Woman's Hour - Parenting: The Other Mother

Episode Date: September 4, 2019

The comedian Jen Brister talks about what it was like becoming a non-biological mum. She had twin boys with her partner Chloe four years ago after two rounds of IVF, and it was Chloe who gave birth. Jen talks about the reaction of friends, professionals and what she felt like herself having babies in this way and being the other parent - experiences she has written about in her book 'The Other Mother'.

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BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hi, this is Jane Garvey and this is the Woman's Hour Parenting Podcast. Today you can hear a conversation with the comedian Jen Brister, who's written a book called The Other Mother about her relationship with her partner Chloe and their IVF twins who are now just about to start school. So you can hear the conversation with her now. Two rounds of IVF, but there were three goes of sort of sticking it up there, so to speak.

I'm sure that's not the technical term. We're not a medical programme. I think most of our listeners will know what you mean. So it was actually Chloe who had the boys. Yes, she did. Yeah. And that's, in a way, that is the interesting thing about your book, which is written from the perspective of the other mother. So just tell us about that dynamic. First of all, how were you treated by the authorities with whom you necessarily come into contact at these times?

Well, we went, it was IVF, that's how we did it. And we went to two different clinics and both clinics were absolutely fine I think the uh the only time that we experienced any kind of I suppose homophobia was when Chloe went to her GP uh and asked to have a fertility test and they were like well are you trying to have a baby and she was like well no not yet but we will be and she was like and your husband or your partner is he fertile or whatever and um Chloe said oh no my partner's a woman and her GP just said just laughed in her face and went oh I don't think you can I don't think that's something you can do and we were like god have you not heard of IVF of course you know there are this was only like

I don't know like six years ago that the idea that a lesbian couple couldn't get pregnant and the fact that she laughed in her face I think was a pretty pretty horrific was that the worst thing that happened in terms of the way you were treated yeah yeah I mean our treatment was absolutely fine I mean also when you're at an IVF clinic you're spending a huge amount of money so they'd better be nice to you yeah it's in their interest yeah um you described the birth uh births um brilliantly I mean you you are you're there as the sort of on-site photographer. I'm not sure how welcome I'd have found your presence, by the way, but anyway. Well, I mean,

I was literally under orders to make sure that I got the moment. I got the moment. And to be fair, the midwives were really great. It was the obstetricians that were like, what is this woman doing? Which is fair enough. They're trying to keep it, you know, sort of sterile and

there i am with a camera trying to take a video actually of a of a baby being wrenched out of an open wound yeah thank you for that you're welcome i hope you're enjoying your coffee i have a lovely hobnob won't you um so um i'm so those of us who've had children um in heterosexual relationships there will have been moments for everybody. I hear that happens. Yeah, it does. It's relatively common. And you have that, no, I'm more tired than you are conversation. And I might have imagined that the dynamic would be different when there were two women. So? Yeah, look, the dynamic in terms of the childcare, I'm going to uh be honest is pretty much 50 50 but they the dynamic

in you know dealing with children that didn't sleep for three years is the same and that is that you will get into a competition about who has had the the most or the least amount of sleep and uh as everyone does you know and there's no winners in it because neither of you are sleeping but um yeah those those sort sort of conversations are the same, whether they're in a heterosexual or a homosexual relationship. It's just, you know, the actual childcare, I think, in terms of the way we manage our children, I would say is, and I'm going to say this, better.

But what is it like to see your female partner, not just going through the birth but then doing the feeding and being thought of I imagine as the uber parent but you tell me. Well she was definitely the uber parent. She was double breastfeeding our sons. She had to undergo surgery to have children you know she still has a scar she bore them for nine months I mean there's no way I can sort of compete with that and all what I want to and certainly you know there were definitely moments where I thought god what is the point of me I mean you know I'm just sort of hanging around but I was very of use practically and I think that was really important

to my partner that I was able to get up when she couldn't in the night, change the nappies, lift them up and take them to her so that she could breastfeed them. So it was really important that we worked together and it was quite symbiotically and it was definitely tough because I didn't have the hormones that she was having. She did look fantastic and I looked haggard. Yeah, you do say it repeatedly how wonderful she looked she did look fantastic. And I looked haggard. Yeah, you do say repeatedly how wonderful she looked. She looked fantastic. In the afterglow of the maternal success story. I mean, that did wear off. I hope she's listening.

So the boys now, do they treat you any differently? How does that work? Well, I think that for our children, whatever our dynamic is, is perfectly normal to them. I mean, I don't think they fully understand how they were born. I know that one of my sons recently said to Chloe that she showed him a picture of her pregnant. And she said, and who's inside mummy's tummy? And he said, oh, and he mentioned his brother.

And Chloe was like, and you, you know, and he was like, no, no, I was in mama's tummy. So they haven't fully kind of, they don't fully understand, you know, how they were conceived and how they were born. In my experience, however it happens, they don't want to know about it. No, don't blame them. Jen, I've got some emails for you here. Oh, there's a tweet actually from Johanna. I love the story that each child thinks they were in a different tummy. And as we know, you don't need blood ties to be a fabulous parent.

Many biological ones are crap, she says. From Natasha, you had me at, I would get out of bed and bring the baby to our bed to be fed by my partner. Sharing those long, potentially lonely nights are so important now i think i'm guessing natasha is heterosexual okay and i have to say yes i also noticed that you said that and i think that is something that i'm not saying that no men would do that because i know many would but I'm just suggesting that some perhaps wouldn't anyway Angela I'm so happy to hear this topic on the show my partner Siobhan and I had triplets

three triplets three years ago through a long fertility process using a sperm donor I could not have done it without her she was my rock we had very similar roles as heterosexual couples actually I gave birth and stayed at home for the first three years to bring up the children. Siobhan went to work, which I know was hard for her, but she understood how hard it was for me to look after and care for three babies at one time. From Vicky, I had my son with my civil partner in 2016. One thing that I found very interesting is how our roles have split since our son arrived. Our experience as same-sex parents has shown us that it really comes down to who goes out to work

and when, who undertakes the primary childcare and who has what skills. I am society's stereotypical 21st century mum. I work part-time from home, look after our son the other two midweek days and I cook clean and I do the washing, etc, etc. My partner, on the other hand, works full time. She's the returning hero each night. Now, that is important. Jen, who is the returning hero? Well, I guess it would be me. But often I return and they don't seem to notice. But no, they do.

They do. I think I don't really know. I don't really get the returning hero because I tend to return at a time when they're asleep anyway. And then when they wake up, then I'm there. So they don't really notice it quite so much. The title of your book, The Other Mother, that's it in a nutshell you may not be the returning hero but the title of the book suggests that you know that you are something other than yeah do you see what i'm getting i do so i i i i found particularly when my children were born i found being called the mother i just

unsettling i just felt like i'm not their mother I am their parent certainly but I'm not their mother they have a mother and that's my partner um I am their other parent but also because I am a woman it's natural that the children will refer to me not gonna call me dad that was the other thing that annoyed me is like which one of you is the dud? Neither of us, mate. These two women. That's how it works. I don't know if you've figured that out yet. So, yes, I am. Once we sort of decided on a name for me, then that made it a bit easier. What name do you use?

So Chloe's mummy and I'm mama. And as soon as those names were sort of doled out and we decided on them and we were happy with them, then it seemed to make perfect sense because their mummy is Chloe and I am their mama and so I am automatically just their other parent and I don't really see myself as their mum I see myself as their parent that makes sense yeah no it makes perfect sense but I guess the rest of society to a degree is still playing catch up with this yeah certainly when they were babies and chloe went back to work quite quickly so because i was as a stand-up comedian i could be at home in the day and then work in the evening i would have them a lot during the day and then

those those conversations are tricky when you're going out with your babies and people would go oh my god twins it must have been so hard how did you give birth blah blah blah and then you have to go into the whole rigmarole i didn't give birth to them it was my partner and then you start to feel like an imposter and it all gets a bit awkward. Before you know it, you've given them your flipping, you know, bra size. And you're like, I don't know, why am I telling you all of this? I think every double buggy should just have a strap line across the top that just says, yes, it was hard. And it still is. Yeah. Yeah. And just leave it at that. Yeah. No more questions. Thank you. Jen, thank you very much. Thank you,

Jen. And if there's anything you'd like us to talk about on the Women's Hour Parenting Podcast, you can contact us via the website bbc.co.uk slash womenshour. I'm Sarah Trelevan, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who's faking pregnancies. I started like warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake.

No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.