SpeedyBlob with father update

This was the 7w6d scan. Look how much bigger Blob is now than the yolk sac, compared to jsut a week ago! I have an OB appt Wednesday and after that I suspect I will have to content myself with much fewer pictures of the growing Blob within me. But as I get more confident that things are actually going smoothly, I think I will be okay with that. Philosophically I am all for low intervention, but I have been enjoying the perks of my highly medicalized ttc process nonetheless.

So, thanks everyone for the encouraging words about my father. The truth is, I don't expect him to come around when the news of the baby hits, nor do I know that I would be open to a sudden change in attitude on his part. His disdain for me is not pure homophobia: we have never had a good relationship since the day I decided that he was not the boss of me, at the ripe old age of eight. I didn't come out to myself or my parents until I was 26, and at that point there was little relationship between me & my father left to destroy.

This changed briefly when I was with Ex, who was butch in that manlier-than-men kind of way. Beer-swilling, steak-grilling, football-watching butch-- Way more of a man than my brother, in fact. And my father, for the first time that I had ever witnessed in my life, actually really LIKED her. Like, ENJOYED her. And she had an adrogynous name, could "pass" easily-- and was happy to, even though it drove me crazy. So in a way, my father was able to forget the gay thing and enjoy the son he never had. She, for her part, would push for me to visit much more than I normally would, and when I did, it was pretty easy. Because I was attached to her, I got a free pass on father's disdain for me for a few years. But when Ex and I broke up-- really, *I* broke up with *her*, my father quickly retracted any iota of affection he had inadvertantly leaked upon me (by proxy of her) for the last five years, and reverted to his angry, disapproving, hostile former self with me.

And if he disdains me, he loathes Speedy, who is undeniably female and often even feminine, and whose name is beyond femme, way more femme than even Kelly or Michelle or other names that or 99% feminine with occasional exceptions. Her name has never been worn by a boy or a man in the history of its existence. And she is a vegetarian, a hiker, a book reader, a horse-rider. In short, she is too much like me. So-- he barey acknowledges her and cannot be othered to address her directly, shows her even less regard, if that is even possible, than me.

I guess what I am saying is that his "love" (although I have never experienced it as such) is so manifestly conditional that I don't know if I want Speedytot to be invested in it at all. I am an adult and I know that my father is a man of many weaknesses and foibles and his own pain... I can separate myself from my anger and disappointment in him and his in me. But a child should not have to do that.

The complicated thing is that I really do love my mother, and I don't want to lose my relationship with her, which has always been strong (save for a few tumultuous teenage years). But I am not sure how to negotiate around the dead space between my father and me.

Right now I don't even want to call home, because I don't want him to pick up. I don't want to spend those awkward 15 seconds with my brain warring with my mouth, wanting to scream and cry and shout recriminations, while I simply say nothing and wait for my mother to come on. I want my mother to call me, but she won't. And so. This is where I stand, in silence, with this enormous future I hold in my belly and this secret in my heart.