My Path To Becoming A Third Parent

We define the values that we will hold as a family.

Zeke and I count slowly from zero to 10, our deep voices matched in a kind of harmony, while Avary’s face is locked in concentration. He is closer to her, playing the role of the partner, while I am bracing her leg against my shoulder. Ten counts, a deep breath, and 10 more. Three sets of 10, then a few seconds rest, during which Zeke looks Avary in the eyes and says “You’ve got this.”

The phrase becomes a sort of mantra, one that she repeats to baby Octavia hours later as she flails looking for a latch and again over the coming days as she struggles with alien sensations of water and sound. My instinct tells me that it’s not a phrase I should use, that there should remain a small handful of things that are sacred between the three of them, and that this is one of them. I am not short on sacred things.

Earlier, years earlier, Avary, Zeke, and I are walking the hills of San Francisco and the topic of babies comes up. They have been dating for about two years, enough time for safe imagining, and Avary says “Wouldn’t it be amazing if we could someday raise kids together?” I’d heard this fantasy before and had my heart broken by it. Growing up asexual I learned that friends who profess fantasies of committed, long term intimacy will often abandon those…