This story has been going around some of the feminist and LGBTQ blogs today. The New York Times article talks about two different families that were kept apart while one partner was in the hospital. Both were legally prepared for the eventuality and were still kept apart.

Ms. Langbehn says that a hospital social worker informed her that she was in an “antigay city and state” and that she would need a health care proxy to get information. (The worker denies having made the statement, Mr. Alonso said.) As the social worker turned to leave, Ms. Langbehn stopped him. “I said: ‘Wait a minute. I have those health care proxies,’ ” she said. She called a friend to fax the papers.

The medical chart shows that the documents arrived around 4:15 p.m., but nobody immediately spoke to Ms. Langbehn about Ms. Pond’s condition. During her eight-hour stay in the trauma unit waiting room, Ms. Langbehn says, she had two brief encounters with doctors. Around 5:20 a doctor sought her consent for a “brain monitor” but offered no update about the patient’s condition. Around 6:20, two doctors told her there was no hope for a recovery.

Despite repeated requests to see her partner, Ms. Langbehn says she was given just one five-minute visit, when a priest administered last rites. She says she continued to plead with a hospital worker that the children be allowed to see their mother, even showing the children’s birth certificates.

“I said to the receptionist, ‘Look, they’re her kids,’ ” Ms. Langbehn said. (Mr. Alonso, the hospital spokesman, says that except in special circumstances, children under 14 are not allowed to visit in the trauma unit.)

In our June meeting we will be discussing how to protect and provide for your poly family with contract law. We will have a guest speaker talking to us about things like wills and estates; also, we will be going over the chapters regarding the law in Tristan Taormino's book Opening Up and discussing Relationship LLC.

In preparation for all of this, we would like to collect as many questions as possible regarding the subject to send to our guest speaker so he can be prepared when he comes.

Leave your questions in the comments and we will forward them on to him.

Thanks!

We will be meeting at the Tool Shed at 7pm.

We will be talking about introducing the idea of polyamory to a partner and negotiating boundaries. We will also start talking about reading Tristan Taormino's book "Opening Up". Copies are available at the Tool Shed, but you do not need to have read the book to attend (although the book is an amazing one and highly recommended for anyone that is in or thinking about being in a non-monogamous relationship!).

As many of you know, QueerCamp happened this past weekend at Bucketworks in Milwaukee. The turnout was a little smaller than expected, but we had amazing topics and conversation ranging from spirituality to transexuality to marketing to queers.

My presentation on Negotiating Non-Monogamy was the first session to kick off the weekend and I got a lot of interesting questions about things like scheduling, jealousy, and coming out. We talked about all the various forms of non-monogamy (not just polyamory) and why you might choose them. The same afternoon we also had a round table discussion on polyamory, so non-monogamy was a well-covered topic of discussion.

I'd like to thank the various members of the Coming Out Poly group that came out and engaged in discussion and learned with us. Thanks for helping us educate people as to what polyamory is, dispel negative myths, and build community!

Tracy and I talked about the possibility of starting an LGBTQ discussion group that would meet monthly. Would you be interested in attending something like that? What would you want to get out of it?

We haven't posted much personal stuff on here lately, as many of you may have noticed. With the holidays and the added stress from Killian being out of work, we haven't been able to muster the energy to put our thoughts out there.

We have been getting into so many fights about the smallest things lately and it is just stressing us out even more. Most recently, Killian and I got into a fight and Elle came over to help us talk things out and look at things rationally. I can't even begin to explain how nice it is to have someone that knows us both and the situation so well that she can relate to and help us both work through things. I think that is one of my favorite things about being poly. When there is a two person issue, you're not alone with trying to fix things.

Getting advice from non-poly friends and family is difficult because they may not have seen the situation before. Where their quickest thought might be "well, you wouldn't be in that position if you didn't have such a complicated love life" or "I don't know what to tell you, I don't know what it is like to...", a metamour or significant other's is more along the lines of how to fix things.

Elle made a big impact on both of us that day, I think. She was there for me to talk to when I was upset and was there to remove Killian from the situation so he could talk about why he was upset. I texted her when she left a "love you". Not something I have ever said to her before and not something that, truthfully, I was expecting to feel. She's become family faster than I thought she would - especially considering how little time she and I have spent together as of late. It's a strangely comforting feeling, though.

Killian, Elle, and I have spent the past few days doing quite a bit together. We celebrated my birthday last night: Killian made dinner and Elle bought an ice cream cake and we watched a movie together (while knitting, of course!). It was nice to have a quiet relaxing birthday with what I know feel is my family.

I'm looking forward to growing and getting healthier as a family and how we can help other people do the same through things like our monthly Coming Out Poly group at the Tool Shed in Milwaukee, through our blog, and through other ways of outreach.