Our Surprise Blessing

Now that I've introduced you to my wonderful Sini, I think I should also tell you about our daughter, Skyla Blue.   We call her our surprise blessing because she was certainly unexpected, but definitely not unwelcome.   Skyla should be a scientific impossibility - an alien-human hybrid - yet she's here despite all odds and we love her more than anything.

Here's our Skyla:

I don't think I have to explain to any of you how babies are made, but to understand how Skyla got here, there are a few things you really should know about the culture of Sini's home world.   Erisans don't have the same kind of taboos we have in a lot of Earth cultures.   Nudity - even public nudity - is apparently a non-issue on Eris.    We discovered this fact pretty early on, and it created an awkward situation which Rommie and Hunter did their best to address.  Sini didn't quite understand why we thought it was improper for her to wander around the house with nothing on, but at least she agreed to stay clothed whenever there were other people around to see her.

Sini took Hunter and Rommie's instructions literally, I guess, because she didn't include me in the list of people she had to remain clothed for.   Her rationale was that I can't see her, so it shouldn't matter.   Obviously, she missed the point of what Rommie and Hunter tried to explain.    I'd be sitting on the couch, listening to one of my audiobooks or something, and Sini would curl up next to me, and it'd take me about two seconds to realize she was au nauturel.   After several failed attempts to communicate all the reasons why this was not  a good thing, I finally gave up trying.   My elegant solution was to keep a blanket on the couch that I could wrap around her whenever she didn't feel like being dressed.   Maybe that wasn't the best solution, but it was better than nothing.

Not only do they lack rules about personal privacy,  Sini's people also don't have the same kind of societal rules about physical contact that we do.    They have social boundaries that keep them from touching people without permission, but once somebody gives his or her consent to be touched, evidently, pretty much all superficial surface contact is okay.    It took way more patience than I thought I possessed to make Sini understand this isn't the way things are on Earth.  You can't just touch people anywhere, even if they do happen to give their permission for you to touch them.   Sini didn't seem to feel it was necessary to include me in her application of that Earth custom, either.

If you're getting the idea that Eris is a fast and loose planet, don't worry, because you're not alone.  I'll confess I was beginning to think that too.  As it turns out, though, Erisans form exclusive life partnerships with each other.   Thankfully, that meant I didn't have to explain to Sini why it would be inappropriate for her to kiss, cuddle or otherwise get up close and personal with Michael, Radek and Xander.

Xander and Radek did a pretty good job of telling her why she shouldn't touch them. They informed her outright that they don't like being touched by girls, full stop.   Unfortunately, that created another layer of culture shock for her.  Apparently, there aren't any strictly gay Erisans, or strictly straight ones for that matter.   They're all bisexual.   Those Erisan life partnerships?  Most of the time they're a trio of people, and occasionally a quartet.

I have to say, learning that particular fact created some culture shock for me.  I wanted to make sure that we would not, under any circumstances, be including a third person in our partnership.  To my surprise, Sini was perfectly okay with that.   While three-person arrangements are the usual thing for her people, two-person partnerships are common enough not to be considered out of the ordinary. 

This post was supposed to have been about Skyla, wasn't it?   By now, I'm sure you've figured out where I'm going with all this, anyway.   I'm a red-blooded young guy with a life partner who has a decidedly lax attitude about propriety and, you know, there's only so much temptation a guy can endure before he gives in.

It was probably stupid of us to be so naive, but honestly, neither Sini nor I ever considered the possibility that we could have a baby together.    I guess we figured our DNA was too different for that even to be possible.    Needless to say, we were wrong.   When Sini told me that she thought she was expecting a child, you could've knocked me over with a feather.    I was shocked, excited and terrified all at once.   If I hadn't already been sitting down when she told me, I'm not sure what might've happened to me.

Sini's pregnancy wasn't fun for anybody in the house, least of all Sini herself.   My sweet, funny and playful partner transformed into a person who cried nearly every day and couldn't be consoled.   She was very sick and didn't even leave our bed on some days.  The worst part of it for me was that there was really nothing I could do to make things better, and I hated feeling so helpless.   I asked her if what she was going through was normal for women from her world, and she told me that some of her people suffer a lot while carrying a child and some don't.   Poor Sini happened to be one of the unlucky ones.

The story has a happy ending, though.  Our daughter arrived healthy and beautiful, and once Sini started to feel better, she returned to her happy and curious self.

We decided to name our little girl Skyla because the name reminds us of the sky, and because it sort of sounds like a combination of both our names.    Sini chose 'Blue' as Skyla's second name.   When I asked her what colour Skyla was, she told me that our daughter is pale, like me, but then surprised me by adding, "But she could be blue."

I have to say, that confused me quite a lot.   I said, "What do you mean, she could be blue?"

"Blue," Sini repeated.  "Your custom is to give children two familiar names.  You are Tyler James."

"Yeah, that's right."

"Skyla's second name could be Blue."

"Now I get it," I said. "Skyla Blue Brightman, but why 'Blue'?"

She gave me a mischievous smile then.  I could hear it in her voice when she said, "Do you not like blue?"

"I love blue," I said, laughing.   And so our new addition was named. 

Every day with Skyla is an adventure for us.   Sini and I would be  the first to admit that we weren't ready to be parents, but now, we wouldn't trade this experience for anything. Learning how to take care of Skyla is an ongoing challenge, but we always have lots of help from Michael and Rommie, and with such a full house, we have plenty of live-in baby sitters if we ever need a break.   We know we're young, and we're probably the most unlikely couple ever, but we love the little family we've created.