Ocean Dreamer

This weekend I watched the very sweet documentary Making Grace, which chronicles the experiences of a lesbian couple, Ann and Leslie, as they try to conceive their first child, a little girl named Grace. After Grace is born, the film follows the two-mom family through her first year of life. Once I got past the rather annoying fact that the voices don’t match up with the speakers’ lips, I really enjoyed the movie. It includes many aspects of queer folks conceiving children – from the dilemmas over known v. unknown donors to choosing a sperm donor from a piece of paper to the long road to conception to the not-always-warm response from Ann and Leslie’s families. Early on Ann’s sister says she will tell her children that Ann is the baby’s mom and Leslie the friend who is helping out. Happily, though, she changes her mind once little Grace was born – and even denies ever having said that Leslie wouldn’t be Grace’s mom (hmm, there is definitely more to that story.) Plus, check this out: whenever Grace misbehaves, it is blamed on the donor’s genes. I love it – no need to take responsibility for any bad genes. Anything bad – oh, must be from the donor! I plan to do the same with my children!

I would definitely recommend this film to any queer folks who are considering – or are in the process of – TTC through donor sperm (whether known or unknown). I saw many of my own experiences and those of my friends and acquaintances reflected in Ann and Leslie’s journey. You don’t see LGBTQ families in the media very often, and that fact made this portrayal all the better.

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