My favourite baby photo of my son sees him at just a week old, lying in a shoe box under the Christmas tree wearing a reindeer hat complete with tiny antlers.
His father and I had subjected Fergus to this early humiliation so we could create a Christmas card to send to friends and family that would also serve as a new baby announcement.
Today, Fergus is 21 – a man – and the days of being able to wrestle him into festive fancy dress are long gone.
He spent yesterday in a new shirt for Christmas and talking to his dad about his plans to do a Master’s in law after graduating next year.
But, like that first Christmas Day all those years ago, the three of us spent the day together.
That wouldn’t be remotely unusual, except that Fergus’s father Louis, 58, and I are not a couple – and we never have been.
Despite the hopes of others – including, on occasion, my mum, who commented only recently that she thinks Louis is the ‘love of my life’ – we have only ever been good friends. Best friends. These days we even live together – I moved in with Louis this March after two decades of maintaining separate houses – but it doesn’t mean anything has changed.
Our relationship remains resolutely platonic.
At this time of year, which is infamous for putting a strain on marital harmony, I am particularly grateful for the bond Louis and I have.
Whether it’s because we’ve spent decades negotiating logistics and have a connection that comes from choice, not obligation, or because we’ve always done things our way, rather than feel pressured by social expectations, Christmas for us is genuinely a time of relaxation.
Katy Regan and Louis Quail are not a couple, despite having a son, Fergus – and never have been
There were no rows about having to put up with nightmarish in-laws. Or, as with many divorced couples, each other’s nightmarish exes – the ‘other’ parent of children from a previous relationship.
We’re not a blended family, we’re just an unorthodox one. And we have spent every Christmas together since Fergus was born.
Louis’ parents died a long time ago, so he always comes to my mum and dad’s, where we have our own bedrooms.
He mucks in like everyone else, playing charades or getting jumped on by my nieces and nephews, as well as making himself at home and helping himself to endless cheese from my parents’ fridge (it’s become an ongoing joke). So how did we get here?
While our sort of co-parenting – platonic parenting, if you like – is not as unusual as it used to be, with websites set up to help people find a co-parent, my arrangement with Louis was less orchestrated.
At the time we knew no one else trying to bring up a baby this way – there were no examples to follow, no sources of advice we could turn to. Yet, 21 years on, I’m proud of what we’ve achieved.
I was 27 when I met Louis; he was 34. I’d recently moved to London from my hometown of Morecambe, Lancashire, and was working in my dream job as a magazine journalist. A relationship was the last thing on my mind, let alone a baby.
Then Louis turned up, one December afternoon in a pub in Battersea, as the photographer on an assignment I was working on. It was friendship at first sight for both of us.
While our sort of co-parenting – platonic parenting, if you like – is not as unusual as it used to be, my arrangement with Louis was less orchestrated
From then on, we conspired to work together, travelling all over the world doing stories.
There was undoubtedly an attraction, but it didn’t feel physical – we were very honest about that.
Curvy brunettes weren’t really Louis’ thing, he told me, which was fine, since blonde, slender men weren’t mine, either.
But I guess we both felt, as we got on so well, that romantic feelings would come if we, well… practised?
We did not officially date, though, or evidently use consistent birth control. I have often thought that, subconsciously, I must have felt getting pregnant would not be the worst-case scenario and that Louis would make an amazing father.
That’s not to say that when I did find out I was pregnant in March 2004, at the age of 29 – Louis and I having decided we were better off as friends by that point – it wasn’t a shock.
As I stood in the loo of Starbucks, a positive test in my hand, I felt like my world had turned on its axis. These were not the circumstances I’d ever expected to be having a baby in. I come from a conventional family. My parents have been married for 57 years, and that’s what I hoped for, too.
Louis comes from a more bohemian background, which probably explains why he was less fazed than me by this turn of events. I’ll never forget the smile on his face when he saw the little blue cross on the pregnancy test. He was excited from the start, whereas I was in a daze.
In those first few, hormone-fuelled weeks, my worries escalated: how would I cope living on my own with a baby?
How would the fact that Louis and I weren’t ‘together’ affect our child’s life? How would it affect our relationship? And would I ever be able to find a boyfriend with a baby in tow?
However, I never considered not keeping the baby.
Meanwhile, Louis was insistent that he wanted to be hands-on, not just a ‘weekend dad’, which I was fully on board with.
Most close friends knew Louis and I were (for want of a better expression) ‘friends with benefits’, so weren’t surprised that he was the father.
When Fergus was born, on December 6, 2004, after a 24-hour labour, we were ecstatic
What did shock them was when we said that we weren’t going to be ‘making a go of it for the sake of the baby’.
I also remember going through all our National Childbirth Trust classes pretending to be a couple, just for ease, and worrying that people would judge us once they knew the truth.
Needless to say, once Fergus arrived and I announced, ‘So… Louis and I aren’t “together”’, nobody really cared!
Ultimately, by the time our son was born, I felt liberated by the realisation I did not have to put a label on our set-up. All that mattered was that our baby had the love of two parents, as well as grandparents who were simply delighted to have a new grandchild.
At the start of my pregnancy, like most of my twenty-something friends, I was living in a shared house. I’d put in an offer on a flat across the road from Louis, in south London, but it was taking time to go through
When I found myself waddling to the loo at 2am just as my housemates rolled in from the pub, it felt right to find alternative accommodation. So, I moved in with Louis – though we slept in separate rooms.
When Fergus was born, on December 6, 2004, after a 24-hour labour, we were ecstatic. While those early baby days are notoriously stressful, there were no real problems with our arrangement – Louis was amazingly supportive.
Eventually, when Fergus was ten months old, I moved into my own flat. From the outset, we split care completely down the middle: Louis would have Fergus on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday nights and I would have him on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday nights. We alternated Saturdays.
This schedule wasn’t rigidly enforced – sometimes we’d pop over to see Fergus when it wasn’t ‘our day’, to read him a bedtime story when he was little, or maybe help him with homework when he was older.
We also agreed to split the cost of bringing up Fergus. At first, we kept a tally: who bought nappies? Paid for the babysitter? But, before long, we realised it seemed to work out about equal, so we did it on trust.
Obviously, living in one house would have been more cost-effective, but neither Louis nor I wanted to give up our independence. But we’d help one another financially if needs be, as keeping a comfortable roof over our child’s head was what was important.
Of course, life also moves on and priorities change, and the compatibility Louis and I have has made this much easier.
For example, when Fergus was three, Louis and I decided to move out of London. If we’d been in new relationships, or if we’d had work commitments, this might have been more difficult. But as it was, as a photographer and a writer, we were able to move ‘together-apart’ to a leafy town in Hertfordshire.
And as co-parents who got on, as opposed to divorced parents who didn’t, it was always easy to arrange playdates and other activities. We attended parents’ evenings as a pair and even went on holidays to Kenya and France together. We might not have had romantic mini-breaks, but we didn’t have the worry of that spark dying, either.
Then, when Fergus went to university three years ago, he would mainly stay at my flat in the holidays, simply because it was in the middle of town and close to all his friends, but Louis would come over often.
Running two separate houses, however, put unnecessary financial pressure on both of us – especially as we both work in creative industries.
So, earlier this year, Louis and I made the decision that I would leave my rented house and move back in with him again.
People might find it hard to understand why we would give up our independent lives after so long. It may seem especially odd to do it now that our son has left home. But, while part of the reason was financial, we’ve both wondered why we didn’t do it earlier. After all, it means that Fergus has just one home to come back to.
It was also a bit lonely living on my own, especially once Fergus had left. And although we do bicker like a married couple because of our different standards of tidiness – I have a more relaxed attitude than Louis, let’s just say – we are still best friends.
We are so close that friends and family have, more than once over the years, suggested that we should make a proper go of it.
But while they are right that Louis is the love of my life in many ways, it’s a platonic love.
Lots of my friends joke that we’ve got the perfect set-up, but undoubtedly getting on so well with your co-parent comes at a cost, and that cost is finding new relationships.
Has our bond got in the way of finding lasting romantic love?
Over the years we have both had relationships, but most potential partners want exclusivity on every level. Finding someone who is not threatened by our strong friendship is not straightforward, and, now in our 50s, we’re both currently single. Having said this, when we have had partners, we’ve always made a point of being transparent about our relationship. It’s sometimes taken time to build trust, and for our partners to see there’s no sexual threat, but we’ve always worked it out.
I’ve never felt jealous of his partners, and it’s the same for him.
I would have loved another child, but at 51 that ship has sailed. Louis and I did, briefly, discuss having another baby, though in the end life just didn’t work out like that. In any case, we are just so grateful for Fergus.
Still, I would be lying if I said I’ve never thought that it would be nice to have met and married someone, and I can’t deny that at points I’ve grieved for the more traditional relationship that my parents have.
However, I’ve come to realise that the idea of something rarely matches the reality, and I don’t see evidence that people in conventional marriages are necessarily happier.
At a BBQ in the summer, which I was attending with Louis, I got chatting to a woman I’d met years ago.
She asked how Louis was, and when I pointed him out she said: ‘Oh, so you eventually got together?’ I replied that no, we were still just friends.
When I inquired about her husband she looked wistful.
‘Yup, still married but it’s not great,’ she replied. ‘I envy you two. None of that pressure of having sex, so you can just concentrate on your friendship. It must be liberating.’
She’s right. Without the ‘we really should have sex’ issue hanging over our heads, I feel able to just enjoy the friendship we have.
And, of course, Fergus has never had to worry about his parents divorcing.
Obviously, friendships do end sometimes. But having been through so much, I can’t see us falling out now.
As for Fergus, when we asked him recently about his attitude to children and relationships, he said he wanted kids but wasn’t bothered about getting married.
On one level Louis and I were delighted, but we also don’t want him to miss out on the fireworks that come with falling in love.
But if I’ve learned anything from my own experience, it’s that love and family come in many forms. Given the success we’ve made of it, I can’t judge anyone for making the same decisions we did.
I just hope that whatever Fergus’s future holds, it makes him happy. We both do.
He was the best Christmas present we could have hoped for 21 years ago, and is the gift that keeps on giving.
