A few months ago, my fiencee called me at somewhere around 1:30 or 2:00 in the morning on the way to the emergency room with our daughter, explaining that apparently "child-proof" pill bottle lids are not actually all that child-proof. Once I printed directions to the hospital, it took me more than half an hour to find a cab and convince the driver to take me all of the 40+-minute drive to where they were. I offered to pay for the gas for the return trip, knowing it meant I'd probably be his only fare that night. I just needed to get to them.
Along the long, long way, he spoke to me of how he came to America from China, and of his own children, and I told him of my school and my art, and we talked of such delight as comes from the beautiful voices of classical singers we both knew. Andrea Bocelli, Lucciano Pavarotti... An old man from China and a 20-something American lesbian, too many worlds apart to count, but we were friends for a little while.
By the time I got to the hospital, they had already pumped our baby's stomach and filled her full of charcoal. When I stepped into the hospital room, she was lying on her mother's stomach watching cartoons on the little TV screen. She looked up at me when I came to kiss her, and babbled at me in her barely-1-year-old baby voice, random syllables strung together but with such a tone I knew EXACTLY what she said to me. She pouted over the way they had hurt her for reasons she could not understand -- she'd thought it was so clever to learn how to open the strange bottle! --but it scared mama and it's cold and dark here and she did not feel well...
And the only word she said that I could understand was "Papa."
I got up on the bed with her mother and the two of us held our little girl all night, watching Dora and Spongebob and infomercials and listening to the sounds of the hospital outside our door until a really wonderfully kind nurse came in and got us another blanket and a bottle for our tiny girl and some vending-machine-quality food for her mother and me. They finally let us leave around 9:00. I drove them home, I watched them as they slept, and when our little Rose woke up, I took her and watched her in the empty house all day so my soulmate and lover and our daughter's mother could sleep... I read to her and I taught her the right way to pet the dog and to respond when someone tells her "Gentle!" And we watched Finding Nemo and played with toy wolves...
Day after day, there is no great thing in my life that is as good as knowing that I have a daughter. She is my secret -- neither her mother's family nor mine knows that we are a couple and have been for 7 years now. My family does not know that the reason I occasionally get overdraft notices from the bank is because I pay child support for my daughter. The law doesn't know us as family, but I do, and she does, and that's what matters. I don't get to live with her all the time, but we've worked out an arrangement where I spend weekends with her and her mother and I see one another during the week when and if our schedules allow.
The best thing that happened in my life today was remembering the last time I was with my daughter -- remembering the realization that she doesn't cry anymore when mama leaves the room if I stay with her, remembering how she will now seek out my lap and cuddle with me or play with me and how she laughs when I hold her up over my head and make faces at her, and how she dances when I sing to her.
The best thing that happened in my life today was closing my eyes and remembering the sound of her voice saying "Papa!"
As far as I am concerned, you are a family. Nothing can take that away from you.Personally, I don't care what the family set up is, if the kid(s) is safe, happy and cared for, then no one has any right to complain.
My husband and I are trying to have kids, but no luck. It's good to know that someone is out there raising kids well.
I'm very glad your daughter is safe and loved. I must say though, she is quite intelligent to open one of those child-safe bottles. I did a science fair experiment testing the push-down-and-turn bottles and out of 114 preschool students only four managed to open it before they got bored.
Along the long, long way, he spoke to me of how he came to America from China, and of his own children, and I told him of my school and my art, and we talked of such delight as comes from the beautiful voices of classical singers we both knew. Andrea Bocelli, Lucciano Pavarotti... An old man from China and a 20-something American lesbian, too many worlds apart to count, but we were friends for a little while.
By the time I got to the hospital, they had already pumped our baby's stomach and filled her full of charcoal. When I stepped into the hospital room, she was lying on her mother's stomach watching cartoons on the little TV screen. She looked up at me when I came to kiss her, and babbled at me in her barely-1-year-old baby voice, random syllables strung together but with such a tone I knew EXACTLY what she said to me. She pouted over the way they had hurt her for reasons she could not understand -- she'd thought it was so clever to learn how to open the strange bottle! --but it scared mama and it's cold and dark here and she did not feel well...
And the only word she said that I could understand was "Papa."
I got up on the bed with her mother and the two of us held our little girl all night, watching Dora and Spongebob and infomercials and listening to the sounds of the hospital outside our door until a really wonderfully kind nurse came in and got us another blanket and a bottle for our tiny girl and some vending-machine-quality food for her mother and me. They finally let us leave around 9:00. I drove them home, I watched them as they slept, and when our little Rose woke up, I took her and watched her in the empty house all day so my soulmate and lover and our daughter's mother could sleep... I read to her and I taught her the right way to pet the dog and to respond when someone tells her "Gentle!" And we watched Finding Nemo and played with toy wolves...
Day after day, there is no great thing in my life that is as good as knowing that I have a daughter. She is my secret -- neither her mother's family nor mine knows that we are a couple and have been for 7 years now. My family does not know that the reason I occasionally get overdraft notices from the bank is because I pay child support for my daughter. The law doesn't know us as family, but I do, and she does, and that's what matters. I don't get to live with her all the time, but we've worked out an arrangement where I spend weekends with her and her mother and I see one another during the week when and if our schedules allow.
The best thing that happened in my life today was remembering the last time I was with my daughter -- remembering the realization that she doesn't cry anymore when mama leaves the room if I stay with her, remembering how she will now seek out my lap and cuddle with me or play with me and how she laughs when I hold her up over my head and make faces at her, and how she dances when I sing to her.
The best thing that happened in my life today was closing my eyes and remembering the sound of her voice saying "Papa!"
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My husband and I are trying to have kids, but no luck. It's good to know that someone is out there raising kids well.
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I wish you and your husband the best of luck.
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