Did you have the baby and how did you get pregnant?
Yeah, I had the baby. I really wanted to be pregnant and give birth, and Mistress really really didn't. We both wanted to have kids together, but it took like three seconds for us to figure out who would do the actual baby-building.
We went to the local hospital and I got inseminated with donor sperm. The donor is anonymous, but the kid can find out who he is, and read a letter he wrote when he donated, when she's 18. Since 2006 the rules for treatment of infertility in Swedish healthcare are the same for lesbian couples as for straight couples, so it all went relatively easy. It was about a year from the first phone call to the clinic until I was pregnant.
How are lesbians treated in Sweden?
I don't know if there's an easy answer to that one. On the one hand me and Mistress could get married, and had the right to assisted insemination at the hospital. No one is making fun of our kid at pre school or other places for having two moms (as far as I know) and me and Mistress holds hands on walks without usually thinking twice about it. On the other hand, there's two major political parties in Swedish parliament that are openly homophobic and they have about 20% of the Swedish votes, so it's not like it's universally accepted. It's not as if there's no homophobia or judgement going around, and we're often thankful that we live in a urban part of the country, where we're not alone.
Better than most of the rest of the world, I'd say, but still fucked up. Something like that.
Wow, that is way, way better than here in the US. You may have read in the news about all our struggles with this.
ReplyDeleteI get most of my info from blogs and news clippings shared on FB, so I get a pretty selected set of news I think. But I'm definitely aware of the whole marriage debate, and it does seem like there's a whole bunch of crazy people on your side of the Atlantic.
ReplyDeleteBut the US is so God damn big, too. It's like three times that of Europe or something, and Sweden is just one underpopulated country. We've got 9 million people here, it's about the same amount as London. I'm guessing there's places in the US where the conditions for same sex couples are way better than where me and Mistress lives - but that in general, it sucks a lot more.
This whole Christian right wing movement scares the beejesus out of me. We have those kinds of churches and political movements here too, thankfully a lot less. As a lesbian and a christian, it just pisses me off that people uses their faith to actively try to make other peoples lives worse. Did they completely miss the whole New Testament, or what? There's pretty big chunks in there about tolerance and love and not judging others...
Loved the questions, by the way! Thank you!!