What is in a name?

Today Monkey changed his name. He changed his first name to what just about everyone calls him. He also changed his last name and, in doing that, changed my name as well.

First, a little back story. Monkey's paternal grandparents were immigrants with a very obviously Polish-Jewish name. His grandmother was having a seriously difficult time finding a job and suspected it was due to antisemitism. She chose to shift her married name, and her children's names, to something not so conspicuous. She found a job shortly after. Who knows it the name change actually worked but I know that this kind of thing was (and still is) very common among immigrants wanting to assimilate to the American culture. However, this assimilation and Americanization of Monkey's family name always bugged him, especially since the rest of the extended family stuck with the original name. When Monkey felt ready to do a legal gender change he decided to tack on changing to the original family name.

Several years ago, I changed my name. My mom had died and my dad had disowned me so I didn't feel very attached to my given name and only used it when I had to give the actual legal name. I chose a new first name and took Monkey's last name, the Americanized one. I knew it was possible that I would have to change my name again. That doesn't bother me. I can't say I won't get a giggle at the confused looks I might get when my extremely Irish looks are matched up with my new, extremely Jewish-Polish name. Funny thing, my given first name is a very Jewish name but my mom had no idea. I use it as my middle name now.

So soon there will be a flurry of activity changing the name everywhere. At least this time I don't need to go through the court order stuff. But that is another post...

Preview of the end

Over the last few years, Monkey and I have drifted away from a specific group of friends. This included drifting away from attending any Jewish events because those friends were also part of the queer Jewish community here. We did this without talking about it or thinking about it too hard but both of us knew it was because of kids.

Monkey and I were the first in this group to start trying to get pregnant. Others started having kids either through birth or adoption. All of them had some struggle or another. One tried for 3 years and had a very tough pregnancy. Another did foster to adopt and had some very rough experiences. I just found out that another couple had a baby via IVF recently. I'm happy all of these people have now had a kid and settled into new family life. In the past five and a half years that we have been trying I've watched this group of friends go from zero kids to several. When Monkey and I started, everyone thought ours would be the first kid in the group. Now we are almost the only ones without kids. We are the only ones that wanted kids but don't have them.

I recently ran into one of this group at a store. We hadn't talked in well over a year. We chatted a bit. I could see in her eyes she wanted so badly to ask if we were still trying. That is when I realized what it would feel like socially to give up on trying. My city isn't very big, our Jewish community is small and our progressive community is downright tiny. Unless I completely stop attending Jewish events, I'm going to run into these families at some point. At some point after giving up I will have to start telling them we gave up. We, the first to start trying, were the ones left empty-handed. The thought of looking across the synagogue to all these friends with kids around them just makes something crack in my heart. It wasn't until I ran into this friend that I realized how hard the social aspect of giving up would be. It isn't just about telling them we couldn't have a kid. As nice and understanding as these people are some of them are going to say something that unintentionally cuts deep and I will have to deal with that, hopefully gracefully.

I haven't given up yet. I know that there is still a chance, small as it is, that I could get pregnant and have a child. There is a chance that Monkey and I will feel emotionally able to look into adoption if we don't have a kid. But because of how slim our chances are now, I can't help but wonder at this possible future.