Cruising with "R" Family

We are so excited... We are going on the 7/07/07 "r" family cruise. Just a little bit over a week left. When we booked this cruise back in April we were excited for many reasons. It was originally going to Bermuda which none of us had ever been to before... ummmm.... not any more thanks to the homophobic religious zealots of Bermuda that decided they were gonna protest if we came. OK so the most important reason for this cruise was for our boys to meet more families like ours. Another reason, we have not told them about us wanting to have another child.

My son, David, has a very mild form of tourettes (just facial and body tics, not audible) and it gets worse with stress. I won't get into the details, but his relationship with his dad has not been a healthy one. He has an almost 3 yr old sister from his dad who he loves very much but hardly sees. There have been a lot of stresses that have triggered his tics and most have involved his father in one way or the other but for the most part he does not adjust well to change. He is a child of habit and structure. There has been so much change in his life already but the one thing that has remained his constant has been me. We are very close and even though he is this big (5'2, 106lb, 11 1/2 yr old) tough kid who to everyone else acts as if he is going on 30, he is the same kid who will still hold my hand in public and kiss me in front of his friends. He is the football player all big and bad in his equipment who turns to me from the line and blows me a kiss before the game. He is the blackbelt (going on his 2nd) who has a Mariah Carey song on his cell phone because I used to sing it to him when he was a baby. He is the kid who roots for the underdog and helps those less fortunate. He is the defender of the weak and yet he probably needs more defending then the most. Funny how those who appear to be the strongest sometimes need the most help. Dawn would say that's me exactly. I am the one that gets all the phone calls for advice and help but the last one to ask for help myself... I hate it when she's right.

Anyway, even though Dawn and I have raised the boys together for all these years it was those first 3 before we met that made it seem like it was me and him against the world. Needless to say, Dawn and I are afraid he will not take it well. He loves kids and is wonderful with them but we both have this fear that something as big as another baby (especially one that I will carry) will be too much for him. Our biggest fear is the choices we would have to make about our journey if his mental health is at risk because of it. We have decided to tell them about 3 months before we first inseminate. I figure it will give us enough time to let him try and adjust and just in case things change we won't have told him for nothing. Ryan on the other hand appears to be so small and fragile next to David but he is easy going and easily adapts to change. His only requirement for happiness is just being. He has no siblings and a really good relationship with his dad. Ryan has been lucky. We think he will be fine.

So anyway, we hope that will all the different types of families on board the boys, especially David, will find comfort in everyone's differences and the fact that families really do come in all different shapes, sizes and colors. So while this vacation will be welcome as just as vacation, it can actually turn out to be life changing for us. So here is hoping that everything we have heard about this cruise is true and more.

And Dylan will make 5

This is where we begin... again. My name is Michelle, 30. My wife, Dawn, 36, and I have been together since March 1999. We each have a son from our previous lives (aka the ex-husbands). We met while we were both working at the same daycare. We were both seperated from our husbands and on our way to divorces. We became instant friends. It turned out that we had lived within @ 15 blocks of eachother for over 10 years, Dawn hung out with all the older siblings of my friends she even graduated highschool with the older sister of my best friend since 2nd grade... yet we had never met. After hanging together all the time even spending weekends together with our kids, I realized I had some more than friends feelings for her. I had always been attracted to both men and women and had told Dawn this in the beginning of our friendship so she would not be freaked out if she heard anything from anyone else ... Dawn had never been involved with women and had indicated to me she was straight. After a night of partying and the babysitter (my sister) not wanting to get off Dawn's couch when we returned, I found myself having to share a bed with Dawn - needless to say - we have been together since. She will disagree about who made the first move but I am just glad that someone (Dawn) did.

It was not so bad telling my family. My dad said he always knew I had "a wide variety of tastes" my mom asked me if it was because she didn't dress girly enough (lol) and then was tortured for awhile thinking that I got married and had my son to try and fit in... I don't think she understood how I could have loved a man then went effortlessly to loving a woman... She said she was surprised it was me (sorry sis) but was fine after that. You can't spit in my family(my mom's side) without hitting a gay man (even though it was not until after I came out that it became ok to talk about things like that), I am the only lesbian (that we know of). Dawn's family had a harder time with our relationship. There is a shortage of gays in her family and I think they felt that I had corrupted her in some way, her dad went so far as to say we were both lonely because of our failed marriages and it would pass, her mom wouldn't even talk to me for awhile. I went from being welcome in their home to being a stranger again. It broke my heart and even though her family and I have made ammends and they have gone out of their way to make me feel like their daughter and my son their grandson, I think that it will always make me cry when I think about it.

Since our kids had been together since they were 2 and 3 yrs old, we never really thought we had to go into too much detail about our relationship. We decided we wanted to get married - we explained it to our kids, to my surprise my son was a little pissed because he felt that somehow we had lied to him. After about an hour for him to cool off and a 2 hr talk, he was fine. We had a commitment ceremony on 6/25/04 with our sons giving us away. We were surrounded by our family and friends and I can honestly say aside from the day I gave birth to my son, it was the happiest day of my life. Our boys are now 10 and 11 yrs old.

After many years of discussion, we decided last year that within a few years we would like to have a baby together. As soon as we had this little secret between the two of us EVERYBODY we knew was pregnant. Including my sister and her childhood- boyfriend- turned- fiance who had not been trying and Dawn's brother and his wife who unknown to us had been trying for years. We put the details of our baby planning on hold for awhile and focussed fully on planning my sister's wedding and baby showers for both preggies. Both babies, our nephews and soon to be Godsons, are here now and we can move forward with some planning of our own.

We can hardly wait so as of right now we have moved our start date to next Summer. Let me just say, having had my son the conventional way, I had no idea how much work was going to go into this and all the different things we have to learn (bbt and cm charting, IUI, ICI, etc...) and how expensive it is all going to be. So we decided to give ourselves some time to pull it all together. We have bought some little baby stuff along the way and we have names picked out... Dylan Rylee for a girl and Dylan Riley for a boy... so now all we need is Dylan and then we will be 5.