Children

During the spring and summer of 1983, my wife and I became heavily involved in children’s ministry within our denomination. I had perfected my puppetry skills and found out that my talents were much sought after.

Although “Lovey” was the actual credentialed minister, we tag-teamed. Sometimes I did puppetry, she sang, and spoke. Sometimes we both did puppetry, I sang and I spoke. We varied our routines to make them constantly fresh.

We found ourselves all over the area in churches within our denomination. Our faces graced the cover of some major church publications and I became a published author. Our reputation grew so that we got involved with other denominations as well. We also made television appearances.

Those were heady times for the gay married guy and his female minister wife!

Our time spent with so many kids started making a profound change within both of us. We found ourselves daydreaming about the day we would become parents.

So in late spring, and during the summer we worked to become pregnant.

Many gay friends of mine who have never been married don’t understand how I could get married and then actually have a relationship with a woman such that children could be conceived. I merely respond that several things were in my favor. First I was very young and healthy. Second of all, I had not had much gay experiences to fall back on. Third, I made myself perform. Remember, I was determined to cure myself.

So, in late September, “Lovey” purchased a home pregnancy kit. She had become suspicious of symptoms she was having. However, before she went to the doctor, she wanted to try the home test. By today’s standards the one we used was probably quite primitive. However, in the wee hours of that morning she screamed when she went into the bathroom and found out she was indeed “preggers.” We hugged in the bathroom and jumped up and down! (We had moved into an apartment by this time and were at another church.) We probably woke up the neighbors!

Her doctor later confirmed this finding. The date of delivery was going to be sometime in late May or mid-June.
On January 17, 1984, “Lovey” invited me to go with her to the doctor. She had been told that the daddy (that’s me) could come and see the sonogram image of our baby. We were so excited!

The doctor put us into a room. Lovey was put in a gown and told to lie down. A huge machine with a video monitor was wheeled close to her. They proceeded to apply the lubricant to her abdomen. The nurse turned out all the lights.

There in the glow of the monitor were fuzzy waves and images. The doctor finally got the sensor into the right position. He said,

“This little circle right here is your baby’s head. The little pulsing dot is its heart. These other things over here are arms and legs.”

“Is it a boy?” I asked eagerly.

“We can’t really tell at the moment because this little rascal is so active. If you come back with your wife to her next appointment, we might be able to tell you then.”

Both Lovey and I oohed and ahhed at our little one, who by this time was doing all sorts of uterine acrobatics.

The doctor then said, “It won’t be long before you have this little one with you, but now, we have to let you go. After all we have other patients.”

I thanked the doctor, as he was walking over to turn the machine off. He then tripped on the sensor's cable…. and paused and looked down at the screen.

“Wait a minute!” he said.

My heart jumped into my mouth!

“What’s wrong?” we both said in unison.

“What’s this, another head?” the doctor said.

My wife and I both traded concerned looks and said together, “a two headed baby?”

The doctor turned around and laughed.

“No,” he giggled. “Twins!

We giggled and laughed all the way to our car parked in the garage. Who cared what sex they were as long as they were healthy! We got into our car and "Lovey" wanted us to run by her parents' home to inform them of the news. They had already known we were expecting.

"Lovey" burst into her parents' home a breakneck pace with me at her heels.

"Mom! Dad! We've got something to tell you!"

We found them sitting at the kitchen table and "Lovey" said excitedly....."We're gonna have twins!"

Her mother and father were not happy. It sort of reminded me of the response of when we rushed to their house to tell them of our engagement.

"Im sorry," said Dad o'Lovey.

I couldn't believe my ears. "What did you say?" I asked.

"I'm sorry," Dad o'Lovey responded again.

"Well, I'm not." I retorted. "Lovey" seemed about to cry. Mom o'Lovey remained silent.

"You're just not thinking," Dad o'Lovey intoned.

I decided to let "Lovey" deal with her folks. After all, I needed to tell my parents. I telephoned them and they were simply excited beyond words!

The gay man, with the heterosexual female ministerial wife, was now the father of twins!