Swelling with Pride: Queer Conception and Adoption Stories

There's no straightforward path to LGBTQ2 parenthood and just as every queer person has their own coming out story, every LGBTQ2 family has a unique conception or adoption story.

In Swelling with Pride: Queer Conception and Adoption Stories, creative non-fiction writers celebrate LGBTQ2 families and the myriad of ways we embark upon our parenting journeys. These honest, heartfelt, unabashedly queer stories cover a gamut of issues and experiences, including the varied paths to queer conception--from DIY methods at home with the so-called "turkey baster" to pricey medical interventions at the fertility clinic--and the daunting task of choosing a sperm donor. This groundbreaking anthology portrays the journeys to LGBTQ2 parenthood that start or end with adoption and the countless hurdles that go along with it: from surviving the home study process and dealing with systemic homophobia to transitioning an adopted child into a new home. There are tales of shared nursing, blended families, communal parenting and non-binary pregnancy. There are also stories of grief, all too often suffered in silence, such as coping with infertility, pregnancy loss, stillbirth and adoption breakdown. These are the journeys of the early mavericks that formed families under the radar when fertility clinics were not open to singles and lesbians, as well as the Gen X and Millennial queers who've become parents during the current "gayby" boom.

Editor and proud queer mom Sara Graefe has assembled more than twenty-five creative non-fiction LGBTQ2 authors from across North America, both well-known and up-and-coming, including Andrea Bennett, Marusya Bociurkiw, Jane Byers, Susan G. Cole, Caitlin Crawshaw, Rachel Epstein, Terrie Hamazaki, Nicola Harwood, Natalie Meisner and many more. Together, their candid, moving, thought-provoking stories celebrate what it is to be queer and give voice to both the challenges and joys of building a LGBTQ2 family in a predominantly straight, cis-gendered world.

Sara Graefe is an award-winning playwright and screenwriter. As former publications coordinator for BC’s Society of Special Needs Adoptive Parents, she authored the bestselling special needs parenting book, Living with FASD: A Guide for Parents and edited the Adoption Piece by Piece trilogy (Groundwork Press). In 2007, she became a proud queer mom and began chronicling her experiences on her blog, Gay Girls Make Great Moms (queermommy.wordpress.com). Her creative non-fiction has appeared in various magazines and anthologies, including Literary Mama, Walk Myself Home, Boobs: Women Explore What it Means to Have Breasts, Telling Truths: Storying Motherhood, Mothers and Sons, and A Family by Any Other Name: Exploring Queer Relationships (finalist for a 2015 Lambda Literary Award). She lives in Vancouver with her wife and school-aged son and is on faculty in the Creative Writing Program at the University of British Columbia.