A MTF Bystander
A Story
I received this from a MTF-male to female transgendered person.
I was married for 8 years before I got divorced and started transitioned
(the same day, it happens). We had a really hard time having
children. It took 4 years of fertility treatments, but finally, my ex got
pregnant. My first born was a girl. I loved her so much that it's
hard to talk about it. I never attached that much to my son, who was born
two years later. Probably mostly because when I left, my daughter was 3
and my son was only 1. She had a personality in a way that he didn't, and I
guess I never really had a chance to get to know him.
They're going
to be 9 and 7 this month. I haven't seen them since Ii left.
And my ex has cut off all contact between us. I should probably talk more
about that, but it's kind of painful. Understatement of the year.
What
complicates things is that it's so hard for me to remember what it was like
before I transitioned. I can't really remember being
"Daddy". It seems like something that happened to someone
else. Also, if I hadn't found a way to kind of cauterize the would, I
wouldn't be able to function.
And then
there's my little girl now. She's just over a year old. My partner
and I knew that we both wanted children before we really started going
out. I remember sitting with her a cafe at a museum we'd gone to together,
and her asking me if I thought I 'd want to have children. I don't think I
realized at the time that the answer to that question was a potential deal
breaker, as far as our moving deeper into a relationship was concerned, but
it wouldn't have mattered. I told her yes, of course I wanted
children. This was actually the day after I told her that Ii was TS,
so her question was really whether I'd want to have children again.
Again, it
took us awhile. We went through fertility treatments for a year. Or
she did, rather. My partner used in vitro fertilization (IVF) and that
worked. We did this in Israel, where the health funds pay for the
treatment. They didn't entirely cover the drugs, and the first few
attempts at AI, they didn't cover the sperm either. In Israel, all
donor sperm must be anonymous, by law. That doesn't mean it always is, of
course, but we did this through a hospital, which means that we know next to
nothing about the donor. We needed to know what his Rh factor was when my
partner was near the end of the pregnancy, because she's Rh-. They
wouldn't even tell us his blood type; just that his was Rh- as well.
This time, physically, at least, I was a bystander.
Though not really. I was hit hard by her pheremones while she was
pregnant. Putting on water weight and having the weirdest cravings.
I know that she was pregnant, and that we weren't, but we went through a lot of
it together.
We both
wanted for me to be able to co-nurse. But that's a tricky thing. I
know lesbian couples who have tired, and some have been more successful than
others. I t usually helps if the no-birth mom has been pregnant
before. In my case, that obviously wasn't the situation.
I did wind up
getting a few drops of colostrum, which got mixed into the milk that my partner
was pumping while our danger was in the neonatal unit. And a few drops of
milk afterwards. But not much more than that. Maybe if Ii 'd taken
some kind of milk-stimulation hormones, I would have had more success, but it's
unlikely.
Anyway, my
issues with my daughter now are the same, pretty much, as any lesbian non-bio
mom. We're hoping to do a second parent adoption soon.