[–]prob_still_in_denial
I have a 21yo transmasc son who helped crack my egg. I’m now t4t remarried with stepkids, 6 and 9. You figure it out, the main things you need are love and commitment.
OTOH if you’re not feeling ready to commit, it’s not time for you.
[–]BrattyBekka
My egg cracked in January 2020 but my partner and me both really wanted a child, so we essentially just put off my HRT start until we had successfully conceived. Now I'm a Mommy to a beautiful
almost-5-year old and I couldn't be happier that i get to experience motherhood, and
be the protector to my daughter (AS FAR AS WE KNOW SO FAR) that no one ever was for me.
How do you go about coping with intrusive thoughts that you can’t be called “mom” if you didn’t ever get pregnant? Or is that just a me issue?
It’s an internalized misogyny issue. There are plenty of cis women who can’t give birth for whatever reason. They are still mothers if they adopt, or surrogate, or whatever. The idea that a trans woman can’t be a mother for the same reasons is silly.
Society often connects the value of women to their ability to give birth, so titles related to women are often centered around that. It doesn’t need to and shouldn’t be that way.
I mean yea obviously that’s the issue. I know what the issue is. I just don’t know how to fix it. That’s more of what I was asking. How do I learn to just not care that my body is completely broken and worthless?
These feelings are completely valid. It’s like a grieving process. I took my 5 yr old to a Taekwondo class and saw this very pregnant woman walk in with a stroller and 3 kids in tow and suddenly found myself being super dysphoric about my life. However, unprompted my daughter started calling me mom and mommy. It is wonderful. My point is no matter what, when you are a parent you give all of your love to your child. You get to be who you are with them, no judgment, no hate. It takes effort to accept that you won’t be able to have kids like that, but if you have them you will be their mom.
[–]Littha
You make a lot of points but this stuck out to me:
I have no fucking clue how to raise a child
Nobody does, until they have to do so. New cis parent's aren't magically imbued with the knowledge of how to care for a baby, they either take lessons, ask family or just bumble through doing their best.
When a cis person bumbles through being a parent to society it’s a funny happy story of how parenting is just doing your best with what you got. When a trans person does the same, to society that’s child abuse. Even if I was comfortable making mistakes when raising a child, what good what it do if they’ll be taken away if I make one mistake?
I think you might be catastrophising in your head a bit too much.
Doing something serious enough to get an adopted child taken away is at a level significantly higher than a general mistake. It's not like choosing the wrong brand of baby food or something, or even them moderately hurting themselves while playing are enough to do that.
Normally, you’re totally right. But as a trans person I surly start off on thin ice. I’d expect that the current government would be looking for any excuse to take my kids away and use me as an example for their “all trans people are abusive monsters” lie
I'd suspect your issue would be getting approved for adoption in the first place, rather than having them taken away.
I don't know which country you are in, so I can't comment on the government or the specific actions therein but I do know that adoptions are generally handled at the local government level, not the national one. Which ties into the original issue, why would you choose to settle down and have kids in an area that is very trans hostile?
I wouldn’t. That’s another reason I could never do it. Nowhere is safe for trans people. everyone seems to fucking hate us
But if you wouldn't have children anyway, why does it matter if you can't have one like a cis woman would?
[–]leylassupp
As a trans woman, I really want to have kids too. For me, it would probably be through adoption or surrogacy (if i ever find the right man).
Since I’m infertile now, those are really the two main options (unless I stopped HRT and tried the other way, which I’m not planning to). I think it really depends on where you are mentally and emotionally. Nobody is ever truly ready to have a kid.. it just kind of happens, and you learn as you go. For us trans people, it’s even more complicated, because we can’t just “let it happen” spontaneously. We have to plan things out carefully and think ahead in a much bigger way. But that doesn’t make it less meaningful. If you have love to give, that’s what really matters.
My fear isn’t the fact I don’t know if I want kids. I know I do. The issue is I’m kind of a shitty person who can barely take care of themself at home let alone take care of a defenceless child perfectly.
[–]Spacegirl-Alyxia
I do want to raise kids at some point
. I wish I could also experience the anticipation and pregnancy as a whole which is why I specifically want to research uterine transplants for trans women in the future to maybe make that possible for me, but if this does not happen, I would adopt.
I feel a great sense of sorrow about my sterility and would really want to have this bonding experience that pregnancy represents for me, but even if not, raising kids would be a dream for me. I hope I will be able to in the future
I resent my body and the evil god or whatever that gave it to me. There is nothing redeemable about it. I fear that even adopting kids will just make me spiral into a pit of “how could be possibly be a good mom if you can’t even get pregnant?”
So you think sterile moms who did adopt their children aren’t actual moms and just knockoffs…? you have some serious misogyny to work through.
Edit to add: I do get the feeling though, and I am sorry you’re dealing with that. For me, I think of me of simply being a sterile woman. That’s it. I get the pain any woman has who faces sterility. It’s a pain that only women get to experience. And I am experiencing it. Great. Fuck. But oh well. I am still a woman.
[–]InsuranceDry8864
I’m a 49 year old trans woman with three happy well adjusted kids age 17, 14 and 10. Honestly, with how difficult being a parent is being trans barely makes a blip on the radar
In that case maybe I shouldn’t want kids. I can’t even handle being trans
[–]Ms_DNA
I’m confident that by being out and transitioning I’m a better parent and partner than if I stayed closeted.
We made our kiddo the natural way, and I started HRT when our kiddo was 1. She’s only ever known me as Mommy.
Yea I’m gonna be honest neither me or my bf are interested in conceiving that way. Just isn’t for us. My issue is less that I can’t be a good parent cuz I’m trans (tho that’s certainly a thought that’s come up) it’s that I can’t be a good parent cuz I’m a shitty person who’s not cut out for something like parenting
[–]LinkGamer12
So this is a hard subject to address because as you said, we have difficulty having kids.
Now, I say difficulty because there is an expensive surgery you can get that transplants a uterus with a blank egg. Your and your SO provided the genes and after 30k USD, you have a 70% chance to be a mom.
As of right now, this is the extent of medical science that we were able to reach since 2014.
Who knows if we will still have this option, but hopefully after this current fiasco, things will get better.
Nobody has as of yet done this for trans women, and it'd cost way more than 30k for an experimental technique.
I mean that’s a whole lot of money to not even be able to get pregnant still lol.
[–]evermoredreamer
I had kids before my egg cracked.
It made dealing with my gender far more complicated but at the same time I wouldn’t trade them for anything.
