The Maybe Baby

There’s been talk in our house of late about adding a new member to our family. We call this person the MaybeBaby.

When we first looked into building our family we wanted an adoption-bio mix. Our plan initially was to adopt one child, a boy between the ages of 5 and 8, and then to have a baby girl sometime thereafter.

Instead we ended up adopting two kids, a boy and a girl, both older kids. Still, we think of adding a baby to our household…maybe.

The MaybeBaby is contingent and can only come to be once we’ve dealt with all the things that make it a maybe. Once we’ve paid off the debt from fixing our money pit house, have refinished the basement and the very near orthodontic and educational bills our children will incur. Once we’re sure Bella and Bubaloo will be okay with a new sibling. And, once we’ve figured out what is the best way for us to make a baby (known vs unknown donor).

We’re working on all of these items at once and hopefully with in the next year or so it will all come together.

Last night at the dinner table, we worked on the last two maybes. Talking more with Bella and Bubaloo about a sibling and the mechanics around how that baby would come to be. Talking about a baby inevitably leads to a great sex education opportunity.

Wifey turned to Bubaloo and asked if he had any questions about how we, as two women, would make a baby.

“Babies are made through S-E-X. Duh!” shouted Bubaloo. Not sex. Because he couldn’t say the word aloud. All he could muster were the individual letters and spell S-E-X out.

Wifey and I exchanged glances. For all our talks about sex with the kids, we weren’t sure if we were understanding him correctly. Did our son just articulate that two women having sex can make a baby?

So we inquired.

“Yes! You and Mom have S-E-X. And, that’s how babies are made.”

We backed up and went through baby making 101 with the kids again. Babies require sperm and an egg. Women have eggs. Men have sperm. You need both those things, often acquired through sex, to make a baby. We also inserted a lesson here on safer sex and STI prevention.

To ensure the kids retained our lesson we went through it one more time.

“Can two women having sex make a baby?”
“No!” choursed the kids.
“Can a man and a woman having sex make a baby?”
“Yes!” they shouted.
“Can two men having sex make a baby?”
“No…” they said. Then Bubaloo piped up, “They don’t make a baby, but they’d make a mess. Men make a lot of sperm and with two of them it would get everywhere!!!”