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Recently in Salon Mothers Who Think

Crossing over
In her new novel, Jayne Anne Phillips, the princess of literary darkness, plumbs the emotional netherlands of motherhood.
By Beth Kephart
[04/28/00]

The virtual bitch slap
A new game, Sissyfight 2000, lets me be the playground bully I never was.
By Amy Silverman
[04/27/00]

The other side of the closet
After 10 years and two children, my husband told me he is gay.
By Janet Nicolazzo
[04/26/00]

Sleeping with the enemy
While I'm planning security for the IMF demonstrations, my husband is getting thrown in jail. He better not ask me for bail.
By Lisa Guide
[04/24/00]

Born to pop pills
I have a well-chosen capsule for every occasion.
By Elissa Schappell
[04/20/00]

Complete archives for Mothers Who Think

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The beautiful baby plucked from my wife's C-sectioned womb is purple, pretty and as pudgy as a Buddha with enormous bright blue eyes and fat fists that she swings defensively as she tries to fight off the hoses that three nurses are slithering down her esophagus to extract all the meconium (neonatal feces) that she has possibly swallowed.

"Sit down," a nurse orders me. "Here, hold her. She's yours."

My daughter, Tallulah. Squirming, like my heart. She's my angel, delivered to me to illuminate and exonerate my measly 47-year-old life, which in retrospect seems to have been so shallow and devoid of integrity before her arrival.

Read Also Confessions of a lesbian sperm donor By Hank Pellissier My seeds are sprouting in two wombs Hank Pellissier, giver of sperm, is about to receive. Last heard from while contemplating insemination, he's now got a girl coming with the wife and a boy on the way with the lesbian gal pal. By Hank Pellissier

"You are m-my ba-baby." Sniveling, I introduce myself to the quizzical face swaddled in a cotton receiving blanket. "I am your daddy. Don't be afraid. I will protect you."

Glancing sideways, I examine with horror her mother, Carol, who is strapped to a horizontal cross with her abdomen eviscerated. Her uterus and other bloody organs are perched on her torso. Surgeons are hurrying to reassemble her. A furious hose is slurping an enormous quantity of blood out of Carol's interior into an object that resembles a clear plastic pony keg. The pony keg is rising quickly with my wife's crimson life fluid. Has the cesarean gone awry?

Facing my daughter again, I start lying. "The world is safe. You have nothing to fear. There is no danger on this planet. The world is safe."

Glorious also is the newborn son: Nathan, parented by Rachel and Monica, his Jewish lesbian mothers. Baby Nathan Ezekial, whom I helped create with my seminal fluid.

"Nathan," I whisper to the curly-haired tot with the wrinkled brow whom Rachel and Monica have escorted to our hospital room, K-224, on Day 3 of Carol's recovery. "Nathan, I am your 'Uncle Seed.' The sperm-donating guy!"

I aim his worried skull toward my daughter. "Over there," I instruct him. "See her? That's your half-sister, Tallulah."

"Let's take pictures," beams Rachel, waving her Polaroid. "Put Tallulah and Nathan side by side."

My wife smirks a weary smile, but she's game. Carefully, she picks up our screaming, gargoylish creation, who is enraged and half-starved from drinking only colostrum (pre-milk). Carol places Tallulah's bellowing face next to Nathan's angst-ridden visage. I stand behind everybody, my happy arms encircling Carol and Monica's shoulders. Proud progenitor!

"Smile," Rachel orders.

Carol gazes abstractly. Monica faintly curls her mouth. They're tired; I'm not. I flash all my teeth, happier than the Cheshire cat. Why not? I'm bursting with cockiness because I've spawned two human beings in 21 days: Nathan Ezekial, born Dec. 19, 1999, and Tallulah Louise, born Jan. 10, 2000.

I'm the biological father of both. Did I say that already? ME! ME! ME!

My ego runs amok until Rachel remarks, "Hmm ... they don't at all look alike."

Huh? The three women inspect the physiognomy of the infants and obliquely decide that I've had zero influence. Ears? Feet? Lips? Nothing resembles me. Round-faced, pinky Tallulah is the mirror image of my Welsh wife, and Mediterranean-complexioned, Moses-nosed Nathan is fashioned from the same clay as Monica.

My genes? Recessive? I didn't expect clones of myself, but it would be nice if ... something ...

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