The Hurdles My Poly Family Cleared

In this post, I'll answer some common questions about the challenges my three-dad polyamorous family faced on the journey to become legal parents of our children, and the reception we've gotten so far.

What moments were hardest for you? Did you ever feel like giving up?

We had a failed implantation. That was really brutal. We had such high hopes, and all this effort went into it on all sides but particularly with our surrogate Delilah, of course. We really did wonder if it wasn’t meant to be but she became our cheerleader, and we carried on. The next terrible and draining thing was all the legal battles and a really disheartening move by our IVF doctor. Let’s just say she wasn’t the doctor who ultimately gave us our family.

How was it beneficial to go through this journey with three partners instead of two?

It really wasn’t. Honestly, the legal battles were preposterously burdensome and expensive. There are so many little things I would have done differently. One example: We had to have contracts between each man and each woman. Then, when another cycle got planned, we realized the lawyers had basically written contracts good for one try that had to be redone. Of course, redoing them means $500 an hour in fees, and the requirement to pay four lawyers to craft a parenting agreement, which no straight couple has probably ever been asked to sign—parental responsibilities are pretty clear! We were afraid to push back because there just aren’t many of these attorneys to reach out to. On the other hand, we had three incomes, which didn't hurt, because this was an expensive process. But many of the costs were from our unique situation.

We did have each other to lean on, so that’s two extra shoulders, but regular parenting or IVF is much easier for “regular” couples. We’d like to see that change.

What are the biggest misconceptions other people have about poly relationships and poly parenting?

We honestly haven’t seen much in the way of misconceptions yet. I’ve gotten a few negative comments on social media but they’re just hateful, not reasoned. I just delete them. Back in college, the president of the LGB student union (this was right before we added a T) was asked about a few hateful comments in the school paper and a few students who demanded their student activity fees back because some of it went to our off-campus meeting space (for member safety!). I found them really offensive but her response was something like, “Out of all the thousands of people here only a few cared enough to say something negative and I think that is a massive win for us!” That really taught me an important lesson. (Thanks, Mary.) And there’s been a lot of love shown to us on social media, too. It really outweighs the negative and that’s so important to recognize.

So what minor misconceptions have we actually come across? Well, some people seem to think it’s about a ton of sex or something, or we’re unstable and must do crazy things. We have two small children and busy professional jobs: It’s really remarkably ordinary and domestic in our house and definitely not Tiger King. We cook, we clean, we read, we play with kids, we do our best to raise them right.

Others immediately jump to an assumption the relationship might fracture, which would presumably be a catastrophe. Here’s some news: A lot of relationships end. A lot of marriages end badly and early. We’ve been together for 8 and 18 years now. But even if it did end, I don’t believe that means it “failed.” I think back to a girlfriend I had in high school who did such loving things for me, like make me a cake for my birthday when my mom would not. That relationship ended, like most high school romances end, but it didn’t fail. I’ve forgiven my mom for the birthday fail (Love you, Susan! You’re for sure our favorite now!) but I’ll never forget that cake, and the relationship, which didn’t fail. It helped teach me to care for my partners. And we've already clearly defined our obligations to the kids to each other and also in legal contracts, and would always put them first. We aren't worried about this, and we've only planned for it the same way we have cars with seatbelts and airbags, but we plan to get to the destination in one piece.

How has the media covered the book and your family so far?

It’s been largely positive. All the podcast hosts and journalists I’ve spoken to have been curious and open to the idea or just wildly kind and supportive. We also got to speak to Australia's The Morning Show live, and that was such a professional operation we were blown away. We greatly appreciate all of them.

We knew that eventually, the story would make its way to an audience that we will never be able to please, and that finally happened with several mentions on conservative Christian websites. They didn’t reach out to us or make much of an effort, and they got our children’s ages wrong and said that Alan and I had only been together for a year before we met Jeremy (we’d been together a decade, but who’s counting?) and then went on to just propagandize. They call the children victims, said they were separated from their genetic mother (not true) and don’t get to see their surrogates (not true) and that they were starved of love because every child has to have a mother in the home. I have never once heard one of these pundits say that a widowed parent must immediately remarry or give up their children, and yet those single parents have less help and less input from parents of the other gender than we do. Of course, those single parents should receive nothing but support, but having several helpers from both genders beyond such a single-parent situation definitely doesn’t deprive our kids of anything.

The same site that published one of these pieces also reported that white evangelicals were more likely to support the harmful child separation policy used to deter migrants from seeking a better life for their kids—to make seeking asylum worse than remaining in violent and economically difficult circumstances. More than one in three white evangelicals supported that policy, and those one in three have a lot of cognitive dissonance going on. Clearly, an infant torn from its mother suffers more than a kid with extra love in the home. The rest need to work on their peers' views on governmental child harm before they worry about our family. The only thing our kids are deprived of is television and juice, based on the advice of pediatricians. I say, if you've got some energy to spend worrying about kids, thank you, but look elsewhere: We are OK. Unfortunately, there are a lot of terrible things happening to kids around the world, and also at home, and they need the attention.