Conception / Pregnancy / Birth
By Eli Wise
I
This is the story of two men who are now dads together. One’s named Stephen, the other Eli. A queer cis man and a queer trans man in love. For just under two years. They decide to be brave and try to create a child with their own bodies and DNA. The trans man goes off of the hormones that have helped form his identity and his sexuality for a dozen years. He feels less sexy, less sure of himself, but they still connect, they still feel the love. They both hope that they conceive quickly - monthly blood and mood swings are hard.
They’re at the airport, about to get on a plane to Phoenix. Eli feels the blood coming. Just enough time to go to the airport store. Looking through the aisles, he thinks about Brandon Tina stealing tampons from a convenience store. He thinks about reasons why a cis man would buy tampons. The clerk rings him up and doesn’t say anything.
It’s almost Christmas, and Eli’s at his father’s house in Georgia. He feels… he isn’t sure. He’s been waiting for 3 months, trying to train himself to feel something he’s never felt before. Like a teenager, he makes up an excuse of last-minute wrapping paper and goes to Walgreens by himself. He again starts thinking of stories to tell the clerk, making up a girlfriend or a wife back home. He buys a pregnancy test, wrapping paper, and picture frame and stashes the test in his big jacket pockets. Upstairs, he pees on a stick and oh my god, he’s pregnant. He’s a 39-year-old transgender man and he and his boyfriend are going to have a baby.
A few days later, they meet in Maryland at his mom’s house. On Christmas morning they decide to tell her and it’s hard to get the words out. God, he’s a college kid again, trying to find the words to come out as queer. But this time, he’s holding his boyfriend’s hand. “We’re having a baby! I’m pregnant.” She paused, just stared at them for a moment, then, “I’m so confused… I’m so excited but so confused….” His mom tears up and both men go over to give her a hug.
II
I had always wanted to be a parent. When I began taking testosterone in 2007 at age 27, I didn’t know if I’d be able to have a child who was related to me. At the time, looking into egg freezing wasn’t an option financially, or emotionally. So, I did my best to put it out of my mind.
In 2016, I met Stephen. As we got closer and closer together, we talked about children. There was a profound excitement that, if we chose to, we could try to have a child together. No adoption agency approvals, no long search for a surrogate or a donor. Just us. We could be the queers who had it all.
As I got closer to my 39th birthday, we talked more seriously about it. While there is little research on transgender men and pregnancy, I did know that the number of viable eggs goes down with age. We talked about starting a family. We looked into stopping testosterone and into adoption. We drew closer together, talking for hours about our bodies, identities, and dreams for the future. When we decided to create this life, we knew that we didn’t know what it would be like, but that we would be loving and supporting each other on the journey.
III
A few days after telling my mom, morning sickness set in. I remember being at dinner and all that I could eat was a baked potato. And when it was done, I started to cry because I was so hungry, but there were no potatoes left. I couldn’t handle any other food.
We went to visit one of my best friends, Everett. His family unit has two kids, one cisman (himself) and two transmen. His kids love their daddy, papi, and baba. They play in the front yard, sometimes chanting “Hey hey, ho ho, transphobia’s got to go!” while rolling around on their razor scooters. Visiting him and his family, I felt seen, complete, and cared for. I felt like just another man who was having a baby. Owain, the baba who carried both kids, gave me tips on pregnancy garb for men. Overalls and pant waist extenders.
IV
The pregnancy went well - I had great health but lots of morning sickness. I took every medication I could and still felt nauseous for most of the three trimesters. The great thing about being a pregnant man is no one knows you’re pregnant unless you tell them. No strangers walk up to you at the grocery store to touch your belly, no one tells you you’re glowing. The hard thing is every public interaction is a choice of coming out or not coming out. When I went to the grocery store and could barely make it through the checkout line, no one knew why. When I went through airport security and insisted on opting out of the scanners and had to be patted down by a security guard, I didn’t say why. When I drove up to my job as an elementary school music teacher and immediately went to throw up in the bathroom, I didn’t later chat with folks at lunch in shared camaraderie of pregnancy. It just felt like too much. I felt sick, I felt emotionally fragile, and I just didn’t want to say - I’m trans, I’m pregnant, walking across campus feels like walking a mile on a rocky boat today. I wanted to curl up on my couch at home.
Stephen asked me about birth - did I want to have a hospital birth or a home birth? Did we want to hire a midwife, a doula, both, neither? I honestly didn’t want to think about it. Birth - that amazing time when a transman gets to be vulnerable, naked, and in pain in front of … how many people? In what setting?
My usual technique is to procrastinate on things I don’t want to think about and hope that they magically resolve or go away. I don’t think I’m alone in this. But being pregnant isn’t like other things in life - there’s gonna be a baby one way or another. I knew nothing about birth and felt very uncomfortable in female / feminine spaces.
I had excellent support though. Stephen, my family, Dr Cooksey at Kaiser, the LGBTQ Perinatal Wellness Center, and my home-birth midwife, Marea. I had a team of loved ones and professionals. Both my doctor, my midwife, and the educators at the LGBTQ Perinatal Wellness Center spent time listening to me, asking me real questions, and providing helpful, personal information. If they didn’t know something, they looked for someone who did.
I took a birth class for queer and trans parents at the perinatal center. I had long appointments with both my OB/GYN and midwife. Stephen made me countless peanut butter sandwiches. My parents and in-laws called and sent gifts for the baby-to-be. My cousin organized a meal train for the birth. Friends came to visit. I was loved and protected, which let me love and protect the baby I was growing.
V
Marea came over and gave me a hug. It was time, I was having contractions. Everything was in motion. I was going into labor. I was going to meet my baby. Stephen and I were so excited and also it was starting to hurt. It’s hard for me to write about the birth - it was such an internal process. It’s easier to talk about in conversation than to set into words. There was pain in waves. Intensity. Water in the birth pool and water from my body. Eyes closed, rocking, massage. Stephen’s hand. Marea’s words. More pain. more intensity. It was too much, it had gone on too long. She was so close, hovering, about to be born but not being born. More pain than could possibly exist in my body, struggling to expand into the whole world. I was an animal being torn apart.
They helped me put on my shoes, helped me into the car. Helped me out and into a wheelchair. There was no open room, helped me to triage. The blessed beautiful anesthesiologist put a painless needle into my back, and I slept.
I woke up a few hours later with Marea, Stephen and Ursula, the nurse-midwife. I had a team with a new member. For hours we worked to help our baby come into the world. Doctors appeared and said doctor things that made no sense but made me afraid. The Cure Disintegration played on Stephen’s phone, right by my ear as loud as we could. Bright lights from the OR. Seconds before needing a c-section, she was suddenly there. She suddenly was real. She was on my chest, breathing, crying. We were all crying and so so so in love.
VI
Kestrel was born on September first, 2019. 9/1/19. My palindromic baby. We named her after a bird, and she is our bird-child, our treasure. Our gift and the biggest measure of our love. Ever growing, ever changing, ever magical. Ours and her own.
