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You walk into a living room with your plate of food at the family Christmas party. You expect to just walk in the room and eat, drink and be holy jolly. Instead, you are accosted by your biological clock. A blink, a small smile, a few mouth bubbles from some very small lips looking up at you. It’s your cousin’s new baby. You lock eyes, and you feel yourself becoming parental.
After attempting to look away while eating, you eventually relent and spend the next three hours playing with the baby and completely forget the kids you brought with you to the party. (It’s just the three wine bottles you left in the car, which were supposed to get you through to the other side of the dinner and through at least one fight between your mom and aunts). But you forgot about them, because you’re head-over-heels in love with this tiny little person. The kid moves in with a final heart-tugging attack when she cuddles up and falls asleep in your arm. There’s nothing you can do now. You have BF, commonly known as Baby Fever.
I feel your pain. I suffer from BF as well. Side effects of BF are generally as follows: Swooning when you see a smiling child; a sense of peace when holding a sleeping baby on your shoulder; sudden amnesia about the reality of raising children, such as cost, attention and time; the family Christmas card pictures; the early morning videos of little kids stumbling out of bed and playing with toys. It really kicks into the highest gear during the holidays. I want a piece of that, too.
Thankfully, Wisconsin allows single LGBTQ individuals as well as couples to jointly adopt a child. Adoption doesn’t generally cost as much as surrogacy, and there are children waiting for warm hearts and loving homes ready for the raising. Wisconsin’s surrogacy laws, however, are a little blurry. According to the Wisconsin Bar Association, “Parties to surrogate-parenting arrangements typically enter into agreements that spell out each party’s expectations and responsibilities. However, Wisconsin law is insufficiently developed to ensure adequate enforcement of such agreements.”
Basically, if you make an agreement for a surrogate to have a child for you, the surrogate doesn’t have to give up her parental rights of the child. We’re going to need some legislative work on this ASAP. Other states have much easier surrogacy laws that are clearly defined. States like California, Illinois, Arkansas, Maryland, Oregon, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Washington (state and D.C.) all have forward-moving, progressive-thinking surrogacy laws making it easier for future parents (LGBTQ or not) to use a surrogate to have the children they want.
Thankfully, a lot of us in the LGBTQ community are lucky enough to have straight siblings, cousins and good friends who will gladly toss their kids to us—like Aaron Rodgers with the football and two seconds remaining in the fourth quarter—upon request. As the proud godfather of four, I try to be a part of their lives as much as I can. But, even when I come and shower them in my love, affection and all the candy and loud toys I can afford, it’s just not the same, because they aren’t mine, so to speak. I don’t get to tuck them in every night after hearing how busy their days were “at work” while they were on paw patrol or a firefighter or astronaut. You just don’t get that kind of work conversation from adults. But godchildren do come with certain advantages; they can be returned when they need changing or their tummy hurts.
So, fellow sufferers of BF syndrome, if any of this sounds like you, I implore you to stay strong, because, one day, we, too, might very well join the ranks of overworked, underpaid and under-rested parents.
