to consider having a baby with my gay best friend?

[confuzzledanddazzled]

This is a name-change, for obvious reasons!

Context: I have a funny relationship with my ex. We met 16 years ago and split up three years later, just before I found out I was pregnant with our son. It was an amicable enough split, just in different places with our lives (and age gap was a problem). But we have stayed amicable, to the extent that he has a key to my house and we are very much raising our disabled son together, as he needs us both to be consistent. He comes to our house and doesn't have our son at his, and we go on holiday together BUT we don't live together and definitely aren't together.

However, we slept together on holiday last year and it continued happening when we got back. I ended up pregnant, and didn't tell him, while I decided what to do. I was very confused about the pregnancy and only told a couple of close friends. I eventually decided to go ahead with it and had started to get excited, despite all the many reasons why it would make life difficult, and was due to tell ex over the Christmas holidays, but had a miscarriage before I did so.

I am (obviously) in a funny place after the miscarriage and have gone from thinking being pregnant was mostly difficult and complicated to wishing I still was. I had got myself in a positive place about it and to miscarry was pretty shattering.

I don't want to properly get back with my ex, and I don't know if I'm able to think about meeting someone different, for complicated reasons that I won't bore anyone with, mainly to do with my son's acceptance of new people in my life. However, I am pretty convinced now that I do want another child. I don't think my ex would want another child, and I don't intend to 'get pregnant accidentally', so I am thinking about options.

My best friend is a gay man. We used to joke about having a baby together if I didn't meet anyone by my mid-30s, but it was just jokes. He is the closest person to me apart from family, and we are very similar in many ways. When I told him I was pregnant, I could tell he was struggling with it a bit; he kept joking about how people would think it was his (which is possibly true - some people do think we're a couple) and I really wanted him to have a role in it all. He looked after my son for me when I went to hospital and has been really supportive with it all.

He's a really amazing man who I love (not in that way, but that's a good thing in terms of stability) and would make a great father. And I think he has started to want children. I am used to sharing parenting with a man who doesn't live with me and there'd be no romantic/ sexual complications like there are with my ex.

Is this completely bonkers or is it something that could work? I know people will say I'm just reacting to the miscarriage, but in reality, I think the miscarriage has just woken me up to the fact that there's something missing in my life that I used to want. There's no going back to before the miscarriage but, even if there was, I'm not sure I'd want to as life had got very stagnant. I have a career that I love and my son has progressed massively, to the extent that I think he will be an independent adult, but I have got so used to living life around work and my son that I feel I have forgotten to think about what I want.

And I want another child, and don't have much time left. So, AIBU to
be even considering this?

Juno, that's great to hear. What made you decide to do it? Does ds find it confusing or, like most kids, does he just see it as how things are?

My two youngest children are as a result of much the same situation (only i was not sleeping with an ex and my co parent is not gay)

It mostly works very well. There are some really useful websites with some very helpful information about the nitty gritty and working out understanding and any ground rules.

You may also want to look into what would happen if it all goes tits up.

Ime it's not much different to co parenting with an ex only you have none of the negatives that come with that such as the stuff that made you break up in the first place and more incentive to work together.

No, he doesn't find it confusing in the least. It's totally normal to him, and to be honest there are 4 or 5 children in his class whose parents aren't together, so it's not that unusual.

I do have a third option if it's just about having a baby: I have another (less close) gay friend who is desperate to have a child and asked me to consider it years ago. But he would be much less involved than best mate would be, largely because his partner isn't keen on kids. He would, in effect, be a sperm donor (though not through his personal choice). But I don't want to have a baby with someone just to have a baby. I'd like to have a baby with someone who I really care about and whose life is already intertwined with mine.

I can see that ex is the easiest option. But I don't think (for financial, age and health reasons) he'd be up for it. And now that best mate is in my head, he is my first choice.

Haven't talked to ex about the miscarriage as he'd be (rightly and understandably) angry that I kept the pregnancy from him for so long. He's wondered why I've been moody and distant, but een

Sorry. My aim has been to go back to normal and I spent so many weeks in total denial that it has become my default mode to be fake normal. I don't know what purpose it would serve him knowing now except to upset/ anger him.

www.fertility-matters.co.uk/super-deluxe-insemination-kit-115-p.asp

I would ask him. The worse he dan say is no.

It sounds like your best friend is keen on having children and will be an active part in the child's life.

Iui is cheap to do at home the link above is only £14

I have asked and he is thinking about it. I think my timing could have been better though, because he knows I'm still messed up over the miscarriage and I don't want him to feel he has to say yes through emotional blackmail.

I don't think it's a terrible idea (though you should take some time to heal emotionally, and talk to your ex). But you need to make sure that GBF is really in for the messy bits of fatherhood for the long run - changing a toddler's vomity sheets at 3am, receiving a phonecall from primary school saying Come at once! when you're just setting off for a big meeting, dropping off to ballet practice at stupid o'clock on a Saturday, never going on holiday in June or September. Presumably if he's been your best mate for ten years then he has a more realistic idea of parenthood than many gay men, and at least he's unlikely to get his secretary pregnant and run off with her, but you want to minimise the risk of the nightmare scenario that when your child is five he'll decide that this isn't what he wanted at all, he's moving to Aberdeen and all further contact will be through the CSA.

I'd go for it op you only live once you would be bringing a child into the world loved by two parents it's a better start to life than many children have.

I'm sorry Op but you sound all over the place and are categorizing men you can have a baby with into 1st, 2nd and 3rd place. All this while at the same time not being able to tell your ex about your miscarriage. You were sleeping with ex, its perfectly possible that you could have found yourself pg so why yelling him seems to be such a big issue doesn't make sense to me.

I think you need to step back and look into counselling over your loss. Its a huge thing to go through with little support. If you seriously consider having a baby with gay best friend, you must lay all of your cards on the table with ex before anything happens. I doubt that he would be as blase about it as you seem to imply.

Wishing you lots of luck and healthy outcomes but please try and open up a lot more with those around you and communicate constantly until you find a solution x

Why on earth does she need to lay her cards on the table with her ex?

He's an ex they are not in a committed and trusting relationship they have been fuck buddies who also happen to be co parents, outside of the co parenting she owes him nothing.

I know I'm all over the place, which is why I can't make any definite decisions, but I don't see the core feeling of wanting another child going away.

The big deal in telling ex is that a) I didn't tell him I was pregnant (while I made my decision) and b) the length of the pregnancy would tell him that I'd made a decision behind his back without speaking to him or giving him any say. It WAS wrong of me. In my defence, I was very confused, but he wouldn't be very impressed by that and I don't blame him.

I do have to start being more honest wwith him about where our (non) relationship is(n't) going, but I don't see the purpose of telling him about the miscarriage.

Haha, x-posted but I sort of feel that.

Would it be possible to fudge the truth about the length of the pregnancy - so making it more as if you were just getting your head around it when you miscarried?

The reason I say about laying the cards on the table with ex is because of the close relationship they still have. Does op still want the same arrangements in terms of sex, joint holidays and companionship? Those may be changed with a baby by another man.

If ex wasn't so involved I'd say go for it, but Op, you've painted him as being much more than a co parent. I wonder how you'd feel if ex was having a baby with another woman.

Op i hope you don't think I'm coming across as mean in any way. I hope I'm being helpful in some way.

You're not being mean at all. I am very grateful for everyone's straight talking and words of advice - I wouldn't have posted in AIBU if I just wanted cheering on.

I think I would be gutted if ex had a baby with someone else, but mainly for my son, as it would take his dad's attention off him.

Yes, current arrangements would have to change, but that might be healthy for everyone. Not sure that current situation is, really.

A baby is not a solution to that though, I know! It just would be a helpful side-product.

I don't see anything wrong with it. I know people who have done it and it worked well for them

I have a friend who did this - her friend is not gay, but they are no more than very good friends. They have two children, they co-parent and are both single. It is working very well for them and for the children - it's stability of a different kind. They didn't take the decision lightly, neither should you, but if you both think it will work then I don't see anything against it.

I wish I knew someone in real life who'd done it! Everyone else seems to :) . I guess I'm used to being in an unconventional situation. Everyone thinks the situation with me and my ex is weird - which it is, to be fair, but until the sex re-appeared, I was quite smug about how maturely we were able to work together as firmly ex exes.

Does GBF not know anyone whose done it?

Does GBF not know anyone who's done it?