The thing with parents is, there's just so many different sorts. And no matter what efforts we made in those early weeks, it just felt as though we were trying to climb through the wrong shaped hole in the shape-sorter. We've never considered ourselves particularly 'mainstream' in any area of our lives and so some sort of 'niche' parenting was always going to suit us best. Perhaps we'd get on better with the gay parents?
Keen for Luna to grow up feeling 'normal', it seemed a good idea to find some other kids for her to hang out with whose conception had involved a sperm-donor, syringe and two lesbians. As I was spending around 12-14 hours a day breastfeeding, I had plenty of time to do a bit of Internet searching. And I did manage to locate a few gay parenting groups online: pockets of same-sex parents with children of all ages keen to discuss teething and tantrums and toilet-training.
However somehow, the niche just wasn't quite right. It was too big and vague - more 'spacious alcove' than 'niche.' What we needed was a niche where people actually had a new baby and did the stuff we did, the stuff the books and our instincts had told us to do, which was co-sleeping and baby-wearing and breastfeeding on demand - sometimes for hours at a time. And eventually, I stumbled upon a name for this business - Attachment Parenting. The potential for an alternative niche was developing, and sure enough I found our local AP Facebook group where we could discuss bed-guards and slings and cluster feeding to our heart's content.
But I can't help thinking that really, the answer lies in the Lesbian Attachment Parenting niche. The search continues...