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| While Rowan's birth mother, Christina Fiscus, feeds him, her husband, Lon Sarver (left) diapers with the baby's father, Troy McKee (center), and his wife, Dawn Atkins. |
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| While Rowan's birth mother, Christina Fiscus, feeds him, her husband, Lon Sarver (left) diapers with the baby's father, Troy McKee (center), and his wife, Dawn Atkins. |
By Riva Sharpies
The Press-Citizen
When tiny Rowan Fiscus-McKee cries, there's always someone around to answer.
That's because the month-old Iowa City baby has four parents a "Biological Mom," "Biological Dad," "Other Mom" and "Other Dad. "
The household breaks down like this: Christina Fiscus, who is married to Lon Sarver, gave birth to baby Rowan on May 20. Troy McKee, married to Dawn Atkins, is Rowan's biological father.
The two couples, known as "The Family" among friends, live together in a kind of group marriage. Baby Rowan wasn't planned, but the good friends have welcomed him with open arms. There's no jealousy among the group because what goes on in the household is consensual, they say. They consider themselves a spiritual and emotional unit.
"Nobody had an affair, nobody was sneaking around behind anyone's back," Lon says.
Adds Dawn: "We're comfortable with what we do and who we are . ... We've considered ourselves a family for about a year and a half, so now we've just got to learn how to parent."
Having four parents around the Rowan household means more hands to do everything - from folding diapers to getting up in the middle of the night to care for the
Since Dawn and Troy are university students (Troy's working on his undergraduate degree in geology and Dawn is a graduate student in anthropology), they do most of the parenting during the day while Lon, who works at the university library, and Christina, employed at Sears, are away at work:
In the end, the four-parent family means extra loving and caring for Rowan, they says.
"It seems more sane in some ways," Dawn says, citing centuries of extended families who have lived and worked together, sharing housework and child-care responsibilities.
And Lon says he thinks their four-parent family isn't that much different from a two-parent family with extra bodies.
"We'll still face a lot of the same problems other families face," he says.
One of their biggest challenges will be explaining to Rowan about the so-called "normal" or traditional family, they says. The four parent family says they'll never hide the truth from 'Rowan about himself or their relationship.
Sitting in their spacious living room, where wedding photos adorn the fireplace, the parents en- vision a future with Rowan coming home from school or a friend's house, stunned that a friend ha, only one Mommy or Daddy.
"We'll have to explain that most kids have two parents, or even just one," Dawn says.
But the family also foreseen and recognizes other possible problems in the future.
Not everyone has been so accepting of their relationship, in chiding family members. Dawn', family has sent baby gifts; Christ inn's is avoiding the subject.
Friends have been mainly supportive, they say, but some people have posed the question: What happens if you split up?
That's not likely - at least not that all four of them would split t up, Dawn says. And besides a solid two-year friendship among the couples, Dawn and Troy have been together 10 years, while Christina and Lon are working on six.
If they did eventually part ways they say it would be the same thing that happens to children in a divorce.
One issue the couples haven't figured out how to deal with yet is taxes - and which couple will deduct Rowan. Will the couples be allowed to alternate years deducting Rowan, or will one couple have to claim him every year?
One of the biggest problems now facing the couples is the issue of the birth certificate. The State of Iowa will not recognize Troy as Rowan's father since Christina is married to Lon.
"His rights are being denied because his father isn't my husband," Christina says.
No father is currently listed on Rowan's birth certificate. Iowa law states that if a woman is married at the time of conception or birth, the name of the husband will be entered as father, according to Kevin Teale, communications director for the Department of Vital Statistics.
"It would take a court-ordered ruling on paternity to declare someone else, other than the husband, the father of a child," Teale says.
Rowan's family says they are planning to find a lawyer and take the issue to court to declare Troy as the father on Rowan's birth certificate.
Teale says that when a case does go to court to establish paternity, the issue of child support is usually a factor.
"At that time, the court could order that child support be paid," Teale says.
Though Teale would not comment specifically on the Rowan case, he did say that such group marriages are unusual in Iowa, though they are growing more common across the nation.
"In the future, this may be something the legislature needs to look into," he says. "We don't have any provisions in place in Iowa for such situations. "
As a result of their struggles with the paternity birth certificate problem, Troy, Lon, Dawn and Christina have also discovered that they must make out elaborate and detailed wills in the case of a death or emergency. If something happened to Christina, Lon says, Rowan would go to him legally, though Troy is the biological father.
"We'll have to detail everything out in our wills, including names and what we want to happen exactly," Dawn says. "But we still worry about it."
For now, though, The Family. like any family with a new baby, is just trying to get used to the joys - and pains - of parenthood.
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 At left: Christina Fiscus sits with her baby son Saturday in the gazebo at College Green Park. Fiscus and her partners took the baby to the Gay Pride March and Festival last weekend. Above: The birth announcement for Rowan Fiscus-McKee lists the four members of the group marriage as his parents. |