The Planned Child, by Sharon Olds

I hated the fact that they had planned me, she had taken
a cardboard out of his shirt from the laundry
as if sliding the backbone up out of his body,
and made a chart of the month and put
her temperature on it, rising and falling,
to know the day to make me—I would have
liked to have been conceived in heat,
in haste, by mistake, in love, in sex,

She's here

and all three of us are home. Pregnancy was just the preparation - the real journey starts now.

White Asparagus, by Sujata Bhatt

Who speaks of strong currents
streaming through the legs, the breasts
of a pregnant woman
in her fourth month?

Change

So my due date is less than a week away, and I'm getting to the GET IT OUT! stage of pregnancy.  I'm, big, uncomfortable, getting head-butted in my cervix, tired and not really sleeping well.  Last night, my boyfriend, Jemmy, came over for dinner and a film, which was lovely, (apart from the film, but that's another story.)  My husband slept on the sofabed.

This is actually the first time we've done that.  Not because of any deep, emotional reasons that require 'communication', but just because of logistics.  It's been a common occurrence for my Gaius (my husband) and his dates to sleep on the sofabed, while I (being pregnant and having difficulty sleeping and getting comfortable) get the king-size to myself.  But because my boyfriend has his own place, I've always just gone to him.  Now I am over 39 weeks pregnant, I just can't face sleeping there anymore: I need my own bed, and knowing that birth is IMMINENT means I want to stay close to home, my husband, and those hospital bags.

As an introduction to our situation, this is pretty complicated, because things are changing. 

Before this transitional pre-parenting phase, the poly part of my marriage worked much like this: I have Jemmy, who I've been seeing for well over a year now, and we've settled into a once-a-week routine.  My husband doesn't have a regular 'other', but he does have a few women that he sees infrequently: usually at our place, when I'm staying over with Jemmy, but sometimes when I'm there, and sometimes he visits other cities to see them.  None of them are yet approaching relationship status, the way that Jemmy and I have developed, and neither have any of the women that we end up entertaining together. 

All this is obviously going to change.

We don't know how.  Our interest in ethical non-monogamy was orirginally chiefly sexual, and while the friendship, romance and affection are now equally as important, the actual having-sex-with-other-people is still a very important part of our relationship.  When this baby is born, when will we even get back to having sex with each other, let alone my boyfriend and the others?

So this blog is intended to see how we get along with being both polyamorous, and parents.  There is a possibility  that most of the non-monogamous stuff will just fade away, at least for a little while.  But how, and to what extent this happens, we just don't know.