Oh my God, I am soooooooo excited to see this forum on Belly Belly. A huge THANK YOU to those involved in establishing this. I have been lurking no BB for about 4 months with a few posts.
I am a 35 year old lesbian living with my partner (DP 44 y.o) in Adelaide. I have two sons (9 and 6 years old) who were conceived by known donor sperm. I am their non-bioloogical mother. Their biological mother and I were together for ten years and we split up two and a half years ago. The boys live week about with me and DP and the other week with with their other mum.
DP and I have been together for 14 months and have been TTC for three months, with a known donor (although a different one to the boys' donor). We actually only inseminated one month and got a BFN. The second month I did not seem to ovulate and then the third month the donor was interstate at the crucial time! Am now awaiting AF so we can get on with the next cycle. My GP was concerned I may have PCOS (weight and hair problems) but blood tests with my O+G suggested I was ovulating and all my hormone levels were normal.
I am really looking forward to hearing other stories and meeting moregay and lesbian parents/to be.
I was really excited to see this board too! So great to have a place to bring up some real specific stuff. I am interested in whether the joint custody was mutually arranged or enforced... sorry if its a sensitive or personal Q, I am just interested. It sounds like a really good arrangement that you have.
I am always happy to be asked any question and would say if i did not fell comfortable answering....the short answer is that, unfortunately it was enforced. Despite my ex and being very clear (I thought!) that the children we were having had two parents (her and me)- this all changed when I left the relationship. She was very angry that I was leaving and tried to use the children to punish me. I thought long and hard re. going to court and seriously considered not doing so. This would have meant walking out on my children and this just was not fair to them. I thought that if the children would be better off with just her then I could deal with my own grief but I (and others) truly believed that the children were better off with both parents in their lives (which was all they had ever known). Hence, we ended up in the family court. I knew with out this she would not let the children see me. After I told her I was leaving I stayed in the same house until the family court date (one month) so the children still had both of us in their lives. We first went to court on 20/12/04 and we were granted joint interim custody, with the children spending half time with each of us. Family court, mediation, psychological family assessments etc continued until November 2006 when we went to trial. I was extremely surprised (as was my lawyer) when the family assessment done by an independent psychologist recommended full residency to me! However, I was concerned that this would make my ex even angrier and that it would be the children who would suffer most and so I asked for a joint arrangement, while she was asking for full custody for her. we started the trial and she was representing herself (which was horrible as she cross examined me in the witness box). Anyway, half way through what was to be a ten day trial she agreed to settle and the week about arrangement. I think it works reasonably well, the boys have two established homes and seem to cope well with the transitions, the main problem is that she is STILL angry which got worse when I met my current partner. This was a long winded answer to your question, hope it makes sense, DRGirl
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Thank you and Hello!
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