Grace Lavery / Joseph Lavery & Daniel M. Lavery / Mallory Ortberg - "Straight with extra steps" couple trooning out to avoid "dwindling into mere heterosexuality"

[Bookwork]

My recollection is that she was having her New Zealand jaunt at the time, though maybe rather than the IVF going on behind her back she fled knowing about it but not wanting to endure Joe's prattling on endlessly about his moment-to-moment adventure as an artificial father.

They'd have done well to buy some sperm while they were at it. Old jizz seems to produce more than a fair share of autistism.

If I'm wrong about New Zealand, hey, Dad was ancient when half of me got squirted out.

 

[Diana Moon Glampers]

"Before pregnancy." With Rocco, or with a second baby? There have been several clues.

 

[MirnaMinkoff]

I forget the timings, was Mal taking T while the baby saga was happening? That may have precluded her from volunteering as tribute, even supposing Joe could bring himself to waggle his willy in her direction to begin with.

I mean Joe stopped taking estrogen to get his sperm motile again, Mal could have stopped taking T for six months and been good to go.

BUT Mallory willing to carry a baby ruins the true and honest man fiction. I know manly transmen get pregnant but maybe that was too much of an absurd freak show even for Mal.

With how ridiculously femme Mallory is, and how much she loves her puppies and babysitting, it’s weird she wasn’t her own husband’s concubine. (Also she’s much younger than Lilly and probably would have just needed to have sex with Joe, but maybe Joe’s sperm was a problem)

 

[Zemblan Physics]

"Before pregnancy." With Rocco, or with a second baby? There have been several clues.

I agree, I seem to recall some foreshadowing about a second baby ITT.

On the other hand, Joe seems like such a typical one child-parent. I doubt he can be inconvenienced with not being center stage for the prolonged time a new baby would entail. Now that he has his Mini-Joe, hopefully that’s enough of a narc boost for him to abstain from procreating again. [RAINBOWS HERE]

 

[Potatis Salad]

I forget the timings, was Mal taking T while the baby saga was happening? That may have precluded her from volunteering as tribute, even supposing Joe could bring himself to waggle his willy in her direction to begin with.

Joe has zero interest in Mallory, sexually or relationship-wise, there is no way he even considered having a baby with her. He had completely moved on to Lily within a few months of meeting her. It would've been more honorable to break up with Mallory but Joe is a piece of shit and a coward.

As I posted long ago if they did IVF then donor eggs were probably used then too. If you need IVF to conceive then there is an issue with eggs or sperm, otherwise you don’t need IVF.

We don't know this. IVF using the sperm and eggs from the parents is normal and common. Only about 25% of IVF patients (moms) over 40 use donor eggs.

 

[Diana Moon Glampers]

One thing that's interesting about IVF when it's being paid for by someone's work, which is most certainly what's going on here, is that typically you have to have been "trying" to make a baby the old-fashioned way for a year before they'll even consider letting you onto the IVF train. Often some other less-intense interventions, too, like IUI (intrauterine insemination, basically squirting the sperm up into the uterus in case the cervix for whatever reason isn't allowing enough sperm to pass) or ovulation induction with a medication like clomid. IVF's brutal and expensive, they don't do it unless you're really having a challenging time getting pregnant with less-invasive interventions.

So this likely means that for a significant amount of time that Daddy Daniel wasn't aware, Joe was probably trying to get Lily knocked up. People don't generally go do IVF on a whim unless they're incredibly flush with cash and dedicated to The Science(tm).

 

[MirnaMinkoff]

which is most certainly what's going on here, is that typically you have to have been "trying" to make a baby the old-fashioned way for a year before they'll even consider letting you onto the IVF train.

Not disagreeing with your post, but this part is really easy to lie about. Joe and Lilly had not even been together for a year, it seems closer to six months, before he was getting her into stirrups and IVF consults. I would have to review the timeline, but the Lilly intro to “Lilly is five months pregnant” was within a year time frame. She was brought to NYC to try out for the concubine slot.

I’m betting Joe used the “transwoman” schtick to why he needed IVF now now now. Sort of how a gay man can claim he’s being discriminated against if Berkeley reproductive coverage won’t cover making babies for gay men. This also doesn’t rule out Mallory being the egg donor. Mallory being the bio-mother means the trouple arrangement would make a lot more sense.

More than ever I think Joe was actively trolling for a concubine. He had probably already had testing and looked into it, but he needed a willing womb. Mallory didn’t want to carry a baby, but the 40 plus “lesbian” art professor was ready and willing to be part of an experimental trans Frankenstein family.

 

[A Sentient Cloud]

Joe confirms Rocco conceived by IVF:
View attachment 8414992

I suppose it should come to no surprise that they're effectively dressing the kid in drag.

 

[Diana Moon Glampers]

Going to put together some timeline.

June 2022: A Kiwi astutely points out that the Laverys are the embodiment of sterility.

July 2022: The first(?) appearance of Joe's "I fuck to cum, not to conceive" shirt (Lily has one that matches) aligns very precisely with the time when he would have to have come off hormones to get insurance-covered IVF a year later. I'm guessing they found the conception stuff a little weird and needed to reassure each other that this was still about excitement and hotness, not anything stupid and boring like making a legacy and tying yourselves together in a way nothing else can approximate. Well, anyway.

Late July 2022: Laura Ortberg, Mallory's sister, has a baby (not her first). Mallory is mad when someone tells her. By this time, her husband is fucking another woman to get her pregnant. Joe goes on a podcast where he tells listeners to go date Mallory and doesn't talk about Lily.

September 2022: Lily smokes a blunt in Vegas, first time we'd heard about her for a minute.

January 2023, Joe says it was a bad year partially because he was off hormones in 2022 for several months for a medical reason "not related to covid."

Aprill 2023, brunch with the threesome and a breeder couple. Many people here noted how uncomfortable Joe seemed with the baby. This would have to have been the time when Lily was starting her IVF appointments in order for Rocco's conception to happen when it did.

July 2023: While Joe is in his "expensive ugly designer fashion" arc rather than saving for a baby, Rocco is conceived (based on known date of birth in April 2024 and pregnancy announcement of December 2023). If Joe had to be trying to conceive with Lily while not on hormones for a full year, that would put his discontinuation date in summer 2022, which checks out with the January 2023 update timeline where he'd been off it for months. No wonder it was such a dismal year for Joe, he found out his sperm weren't doing anything with Lily even once he came off the estrogen.

 

[Law]

IVF clinics and the fertility industry more broadly is a hotbed of loose regulation, unethical doctors, and narcissistic lunatics with money. The fantasy that IVF clinics do their due diligence and only make embryos for people who are Really Trying is just like the fantasy that gender clinics make you wait and Ask All The Right Questions before giving you hormones.

her second adolescence

At IVF age? Bruh.

I forget the timings, was Mal taking T while the baby saga was happening? That may have precluded her from volunteering as tribute,

Seahorse dads happen all the time.

It would've been more honorable to break up with Mallory but Joe is a piece of shit and a coward.

Plus, Mallory does the dishes. Joe checks every box for toxic male behavior, including staying with a woman he hates and isn't attracted to so he can sponge up that sweet, sweet domestic labor.

stupid and boring like making a legacy

"I hate you, Dad!"
It's coming.

 

[Diana Moon Glampers]

IVF clinics and the fertility industry more broadly is a hotbed of loose regulation, unethical doctors, and narcissistic lunatics with money. The fantasy that IVF clinics do their due diligence and only make embryos for people who are Really Trying is just like the fantasy that gender clinics make you wait and Ask All The Right Questions before giving you hormones.

This is much more true if you're paying full freight. Maybe they were. But if he went through Berkeley's health service, they probably dot the i's and check the t's.

And you have to admit, the irony of that matching "I fuck to cum not to conceive" shirt aligning exactly with when they'd have started fucking to conceive is exactly their kind of inside joke.

"I hate you, Dad!"
It's coming.

I wonder once Rocco learns to read, when he'll ask her about her "Abolish Fatherhood" tattoo.

 

[MirnaMinkoff]

I wonder once Rocco learns to read, when he'll ask her about her "Abolish Fatherhood" tattoo.

I’ve seen a lot of retarded tattoos, but this one is near the very top.

Has it ever been confirmed what Rocco calls the adults in his life? Danny is very close to Daddy anyway. I believe they went with the stupid LaLa for Lilly. But what does Joe get called?

 

[Bookwork]

But if he went through Berkeley's health service,

MSU's is more likely since they weren't married, but that wouldn't make the jots and tittles any different.

Joe was supposed to be Mama and Mal was supposed to be Dada (or was it Papa?). I wonder if that actually happens when filming the daily As The Fermentation Room Turns show.

edit: It's Dada, h/t @Potatis Salad (#9,814)

 

[Law]

I wonder once Rocco learns to read, when he'll ask her about her "Abolish Fatherhood" tattoo.

I can understand wanting to Abolish Grace Lavery

 

[Pig Cups]

Clearance was mostly Christmas stuff, like you'd expect.

Even if it was 1¢, it’d still be grossly overpriced.

9) Now that their financial situation has improved Lily and Joe will privately consider having a talk with Mal about her moving out for Rocco's sake.

I actually think the risk is bigger that Mal "breaks up" with them... or rather finds another pooner that takes over Joe's role as controlling her life. It feels like this pathetic bathhouse "visit" was basically her starting to look for someone else to cling onto. Even if she won't openly admit it to herself, subconsciously she knows she's a third wheel / live-in nanny.

I think Mal will stick around solely due to her love for Rocco. Joe and LaLa will only tolerate it due to the lucrativeness of having a free housekeeper/nanny.

If Joe and LaLa try to cut her loose onto the street with nothing, the topic of divorce will come up, and maybe it’ll finally sink in how abusively she’s been treated ()? While Mal’s a confirmed humiliation fetishist, it’s worth remembering that she and Joe are legally married. Her husband basically started openly fucking his side piece in front of her, moved said woman in, got her pregnant, and now seems to look at her as being more of a wife to him than the woman he married. Few women would tolerate such an absurd arrangement, and a greasy lawyer could bend her ear and say that she’s got a strong case to take Joe to divorce court and get everything he owns.

Of course, the funnier outcome would be a court pozzed by troon nonsense actually demanding that Mal pay Joe, since he’s a poor, helpless woman, and she’s a strong, manly man with better earning potential.

 

[Stupid Sexy Flanders]

I think Mal will stick around solely due to her love for Rocco.

The thing is that the older and more independent Rocco will be, the more it will become obvious who the actual parents are. More decisions will also come up in regards to Rocco's future like schooling etc and I'm guessing that it'll be constant reminders that she's indeed nothing more than a glorified baby-sitter. While it's obvious that getting a baby into the house woke up Mall's (very masc, obv) biological imperative of nurturing a baby, it's also not hers. Wait until her and Lily have different ideas, or Rocco will just naturally start treating her like the weirdo aunt.

 

[Constellationzero]

Mallory could become the scapegoat; the "bad guy" who disciplines that butt ugly Spitting Image puppet Lily shat out of her diseased twat.

You can almost hear Sideshow: "Oooh, sorry, Rocco, I know you wanted to post your nudes all over 4chan and stick cam or whatever the kids do these days, but Danny said no. Wish I could do something but this yuzu garam aioli isn't gonna ferment itself. Ciao!"

 

[Stan]

I dunno. She kept coming back to "don't forget your shower shoes" over and over for some reason, And at the end I realized it even made the subheader. 50-50 she had some sort of demure and "hilarious" furtive glance at a stranger while standing barefoot in God knows what, or..."don't forget your shower shoes" is supposed to be funny enough on its own.

In order to avoid seeing anything overly risqué she spent most of the evening staring at the floor worried about tinea and papilloma virus.

Even if it was 1¢, it’d still be grossly overpriced.




I think Mal will stick around solely due to her love for Rocco. Joe and LaLa will only tolerate it due to the lucrativeness of having a free housekeeper/nanny.

If Joe and LaLa try to cut her loose onto the street with nothing, the topic of divorce will come up, and maybe it’ll finally sink in how abusively she’s been treated ()? While Mal’s a confirmed humiliation fetishist, it’s worth remembering that she and Joe are legally married. Her husband basically started openly fucking his side piece in front of her, moved said woman in, got her pregnant, and now seems to look at her as being more of a wife to him than the woman he married. Few women would tolerate such an absurd arrangement, and a greasy lawyer could bend her ear and say that she’s got a strong case to take Joe to divorce court and get everything he owns.

Of course, the funnier outcome would be a court pozzed by troon nonsense actually demanding that Mal pay Joe, since he’s a poor, helpless woman, and she’s a strong, manly man with better earning potential.

At-fault divorce is pretty old fashioned these days, but assuming Mallory did test that route I wonder if Joe could counter argue complicity. It’d be one thing if he did this Lily thing behind Mal’s back but he was pretty damn overt and Mal didn’t really object to what Joe was doing at the time. Would it be possible to argue adultery/abandonment after the fact when you three were all having gross high-concept brunch together with the baby in tow?

 

[Anasa Tristis]

I’ve seen a lot of retarded tattoos, but this one is near the very top.

Wait. Whut? Mal ackshully has an Abolish Fatherhood tattoo on her body? I thought that was a joke. JFC.

 

[MirnaMinkoff]

Wait. Whut? Mal ackshully has an Abolish Fatherhood tattoo on her body? I thought that was a joke. JFC.

Yes, right on her inner forearm if I’m not mistaken. There is a photo of it in this thread. She was showing it off right after she got it. She also has some religious iconography from a church in Spain. Every tattoo she’s gotten since she met Joe has some ridiculous “I hate daddy” theme and there have been several.

Joes tattoos are also ugly, but at least they aren’t about wanting to fuck his mom or daddy’s rejection. (Well that I’m aware of, Joe’s tattoos seem to be Sailor Jerry style girls, floral crap or related indie bands he likes). Basically typical 40 year old hipster dude tattoos.

Given how fucked in the head Mallory is about her dad it makes me very curious how she handles raising a son as the supposed man in the throuple. Fatherhood is abolished in the BPT because Joe got rejected by his.