Member-only story
THE WIND PHONE
Those Babies I Lost
The road to life’s decisions
For me, becoming a father was a long and twisted road. My fatherhood was not the normal path that most men travel. For many men, fatherhood is not a decision or choice but happens through fate. My decision to be a father was more deliberate and clouded by many issues. Fatherhood came not through biological procreation. I became a father through the decision to adopt.
My struggle with my sexuality through puberty and into young adulthood was a tortured path that always made me wonder if I would ever have children. This struggle was always in the background of any decision. Not understanding or accepting who I was in my heart and soul led me to make decisions that would hurt many, although I never intended to do so.
I married after finishing college. My ex-wife finished her college years a couple of years before me. We met while working in a National Park. So, we were not kids. We were both mature enough to have completed degrees and were at the threshold of young adulthood.
Teaching high school kept me busy as a beginning teacher, and although I pressed for starting a family, my wife was resistant. She said she was not sure she wanted children. I remember thinking “We should have talked about this before marriage.” I was happy that I found a relationship that worked. I wanted what is considered a normal life.
Growing up in the South, I knew I was quite different from other boys my age. I dated throughout high school. I never took any relationship beyond the “quite good friends” level. I am certain this was confusing to the girls I dated. College had been the same. Thus, I had no sexual experience with women when I met my future wife.
I knew that this relationship worked. I had yet to consider what my life might be like if I did not find a wife and marry. There were no role models to see what that life might look like. Being from the South I was unsure if there were other men “out there” who felt as I did inside my soul. No such men were within my experience as a Southern child.
We were married for six years when I began to press for children. Making no progress, and knowing that I was unhappy in this relationship, I talked to my wife about…
