[SPEAKER_00]: The queer family bought gas Love is love is love on the queer family bought gas Love is love is love on the queer family bought gas Love is love is love on the queer family bought gas
[SPEAKER_02]: it is amazing, I think, to be a three parents and to support each other.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it's absolutely so, so beautiful.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm sure there will be challenges again, but there's something about, you know, this is a relationship, it's messy.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, but hopefully our relationship is now strong enough, we've been through some difficulties as well, been through kind of a rupture, and there's been some repair.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, as you said, you know, many, many paths to parenting will have different challenges, different kind of joys, but yes, this is not without this challenges.
[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to the queer family podcast y'all, the show all about family, but with gay.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm your gay host, Jamie, and this is the show that celebrates Uplus, highlights, and normalizes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Ligipatecua, families, and all of our fabulous identities.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this one is fabulous.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know I say that every time they're all fabulous, but this one is a good one y'all.
[SPEAKER_01]: I sat down with Vikram.
[SPEAKER_01]: Vikram is father to toddler with his husband and with the toddler's mother.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there are three parents in the situation and he has a really interesting path to parenthood, parenthood in the fact that all three of them went into family building together.
[SPEAKER_01]: They knew they wanted to co-parent together
[SPEAKER_01]: together and they are now co-parenting all three of them.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're a little boy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Really fascinating episode.
[SPEAKER_01]: We get into the bio slash non bio connection and Vikram offers some good insight and we made some really great relations together, which I found really fun.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we also get into kind of like breaking down societal norms in the heteronormative society we live in flipping the script on all of that and the patriarchy.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I just found this to be a really fascinating discussion.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we went into some deeper in on some like concepts that I haven't gone so deep on for quite some time or really ever.
[SPEAKER_01]: So y'all are going to love this
[SPEAKER_01]: episode and this is a really it's a complicated path to parenthood the the path that Vikram and his husband and baby mama for lack of a better word chose but give me a path to queer family building that isn't complicated and am a right so y'all are going to love this I'm excited to play wrote, wrote, wrote this tape and I had a moment the other day with my daughter that I just want to share with y'all
[SPEAKER_01]: I get my nails done now because I've shared this before, I didn't realize until I was on these videos for all of you that I talk with my hands like it's my job.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I was noticing that my hands look short and stumpy and they're starting to look old so I started getting my nails done.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I get my nails done now.
[SPEAKER_01]: And with that came my 12 year old almost 13 year old who wants to get her nails done regularly now too.
[SPEAKER_01]: So anyway, long story short, we were at the nail salon together.
[SPEAKER_01]: She's gone a couple times with me.
[SPEAKER_01]: And as we were paying and getting ready to leave, my wife walked by with our son outside and it's a window.
[SPEAKER_01]: And she stood there and she was staring at us and making a joke.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the nail salon ladies were like super confused and they were like, who's that?
[SPEAKER_01]: And Rose said, that's my mom.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then they looked at me and they were like so confused.
[SPEAKER_01]: So basically I had to come out to my nail salon ladies.
[SPEAKER_01]: And y'all know, like sometimes you don't want to come out to certain people like if there's an 80 year old woman, I don't necessarily want to
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes I just, I don't want the awkwardness and I, I don't know how they feel about gay people and I don't know how they feel about gay people in the nail salon and the woman that I did, done my nails, had already been talking to me about how they're super Christian and they don't drink and she was just telling me a story about her daughter and their Christian background.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it was like such an awkward, like, so then I had to be like, yep, two moms, two months, and I had to say it's so loud in the nail salon.
[SPEAKER_01]: I hate talking in the nail salon.
[SPEAKER_01]: I get
[SPEAKER_01]: very nervous in these places.
[SPEAKER_01]: But anyway, had another coming out story, y'all.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was awkward.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was just awkward.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you knew, after I left, they were like, oh my God, did you hear that?
[SPEAKER_00]: She's gay, like, ugh.
[SPEAKER_01]: And maybe not, maybe nobody cares.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm making such a big deal about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I know y'all can relate.
[SPEAKER_01]: These coming out moments.
[SPEAKER_01]: Ugh, God, they just never end.
[SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, that was a fight.
[SPEAKER_01]: I came out to the nail salon, y'all.
[SPEAKER_01]: I came out to the nail salon.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's one of the places I just tried to pass.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, all right, let's let's roll the tape that was um that was an interesting moment, but this is a excellent conversation and y'all are gonna love it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Helen, you luck and you come over here and roll this tape, please.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, here we go.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's roll the tape.
[SPEAKER_01]: Clear family, podcast, love is love.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hi, Vikram.
[SPEAKER_02]: Hello, Jamie.
[SPEAKER_01]: We've been chatting already, it's so nice to have you here.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're coming all the way from Oslo, Norway.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for joining.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Vikram, I can't wait to dig into your story and to be honest to the audience.
[SPEAKER_01]: Vikram filled out the form that I have my guess, my potential guest fill out and I love to what he wrote.
[SPEAKER_01]: I am coming in blind and a very excited without further ado.
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you give me and the audience at home your 32nd elevator pitch of who you are and why you're
[SPEAKER_02]: So my name is Vikram Kolmanskogg.
[SPEAKER_02]: I am living just outside of Oslo in our way near the forest.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm a psychotherapist, supervisor, professor of something called a psychotherapy, and I'm also a writer.
[SPEAKER_02]: And in my latest book, I...
[SPEAKER_02]: focus on my first three years of parenting.
[SPEAKER_02]: We have a toddler now four-year-olds and we are a queer family consisting of two dads and a mother.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean the queerness is definitely you know a big part of that book describing and reflecting on different experiences I have also like to kind of kiss out there be oops it's okay keep going keep going keep going put the timer
[SPEAKER_02]: 30 seconds.
[SPEAKER_02]: That was that was that was that was quick.
[SPEAKER_01]: We can just dig in.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I want to hear about your your family because you mentioned two days and a mother.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's right.
[SPEAKER_01]: This might be a new one for me on this show.
[SPEAKER_01]: Actually it's it's not but I'm sure it's going to be a very unique story.
[SPEAKER_01]: So can we take it back to
[SPEAKER_01]: First of all, you and your partner, the beginning of that in a nutshell, and then we'll get into kind of your family building journey.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so we've been together for nine years now.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was during the pandemic when everything was kind of closing down and I temporarily I temporarily lost my job, forced sleep, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: But we were okay financially and we just had a lot of time and we both just enjoy, you know, walking in the forest, meditating, things like that.
[SPEAKER_02]: And somehow, during that time we started talking more about having children.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we explored different options, we looked at, you know, fostering adoption, surrogacy, different options.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then I think it was an acquaintance of mine who told me about
[SPEAKER_02]: their friend who was doing this co-parenting thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then I started looking more into that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I started talking to some all I found actually forum online forum for queer parents or queer families.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I kind of found some people who were doing this co-parenting where there were several parents involved, including parents who are not in a kind of romantic sexual relationship with each other.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I met with some of them and you know there were quite varied experiences like I'll pound up with working but it really appealed to me and my husband Daniel and I think part of the appeal was that we we wanted to kind of be
[SPEAKER_02]: more parents like both to be more people to share the joys and the struggles to have kind of time for us as a couple still and us as kind of individuals but also to be really like rested and motivated when you know we are with our child.
[SPEAKER_02]: and I've also been burnt out previously.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I kind of, I wanted to really, you know, focus and prioritize parenting, but I knew that, okay, my way of doing that, I think would not be like being a parent 24-7, but to share it with somebody where there are two homes.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's like the typical co-parenting arrangement that there are two possibly even more homes, but two homes, I think is the typical arrangement and the child grows up in both homes.
[SPEAKER_02]: We found this forum for rainbow families and we posted kind of that we were interested in this if somebody else might be interested and then we created a profile and it was kind of like, you know, dating, you know, great new profile and who will we meet, et cetera.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then we've been just a few weeks, I think, I received a message from somebody called Zedia.
[SPEAKER_02]: And she was like, she was the yoga teacher.
[SPEAKER_02]: My husband is the yoga teacher.
[SPEAKER_02]: She's a writer, I'm a writer, so we're already like, oh, this is interesting.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then when we met, we just really clicked straight up straight away.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think part of it was,
[SPEAKER_02]: It also just felt like really real, you know, like we weren't trying to pretend too much.
[SPEAKER_02]: She was very like real about her story, like why she did want to do it this way.
[SPEAKER_02]: She's had a kind of a difficult, I guess, with a divorce, where she kind of lost contact with her dad.
[SPEAKER_02]: So she really wanted her children to have a habit, have a dad, in a way dated, you know, for the lot to get to know each other.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then over time, we just decided that, yes, I think, you know, we think this is right.
[SPEAKER_02]: We share a lot of the same values, and we talked about how we wanted to do this, and then we started trying to get pregnant.
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow, this is this is fascinating.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so I have some questions before we get into how you go about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And first of all, you need to live close to this forum, did it like Perry with people who were local or did you have to like seek out people who because you need to be obviously if you're going to co-parent you need to be close to each enough to each other to make this doable, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: So no, you just, you did yourself, you tried to, you just looked at profiles and you tried to see who could, who could be effects not.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, and you dated, how long did you quote unquote date?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, how long did we date?
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, the thing is she was also a little bit older.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we did decide to start trying quite quickly, just because she was, I think, at that time,
[SPEAKER_02]: Clock was ticking, yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: We met in the spring of 2020.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then I guess we started trying already that summer, but it took a while.
[SPEAKER_02]: It took a year.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now I'm going to get super American on you and ask legal questions when you're in when you were starting to see okay I think we think this is going to be it we think we're going to do this did you think about like a contract did you did you draft up contract yeah how did you go about the kind like I want to hear the because you before I'm assuming that before you started you make sure that
[SPEAKER_01]: you were all on the same page like, and it was written down, I'm assuming.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we did write an agreement where we tried to agree on a lot of things like, you know, where to live, you know, the time that the child was spending each home, finances, a lot of different things we tried to agree on in that agreement.
[SPEAKER_02]: but it's important to say that, you know, addition to being a cyclist, my first career is actually law.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I kind of had that lens with me in as well.
[SPEAKER_02]: And this agreement is not legally binding, because whenever it comes to children, you know, it's always the best interest of the child and other factors that will trump any agreement the parents have.
[SPEAKER_02]: We made an agreement, but we knew that this is only kind of, you know, it's a moral and ethical kind of agreement between us.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that was helpful.
[SPEAKER_02]: And at the same time, there was so much we could not foresee.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, because kids and creating little humans see there's no control here.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's no control.
[SPEAKER_01]: No.
[SPEAKER_02]: and what kind of, you know, also having a newborn and a toddler, what that brings up in all of us, also of, I think, you know, previous trauma and everything.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it got to be honest, and I described this a bit in my book, this reflection of some parenting book, that it got really messy.
[SPEAKER_02]: It got really really messy in the beginning, after I call in Leo in the book, and also in, like, whenever I speak about the book and him, like, publicly just because,
[SPEAKER_02]: So when Leah was born, it didn't get really, really messy quite soon, and part of the reason, and it's all very understandable, you know, it's like Cecilia had moved into our house because we decided that we all want to support each other and have time together with Leah for the first year.
[SPEAKER_02]: But our house is a little bit outside of Oslo and she started feeling quite depressed and isolated and you know me and Daniel were a couple romantic couple and and you know what was our relationship with her you know we're trying to find that and figure that out as well should So she did start feeling quite lonely and isolated and also then increasingly depressed
[SPEAKER_02]: So she wanted to move back into the city after a few weeks and you know, while we could really understand that and wanted to support that it was really just
[SPEAKER_02]: a complete heartbreak when she left with Leo.
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, book is then, you know, till then we'd all been together with kind of had every day moments together.
[SPEAKER_02]: And suddenly, you know, I was kind of, or we were left in the house with a lot of his, um, things kind of evidence at him, but complete silence.
[SPEAKER_02]: Uh, he wasn't there in this reflections on parenting book.
[SPEAKER_02]: I, I also include some poems.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm also poet and one of the
[SPEAKER_02]: very short poems that kind of I tried to where I tried to illustrate some of this maybe I can share it.
[SPEAKER_02]: It goes like this.
[SPEAKER_02]: I know it by heart because it's so short.
[SPEAKER_02]: It goes like this.
[SPEAKER_02]: Torn dust jackets must have been my baby once upon a time.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you know it's just so painful.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like I honestly felt like he had died and I thought for him maybe it feels like I have died.
[SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, I know quite a lot about attachments and loss, obviously, since I'm a psychotherapist as well.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I was really like concerned how this would work out, brawl of us.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because after Cecilia moved out, it also became increasingly difficult for her to let go of him, to kind of for us to have a long time and spend time with him.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's like afterwards when I've been working on this book, you know, I did a lot of research on also co-parenting.
[SPEAKER_02]: or the phenomenon where, you know, very often the mother wants and has this idea and I feel that she wants a very involved dad and wants to share the parenting, but then wants to charge his borne, something else kicks in and it can often become quite tense and often that is a major reason for conflict between co-parents.
[SPEAKER_02]: This kind of, especially in the beginning,
[SPEAKER_01]: Be coming a parent.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have no, like, first-time parent.
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't know what you don't know, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: You have no idea what that is at all until you're there.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then it's messy.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's your figuring it out together.
[SPEAKER_01]: You and the newborn, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And your partner.
[SPEAKER_01]: And in your case, you are also navigating.
[SPEAKER_01]: co-parenting, which is, um, yeah, it's own insane beast.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like you could we could spend two hours just talking about a co-parenting story.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Add to that birth life and the chaos of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, you had a lot to figure out.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and Jamie, you know, one thing is what happened between all of us, and I think what helped us is we all had our different practices, you know, Cecilia, Daniel, they did yoga, I do mindfulness, I have to be self therapy, I think we were really trying really hard to regulate ourselves and to do, you know, to take care of ourselves and our difficult emotions to be able to not like have a full blown rupture and and I'm really proud of us to be honest that we were able to do this because I also, I did meet like I said, you know, I met a lot of different, you know,
[SPEAKER_02]: people who had tried co-parenting or did co-parenting before we ventured into this, and some of the one dad I met had lost contact with his child, you know, which is just horrible.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I am really proud of us that we have been able to get through this, but I'd say one thing that complicated things
[SPEAKER_02]: Further, for us, was the heteronormative biology first environment in society that we live in, because soon after Cecilia had moved out, I got a letter, an official letter from the kind of labor and welfare department or institution in a way.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it was detailing the kind of the headline was, you know, your rights and duties as a father.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then it, you know, rights and duties.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that sounds like a few different rights, a few different duties.
[SPEAKER_02]: The only thing they mentioned as an example was
[SPEAKER_02]: paying child support.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was like, wow, is this still the view we have of fathers, the kind of, you know, oh, the father is just the provider, the one who who who, you know, goes out makes money and and pays for the child.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, are we in the 60s?
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe this view, this overall overarching view in society is actually what perpetuates this stereotype to actually continuously happen, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like maybe the problem is the fact that we don't change the narrative.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: us queer parents are flipping that narrative upside down but it's it's still it's it's got a stronghold right?
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean it's so so ingrained I think in society the certain assumptions and you know I work with this in therapy you know with individual people and we can work with this in ourselves but it's also this structural systemic level right where you know it's in an official document from the state like this is how we view you as a father.
[SPEAKER_01]: Mm-hmm.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Another example, if I can give one more kind of anecdote after a few months, I guess, me and Daniel, we called the local health station to kind of get some advice and talk about, okay, you know, when Leo eventually spends more time with us, can we then bottle feed him?
[SPEAKER_02]: How would we do that?
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, get some support and advice.
[SPEAKER_02]: the person who picked up the phone, just more or less kind of yelled at us for, you know, how can you even consider taking a child away from her as mother and bottle feeding?
[SPEAKER_02]: How can you even think about bottle feeding?
[SPEAKER_02]: And we were just like, oh, wow, so there is no sense of like, okay, we are co-parents here, you know, we are, what about taking each other away from the father, you know, and, and is it more important with mother's milk than having contact with the father like,
[SPEAKER_02]: So there were certain situations and we did complain about that to the superior to them.
[SPEAKER_02]: So and that we will apologize and everything, but it just kind of illustrates how some of this kind of heteronormative and very biology focused and often also still very mother centric to be honest.
[SPEAKER_01]: and really perched patriarchal really.
[SPEAKER_02]: And patriarchal.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for saying that Jamie.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you so much for saying that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because when I was working on this and writing it in this book, I really spent a lot of time.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was like, I might okay saying all of this.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, you know, what am I?
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm a feminist.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then I was like,
[SPEAKER_02]: But I think actually what's happening here is patriarchal because the view of the father, the man, is the one who provides money and the woman is the one who gives birth and she can care for the child.
[SPEAKER_01]: And sacrifices her body.
[SPEAKER_01]: for the sake of the child.
[SPEAKER_02]: That is their value.
[SPEAKER_02]: So do not try to do anything about that.
[SPEAKER_02]: And one kind of interest me, I guess, is also that the gatekeepers of patriarchy are not just men, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, no.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's all over.
[SPEAKER_02]: It pervades everything and everyone in society.
[SPEAKER_02]: So this was a woman in the local health station who was really upholding this view.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, and not for nothing, not for nothing.
[SPEAKER_01]: The guilt they put on women over breastfeeding, I've been through it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I had a really hard time breastfeeding.
[SPEAKER_01]: It didn't work for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: The guilt that was placed upon me when I finally, after trying for four months, I finally gave up after four months because I just couldn't do it.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was torturing me.
[SPEAKER_01]: The guilt that I was given handed down by nurses,
[SPEAKER_01]: was intense and immense and it does women at this service.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is not fair to us because it doesn't always work out and and formula is fine.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and both of my kids were formula fed and love is the most important thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_02]: Please look what really matters here.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's okay if there's formula and love.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not great if there's mother's milk and lots of distress and conflicts.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, great.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or a stressed out single mother who's doing it by herself, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's, it's all backwards and it's all patriarchal, 100%.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that, that needs to change.
[SPEAKER_01]: And listen, if you breastfed your kid till they were four, a good on you, that's amazing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Blessings.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you don't, good on you, blessings that you did what you needed to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, we have to give our bodies what we need to.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, but it's something about the norms and having a certain norm critical view of things.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think there are certain, incredibly.
[SPEAKER_02]: And to me, this is also part of querying, querying is also looking at what are the dominant norms of society more in general.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you know, and what are not least gender norms, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: And this is like, we don't have to go along with that norm, you know, it's fine if you choose to breastfeed great But you can also do something else and there's a different situation, you know different families have different situations, so yeah But we definitely bumped into some of those dominant norms that were quite oppressive
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I'm glad you're bringing it all that up because all of this deserves deeper looks and, you know, speaking about because the more we speak about it, the more we're going to start seeing it more in the world and flipping it, it's not flipping it on its head, which is what needs to happen, but we got a lot to go get a long way to go.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now we are in a really good place and it is amazing to be a three parents and to support each other.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it's absolutely so so beautiful and I'm sure there will be challenges again, but there's something about, you know, this is a relationship, it's messy.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, but hopefully our relationship is now strong enough, we've been through some difficulties as well, been through kind of a rupture, and there's been some repair.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, as you said, you know, many, many paths to parenting will have different challenges, different kind of joys, but yes, this is not without this challenges.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, you're in a relationship with your husband, you're in a relationship with your son and your relationship with her forever and ever.
[SPEAKER_01]: And with that, we know what comes with relationship, work and commitment and absolutely bumps and ups and downs, and put as long as you're committed, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: As long as everybody stays committed, then it can be like, I'm jealous of what you can have together, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And I just love that this is a viable path.
[SPEAKER_02]: In my new favorite word, Jamie, and it kind of came to me while I was working on this book, is messy.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's my new favorite word, because I think I am a bit of a perfectionist.
[SPEAKER_02]: I am a psychotherapist, a professor, a psychotherapist.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was like, I will do a good job of fixing and all these relationships.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then I think maybe also because I'm queer, the problem also matters to compensate to be like, I'm going to be a great parent.
[SPEAKER_02]: We will do this.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to do it different.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to break those doors.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, but it's like it's messy.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's messy and I just like I can repeat that.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's always like a mantra now for me because it's like it's messy Vikram.
[SPEAKER_02]: The reality is messy.
[SPEAKER_02]: We will mess up and then we can, you know, clean up.
[SPEAKER_02]: We mess up and we clean up.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's how it goes in all relationships.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think it's really important.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I, I feel this with, you know, with Cecilia and us.
[SPEAKER_02]: I also describe, you know, more, kind of parental conflicts between me and Daniel.
[SPEAKER_02]: It happens.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then also between me and me and Leo are me and my son.
[SPEAKER_02]: Of course, there's lots of ruptures constantly.
[SPEAKER_02]: There are ruptures, but then there are also some repairs, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: And for him to also see that I mess up, that grown-ups also mess up.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is actually life.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't want to present it for side or some illusion of, you know, ooh, we are perfect.
[SPEAKER_02]: We have all our emotions on the control.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's no like, um,
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, no, we also meltdowns, you know, it happens.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is why.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's parenting in a nutshell.
[SPEAKER_01]: And my favorite saying right now, which is along the same lines, is life is life thing right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: Life is life thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's how I get through it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, life is life thing hardcore right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm going to get through this life.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just life thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Life is doing its life thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: and that's what helps me get through.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's gonna get through it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll pass through it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, let's take into how you did it because there's some details and you obviously if there are details that you don't want to share, please don't you don't need to but what you feel comfortable sharing about how you went about it and all the things.
[SPEAKER_02]: We did think about getting some of what's called reproductive assistance like idea for something.
[SPEAKER_02]: And again, here we bumped into the dominant heteronormative norms.
[SPEAKER_02]: So the clinics in Norway, they will accept heterosexual couples, but they will not accept our constellation.
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, like at all,
[SPEAKER_02]: Not at all, not at all.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like not even to like not even to women who are China.
[SPEAKER_02]: Two women, two women would be accepted, I think.
[SPEAKER_02]: But the thing is, and this is again a very paternalistic thing, I think, in the region society.
[SPEAKER_02]: So if a single woman likes to say that if she goes to one of the clinics, she could not choose to use our sperm.
[SPEAKER_02]: A doctor would choose sperm for her.
[SPEAKER_01]: What?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, but what I argument is to avoid designer babies as if it's less of a designer baby for doctor You know Jesus the sperm and it's not your friend sperm.
[SPEAKER_01]: I am dead.
[SPEAKER_01]: I am dead right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: Are you kidding me?
[SPEAKER_01]: That is oh my god absolutely not absolutely not oh my god talk about taking away choice
[SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then, so what we did or what Cecilia did is she traveled to Denmark in the middle of a pandemic back and forth because in Denmark, there was a different and we're not discriminated against.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I only went, you know, once to provide sperm, but she had to go several times to get, you know, treatment, IV treatments.
[SPEAKER_01]: So she went through with IVF question before we move forward from there.
[SPEAKER_01]: What was the discussion between you and Daniel surrounding who would be biologically related to the child?
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you don't want to share, you don't have to, but...
[SPEAKER_02]: We did discuss that quite a bit.
[SPEAKER_02]: And people are just listening to this content.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I'm a biracial.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm a dual heritage Indian and Norwegian.
[SPEAKER_02]: And Daniel, my husband is white.
[SPEAKER_02]: And Cecilia is white.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we talked about it before.
[SPEAKER_02]: We met somebody, Daniel, and I we said that, OK, if the mother is a person of color, then he would be the provider sperm.
[SPEAKER_02]: And if it's a white person, then I would provide the sperm.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that was kind of something we wanted, and I heard from other friends that that's not kind of unusual, like, you know, to want some like a resemblance to the both of you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, to both of us, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And a shared heritage, in a way.
[SPEAKER_02]: What happened was Leo when he was born and now, and there, well, there's a bit of a longer story to this, but anyway, he did, we didn't have the using my sperm, and when Leo was born, he comes at completely blonde and with really like crystal blue eyes.
[SPEAKER_02]: You just can't you go plan for anything really messy messy.
[SPEAKER_02]: You can't you can't plan anything Yeah, but he knows he knows that he's also part Indian and That he's not just he's completely white passing but not just white
[SPEAKER_01]: That's amazing.
[SPEAKER_02]: But anyway, yeah, so we tried with IVF and Denmark, and then it just got too taxing, you know, with the pandemic, with all the controls and the isolation and everything for Cecilia.
[SPEAKER_02]: So then what we started doing after that was we tried home insemination.
[SPEAKER_02]: Some queries have gone before us, all this but home insemination.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: And we're like, is this going to work, you know, like come in a cup and then put it in this kind of what's it called a syringe.
[SPEAKER_02]: It has syringe.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, but then what we did, I guess also to make sure that we have the kind of best sperm quality possible both Daniel and I, we would alternate.
[SPEAKER_02]: So one day I would go and come in a cup and the next day then I would go and come in a cup into the sea with Alice while she was at for a little walk in the forest and then we'd kind of exchange some you know awkward joke or something in a quick hug and then she would go in because I mean sperm dies quickly right so if you don't have to happen quite fast you played a little
[SPEAKER_01]: gambled a little bit and let fate kind of make the decision for you in the end.
[SPEAKER_01]: And how did you feel about the idea that you might not, did you have any misgivings that you might not be biologically connected to the child?
[SPEAKER_02]: You know what, Jamie, this is such an interesting question.
[SPEAKER_02]: I addressed it a bit in the book because here we come back to the kind of some of those dominant norms in our culture, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Biology is important biology matters and like theoretically, in principle, I'm like, no, biological biology doesn't matter, but then I was like, when see they didn't get pregnant, I was like, okay, so who is the biological father?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and you don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I we didn't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: Partly maybe because we are so conditioned by the culture, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: To prioritize biology.
[SPEAKER_02]: But then I also, I think what I also thought about was like, okay, if I am not the biological father, what would I need?
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, maybe I would need to have more of a say in terms of like, what name, what should we name this child?
[SPEAKER_02]: or maybe I could be the legal parent, you know, because there are only two, you know, only have two legal parents in our way.
[SPEAKER_02]: So then we did do actually a paternity test, which you could do quite early on in the pregnancy.
[SPEAKER_02]: When that came back, it showed that I was the father, and that's also been a little bit, you know, complicated between me and Daniel
[SPEAKER_01]: It is strong and it doesn't bother everyone.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've talked to hundreds of people at this point and some people are like, no, I didn't think twice.
[SPEAKER_01]: And others, like you, it turned into a bit of a thing that you had to work through emotionally and together.
[SPEAKER_01]: And for me as well, like for me as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think it's like,
[SPEAKER_01]: kind of the sense of because of this norm.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the sense of like loss or like missing out in some way.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I'm also like trying to figure out if I'm going to use my family for instance.
[SPEAKER_01]: If she is the biological mother, then who am I?
[SPEAKER_01]: Where am I?
[SPEAKER_01]: How do I fit in?
[SPEAKER_01]: And what does that mean when you haven't even experienced parenting yet, well, how you're like, I felt like this entity on the outside and I wasn't sure how I was going to kind of like what you were saying, like, how do I inject myself into this family?
[SPEAKER_01]: Not thinking about the fact that love makes a family, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Just absolutely.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that you can also have more dispersed parenthood, you know, which is more common in other cultures.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, right.
[SPEAKER_02]: It really is, I think, a lot of cultural conditioning, you know, maybe it is partly also a biological thing, but it's definitely cultural conditioning that we so want to know.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's also, you know, reinforced because, for example, a colleague of mine would then ask us, so who is the dad?
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm like, oh, we're both dads.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, but I mean, you know, who's the dad?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, we are both dads.
[SPEAKER_02]: One is the best.
[SPEAKER_02]: But we are both dads.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then her response to that is, oh, well, you can always have another one.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, another child, so the book can be, and so you can each have.
[SPEAKER_02]: No.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think it's really beautiful what's happened now over time and it's been, you know, I have had to, and again, I described this in this book, how,
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I've had to like really actively give Daniel more space with Leo for him to kind of that he's needed that and also for me to step out of the way because I can be quite I'm anxious, I guess, and a little bit like reaching, you know, and yeah, yeah, leaning in and wanting to control micromanage even a bit I guess controlling but probably it is is the word Daniel would use and yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, that's been part of our conflict and I've really worked to kind of step a little bit aside to give him space, not least because this has also been an added element to our conflict dynamic is now that he isn't the biological dad.
[SPEAKER_02]: So if I start criticizing or commenting or you know saying something about what what we should do then that is also there.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think over time, like now it's just like
[SPEAKER_02]: Leo calls him Papa da.
[SPEAKER_02]: So he is like, at the moment, he's the favorite.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's no doubt, you know?
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's funny how that works out.
[SPEAKER_01]: And also it's a beautiful thing that we have to figure out this this this dynamic of like having to pull back or or step in and being conscious of the other parent because we know that they might possibly feel a need to like be more involved to really
[SPEAKER_01]: feel a stronger need to bond or you know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like this is what makes I think queer families so unique and so 50, 50 and many aspects because we see the need in the other one to want to be a huge part of the child's life and we learn to we learn the the push and pull of
[SPEAKER_01]: giving the other parent autonomy and the right to take over in certain situations and things like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I gave birth to our son, the younger one and seeing my wife with him is like the most heartwarming I just absolutely love how much he loves her and it feels even more special.
[SPEAKER_01]: to me knowing that they're not biologically related, but down their bond is so strong and beautiful and like, I tear up just thinking about how amazing their relationship is, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And I hope she thinks the same when she sees me with our daughter, but who knows?
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, like, it's it's just cool.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's cool that we have that we get to have this and then our family's truly exemplified.
[SPEAKER_01]: what truly makes a family obvious.
[SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the love and the warmth.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, absolutely.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, one thing we did do.
[SPEAKER_02]: was we decided not to tell anyone that for the first year, because then, you know, just do not have people react in certain ways with us because I think that would reinforce a sense that one is more the father than the other.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we didn't tell anybody and I think, again, because Leo came I completely blonde and white and we lied.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think most people just assumed he was Daniel,
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think maybe that helped a bit as well, you know, that he was really, he was completely seen as the dad or people were just, and I would say, and I'm really, really happy to say most of our family and friends just respected our decision, not to tell people who the biological dad was.
[SPEAKER_01]: that's amazing.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I love it, you know, I think that's a great idea to decide not to tell it's great for the audience, anybody who's like getting ready to start this, like, yeah, maybe don't tell anybody at first.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because people how people react to you will affect you.
[SPEAKER_02]: We are not impermeable, beings.
[SPEAKER_02]: We will be affected.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and it's just a testament to how many decisions we make on this family building journey, like there's so many ways you can do this.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are so many ways once even when you're parenting to handle living in the world as families, like ours, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, it's so amazing.
[SPEAKER_01]: And now Leo is for and I'm sure driving you up a wall or down a wall and back and forth again.
[SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: In the best way possible.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it sounds like you have worked through.
[SPEAKER_01]: a lot of stuff with not just you and Daniel, but the two of you and Cecilia.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is there anything you want to speak on there?
[SPEAKER_02]: And we went to a family therapist.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that was a crucial thing that we did together to be honest.
[SPEAKER_02]: And importantly, it was a queer family therapist, and she herself had the experience of co-parenting.
[SPEAKER_02]: So she knew a little bit of what we were in.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we weren't kind of exotic and interesting in that way.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was just, you know, okay, we're struggling.
[SPEAKER_02]: One of the things she helped us with was to see that, okay, right now, we, Daniel and me, we weren't getting to spend much time with Leo, but that this would change.
[SPEAKER_02]: She kind of helped us make a plan to see that, okay, over time we will be spending more time with him.
[SPEAKER_02]: And she was also really clear in saying that, you know, the first two years are really difficult, just get through the first two years.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the other thing she said was the most important thing for Leo is that there is not too much negative conflict.
[SPEAKER_02]: So just these are the things to remember.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think we really try to keep that in mind and work with that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sounds like things are going well for you and I wish you wellness throughout the rest of it, you know, it's going to have its ups and downs.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: But sounds like y'all are making a good go of this, which sounds pretty awesome.
[SPEAKER_02]: It is going really well.
[SPEAKER_01]: Another check in the good clear parents are awesome box.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what that is.
[SPEAKER_01]: So where can everybody find you?
[SPEAKER_01]: Where can everybody find your book?
[SPEAKER_01]: What's the name of the book?
[SPEAKER_02]: The easiest place I think to find me and my work is my website, which is Vikram dot n o, so it's n o for no way Vikram dot n o, and the book has a very long title, this reflection, some parenting from a gestalt therapist father because I do, you know, as I kind of briefly mentioned, I do draw on the start therapy and theory in kind of, you know, looking at some of my experiences.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then the subtitle is like with Leo.
[SPEAKER_02]: I wanted that to be the main title like a little bit more like, you know, because it is a it's a very personal memoir like book with some theoretical reflections.
[SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, anyway, so you can just search for reflections on parenting in my name and it'll come up.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, good to know.
[SPEAKER_01]: So everybody, go check out Vikram, and God, I wish you the best.
[SPEAKER_01]: This was such a lovely conversation.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for joining me today.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_02]: I've really enjoyed talking to you, Jamie.
[SPEAKER_01]: Whew, well folks, I hope you enjoyed that episode as much as I enjoyed it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you did enjoy it, feel free to listen to another or watch another.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have so many episodes for your listening or viewing pleasure.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just go pick one and enjoy.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a lot.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're really good.
[SPEAKER_01]: And also, if you really do like this show, please, I know I say it all the time, but please do consider supporting the show on Patreon.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're just gonna go to patreon.com slash the queer family podcast.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're gonna pick a tear, you're gonna join, and you're gonna get that bonus content.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you're also gonna get my love and adoration for the rest of my life.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love you all, thanks for tuning in, keep on tuning in, and I'll see you next time.