosstalk 00:22:42] Yeah? Should I come over?
Amy:
It’s like the best thing.
Shawna:
Come once a month or something. I really only have about one more question.
Sam:
Yeah. Can you let Shawna ask us one more question and we’ll come downstairs and visit you?
Shawna:
Jojo, why don’t you go get one more costume on, and by that time I bet we’ll be done?
Sam:
Oh yeah. Go get more costumes.
Shawna:
Maybe Mama will take you down to the top of the stairs.
Jo:
No, no. It’s fine.
Sam:
Oh it’s fine.
Amy:
With all that, I’m not sure where I was meandering around except that I feel like I want them to know a lot so that they-
Shawna:
You wouldn’t want them to wait until they were in their twenties to-
Amy:
I wouldn’t want them to wait and to feel like yeah, right, exactly, to feel like they have the capacity to make a good decision and to plan their lives.
Shawna:
It sounded like what you’re saying is you wanted them to be like your college friend.
Amy:
Much more. Much more, yeah. I mean, I had my own sort of weird moment there where I was like, “Oh she’s too reckless.” I was a little judgy, which was terrible. Luckily I had a pretty good capacity to edit and look at what I was going through and be like, “That’s messed up. Something in me has got to me worked out.” And I did admire her for her … She’s going to have both her sexual life as well as her full life, and that didn’t include a child at that time.
Shawna:
No, I admire that as well. I also think that’s really interesting when we find out these stories about our mothers when we’re grownups. Like you, I was just wondering, maybe because of our geriatric pregnancies, I don’t want my children to wait until I’m really old to know these things about me.
Amy:
That’s true. Yes, I think she could have told me even at-
Shawna:
Yeah, if you were 14 or something.
Amy:
Yes, you’re right. That is probably somewhere my point in all of that. I think she could have told me. I don’t know exactly what age I was. I don’t know if she’ll totally pinpoint it. But even if I were like 10 and maybe younger, I guess depending on me, how I would have been, and then the process of it to not have to exclude me. Because it sounds like they had to make that decision sort of secretively and that maybe added to the … That’s what I’m guessing here, that it added to the conflict. Anyway.
Shawna:
I think that’s really interesting. Is there anything else that you think that I should consider? I’ve talked to people. I talked to a woman who had an abortion and had adopted both of her children. That was a really fascinating story. I’m excited to talk to a woman who runs an abortion clinic and has had various miscarriage, abortion, maybe stillbirth, something. I just don’t want to exclude anybody. When I was first writing, I completely forgot that people place children for adoption. It was just one of those things. I just didn’t even think about that. So I’m trying to remember to go back and add some words, like these are some of the different outcomes. Because you could have the baby and then place it with another family.
Shawna:
Are there experiences that you think that I need to capture or listen to or seek out? I was telling Amy earlier I don’t want it to be … I know you can’t include everyone’s experience, but I also don’t want it to be exclusive. And one of the things I was saying about the abortion narrative, I always feel like it’s very heterocentric. And I don’t think it needs to be because all these things that we were saying, you could have just as easily gotten pregnant and needed to terminate it just as anyone. So it just feels like it doesn’t really need to be told from that point of view but it feels like it is a lot of times.
Shawna:
And I’m not sure why. Because you were also saying you also had sex with men before.
Sam:
And I was saying it did not really cross my mind-
Amy:
It didn’t cross your mind?
Sam:
… that I should worry about pregnancy.
Amy:
Oh that’s interesting.
Shawna:
It’s such a fear that-
Sam:
The other person had to remind me, “We can have a baby from this.”
Amy:
Wow.
Sam:
[crosstalk 00:27:31]
Shawna:
Because I’m going to get the IUI with my wife and … [crosstalk 00:27:41] Doesn’t work that way.
Amy:
That’s not even a thing.
Shawna:
That’s not even a thing. Yeah.
Sam:
Yeah, I’m not sure-
Shawna:
That’s how I do my [inaudible 00:27:50].
Sam:
Right. I’ve heard a lot of queer people, not a lot, but several queer people who have had adoptions.
Shawna:
Yeah, sure. It makes sense. All kinds of people can get pregnant and do.
Amy:
Yeah, absolutely. So I don’t know-
Shawna:
In telling the story, I just want to make sure that I’m not presenting it that way, too. And one thing that I thought about in doing that is not having any mention of whatever the, because it’s a mother and daughter, not having any mention of what the partner is involved. And I thought in that way, maybe it’s a single mom, or maybe she has a wife, maybe she has a husband, who knows? It’s just you just see the mother and the daughter. I thought that was one way to be inclusive. But I didn’t know if there were other things, just small things that I could do to make it ambiguous or not excluding anybody.
Sam:
That’s not good.
Amy:
What is that?
Sam:
They’re banging on something obviously.
Shawna:
I hope it’s not mine.
Amy:
Sounds like it’s on a duct.
Sam:
Hey guys, we can’t bang on stuff down there. We can hear that upstairs.
Shawna:
It was really good rhythm though. That’s worrying me.
Sam:
Please stop banging. That’s Nat for sure. [crosstalk 00:29:19]
Amy:
I don’t think you’re leaving anything out. It is interesting to have Nat so prominent in our thinking about this and how much he has wanted to be pregnant. It makes me think about … Even your story of your male partner being like, “We got to think about not having a baby.” Sometimes they’re very … Abortion is in their lives, too, and ought to be. But I don’t think it’s missing from your story. It just is striking to me right now, especially because of Nat just banged on the wall.
Shawna:
No, but I think that’s so important because that is something that … You’re the first people I’ve talked to who have talked about their assigned at birth boy that is grieving not having a uterus. I think that is something to think about, so I really appreciate that.
Amy:
Yeah. I don’t think he’s left out of the story.
Shawna:
I personally didn’t think it was that fun, the being pregnant. I didn’t really love it. Did you love it?
Sam:
I did. Yeah.
Shawna:
You loved it?
Sam:
Yeah.
Shawna:
That’s good.
Amy:
Well, you were pretty ill.
Sam:
I was very sick. At the beginning, I was very sick. I’d just go to bed at 6:00 PM, throw up all the time.
Shawna:
Yes, yes, yes. Until your eyeballs felt like they were coming out of their sockets.
Sam:
No, actually. I didn’t continuously throw up, but I threw up like intermittently all the time. So I would eat something, and I’d throw up in weird places, like in my office because I couldn’t get to the bathroom. And once somebody was in the bathroom, I couldn’t get to the bathroom. I just ran out the back door and threw up in the yard. It was that kind of stuff. It was like sudden. But I wouldn’t keep throwing up. It was like whatever I ate went right back out.
Shawna:
Oh my gosh.
Sam:
And I would go to bed at 6:00 PM.
Shawna:
Were you starving?
Sam:
I was pretty hungry, yeah, during that time. Because I couldn’t find the right thing to eat, and I would eat stuff that I was sure wouldn’t make me throw up and then it would. I’d be like, “I’ll just have cereal. That will do,” and then I’d barf the cereal.
Shawna:
That’s not fun to clean up.
Sam:
But you didn’t like being pregnant.
Shawna:
No, I didn’t like being pregnant.
Sam:
Were you sick?
Shawna:
I was really sick. I get really hungry in the beginning, and I gain a lot of weight in just the first couple weeks. Like I had gained 10 pounds the first week, and I’m just like, “Oh my god, I must be pregnant.” And I threw up everywhere. With Beezus, I walked to work, so I would throw up along my walk to work. I’d throw up on the pigeons. I’d throw up everywhere. One time we were at a party, and it was on the third floor of an apartment building, and it was the same, there were people in the bathroom. I didn’t know what to do, so I ran all the way back downstairs, ran out the front door of the apartment building, and I threw up all over the place. These guys were walking by and they said something about me partying or something.
Sam:
Being drunk. Yeah.
Shawna:
And I just went crazy on them. I lost my mind. Then with Minnow, I threw up so much I would just throw up at the back door, because I’d be in making lunches or whatever and then I’d be like …
Sam:
Oh no.
Shawna:
Yeah, I threw up everywhere. I threw up while I was giving birth to her.
Sam:
Me, too.
Shawna:
They held the little thing.
Sam:
Yeah, yeah.
Shawna:
I wanted to punch them because they held the little thing right in my face, and I was like, “Who holds the bowl under your face while you’re throwing up? That’s so rude.”
Sam:
That’s terrible.
Shawna:
So rude.
Amy:
It’s like four different problems.
Shawna:
Yes. Did you like being pregnant?
Amy:
Mostly.
Shawna:
You liked it?
Amy:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was so big and tired.
Shawna:
You were so big.
Amy:
I was so big. But I didn’t get sick. [crosstalk 00:33:15] It wasn’t bad.
Shawna:
So you were surprised when you got sick because she didn’t get sick, so you thought it was going to be just like hers?
Sam:
Yeah.
Amy:
No, my first trimester was fine, and second trimester was pretty great. Third was- [crosstalk 00:33:24] I was falling apart at the end. But just mostly tired. My hips were all-
Sam:
Yeah, something was wrong with her back.
Amy:
I couldn’t walk around.
Sam:
Yeah, it was like a back and hip thing.
Shawna:
Because the hormones release those things, so it makes your hip joints-
Amy:
It was so crazy. I couldn’t walk around for the first three minutes after standing up. I know, I just had to grab onto things. I didn’t want to do it again, except for one moment I guess right after he was born. Even through the pregnancy, I mean I was 42, 43, and then I’m like, “I’m not doing this again. No way.” So all eyes are on Sam. Yeah, and then labor and delivery were not a blast either.
Shawna:
Did you have an emergency C-section?
Amy:
I did, at the end. I went through labor, and then I had an emergency C-section.
Shawna:
So you had to do both. [crosstalk 00:34:24] Yeah, so unfair.
Amy:
I didn’t get super far. I wasn’t fully dilated, but I was like-
Sam:
Pretty close.
Amy:
… eight centimeters. I don’t know it was pretty close or something. Then the OB was like, “Stop pushing.”
Shawna:
We’re going to go in and get him.
Amy:
Yep, we’re going to get him. Yeah. Then right after he was born, I’m like, “I’ll do that again,” but then it passed. Especially because I was like, “We got a baby. I’m not getting pregnant again.” So yeah, it’s so true. It’s not all wine and roses.
Shawna:
Is it expensive?
Amy:
IUIs?
Sam:
Yes.
Amy:
Yeah.
Shawna:
Is there a tax write-off with adoption or anything?
Sam:
Oh adoption, yeah.
Amy:
Adoption.
Sam:
We had adoption credits, only because-
Shawna:
Oh because you got to adopt … Well, not got to, because you had to adopt your own children.
Sam:
Right.
Shawna:
So there is a tax credit for that?
Amy:
For adoption.
Sam:
Yeah.
Amy:
It’s like a regular adoption.
Shawna:
Oh I would have never known that.
Sam:
So I had to adopt Nat and Amy had to adopt Jo.
Shawna:
And you did it both at the same time in the same ceremony?
Amy:
No.
Sam:
No, after Nat was born I did it, and then after Jo was born Amy did it. It’s a hassle.
Shawna:
It’s a hassle.
Amy:
It’s totally a hassle.
Sam:
Because that costs money, too.
Shawna:
Yes.
Sam:
So you have to pay for someone to do a home study, as if you’re adopting your own child, and you pay the lawyer and court fees and stuff. So the tax break doesn’t really help because you already spent a bunch of money.
Shawna:
Are they only investigating the non-birth parent?
Sam:
Yeah. We went to somebody who is a lesbian and who was very cool about it. So she just kind of goes through it. But she’ll take your $500.
Shawna:
Oh because she has to charge so much for the home study.
Sam:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Shawna:
Does she come to the court date or you just present-
Sam:
She writes something.
Shawna:
… and here is it notarized and we did a home study and then the judge says, “Okay”?
Sam:
Yeah.
Amy:
Right, right.
Sam:
They’re pretty cool about it here. Other places, I doubt they are. But here, the home study people and the lawyers and the judges are very celebratory, so we’re kind of [inaudible 00:36:20].
Amy:
But I imagine other places it’s probably not so-
Shawna:
[crosstalk 00:36:26] Oh hello. It’s not on your insurance?
Amy:
No. [crosstalk 00:36:35] Some things they might be able to. I don’t think anything was through insurance actually. Maybe I took one fertility … I didn’t end up taking much fertility, but it looked like I was thinking I might have to.
Shawna:
Were they sort of line you up, they kind of want to get you ovulating on a certain schedule, that sort of thing?
Amy:
Right. But I took something, Letrozole.
Sam:
Yes. Me, too.
Amy:
And that might have been-
Shawna:
To make you fluffier? Is that the fluffy uterus one?
Amy:
Fluffy, yeah.
Shawna:
Right. Because they want you to have a fluffy uterus so you can get-
Sam:
I think the Letrozole, I think it makes you ovulate. [crosstalk 00:37:15]
Shawna:
Oh so it’s throwing more eggs.
Amy:
Right, that’s right.
Shawna:
Which is why if you do IUI [crosstalk 00:37:24], could you possibly get multiples?
Sam:
Yes. [crosstalk 00:37:27]
Shawna:
If you get multiples then, then that would be a chance that some people might do an abortion, right?
Amy:
An abortion.
Shawna:
To terminate one of the multiples. Is that something that came up?
Sam:
Oh no.
Shawna:
No? They just let you have triplets or something?
Amy:
I don’t remember hearing anything about that when we were going through the process.
Sam:
Well remember, I had two eggs on one of my insemination, the one that worked, and they were like, “You have this percent chance of having twins, and you have this percent chance of having triplets. Do you still want to do the insemination?” And I was like, “Just get it in there.” I was like, “Yeah.” It was less than 1% triplets, but maybe like a higher, 3% twins? Under 10.
Shawna:
How can they tell? They just know how many eggs you should have?
Sam:
They know how many eggs, yeah.
Shawna:
Oh my gosh. That’s amazing.
Sam:
They do like an ultrasound to see-
Shawna:
Yeah, yeah. They’re like, “There’s a bunch of eggs in there.”
Sam:
Yeah. Because they’ve given you drugs to get more eggs coming.
Shawna:
And they were about to inseminate you and are like, “We might accidentally hit all three of these eggs”?
Sam:
Pretty much.
Shawna:
That’s amazing.
Amy:
It’s not as precise as in vitro of course. it’s just shoving-
Sam:
[crosstalk 00:38:40] They just shove the sperm in there. [crosstalk 00:38:44] It’s like one step up from a turkey baster, because they go through the cervix and into the uterus. [crosstalk 00:38:54]
Amy:
When we met with the nurse at the fertility center, we really liked her, and we were like let’s just do this. Let’s increase our odds from a turkey baster.
Shawna:
So you could just take the sperm home from the bank and do it yourself?
Amy:
Yeah.
Sam:
Yep.
Shawna:
But this is just a little bit better.
Sam:
This is a lot-
Shawna:
A lot better?
Sam:
We did probably the highest amount of intervention before.
Amy:
Pre in vitro.
Shawna:
Because you only had to do it twice?
Sam:
I did it four times. She did it once.
Shawna:
That’s pretty amazing. [crosstalk 00:39:24]
Amy:
We beat the odds.
Shawna:
I did it many more times than that to get the babies that we have. So you really-
Sam:
So they were upping our chances with the-
Amy:
The Letrozole.
Sam:
… pill, with the shot, and with the times.
Shawna:
Right. They’re really keeping track of your-
Sam:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Shawna:
I’m just kind of sloppy like, “Oh I think I’m ovulating right now.” Yeah, yeah. [crosstalk 00:39:42] That’s fascinating to me.
Amy:
It made me feel a little bit like, “How do people get pregnant?”
Sam:
I know.
Shawna:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sam:
I know. That was strange to find out what a low percentage chance there is. But there are so many accidental pregnancies. How can this be?
Shawna:
I think that’s amazing, too. Trying to get pregnant for so many years, I was trying to get pregnant, it was shocking to me because I’d say, “Well, I was only pregnant once this year,” to my doctor, and she’s like, “Yeah, that’s about normal for …” She’s like, “Well, you had 12 shots. You got one. That baby is a quitter, and there you go.” Kind of blew my mind, because I sort of have more of that pregnant teen motto in my head like, “One time, you’re pregnant.”
Sam:
Yes.
Amy:
That’s what I thought, too.
Sam:
Yeah, when she told us, “You have such a low percentage chance every time,” we were like, “What?”
Shawna:
Then what do you do? So after the insemination, then do you start taking pregnancy tests really quickly after?
Sam:
Two weeks.
Shawna:
Oh okay. So that two weeks is a really nervewracking time.
Amy:
So nervewracking.
Shawna:
Do you start thinking, “Oh if I don’t do it the first time it’s going to cost me more money”?
Sam:
Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Because we had to buy more sperm. You have to do the shot and the pills every time.
Amy:
Each try was, what, like $1,500?
Sam:
Something like that. Was it that much? Oh, if you include the sperm.
Amy:
Yeah.
Sam:
Right, right.
Shawna:
The sperm is how much?
Sam:
$600 a vial, $500 a vial. Something like that.
Amy:
Yeah. Then the different appointments and meds.
Shawna:
How much quantity of sperm is it?
Amy:
It’s tiny.
Sam:
Oh it’s the tiniest.
Shawna:
So it’s like he didn’t have to go five times to donate to-
Amy:
Well, they need to spin it and-
Sam:
There’s a whole wash process.
Amy:
Yeah, check it and stuff.
Shawna:
They wash the sperm?
Sam:
So it’s not semen. It’s just sperm.
Shawna:
Sperm. Oh, that’s fascinating.
Sam:
I don’t even know how. Yeah.
Amy:
I think they need quantity.
Shawna:
Quantity so they can do all this biological stuff.
Amy:
It’s not like a little squirt.
Sam:
I think it is a different sample though every time.
Amy:
That’s right.
Sam:
I don’t know if it can be from the same batch or whatever.
Amy:
Right.
Sam:
Because they tell you the motility. They do a little printout-
Amy:
They look at it before.
Sam:
… of how they’re doing and they get a rating on how good they are.
Shawna:
A rating? Like out of 100?
Sam:
On speed and utility. I think it’s one to five on several categories.
Shawna:
And you guys had like top fives? They were a good category.
Sam:
Yeah. I had a low one. [crosstalk 00:42:18] It didn’t work. We had like high ones, so four out of five or five out of five.
Shawna:
Nice. Do the sperm bank people have to pass any tests to make sure that they have high sperm rankings? Like they don’t let-
Sam:
Yeah. They wouldn’t give you a bad sample.
Shawna:
Yeah. Which is why they probably have so many young people, too, right?
Amy:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Shawna:
Because I know your ratings go down.
Sam:
Yeah. But our guy was older. I mean, he’s in his 30s. Still young, but yeah. I think they have standards.
Shawna:
Right. They don’t have 50-year-old men.
Sam:
They’re not going to give you bad sperm. Yeah. Then everybody would be so mad.
Shawna:
They’d be so mad.
Sam:
I was mad when we got the lower, like a three out of five.
Shawna:
You’re like, “We didn’t pay this-“
Sam:
I was like, “This isn’t going to work.”
Shawna:
That’s super funny. Okay, so I’m really bad at starting interviews, and I also am not really ever sure when to end.
Sam:
End, yep. Done, yep.
Shawna:
But it feels like, yeah.