Radical Doula

When I was in college, I wrote a chapter of my thesis (entitled Managing Birth: Hospitals, Mothers and their Meaning in the United States about my work as a volunteer doula) on the best-selling pregnancy book What to Expect When You’re Expecting. In brief, I wrote about why it is terrible, and scares women, and should really be called What to Be Scared of When You’re Expecting. Not to mention that it is very much based on the doctors are better paradigm (my favorite quote, from the introduction, was something to the effect of how modern medicine had moved birth from the kitchen table to the hospital. wtf).

What I didn’t do when I wrote that chapter was recommend a good pregnancy book alternative. Now I’m looking for suggestions from you all, for good not scary midwife and doula friendly pregnancy books. Suggest away!

I recently spoke at the NYU LGBT Center, as part of a Queer Lunch series they have (called Quench). I was talking about the connections between reproductive rights and LGBT liberation. It’s a topic I enjoy discussing (you can check out an article I wrote about it). But after the talk, one woman came up to me and asked about resources for lesbians who want to start families. I realized that I had little to tell her, except to point her toward the parenting section of the LGBT library the center had created. So I went home and did a little more internet research, and here is some of what I came up with. Please, if you have more resources, post them in the comments.  

The NYC LGBT center has a few support groups for queer parents.  
Books:

Confessions of the Other Mother: Non-Biological Lesbian Moms Tell All

The Ultimate Guide to Pregnancy for Lesbians

The Essential Guide to Lesbian Conception, Pregnancy and Birth

I looked at quite a few LGBT organizations, but many of them focused on the legal and policy aspects, where I was simply looking for resources about the options for a lesbian couple. Explanations about the choices to make (donor? artificial insemination? turkey baster? IVF? surrogacy? adoption? etc). I couldn’t find one that really satisfied this need, but Family Equality Council has some helpful info.

I also found quite a few blogs about lesbian couples making families:

Two Georgia Mommies
The incredibly true adventures of two lesbians in Georgia who desperately want to become Mommies to more than just their pets.

Cutest Little Babymakers In Town
Just 2 more gay girls trying to make a baby - and trying to laugh about it.

babycakes
the incredible true adventures of two girls in love and trying to make a baby

It’s Taking a Village

A New Family
Our attempts, as a lesbian couple in the UK, at making a baby. Update: we are now pregnant!Lesbian Family

Anyone with more resources, please post!

Choice: True Stories of Birth, Contraception, Infertility, Adoption, Single Parenthood, and Abortion (Paperback) by Karen E. Bender (Editor), Nina De Gramont (Editor)

I went to Bluestockings last week to hear from the two editors and one contributor to this new book called Choice. It originally intrigued me because I thought it might be a broader take on what the term choice means for people in the United States. While I haven’t read the whole book yet, from the three contributions read last week and the editors remarks, it expands the concept of choice, but not as far as I would have liked. As a young queer woman, I didn’t feel particularly reflected or included in their stories, and from scanning the titles of the other essays, and looking at the biographies of the other contributors, didn’t feel compelled to keep reading.

While I think the book itself provides some interesting, thoughtful and well-written perspectives on what choice can mean for women, it misses an opportunity to really provide something new. I feel disappointed by these kind of publications frequently, and maybe that’s because of who is able to access publishers and agents, and who is in their circle of writers. It’s difficult for new writers (or even people who wouldn’t consider themselves writers, but have amazing things to say) to get publishedor included in these types of manuscripts.

I obviously need to read the rest of the selections to really be able to give my opinion, but in the meantime, you can check out this (kind of scathing) review of the book at SFGate.

For more from one of the editor, check out Karen Bender’s article at Huffington Post.