Susan Swan never thought that she wanted children, until a plane ride with a friend who was in the middle of an alternative insemination process. This was just at the beginning of the "Gayby Boom" -- a term coined by a 1990 article in Time Magazine about a new generation of gay parents.
Susan Swan never thought that she wanted children, until a plane ride with a friend who was in the middle of an alternative insemination process. This was just at the beginning of the "Gayby Boom" -- a term coined by a 1990 article in Time Magazine about a new generation of gay parents.
Susan used the same clinic as her friend and planned for a home birth with her partner Carol Ann by her side. And a story, or sense of wonder, about who the sperm donor was never at the forefront of life they had together as a tight-knit family of three. However, as a kid (and an only child) Cara wondered what it would be like to have siblings, after getting a small taste from her friends and the the supportive community her moms had built in Newburyport, Massachusetts.
This is the third chapter of a big story that takes up most of Rashomon Season 2. You will hear multiple families telling every side of multiple stories, all having to do with the early days of sperm banks and how it effected the lives of the families that used them. From Season 2, Episode 2 onward, it is important to listen to them in order to get the full story. Before you listen to this one, listen to Sharon and Sammy and Emily, Cathy and Nancy.
Rashomon is produced and hosted by Hillary Rea
Thank you to Cara Swan, Susan Swan, and Carol Ann Dalto.
Music in this episode is by Ben Chace and Paul Defiglia
Podcast artwork is by Thom Lessner
Theme music is by Ryan Culinane courtesy of the Free Music Archive
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Hillary [00:00:08] You are listening to Rashomon, a podcast where one family tells every side of the same story. I'm your host, Hillary Rea. And this season you're hearing more than one family tell every side of more than one story. And before moving forward with this episode, make sure you go back and listen to the last two, Sharon and Sammy and Emily, Cathy and Nancy. Now that you're all caught up, this is Kara, Susan and Carol Ann.
Hillary [00:00:52] I met Kara and her moms, Susan and Carol Ann, in the same weekend back in December. Kara came to my Airbnb in Cambridge for her interview. And then the next day I met Carol Ann and Susan in Salem, Massachusetts. They had driven there from Plum Island, a coastal area that's part of Newburyport, Massachusetts. On the town's official website, Newburyport Dotcom, The area is described as a place that's anchored on a rich maritime heritage, on family unity and hardworking local business owners. Newbury Porter's experience, a lifestyle that is second to none. I really like that Newburyport prides itself on family unity, and I think it's clear that it's a value of this place because it's a value of those who live there. Carol Ann and Susan raised their daughter Kara in this town, and although she was the only only child that had two moms, Kara doesn't remember it ever being an issue to anyone around her. Everyone in Newburyport was very accepting.
Kara [00:01:53] There weren't other families like mine. All of my friends and their families couldn't care less. You know, they thought that it was great.
Hillary [00:02:01] Kara knew that her family looked different from her friends families, but her parents were always very upfront with her about why this was the case. Susan says that Carol Ann always took the lead in talking to Kara about their differences.
Susan [00:02:14] Carol Ann was really good about doing a lot of those, like conversations, just the two of them.
Hillary [00:02:20] And they bought Kara the book, Heather Has Two Mommies. It had just come out in 1989 and took off in popular culture, garnering praise from LGBTQ families and harsh criticism from conservatives.
Susan [00:02:32] Well, that was like the only book at that point. And I think there might have been another one that came along a little bit later.
Hillary [00:02:37] Heather has Two Mommies came at a significant time in LGBTQ history. Carol Ann explains it further.
Carol Ann [00:02:43] I guess it's probably worth noting that these kids were very much at the beginning of the gay-by boom. And what we were doing at the time was fairly radical.
Hillary [00:02:55] According to a write up on the Family Equality Council's website, the term Gay-by Boom was coined in a March 1990 issue of Newsweek in an article profiling what they were calling a new generation of gay parents.
Carol Ann [00:03:08] Around the late 80s, early 90s, people started doing what we did. You know, it's like there was like Fenway Community Health Center in Boston that was working with women who wanted to give birth.
Hillary [00:03:19] And it wasn't just women couples that wanted families.
Carol Ann [00:03:22] It, of course, is more challenging for men. But they were, you know, doing surrogacy and adopting and, you know, and so you'd be walking around P-town and you'd be seeing a lot of same sex couples with their children.
Hillary [00:03:34] There might have been evidence of the gay-by boom in Provincetown, Massachusetts, but in Newburyport, Massachusetts, it was just Kara, Susan and Carol Ann. But they were very open about their family structure and introducing themselves to teachers and other parents saying this is who we are,
Carol Ann [00:03:51] Letting people know that this was your family, you know, and that if there were issues you needed to hear about them and you didn't want your child to have a teacher who was going to have a problem with this.
Hillary [00:04:01] And the teachers didn't have problems. And Kara found three classmates in daycare who became her closest friends and their parents became friends with Susan and Carol Ann.
Susan [00:04:11] So we became this this community, you know, so we had the the play dates and all of that, you know, that summer before she was going to begin kindergarten, Carol Ann, you know, would spend time just talking with her: families come and a lot of different shapes and sizes. You know, Maria has just her mom and Rory has a mom and dad and Faye has mom and dad. And some kids are only like you and Maria. And some kids have siblings like Rory and Faye. But, you know, we're all families.
Hillary [00:04:40] And these conversations continued both with Kara and with her teachers at school, from kindergarten to elementary school, all the way through middle school.
Susan [00:04:49] By the time she hit high school, we said, yeah, you can handle this on your own. You don't need us to be doing this anymore. And she was like, yeah, she's good.
Hillary [00:04:58] Kara advocated for herself when she needed to. Susan says she was competent, confident and very comfortable having conversations with adults. In fact, because she was an only child, Kara grew up hanging out with adults. Every week she would join her moms at dinner parties with their friends. And she was always the youngest one there.
Kara [00:05:16] But that said, like I did, have a really close knit group of friends that I went to school with. We would spend days at a time with each other and their families. And so they felt like siblings to me at times. I guess I would say like a very light kind of sibling taste, when I was a kid. But no idea what it's like to have somebody that, you know, you grow up with and lot you're vying for attention for and that kind of thing.
Hillary [00:05:59] Carol Ann and Susan had been together for almost a decade before Kara was born.
Susan [00:06:04] And we had a really solid relationship and, you know, it was a good life, you know, we felt really good, but it was also feeling really comfortable to me. And I was feeling restless and I wanted to make a change. And I hadn't ever really thought about having children until then.
Hillary [00:06:19] Until she talked with her friend Connie, who had been trying to get pregnant through alternative insemination. Carol Ann and Susan and Connie were on a trip together at a conference in Washington, D.C. and Connie starts ovulating. And because of the insemination process, she had a 12 hour time period to get back to Massachusetts and get to the clinic.
Susan [00:06:38] So Connie was supposed to stay for the rest of that week. We had planned to come back that day, but she was like, oh, no, I've got to go. You know, so she she was able to get on the same flight with us, which was kind of fun.
Hillary [00:06:50] On the plane, Susan and Connie sat next to each other talking about the whole insemination process.
Susan [00:06:55] And the whole way on the plane. We were just like going over and over, you know, the decisions and who she was working with and how it all came about. And I had been feeling at that point that I really wanted to change my life.
Hillary [00:07:09] And the change that Susan realized she wanted to make was to have a baby herself,
Susan [00:07:14] you know, and then it became very possible talking with my friend Connie about her experiences.
Carol Ann [00:07:19] Well, Susan and I had been together for eight or nine years or so. And honestly, I didn't really see having biological children be part of my life particularly. And, you know, I figured we would adopt at some point, but we hadn't really gotten to the, you know, the level of talking about that. And then one day, Susan basically said to me, I've been thinking about it and I'd like to have a baby. And I was like, whoa. So I had to, you know, sort of get my head around it. You know, I'm from a very traditional Italian Catholic working class family. And my parents always loved Susan and treated her like a member of the family. But I wasn't officially out out you know, we didn't really talk about it in that way.
Susan [00:08:04] You know, Carol Ann and I had to talk about it and discuss it. And because, of course, it meant big changes for her, too. And what she said was I thought it was so profound at the time and that, you know, we really can't go forward unless our parents are on board with us.
Carol Ann [00:08:18] I mean, I was adamant with Susan that I was definitely open to it, but I I was only open to it if my parents were going to be grandparents.
Hillary [00:08:26] So Carol Ann's parents came to visit.
Carol Ann [00:08:28] And we were walking on the beach and I struck up a conversation with my mom and I said, you know, mom, we were we're thinking like we would like to have a family and I might, you know, try to adopt. And Susan's thinking about being a biological parent, you know, having a baby. And she said, What you mean, I'm finally going to have a grandchild that doesn't have four legs because we had had cats. And yeah. So immediately she was on board and brought my father on board, I'm sure.
Susan [00:08:58] And my mom and dad didn't say much at the time. But the very next day this incredible bouquet of flowers arrived and it was just like I mean, still all these years later, 30 years later, you know, I'm still kind of, you know, teary when I think about how just wonderful and welcoming, supportive, you know, our families were. And so we went ahead and we made the call and set up appointments and started the tedious process of taking temperature and tracking my ovulation. And I found out things about myself and my periods and cycles that I didn't really know and don't really care to think about again.
Carol Ann [00:09:40] I mean, really artificial insemination or an alternative insemination, whatever terminology you choose to use. I mean, it's really pretty low tech. And we had a friend who's a nurse practitioner who connected us with the practice in I guess it was Cambridge.
Hillary [00:09:57] There was a doctor at this practice.
Carol Ann [00:09:59] He was working with a midwife who was working with women who were trying to get pregnant through alternative insemination. And we thought that, you know, this was going to be instant, you know, because you spent so much of your time, you know, when you're in relationships with men thinking about not getting pregnant. Right. So we just figured, you know, once or twice and it was going to be, you know,
Susan [00:10:21] I think it took us about six months. So we started actually doing inseminations around in June.
Carol Ann [00:10:27] We'd had to drive in to Cambridge or wherever it was we had to drive in there. I think we were doing twice a month.
Susan [00:10:33] And it was in December that I finally conceived. And it was amazing that night that we went down. It was there was a snowstorm and it was just before Christmas. And we were fighting with each other and just screaming about the traffic and about, you know, and just stressed out, just totally stressed out.
Carol Ann [00:10:54] When Susan actually conceived, we were driving in in a sleet storm, and it was right before Christmas and we were getting ready to drive down to New Jersey for like family holiday stuff, so stress, stress, stress on the road in the storm, getting ready to go down to visit with the family. We were like, kind of not being terribly patient with each other. And that's when that's when it happened.
Hillary [00:11:20] When they finally got through the storm and the traffic and made it to the clinic. They met with the midwife in the examining room.
Susan [00:11:27] She was like all bundled up and she said, OK, I'm going to unwrap everything. She said something I really like about this guy is that he's so meticulous and so, you know, like really thinks about stuff. So this is like double, triple and quadruple wrapped. So it's going to take a while for her to unwrap everything and come back. And she was telling us as she was doing this about the subway ride and carrying this vial of sperm with her. And it was just all of this seemed just so kind of crazy and surrealistic. And and then she did the insemination and then she left us for a few minutes alone. All of that other stuff, sort of just all the stresses and the tension from the car ride down. You know, it just everything just sort of floated away. And we were just relaxed and calm and just, like, really happy with each other and with where we were. And then we all bundled up and got back in the car and drove home.
Susan [00:12:39] And a couple of weeks later, I had been taking my temperature and there were all these things to be watching for and I worked in a medical office, so I had taken a urine sample and I was trying to do it myself in the facilities lab and the lab manager walked in on me. And said, "What are you trying to do?" And I you know, I hadn't told anybody because, you know, we were keeping it very private and I really didn't know this guy that well, but he was just like he was so cool. He said, let me do it for you. And so he did, you know, he he prepared the slide and he put it in. And then he showed me what to look for. And I was pregnant and we were like, you know, so he was like the first person that knew besides me.
Hillary [00:13:23] And then, of course, Susan told Carol Ann,
Susan [00:13:25] You know, we had like the secret that first Christmas, you know, that we didn't tell anybody for quite some time. And it was like special. It was like this cocoon that we had and that we were starting to create just the two of us and now soon to be our daughter.
Hillary [00:13:55] Flash forward nine months, Carol Ann is at work, and it's actually her last day before her leave of absence.
Carol Ann [00:14:01] I got a message on my answering machine that Susan was about to go into labor. So that was my last day at work. But it was like kind of a weird thing. She's like, hey, mommy, time to come home. And I was like...
Hillary [00:14:15] Carol Ann goes home, which is where her and Susan were planning to do the birth.
Carol Ann [00:14:20] The only reason that I felt totally comfortable doing a home birth is that we were only like three blocks from the hospital. You know, it's like I got a little bit of a worry gene.
Hillary [00:14:29] Carol Ann remembers the bedroom was all set up for Susan to give birth. There were plastic sheets on top of the regular bedding, all ready to go.
Carol Ann [00:14:37] And then Susan starts to transition in a different room in the house where we were storing, like, hand me downs and shower gifts. And there was no room. Basically, she basically laid down on the carpeting, couldn't get up and had the baby there on the floor.
Hillary [00:15:04] As a really little kid, Kara doesn't remember an exact moment she was told about her sperm donor or really thinking much about who he could be.
Kara [00:15:13] We called him the donut instead of donor.
Carol Ann [00:15:17] I mean, when she started asking questions now, we called him the donor. But somehow, you know, in her baby understanding that became the donut.
Hillary [00:15:27] In addition to calling him the donut, Susan and Carol Ann had another nickname for the donor that they gave him shortly after the insemination process with the midwife.
Carol Ann [00:15:36] We started calling him Joe Beige because we'd say "So how tall is he?" And she'd say, "Yeah, he's average." "Well, what's his coloring like?" "Eh, it's kind of average.".
Hillary [00:15:45] And even though they asked the midwife for more details, she protected the donor's identity,
Susan [00:15:51] Even though Cambridge and Boston might feel like they're, you know, major metropolitan areas is really a pretty small community. So she really didn't give us a whole lot of information. And so we just referred to him as Joe Beige. You know, it was interesting during our intake interviews, one of the questions that they had for us was what was our interest in how we wanted to raise the baby? And I said that the one of the concerns that I had about using fresh sperm or live sperm like this was the idea that there was this person that might want to insert themselves into our family and that I didn't want that, you know, that our family was Carol Ann and I and this baby, you know, I wasn't interested in in having somebody else involved at that point. And mostly I think it was coming out of this fearfulness about being gay parents and, you know, having somebody who says, oh, yeah, this is OK now. But, you know, in five years or 10 years, I've changed my mind and now I want to have custody. And you're not fit parents. I was worried about that. That was a concern.
Hillary [00:16:53] But even with those concerns for the majority of Kara's childhood, Susan and Carol Ann were under the impression they would never know who the donor was.
Carol Ann [00:17:03] We Kara was about 10, we got a letter saying, guess what, the laws have changed and the donor is willing, you know, then they can connect and if care is interested, then they can they can meet when she's 18.
Kara [00:17:16] So when I was around 10, the law changed that it was an option to even contact the clinic and reach out to him. Let's see if he, you know, wants to be in contact when you're 10. I don't know if it really kind of registered, but I knew that I wanted to at least find out some family medical history information. At the very least, that was something that, you know, I wanted to have because growing up for anything medical, you can't fill anything in because you don't know. But I really you know, I think we all preparing ourselves for maybe the worst case scenario. You know, somebody who was not interested, did not want to be involved or contacted. Somebody who maybe has a family of their own.
Carol Ann [00:18:01] You'd think that, like the second the non biological parent maybe would be a little bit more threatened by the whole thing. But honestly, the more I thought about, the more I thought how could she possibly have too many people in her life that might love her?
Hillary [00:18:27] Susan says Kara got a letter the summer before she turned 18, it outlined all of the information she needed to contact her donor.
Susan [00:18:35] And so she wrote a letter...
Hillary [00:18:37] And then Cara didn't hear back from the clinic.
Kara [00:18:40] I called back a couple of times and, you know, didn't get a response. And they said, we don't know yet. We haven't heard back, but we'll call you as soon as we know. And then I called again a year later and they're like, oh, yeah, hold on one second. Here's his name. Here's his address. Here's his phone number. And it was pretty overwhelming. And so, you know, I grabbed a piece of paper, I wrote it down, and then they said, OK, here you go and hung up. And I was like, I don't even know if I said anything at all or if I said, OK, thank you or anything. I was just pretty floored. So I ended up writing him a letter. I felt like calling him on the phone would be a little much.
Hillary [00:19:30] And then he emailed back.
Susan [00:19:32] You know, identifying who he was and saying, you know, you can contact me. And and so she did. And they had this really pleasant email exchange and he said, would you like to meet your sisters?
Carol Ann [00:19:47] So I got a phone call from Kara. I, you know, just so happened, I answered the phone. She called the house and then she said, guess what, mommy, I'm a big sister.
Hillary [00:19:58] From his email. Kara learned that she had two sisters, Sammy and Emily.
Kara [00:20:06] He told me about them, but then, you know, said that he had reached out to them to see if it was OK, if he gave me their email addresses. And so I waited to hear back and very quickly gave me their email addresses.
Hillary [00:20:21] And so Kara sent an email to Sammy and Emily. And what happens next? Stay tuned, you'll find out in the next episode.
Hillary [00:20:34] Rashomon is produced by me, Hilary Rea. Music in this episode is by Ben Chase and Paul Defiglia. Theme Music is by Ryan Cullinane, courtesy of the Free Music Archives. Podcast artwork is by Thom Lessner. If you like today's episode, please consider sharing it with a friend and reviewing us on Apple podcasts. And if you would like to support the show as we finish out Season two, become a member of our Patreon. You'll get a monthly newsletter and other rewards like bonus audio and a shout out during the credits of the show. You can stay connected with us on Instagram and Twitter at Rashomon Pod and check out our website. All right. See you in two weeks. Thanks for listening.