Maia Laaning

In planning for the celebration of America's Independence Day holiday, Eleanor Laaning née Woodhall, as the wife of the current owner of the Laaning farm, was determined to making it a gala occasion. She was concerned regarding the state of health of her father-in-law, Toomas Laaning. During his last visit the previous Thanksgiving holiday, it was manifestly apparent that he was in poor health corresponding to his advanced age of eighty-four years. Thus, this visit would likely be his last; even were he still to be alive, the arduous travel from Arizona to the farm would probably be unmanageable for him. Happily his wife, Lotte, a few years younger, was still very spry for her age and looked like she could still go for at least another decade.

Although the patriarch of the Laaning family, Toomas Laaning, the father of Erica, Paul and Vivian, was of Estonian descent, his wife Lotte was of German descent. As a result, their descendants were in blood reality equal parts of German and Estonian heritage, and their children could speak German as well as Estonian. With the exception of Vivian and Maia, the members of the Laaning family, were truly American devoid of feeling any partiality to either ethnicity. For that matter, Toomas Laaning, himself, was essentially American having been born in the United States.

However, although Toomas Laaning was born in the United States, his parents were Estonians who emigrated as refugees to the United States in the aftermath of the second World War. They could not remain in Estonia since they had supported the German cause during the war and their lives would have been in jeopardy once the Russian Red Army would drive the German armed forces out of Estonian territory and reconquer the land to incorporate it into the Soviet Union empire.

In arriving at the United States, the Estonians parents of Toomas Laaning settled in Wisconsin. The father worked as a farm laborer while the mother worked as a household maid. Their lifestyle in the new world was spartan and they were frugal in their spending habits. As a result, they accumulated sufficient capital to be able to acquire a modest dairy farm of their own. Their son Toomas, having subsequently taken over in the working of the farm, by purchasing additional adjacent land, expanded it to its ultimate size of land and operations, which Paul Laaning Sr. was currently managing.

Toomas Laaning's wife, Lotte was born in what was then known as East Berlin and her parents moved to West Germany before the infamous wall separating the city of Berlin was erected to contain East Berliners from fleeing to the west. Since her family's relations, friends and acquaintances all lived in East Germany, they felt no impetus to remain in West Germany. As a result, they were successfully able to emigrate to the United States as refugees, when Lotte was eighteen years of age.

Lotte was more German than her husband was Estonian. Toomas Laaning in reality was a true American although he could be considered an authentic Estonian as Estonian was his mother tongue despite his birthplace. Since his Estonian parents were the original owners of the farm and continued to live on the premises after their son Toomas took over in overseeing and managing the farm, there was a predominate Estonian culture prevailing in the household. English speaking became more prominent as Erica, Paul and Vivian were growing up. As well, with the expansion of the farm and the need to employ outside workers to efficiently operate the farm, paved the way for the natural and inevitable Americanization of the Laaning farm.

The Laaning farmstead became essentially American same as their neighbors and surrounding community, once Toomas' Estonian parents died a year apart. That occurred when Vivian was fifteen and sixteen years old respectively. Once Toomas and Lotte retired and moved to reside in a retirement facility in Arizona, and Erica and Vivian had also moved out of the farm, German and Estonian were no longer spoken in the household.

However, given their surname coupled with the initial history of the establishment of the farm, every member of the extended Laaning family, including Erica's biracial children were cognizant of their Estonian roots. Considering that Vivian and her American born daughter, Maia, were actually residing in Estonia, the ties to their ancestry were not forgotten. Hence, Eleanor in planning for the food to be consumed for the traditional American holiday included some Estonian dishes.

In line with Eleanor's planning for the fourth of July celebration at the Laaning farm, a fairly large crowd was assembled. In addition to almost the entire Laaning extended family, the regular farm workers, employed by the Laaning farm along with their nuclear families were invited to attend the festivities. The only absence of blood related Laaning extended family members were Erica's three children, who were with their father celebrating the holiday in Charlotte. NC with their paternal grandparents.

Since, Eleanor wanted to have as many of the Laaning family in attendance as possible, she was pleased that Vivian and Maia were able to attend, at the last minute after all, as a result of Maia's second round loss at Wimbledon. With Maia's loss, as we've seen Erica opted to attend the Laaning farm festivities in lieu of going to Charlotte, NC with her husband and children. Erica traveled to the farm in her SUV after having picked up Vivian and Maia at the O'Hare International airport. Eleanor was disappointed that Erica's husband and children would not attend, but instead, would celebrate the holiday in Charlotte, NC. However, to make up for their absence an unexpected extra blood relative was unearthed during this past March and was therefore available.

Accordingly, Eleanor was able to include Sonia née Broadhurst, who had now legally changed her surname to Laaning. DNA testing had established conclusively that Sonia was a love child of Paul Laaning Sr conceived as a result of a date with Sonia's mother, Silvia née Young, when both of them were students at the Arthur MacArthur high school in Lydiaville, WI, some thirty-five years previously. To avoid inherent small town gossip, Sonia's mother, moved to St Louis MO to reside with her older married sister. Silvia had not approached Paul to inform him as to her pregnancy and that he was the father.

Before Sonia was born, her mother met and married Patrick Broadhurst. Thus by legal presumption, Sonia was registered as the daughter of Patrick Broadhurst, and Sonia was led to believe by her parents that such was the case. It so happened that Patrick Broadhurst died as a result of a motor vehicle accident in the course of his employment as a long haul truck driver in January of the current year. At the time of his funeral, Sonia's mother took the opportunity to enlighten Sonia as to the actual circumstances of her birth and informed her that Patrick Broadhurst was not her biological father.

Mr Broadhurst, as a condition of marrying Sonia's mother had extracted a promise from her not to divulge to Sonia that he was not her biological father. With his death, Sonia's mother felt she was released from the promise and that Sonia deserved to know the truth of her origins. Upon being apprised of such information, Sonia contacted Paul Laaning, Sr, during the past March, in an effort to become acquainted to a blood relative of the closet kind: that of father and daughter. Needless to say, neither one had previously been aware of such possibility.

As already noted, DNA testing did ascertain that Paul Laaning, Sr was the biological father to Sonia née Broadhurst. In an extraordinary generous attitude, Paul's wife, Eleanor, was not overtly hostile nor unduly disturbed by the situation. As she confessed to her husband, she might not have been as eager to marry him had she known of his paternal complications at the time. Then again, she realized by not marrying him, she would not have become the mother of her two delightful children. In truth by blood, Sonia has the half sister to her own children, so she felt she was honor bound to be as pleasant to Sonia as she was to her other Laaning relatives by marriage.

In that light of understanding, Eleanor Laaning, née Woodhall, graciously acceded to Sonia's wish to meet her family on an equal footing. That visit occurred during the past March, and it coincided with the visit by Maia after her elimination in competing in the WTA Miami tournament. Sonia was thrilled to meet her newly discovered blood relatives. She was especially intrigued to learn that her cousin Maia lived in Estonia, a country which she had never heard of before. Being a lesbian, Sonia was thrilled even more by the lack of resistance from Maia in engaging in some girl-on-girl sex, despite her being straight. The ensuing lesbian sex proved to be terrific and capped a wonderful visit for Sonia.

Sonia was delighted with the invitation to the Laaning farm to celebrate the Independence Day holiday. The discovery of her biological father and the intrinsic extended family had been a welcome surprise in her life, which in turn spurred a desire to nurture such relationship. With the knowledge that Maia was also going to be there made the trip to the Laaning farm an Imperative. For the trip Sonia chose to bring along her now live-in significant other, Chantal Delacroix.

This was a tricky business for Sonia since she had not initially advised Chantal that she had had sex with Maia during her March visit to ascertain and meet her biological father. In fact she didn't even mention Maia at all to Chantal. It wasn't so much that Chantal was overly jealous and besides at the time they weren't yet an exclusively committed couple in any case. Thus, a tryst with another woman on the part of either one of them was a no never mind episode not really a stumbling block for them to eventually establish a fully committed exclusive relationship.

There were a couple of factors that were problematic between the two of them in developing a more permanent relationship. For one thing Chantal was ten years younger than Sonia; not necessarily a huge age disparity but it did reflect in differences in attitude on life. Chantal was a dental hygienist and they met two years earlier when Sonia had an appointment with the dentist who employed Chantal. At their initial professional consultation, their gaydar was accurately attuned to recognize their mutual attraction to each other. Consequently, they soon began dating regularly.

With her youthful age, Chantal was all for partying and having a good time without seriously considering the future. Sonia on the other hand, although enthusiastically enjoying her dates with Chantal and there was no denying that the sex between them was great, still she had a more pragmatic view of her future. Now in her mid thirties she was cognizant that her biological clock was ticking.

Although it was not yet critical, Sonia was aware that to become pregnant was more complicated after the age of thirty-five, especially for a first time pregnancy being more susceptibly to face greater pitfalls. As a result, because she was most desirous to becoming a mother, she formed a resolve to become pregnant within one year after attaining her thirty-fourth birthday. Chantal was naturally oblivious to Sonia's concerns and was not supportive. Chantal was aware that their relationship would dramatically alter if Sonia were to become a mother. She was not sure if she would welcome such change or even be willing to continue their relationship.

The matter of Sonia's dream of pregnancy and how it would affect her relationship with Chantal came to a head in June. It came about by the fact that Sonia had attracted a male admirer, amongst her fellow teachers at the high school she taught. His name was Roger Murphy, and he was the teacher of chemistry in the school. He was definitely a truly handsome, virile man full of testosterone, belying the normal geekish reputation attributed to a chemical nerd. In fact considering his sexual allure and unquestionable charm. Sonia was surprised to learn that he was not married, nor did he seem to have any kind of a girlfriend. As well, he certainly did not comport himself as a gay man either.

Therefore, she was totally shocked when one day in April out of the blue, as Roger and her happen to find themselves alone in the teacher's lounge, he asked her out for a dinner date the following Saturday night. Her immediate inclination was to refuse and indicate to him that there was no future for them in a relationship. However, she instantly was inspired to take advantage of his apparent attraction to her to fulfill her desire and resolve. So she agreed to the date, although she suggested he need not pick her up, but instead she would meet him at the restaurant.

Their evening turned out to be cheerful and lively. He recounted his background and Sonia reciprocated by telling him of her recent discovery of her biological father and his family. It turned out that Roger was eight years younger than her, and this was his first year in teaching at their high school. That was the reason he had been diffident in proclaiming his interest in her. However, he declared that as it has become more socially acceptable to affirm couples where the female was older and in some case significantly older that encouraged him to ask her out for this date. He assured her that he did not consider her significantly older but viewed themselves as equals.

By that declaration, Sonia understood the mystery of why he did not at this juncture have any girlfriends, despite his undeniable sexual appeal. Apparently, she was the only one he desired and was held back in declaring his love interest simply because of their age disparity. Of course, she knew it was incumbent on her to dispel his interest in her but still there was some regret. Although there was no sexual future, still she knew she would still want to consider him as a friend with whom she would dearly like to cultivate.

With such thoughts swirling in her mind, Sonia declared, "Well Roger this has certainly been a pleasant evening, and I've enjoyed your company immensely. I'm truly flattered by your expressed admiration of me, and if I were a straight woman, I know I could not be more delighted. As it is, I'm gay, in fact a gold star lesbian who has no interest sexually in a man no matter how attractive. I do have a steady girlfriend. Needless to say, we are not going to be an item."

Roger Murphy heard this pronouncement by Sonia in absolute disbelief. As a result, he stammered, "If that is really true, then why in heaven's name did you agree to this date? Surely you must have understood that I must have some romantic interest in you in order to want to treat you to a meal in this fine restaurant?"

Sonia replied, "Well yes, I do have an ulterior motive for accepting this date. So, I'm quite willing to go Dutch on the cost of this meal as admittedly this outcome was not what you expected when you invited me in the first place."

Roger haughtily interrupted, "I'm not a vindictive person nor a penny-pincher. I did invite you for this date under the premise it was on my dime. So let's have no more discussion on the expense of this night's social occasion. However, I'm fascinated in your professed 'ulterior motive'* (*air quote) for agreeing to this date. Please do enlighten me."

Sonia was impressed by Roger's gracious choice of words. She could detect that her declaration that she was a lesbian, and thus harbored no sexual interest in him, had to have emotionally hurt him. That he had not reacted in an absolutely negative spitefulness towards her, scored a lot of brownie points in her estimation of his superior character. That in turn made her quest even more crucial for her to achieve her ultimate goal.

Consequently, Sonia replied, "As I told you, I'm thirty-four years old and therefore, in my view my biological clock is ticking loudly. I am totally aware that women older than me have had successful pregnancies resulting in perfectly formed babies. In fact as an example, a Hollywood actress, Chloë Sevigny by name, is a mother of one son who was born when she was forty-five years of age. But there's no denying that a pregnancy in a woman thirty-five years old or older carries some extraneous risks for both the pregnant mother and baby. This includes pregnancy and birth complications, as well as the possibility of undesirable conditions present at birth, such as giving birth to a Down's syndrome child. An example of that occurrence is in the person of former Alaska governor Sara Palin whose fifth child was born with Down's syndrome as Governor Palin was forty-four years at the time.

"With such caveats, I resolved in my mind that I would want to become pregnant before I reached the age of thirty-five years. I might add that ever since I was a little girl I had always instinctively harbored a desire to become a mother. I suppose that such desire was instilled by my religious belief that since I was born female it was God's assigned task to me that I should procreate. In other words, I had to pop out a few children to ensure our species would survive."

At this point Roger interrupted and observed, "You really don't believe that the human race would disappear if you were to remain childless."

Sonia answered, "No of course not. I obviously understand that the survival of the human race does not depend solely on me to bear children. On the other hand, there's no denying that if every female on this planed were to become infertile then indeed the human race would surely become extinct. So my view devolved right from the get go that since I am a female it's my duty to do my part in becoming a mother."

As Roger merely snorted at Sonia's viewpoint, she continued, "In any case, as I reached my first menses, I noticed that I was not attracted to boys, and that I only desired to have sex with girls. At first there was no conflict between my carnal desires vis à vis my ultimate life goals and aims. Given the risks of older age pregnancies, while I was younger, I was not particularly concerned, since I believed somewhere down the line, I would eventually become pregnant and thus emerge as a mother.

"However, to put it crassly but nevertheless empirically, I was certainly cognizant of the obvious fact that if I were ever to become a mother, I would need to have male sperm in me to fertilize one of my eggs."

At this point as he was listening intently, Roger quipped, "So you do intend to relinquish your stated status as a 'gold star lesbian'* (*air quote) to order to become a mother?"

Sonia quickly replied, "Oh no, not at all. I intend to get pregnant via artificial insemination by an anonymous sperm donor using the facilities of a sperm bank. In fact I had completed an intrauterine insemination, or IUI, procedure during my previous period, but it did not take possibly because I miscalculated the timing of my ovulation. In any case the success rate to achieve pregnancy can be as high as 20% for women under the age of thirty-five. As this was my second IUI procedure I had undertaken since my thirty-fourth the birthday, I shall have at least nine more opportunities before my thirty-fifth birthday on the last day of December. Therefore, I expect to become pregnant while I'm still thirty-four."

Roger interjected, "You know there is a trick in percentage calculation. If you toss a coin consecutively 49 times and it has come out tails each and every time, then what is the percentage it will come out heads on the 50th toss? Most people would say 100% it will be heads. But the correct answer is 50% as that is the percentage it will turn out heads in any toss independent of results of previous tosses. So you can't say with any certainty that you will become pregnant before your thirty-fifth birthday,"