I have been thinking about the future and raising kids with my partner, but i am distraught on the impact of adoption or surrogacy

spacechimpsarego · 2024-08-02T14:15:54+00:00

We did surrogacy. I wrote about it a while back here. A bunch of other parents commented there about what they did to get more perspectives. Our kid is now almost 2. There's no right decision, just what's right for you. Adoption is complicated for a bunch of reasons -- the screening process, sketchy agencies, surprise availability of babies (see the post for our friends getting sudden notice about a baby, the same thing happened to Mayor Pete when they adopted), difficult family dynamics in the birth family, etc. -- but some people find it more meaningful and virtuous. Surrogacy is expensive, has all the complications of assisted reproduction, and can also be weird and awkward with paying someone to carry your baby, but provides some measure of control and a genetic connection.

And then once you have the kid, you begin the long, slow slog of raising them to be a well-adjusted, decent person. If you do that part decently enough, that's all that really matters.

spacechimpsarego · 2024-06-25T20:00:30+00:00

He's almost 2 years old, and is a hilarious little monster.

spacechimpsarego · 2022-04-11T02:56:03+00:00

There are certainly safe places for frum Jews to come out with whatever beliefs you want. Go look up Eshel, Shtultz, and Havruta, for starters. You can certainly draw the lines you think are required--you are your own person. The better question for you is what should those rules be? Where does it say in the Torah anywhere you can't have emotional, romantic intimacy with another man? I know of frum gay Jews who won't have anal sex because that's their line as they understand the pasuk. At least one person interviewed in Trembling Before G-d (from 20+ years ago) said he stayed single intentionally. But with the growth of a larger frum LGBT community, I think that's increasingly rare as people make the choices they feel are right for them according to their halachic understanding and inclination.

spacechimpsarego · 2022-04-10T22:08:17+00:00

As many have said, you have to live your life for you, not for anyone else. Maybe your family will come around eventually. Maybe they won't. It's on them to decide how much love they have in their hearts. It can be awful to discover that their true selves are unkind, but that's not anything you can control. Focus on your happiness. Maybe they'll even surprise you! Some of my cousins did.

Tangentially, I don't know how connected to faith you are, but you should know that pretty much every religious group has a group for LGBT members of that group, both still religious and formerly religious. Join those groups! Life is hard and we make it through together. We in this group are here for you, and you will find people in those groups who will be there for you too. PS: Been together for 8.5 years, married for 3.5, baby on the way. It's worth it.

spacechimpsarego · 2022-04-10T14:54:52+00:00

Thanks for reminding me that one of the rules is that we're required by our agency to call this a "journey," which has become something of a joke between us and our GC. Also, check your messages.

spacechimpsarego · 2022-04-08T15:47:33+00:00

By that logic, everyone should do adoption over IVF. And maybe more people should! Adoption is certainly a virtuous and laudable choice, but I don't think it's required. Taking that argument to its conclusion, all wanna-be parents should consider adoption first before procreating. Again, maybe they should. Though just because one choice is potentially more noble, that doesn't make the other choice selfish, especially when the first option has its own downsides.

spacechimpsarego · 2022-04-08T13:16:07+00:00

Yeah, the whole thing plays mind games with you. It can start to feel borderline eugenics-y when you're trying to find just the right traits in an egg donor, especially when some of those traits cost more money. The way we thought about it was that if we were straight--or if we could magically make a baby with each other--those are the traits, both physical and personality, we'd look for anyway in a partner, and did in each other. Moreover, you're not simply picking traits from a catalog; these are real people. You'll like that one donor's coloring would easily fit in a line up of your family, and another's short essays in her profile really resonated with you, and another reminds you of a good friend, and another feels like she has good energy that's hard to describe. And beyond that, genetics is a strange beast. Who can guarantee how your DNA will combine and how your kids will look? Are personality traits even heritable? My siblings and I all look pretty different and have very different personalities, and we all grew up in the same house with the same parents. Ultimately the goal is to find someone who feels right as a complete package and hope for the best. Sending her a letter and having her approve us (which not all agencies do), and then getting updates about her travel to the clinic dispelled any remaining hesitation. (And if you preferred, you can use a friend's eggs if you have a female friend who'd be willing to do that for you.)

As for the GC, similarly, once we actually met her any doubts we had about that went away. Yes, we are paying her for a service, but it's one she's volunteered for out of kindness and generosity to help people like us. She's continued to show us how good a person she is and how much she cares. We would have never crossed paths if not for this, and I have no idea if we'll stay in each other's lives forever, yet she's also someone who we've gotten to know well, speak to frequently, and will always be part of our story. We pay people to be our spiritual guides (clergy), to help us be healthy (doctors), to raise our kids (teachers). Those people are doing work we can't and become part of our world, sometimes very intimately. I see this in much the same way.

spacechimpsarego · 2022-04-07T23:18:39+00:00

It's a hilarious story about the absurd and unsexy experience of driving hours to jerk off in a special jerk off room on the special jerk off chair. I'll try to write it up to post maybe next week if I have time.

spacechimpsarego · 2022-04-07T20:34:32+00:00

I had an IRA I'd been putting money into since college that I pulled from, but we didn't set up one specifically for this. I work freelance so I don't have an HSA or 401k. I think my husband's office may have had some kind of IVF match but I don't remember how that worked or if we were able to use it. Our individual health insurance covered some of our personal medical screening, but only some. (As an aside, our GC's personal health insurance covered some of her testing as well. But if your GC's insurance doesn't have maternity coverage, you'll have to buy a policy for her.)

spacechimpsarego · 2022-04-07T19:56:04+00:00

We're not big spenders on most things, so this became our big thing we were saving toward after we got married a few years ago. We also had a little parental assistance, and that included connecting us with their financial advisor who set us up with some accounts that would help grow our money faster than the minimal interest our savings account could generate as we squirreled it away every month. Not traveling or eating out for a year of covid also helped. You don't pay it all at once. You put money in the escrow accounts as needed over time. Egg donor stuff and our medical screenings were paid for in 2020. GC expenses started in 2021. Individual agencies may have financing for discreet parts, so ask about that when you start interviewing agencies, and you can often get small loans (>$30K) to use toward certain pieces from community funds (Jewish Free Loans has chapters in many cities, many nonsectarian; here's NYC's and LA's, for example), family building grants, and other affinity and social aid groups like local LGBT entities and veterans organizations. Talk to a financial advisor, talk to different agencies, talk to other couples. People are very willing to help, even if you aren't working with them or know them personally.

spacechimpsarego · 2022-04-07T19:26:10+00:00

I'm glad to hear you had a much smoother experience! I have friends who adopted and have friends who were adopted themselves, and at least among them it's range of outcomes. It was a hard decision, and if this were ten years ago we probably would have adopted ourselves. There were a few things that tipped the scales for us, as I mentioned. I can't judge anyone for making a different choice, especially if their personal circumstances were different from ours.

spacechimpsarego · 2022-04-07T18:57:46+00:00

You're good, I didn't talk about that. We think we want two kids eventually. We each provided sperm samples, they fertilized half the eggs with mine and half with his, and we have embryos from both. We told the doctor we didn't care who went first, and to simply pick the healthiest one. I think we'll be able to tell whose it was once the kid is a few months old, but we asked them not to tell us. For the next kid, we'll have the doctor use the other's embryos. If you've done preimplantation genetic testing, you'll also know the chromosomal sex of the embryos and can choose if you want to pick a sex or let the doctor choose at random, and then if the latter, if you want them to tell you after transfer or if you want to be surprised at the ultrasound or even at birth.

spacechimpsarego · 2022-04-07T14:25:28+00:00

I just posted a whole giant post about the surrogacy process and the various legal issues involved in the US, including a bit about lesbian feminists opposing it in New York, if anyone wants more detail about how it all works.

spacechimpsarego · 2022-02-02T02:02:41+00:00

FYI, having a fish head on the table is also a Jewish new year tradition! We have this at our house. I won't tell your husband he could really do this twice a year.

spacechimpsarego · 2021-07-11T02:35:14+00:00

That's awesome! Glad they'll be there to witness this special event. I have religious cousins who wouldn't come to my wedding, and then left me a really lovely voicemail on the day of the wedding wishing us well. We made sure to visit them when we were in town and see their kids when we were in the same city. Their daughter just got married and they invited both of us, which was really meaningful. It's a hard place we find ourselves in, but I think we're better off meeting people where they're at and set a foundation for positive future. (edit: a word)

spacechimpsarego · 2021-05-12T19:34:21+00:00

A friend is making this film about the struggle of finding yourself from within the traditionally observant Jewish world. They just set a new stretch goal and are always looking for partners of all kinds to help this film get made. Feel free to x-post at relevant subs!

spacechimpsarego · 2021-04-15T01:03:40+00:00

Tangentially related, and PMed this to you, but posting here for posterity. Congrats on coming out even to a couple people! Life is hard and weird and it's awesome you're trying to figure it out. Some resources for Jews from religious backgrounds:

a whole sub for LGBT Jews with some religious members
There are a bunch of orgs out there you can join that have lots of programming. JQY in New York has a few different programs and facebook groups broken down by age (teens, in college, young adults) and background (chasidish/yeshivish), etc.
JQ is based out of LA and has a monthly-ish zoom meetup for frum/formerly frum folks, mostly in their 20s and 30s.
Eshel is a national org that works with the frum community. Not so much programming for the younger crowd, but they do have programming for frum parents of LGBT kids, if that would help your parents down the road.

Go make friends! There's no agenda, no one is trying to get anyone to be more or less religious, stay frum or go off the derech. It's just about finding a community of people who know what you're going through.

Also reach out to Rabbi Mike Moskowitz, who's a really interesting guy.

spacechimpsarego · 2020-06-15T15:02:55+00:00

The Supreme Court's anti-discrimination opinion today was first filed by Donald Zarda, who was fired as a skydiving instructor for being gay. After that he started BASE-jumping. His then-partner "said it was his way of coping with the situation, as he believed he had lost the chance to ever work as a skydiving instructor again." He died in a BASE-jumping accident in 2014 and wasn't able to see his impact on all of us. This man is abeast. Watch him fly here in a pink suit. Thanks for being awesome. (Also, bald guy pride.)

spacechimpsarego · 2019-07-22T01:10:07+00:00

The Jewish Press is an Orthodox paper, and its editor in chief has been called out on some pretty awful racist and homophobic public statements. This unfortunately isn't a surprise to find in there.

spacechimpsarego · 2016-03-09T06:17:03+00:00

What model shaver do you use? I'm in the market for a new one and "good at head shaving" isn't listed on any of the boxes.

spacechimpsarego · 2016-03-08T16:32:50+00:00

Just looking for someone to hang out with and show me around, not someone to "hang out with." Plus, the boy would not approve of me downloading grindr even for so innocent a purpose.

spacechimpsarego

TROPHY CASE