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Stacey's Story

Stacey is a professor at a major university and the mother of a beautiful red-headed boy.  It wasn't an easy road to motherhood, though. When her husband's resistance to parenthood led to a painful divorce, Stacey refused to abandon her hope of becoming a mother.  After researching her options, Stacey went to an artificial insemenation clinic.  Her story is one of bravery, hope, and the importance of community. 

I’d always known on a level somewhere beyond logical thought that I would be a teacher and a mother. For me, being the latter seemed the ultimate expression of the former. I wanted to be a mother to have someone with whom I could share stories, music, travel, and other experiences. I wanted to pass on traditions, expressions, and perhaps my own quirky sense of culture to another.

I thought for certain when I walked down the aisle with Karl that he would be the father of my child. We were married for eight years. It became increasingly clear throughout our marriage that he was resistant to the idea of parenthood. He gave perfectly valid reasons for his hesitancy, but our prospects of having a child together seemed dimmer with each passing month. Knowing that he seemed less than thrilled at the idea of fatherhood, I began to worry about being the primary parent even if I did have a spouse.

Ultimately, the issue of parenthood was an irreconcilable one that contributed to the divorce. I was bitter, not only about the failure of the marriage, but at the perceived loss of future children.

I troubled long both during and after the divorce about whether I could be an adequate mother. Life as a music professor seemed to fill all available space, even into the wee hours. Where would parenthood fit in? Yet, my desire to become a mother remained strong. I wanted to feel that goldfish swimming around in my belly and then help him swim on out into the world.

I would attend  academic conferences, and inevitably, someone would “break the ice” by informing me that redheads are destined for almost immediate extinction.  That and the annoying statistics concerning 30-something women and their (lack of) potential prospects rang loudly in the mind of this middle-aged divorcee.

Without a husband and without much time to look for a new one, my options for children were limited to adoption or artificial insemination. Although I knew adoption agencies don’t exactly encourage single-parent adoptions, I initially felt that the idea of artificial insemination, of "doin' it myself,” would be too difficult or prohibitively expensive. Even before considering the inherent difficulties of pregnancy, delivery, and recovery, artificial insemination seemed a hard road in a number of ways.  Really though, I was simply ill-informed.

I spoke with a number of single mothers-one who had used artificial insemination after her own divorce.  She disabused me of several wrong-headed notions. Sure, it's more expensive than having a willing personal 'donor' (in the traditional sense), but barring any unforeseen medical issues, the process was fairly straightforward and not nearly as expensive as I feared.

After speaking with the other single mothers, I realized they were very happy and successful parents. Their children, ranging from 2 to 20 years old, seemed well-adjusted and healthy. A good friend of mine with several children and two ex-husbands told me that if she could have had the children without the fathers it would have been comparatively ideal. Several women even said that it wasn’t motherhood, but dealing with their ex-husbands that caused the greatest stress!

I decided to go for it. If I tried artificial insemination and problems did arise, I could always investigate adoption more seriously.  I was still worried about balancing my time between my career and my parenting, but I rationalized that since I slept so little anyway, I was already halfway to being a new mother (and yes, I hear all of you mothers laughing in the background!).

I found a clinic where I was able to realize my hope of becoming a mother. My own mother had given up her dream of one day becoming a grandmother, and she too was able to find hope there. 

I looked through the stack of donors, and chose one that would increase my odds of producing a melatonin-challenged offspring, one that might resemble me. I wanted to do my part to stave off the imminent extinction of redheads.

Nine months later, my red-headed son was born.

I went through a difficult adjustment period.  I had a C-section, and my child absolutely refused to nurse. My wound from the C-section reopened, and because his birth was very near the beginning of the school year, he was only in my arms a short time before others began to care for him.  First my mother took family leave, but then he was in daycare, confused by so many new faces.  I wondered if I would ever bond with my son. Throughout all of this, I felt time at work was time away from Colin, and time with Colin was time away from work.

My mother told me to use my maternal instincts in being with him, but I felt as though I had none. I told her that my instincts were telling me to look things up on the internet—I am a musicologist, after all. She was not amused.

I vowed to him that I would work harder for his sake to be a better person, scholar, and mother. That really translates to wasting less time and making those moments count. Before he crawled we would play on the floor together and cuddle in bed. What time I was away from him during the day I made up for at night when we would successfully co-sleep. This helped develop a sense of intimacy with him.



Baby and Super Granny



Sometimes I doubt my method.  I wonder what I will tell him when he asks about his father. Yet I am thankful for the community who is raising him.  It might not be traditional, but he is surrounded by people who love him.  My mother is super-granny, and my colleagues are wonderful and understand when I need to take him to the occassional choir practice.  I study martial arts, and I am thankful for the nurturing atmosphere of my dojo and the important male role models it provides.

I now feel a beautiful rhythm to my life that wasn't there before. His day helps to form my own. Though I sometimes miss him during the work day, I feel an urgency to make every minute as dense with work, research, writing, and teaching as I can so I can be a full-time momma when I'm home. Those activities are all a part of who I am just as much as he is, and that is as it should be. Just as I’d always known I would be, I am a mother, and I am a teacher.

Finding that truth has been the single most important discovery of our time together so far.