My Inconvenient and Very Complicated Truth about Pronouns

"People with non-binary gender identities continually face situations in which someone feels “forced,” by the language norms they’ve internalized, to call us either he or she — even if they’re not sure which one is right, and sometimes even if they have been told that neither is right. These moments, which seem to be about grammar rules, highlight a gender rule that doesn’t work for us: the rule that everyone must be either a he or a she, a man or a woman; that there are no non-binary genders."  -- Davey Schlasko, "How Using 'They' As A Singular Pronoun Can Change the World"

Mr.(?) Rehs-Dupin reporting for childbirth...

Have I told you lately how much I hate being referred to with female pronouns?  No... I probably haven't. Because that conversation is awkward, and unwieldy...  and is not something that I feel like engaging in with the average Joe/Jane Schmo.  I don't even feel like having this conversation with many people close to me, because then it becomes a "big deal".  You say... " I want to use _______ pronoun." and then one of two things happen... they forget entirely (and it is heartbreaking) or they really try, but every time they say the incorrect pronoun, they make a big deal apologizing and that draws unnecessary attention to the issue when you are just trying to talk about what kind of salad dressing you want from the Giant Eagle....

So I haven't talked about it.  But she/her/hers/sister/mommy/girls/ladies feels like nails on a chalkboard to me.  When I hear people use female pronouns when talking about me, it is very out of body.... like "wait, who are you talking about?... Oh... me."  Take the following statement for example:  "Chris went to the store and when she got there she had to go get a cart for her groceries."  Simple sentence, right?!?  To me this sounds like "Chris went to the store and when SHE (wait who?, oh right, the she in this case is me, that's weird.) got there SHE (vomit... yep still me) had to get a cart for HER (oh god... another pronoun...  IT HURTS!) groceries." My brain has fully assimilated my identity as a transgueer guy, and so the pronouns she/her/hers are just stark reminders that other people don't recognize that identity.  I also know, this isn't done on purpose. We live in a he/she society, and so even if I am recognized as neither, there is no language to reinforce/denote that identity.  So it doesn't make me upset with those around me...  it makes me first upset with a world that has created this language, and second upset that sometimes I am not brave enough to ask for the use of pronouns that makes me more comfortable.

When you have a baby, you have the option to create a birth plan... which, being incredibly opinionated control freaks, was an absolutely necessity for us.  The first thing on the list asked for the use of male pronouns.  I like male pronouns...  because for the most part, I am still identified as biologically female, so the use of male pronoun subverts the idea that I am wholly female.  It was very empowering to be linguistically identified as standing outside of the gender binary... It was a huge validation of my trans identity, in a very female driven space.  I am sure it was not easy for all those we encountered, but it made a huge difference in my level of comfort and self-confidence.  Since then, I have been really thinking about the ways I want to carry this momentum forward and start finding avenues to have conversations about my pronoun preferences.

Unfortunately, you don't get a birth plan for every situation in your life...  (Can you imagine handing the cashier at Target a list of the ways you would like to be addressed when purchasing your weekly allotment of orange juice and yogurt?)  Honestly, because I have so many weird preferences about pronouns, I don't even know where to start to get the people I love on board with language that makes me feel comfortable and validated.  I prefer different things at different times...  and it often changes from one situation to the next in a very chameleon like manner.  This is when I truly realize that language is REALLY working against those of us that live outside the gender binary; and many may say that pronouns aren't that important, but in many ways these little words are one of the first barriers in living in a world where people don't feel the need to be divided into two neat gender categories.

Wanna know what I am talking about pronoun rules get ridiculous when you have a language system based around 2 exclusive genders?  Well here goes...




Their have been attempts at gender neutral pronouns....
 nonehave gotten traction....  When I don't get the option
 to opt out of choosing a salutation, I quickly become
 a Dr. or Rev. because those are just
as fitting as Ms./Mr./Mrs.

1.  In a perfect world people would use the gender neutral pronouns they/them/theirs...  but there is this stupid argument that states that this is non-grammatically correct (see brilliant article above for counter-argument ...)  I don't see this one happening anytime soon.

2.  I mostly prefer he/him/his when someone is speaking out loud....  especially when the people who are speaking know me personally.  (If they don't know me personally, I like for the pronouns he and she to be used interchangeably to demarcate that I identify as male and female, or neither, depending on how you look at it.)

3.  I prefer that no pronouns be used in writing... which is really tricky and takes a lot of language manipulation and creativity.  In writing, one has time to really think about pronoun usage and it isn't unreasonable to ask that no pronouns be used... (ask my boss, who recently wrote a performance review with the use of no pronouns.)

4.  Amy usually refers to me as her spouse, but I am not opposed to the use of the word "wife" in a situation where the person being addressed doesn't know me.  There isn't a better term to be used, and I prefer to not be called Amy's husband to strangers, because then she is assumed to be straight, and politically it is important to us that we are identified as two married biological females.  But if the term wife is used, I like it to be followed up with a male pronoun... ex.  "My wife is the best, he is always the first to volunteer to change poopy diapers."

5.  If I am in a professional situation, or when dealing with my parents, I will accept she/her/hers, because I am just not brave or comfortable enough to discuss gender politics in these arenas.

So what is a guy to do?  Just brace myself to be uncomfortable, I guess.  Some day (maybe far after we are all gone) gendered pronouns will be a thing of the past... Until then, I will just work on knowing that misuse of pronouns doesn't make me anymore or less who I am.

Being "Heard"

I came out as queer at a very "young age"...  I was 14 to be exact... and was met with a resounding chorus (from most) that this must just be a phase... because how do you know something of that nature when you aren't even old enough to drive a car..  Friends, my parents, and even the guy who did my first tattoo questioned how I could know for sure.  Some shouted "attention seeking" and others just logically couldn't get down with the fact that at a ripe 14 years young I could have a better handle on my identity than they did.

You know the end of a mystery movie when you find out "whodunit" and then there is a quick retrospective of all the clues that you missed that should have clued you in to who the culprit was.  That's how "coming out" to myself was.  Lots of little clues I missed, adding up to an inevitable truth.  It was February 9th, 1998 (I know this because I drew a little rainbow on that date on the Beatles Calendar that I kept on my room).  I was watching the Real World thought...  "Oh Man!  That girl is hot!!!  Oh Shit!  Oh....  That explains a lot..."  If anything...  "being straight" was a phase for me.  And once I figured it all out, I felt so liberated!  But as I heard more and more people say "it's just a phase", "you are too young to know that" or "you just haven't met the right guy" the more I felt silenced.

Senior Potrait- 2002.  I was the gayest
High Schooler EVER.

The funny thing about silence, is the more you are silenced, the more you are likely to stop using your voice.   It was easy to feel like I was wrong, about myself; and a truth that was so simple

and apparent to me.  So I fell silent.  I spent my freshman year of high school scared and silent.  Until I realized my silence was paralyzing me...  And I promised to never be silent again.  People may say I was "out and proud" but I like to think I was just "out and Chris".  I just started talking about being gay like it was "normal"... because to me it was.  And people responded.  That's when I realized people are more likely to talk about you, when you are unwilling to talk about yourself.  If you give them all the information that they need... they won't need to fill in the gaps, and you become uninteresting... but alas, I digress.

If coming out as "gay" was hard...  coming out as trans is like climbing a mountain.  And it certainly isn't wrapped up in a nice "fable"-type package where the good guy (that's me) learns a tidy message  It is a process and is in now way complete.

There are many contributing factors as to why its hard to come out as a transmasculine genderqueer boi (that's what I choose for a gender today), but it is mostly steeped in the fact that our society believes in "2 and 2 only" genders.  Most people believe that you are born with a penis and you are male, or a vagina will make you female, end of sentence, no variations.  People with a more evolved view of sex and gender may understand that there are people who are born with one set of organs, but their identity indicates the opposite sex (ex. a person born with a penis who is actually a female).  But there are few who can dig deep enough to understand there are those of us who live in the middle of the two...

When I have tried to explain to people that I am neither male nor female, I am usually met with a blank stare (at best) or the denial that being neither M nor F, Adam nor Eve, Romeo nor Juliette isn't even a valid identity.  Similar to "its only a phase", after a while being repetitively told that your identity isn't real makes it hard for you to feel like you have a place.  The more times people tell you your identity doesn't exist, the more you feel like you aren't doing your own "identity" incorrectly and you begin to ware at the corners, and assimilate into molds where it is "easier" to be understood.

This is from the portion of my life when I lived by myself
and dressed up like Kid Rock for fun (before he turned into
a dick).  Also... just a note, that is a fake goatee and my
real goatee now is far more lush.

When I became pregnant, I wanted to do it on my own terms.  It was imperative that my identity as a trans-identified pregnant person was understood and respected, especially by our care team.  There is so much vulnerability in a birthing situation for ALL people, but with my discomfort with my body, I feel like I was more vulnerable than most.  I have certainly had my fair share of being made to feel uncomfortable in my own skin by people in medical professionals...  Once, when discussing how I felt like I was never fully female with a THERAPIST,  she asked, "But you don't want to HAVE a penis, DO YOU?!?"... not that I will be discussing with you Madame Therapist...

These types of experiences over a lifetime left me weary that anyone would/could ever "get" me.  I had become conditioned to be misunderstood, or doubted.  This was not the experience I got from those who we chose to work with for our birth.  For the first time in my life, I felt like I could talk about who I was without being shut down, dismissed or silenced.  Our midwife group, our doula, and our lactation consultant all took special care to make sure that they were sensitive to this special caveat of my identity. ( I find it very sad that only after 31 years of life do I feel like I was respected as a whole person in a medical situation.)  What is even more interesting, is the more my gender identity was validated, the less it made a damn bit of difference.  For the first time I really feel like I really was existing in a space that was free from the rules of male and female...  Where I could just be myself free from the constraints of societal pressures to do or be anything.  When we gave birth at OSU hospital, with a full goatee and a buzzed head, you would have thought that everyone who had ever given birth there was a transmaculine guy with a wife who was planning on doing the breastfeeding...

Really being  "heard" has finally made it easier to "speak" about who I am.  All the "its just a phases" and "you have to choose male or female" have faded away a bit.  Obviously, my work to continue to speak my truth has just begun, but I after having the experience of validation, I can no longer be complacent in silence.

Snow Rollers... The Story of Our Loss (miscarriage mentioned)

Many people in Central Ohio may remember January 27th, 2014 as the day we experienced the rare meteorological phenomenon of the snow-roller.  These truly strange objects, are created when there is the perfect conditions of temperature, moisture, and wind (just enough, but not too much).  It starts with a little ice crystal, that gets blown over and over and over, until it gets bigger and bigger, until it looks like a roll of snow carpet, and sometimes a white rose.

Unfortunately, that is not how I remember that day...  On January 14th, after 9 attempts at getting pregnant, over the course of 12 months, with two different bodies, 2 different donors, a great many medications, and the determination that wouldn't quit, we found out we were pregnant.  We were uncontrollably excited, and proceeded with caution as we told those closest to us on our journey.  We had warning signs that things weren't progressing as they should, but we brushed them off.  After such a long and arduous process of trying to get pregnant, it seemed karmically impossible that we could lose a pregnancy.  But sometimes science just isn't on your side... 

When I walked in the door, on January 27th, and Amy told me that the doctor had called, and it seemed that our pregnancy wasn't viable, it hit me like a ton of bricks.  It wasn't what I had expected (denial definitely played an important role, as we just repeated to ourselves, this can't be happening to US)...  I had gone to work, thinking I was carrying our child, and was greeted at the door that evening with what felt like another dose of failure.

A white rose snow roller.

There are a great many things that a person goes through when they lose a pregnancy; and pregnancy loss, like fingerprints, are different for everyone.  But I think one thing is for sure... we don't allow ourselves to talk about them enough.  This just reifies that notion that miscarriage is some sort of failure... that could have been prevented, or that we should be ashamed.  It is idiosyncratic in our culture that when we most need support, we fear that people will take pity, and we don't seek the support that we need/deserve to avoid making those around us feel discomfort.  So we face our demons unaccompanied, or with those most closely surrounding us.  But these dark experiences aren't brought out into the light so that others can see that they are not alone.  This isn't fair... to ourselves, or to those who feel isolated when they find themselves in similar situations. 

Miscarriage is not uncommon... but identifying as trans and losing a pregnancy is a little bit more unique.  Because, at that point, I had little trust in my body that it could do anything that I wanted it to, losing our first pregnancy was incredibly hard.  It was hard for me to acknowledge that I couldn't get my wife pregnant, because my body didn't create sperm... and after 3 tries at getting pregnant (with fertility medication included) it seemed like my body wouldn't function on that level either.  When I finally was able to get pregnant, my body couldn't (or didn't) hold onto it.  I was neither man or woman enough to participate in procreation... I felt, again, stuck in a gray zone in a world of black and whites.  It took a long time to trust in my body again...  like until Hayden was born.

Our loss was early...  which was also hard to rectify.  We were pregnant, but even by "Christian Right" standard, it wasn't ever a baby.  Our little snow roller never had a heartbeat.  I am certainly not going to get into a debate about when a baby becomes a baby, but there was part of me that felt guilty mourning the loss of a child that never physically existed.  As if I wasn't pregnant "enough" to feel the pain that I did.  But for two weeks, that child did exist.  We had waited so long, and we had tried our best to be patient, and so as soon as that line turned pink on the home pregnancy test, we were planning birthday parties, and thinking about college funds.  The baby may have existed only in our hearts, but that was as real as necessary to feel completely in love. 

So, there we were in the dead of winter, with our hearts in our hands, wanting nothing more than to feel relief.  But just like a snow-roller, creating a baby takes critical, perfect conditions... and this little one didn't have those perfect conditions.  So we mourned, and we cried.  We held each other tighter than we ever had.  We were gentle with each other's hearts, and when one of us could no longer bare their sadness, the other would carry them.  We gave each other space when we needed it, and together we created a world where we still had enough hope to keep trying for our little miracle.

Coincidentally, Hayden was conceived on the second day of spring...  which has just come to remind us that although we never forget winter, there is always a thaw on the horizon. 

The Baby "Blues?!?!?"

When I think about the blues, I think of a rainy day... when you curl up on your couch, probably not getting out of your pajamas, drinking tea, with very little overhead lighting and Garth Brooks, "To Make You Feel My Love" playing in the background (or the Adele cover of the same song, if that is your druthers.)  I mean, lets face it, I had spent 9 months (or more if you count all the pre-pregnancy medications that were supposed to help us get pregnant) on a hormonal roller coaster crying about everything from AARP commercials to being in a car for too long (and one special time I nearly had an all out meltdown on a walking tour about the Underground Railroad).  So when nurses explained to me in the hospital that I may feel some "Baby Blues" after Hayden was here, I didn't take too much stock in it...

The only thing that made me feel better without fail
was snuggles from this little sneaky sneaker!  She's
also an excellent listener when you are sad and
because crying is her only current mode of communication
she is totally non-judgmental of sobbing.

Now let me throw some flawed thinking on you, I figured I would skip the whole post partum depression/baby blues thing because bois shouldn't get those.  Still convinced that I could "logic" my way out of hormones, I thought I would be privileged enough to skip out on the emotional roller coaster of the first few days post-pregnancy.   I figured I would be delighted to have my body back, be excited to stop sleeping on my side, relish in the absence of heartburn, all while spending my days snuggling my little ball of pure cuteness.  I had wanted this baby for a long time, and it seemed illogical to think that I would spend the first few weeks of her being home anything other than elated...

And I was elated.  I could spend my whole life time trying to put into words how happy I am to have her, and how much I love her, and it still wouldn't do it justice.  But the "blues" doesn't even begin to cover the intensity of emotion that I felt.  A more accurate name would be the "you just had a baby now dance on the edge of pure madness while trying to care for a small human being for the first time blues".  "Baby Blues" sounds so cute... but believe me there was nothing cute about how I felt.  I have never cried so uncontrollably in my life, over the most trivial things.  The first night we brought Hayden home, I went to take a shower.  There had been a sugar scrub that I had used on my belly for the last month or so in the shower, and thinking of using it in that moment made me sob to the extent that I couldn't catch my breath.  I hoped Amy couldn't hear me from where she was rocking our baby on the bed (again flawed thinking, my crying was turning to wailing and someone wearing headphones who also had significant hearing loss probably wouldn't have been able to tune it out.)  But I also remember it being very clear that it would pass...  So I sobbed, and I felt my feelings, and then released them and re-emerged.

The other most serious incident of uncontrolled emotion was when I DID NOT want a rice crispy treat.  Let me repeat... it wasn't that I wanted one and couldn't have one... it was that I could have one and didn't want one.  I spent all of my pregnancy binge eat many sugary treats (not the best choice, I know...) but my favorite was the rice crispy treat... especially from Noodles and Company (you may think they would be known more for their noodles, but not to me!  Their mallow rice cereal bar of delight is unparalleled, and I consider myself somewhat of a connoisseur.)  So when my Father in Law called asking if we wanted Noodles and Co., and I didn't want a rice crispy treat, my foundation was shaken to the core.  I cried. Amy questioned what was wrong... I tried to explain and then couldn't even make sense of my feelings (mostly because they were nonsensical).  She hugged me until it passed...



Gratuitous shot of our super cute baby, just because
it looked better for formatting.

Sure these things could be completely blamed on the crazy amount of hormones that run through your body... but I imagine my feelings were my own, just put under a super intense microscope that made the emotion larger than the logic behind it.  Many of  the things that I got super upset about (including the two instances above) were directly related to no longer being pregnant...  Which was a complete and total shock.  But when you think about it, being pregnant, in many ways becomes an identity.  Much of your life revolves around what your body can and can't do, and eat... and on many levels people (who can identify that you are pregnant) interact with your pregnant identity different than your own identity (ex. it seems there are obligatory things you have to ask a pregnant person... like "how are you feeling", "are you sleeping okay", etc.)  For me, because I was so wrapped up in who I was/wasn't going to be in my pregnant body, I feel I became more attached to a pregnant boi identity than I had previously acknowledged.  So, it would then make sense that I felt a sense of loss... and this sense actually reaffirmed my feelings that this pregnancy had been a life changing experience.

Lucky for me, this period only lasted a short 4 days, which I attribute to the wonderful support from my wife, our family, and encapsulated placenta (yes, we are those people, and if you are a pregnant person thinking about encapsulating DO IT).  I know it was 4 days because I woke up on Christmas Eve feeling content and in control.  Although I was still weepy (but almost exclusively happy tears) I was happy to be past the extremes of the days prior.  In the past weeks I have really enjoyed re-finding myself, and recreating my identity as the Baba that I hope to be.

Well.... This Makes More Sense Now...

I was just a little boy.... until
I wasn't.

 Puberty was probably the worst thing that ever happened to me.  Before that, I was free to be who I wanted to be and navigated in a world that was just little humans.  Sure, we played at being male or female, but for the most part, I was accepted as one of the guys.  Most of my friends were guys.... I played on a girl's soccer team, but we could play with boys and were physically still even... I raced with boys on the playground, and sat with them at their lunch tables.  And then 7th grade happened.  Girls got boobs, and periods.... and boys got deeper voices and bigger egos.  This is when my whole life changed.

Puberty is confusing for most...
I just got a bonus.

I wasn't accepted as one of the guys anymore.  I wasn't invited to watch baseball games, and athletic boys started to get muscles, and I started to feel more and more self conscious.  I was so embarrassed when I started my period for the first time, I didn't tell anyone.  I threw the underpants of shame into the back of my closet, and pretended it was all a nightmare and ignored it as long as I could.  My body changed, it was harder and harder to pass as male, and I generally just felt crummy.  I tried to fit into a girl body.  I bought tighter sweaters, and felt like garbage.  I tried to wear a tie on a field trip where we had to dress up, and the school didn't allow me to go.  It was all very confusing.  One day I had a great handle on who I was, and who my friends were, and an influx of hormones later, I was more confused than I ever had been.

Oh god...  A book fair raccoon
poster, and a tight shirt.  I am
not sure there is a more
embarrassing photo of me!

Now, no ones likes a period (unless you are hoping to not be pregnant, in an instance where you weren't as careful as possible) but I really despised them.  I reiterate that I never planned on being pregnant, so a period to me was just a monthly reminder that I was "yep, still female."  There seemed to be no purpose to it... the scarlet letter of womanhood that I could no more escape than ignore.  But every month... like clockwork, there it was.

I use to believe that everything happens for a reason.  But after a long road to getting pregnant, nearly bankrupting ourselves in the process, falling into a depression because of it and losing our first pregnancy, I can no longer say that I believe that.  I do believe, now that the dust has settled, I can find reason in the things that have happened...

This body makes sense now... it has a purpose, and a function.  For that I am sincerely grateful.  I have spent the last 18 years feeling like I was stuck in a prison...  It feels less like a prison now.  This journey through pregnancy (and now to the beyond of parenthood) has given me back something that I had lost in puberty... and that was the ability to choose who I was going to be. 

Through this process I have learned to use my voice like I have never before.  I think this was the most empowering thing about our birth experience.  I was able to use my voice, because for the first time in my life, I feel as if people were really listening.  When I said I wanted to use the pronoun "he", people tried their best to do that.... when I came into L & D with a well manicured goatee, no one batted an eye.  I was given the confidence to be perfectly, and comfortably me.  Now it is my responsibility to take that confidence out into the world and continue to allow myself to live openly and honestly.

 It seems ironic that to find my truest gender identity, I had to go through something that is seen to be at one very far end of the gender spectrum.  But when it comes down to it...  having a baby has little (or nothing really) to do with gender, and everything to do with biological sex.  If you have functioning reproductive organs, you can have a baby.  When we first started talking about me carrying our child, I remember thinking of many wonderful men I knew who would have gladly carried a baby for their family (my father-in-law being chief amongst them).  I am one lucky guy to have gone through this...  and many women I have talked to with cis-gendered husbands have remarked how they wish they could have shared the load.  Like any person who desperately wanted a child, I would have sacrificed anything to make it happen, and luckily for me it doesn't matter if I wear pants, dresses, sarongs, lederhosen, dashikis or anything else.  So, this body no longer feels like a prison... it feels the opportunity we needed to help our family grow.

An Awkward Place for a Awkward Question

So, like any new family, there are a great many things that we need to have for a new baby that we didn't know that we needed.  My Mom recently asked us if the people in the baby section at Target knew us by name yet... and the answer is probably. 

Amy carries babe in the Moby

We are getting used to strangers oogling at our cute little one.  I mean... lets face it, babies are cute, and ours is certainly no exception.  It has been interesting, because I am not used to being approached in public.  Amy usually wears Hayden in the Moby wrap, and many people ask us what she has in there, and want to see the cherub like face of our newborn.  We are proud parents and are happy to oblige.  A considerable amount of people who want to see Hayden's little face are old... and it seems like their likelihood to just assume I am the father of the baby is directly proportional to their age.  Old people, people in the deep south, foreign people and children are the most likely to assume I am male.  I think this is because they have a more black and white view of gender, and therefore the shade of grey where I live is mistaken for the more masculine of the two (because I perform male, I am assumed male.)

On a recent trip to a big baby box store, for cloth diapers (we didn't know that our one size fits all wouldn't fit an infant) we had a very interesting encounter with the lady in the checkout lane...  Of course it started off as many conversations do, with a "Hello Ladies" that I let slide (no need for a lengthy dialogue when I just want to get home to my rocking chair and baby snuggles).  Then the usual baby fawning, "Oh, my goodness, how old?"... and then the kicker, she looked directly at Amy and said, "Well I am assuming you carried?".....  SCREEEEEECHHH.... WIZZA WHAT?  Before I could say anything Amy exclaimed, "Yep!" and we finished out our transaction, and headed to the car.

I was shocked by the question, not the assumption.  We know everyone assumed Amy would be the carrier, and that is totally fine by me.  I certainly don't need any medals or trophies (okay, I love trophies, and a trophy would be nice, but I wouldn't ever show it to anyone...).  We especially knew once the baby was born everyone would think that Amy was the biological parent...  But I am not sure what the checkout lady was gaining by the knowledge of who carried. 

Me on the left circa 1983, H on the right.  Resemblance?

Now let me clarify...  her question doesn't make me mad.  I love people's natural curiosity, and think they are curious because it human nature.  What I am more interested in is what factors in our society make it an appropriate question (or make it an inappropriate questions.)  Part of me thinks that this was the clerks way of saying, "I recognize you as a couple, and am comfortable with your family enough to ask questions, rainbow power and see you at Pride."  This being the case, perhaps there were other things that she could have said to act in affirmation, but I can get down with that.  Then there is also the possibility, that she is a checkout clerk and has to find something to talk about... and that is something that people immediately wonder. 

I think the phrasing of the question is also interesting to me...  she didn't ask which one of us carried, she openly admits that she is assuming.  In a perfect world, maybe I would have pressed a little bit more and asked why that was her assumption...  but honestly, I know why, but it would have been interesting to hear it from her point of view.  We all learn about making assumptions... don't judge a book by its cover and all that, but assumptions are an important way to processing knowledge that we cannot know completely.  Without assumptions, we would be over run with details. 

Hayden agrees that is doesn't
matter.  She loves us just the same.

But more importantly, this exchange really affirmed for me how unimportant it is, who carried Hayden.  When Amy said, "Yup" I thought... yup.  She later told me, it wasn't lying... she does carry her.  She carries her around the house, and up and down the steps, and in and out of stores... so technically she does and did carry her.  But  more importantly, I don't feel a special connection to Hayden because she grew in my belly.  (I would be lying if I didn't acknowledge the fact that there was a fear that Amy and I would have different connections to her based on my biology... but it has been quite the opposite.)  Amy is her Mama, through and through.  Amy nurses her to sleep, and I find it just as wonderful to watch her snuggle with Amy, than to snuggle her myself.  I can't imagine Amy or myself loving her any more, or any less based on who was her biological parent.  So I don't care what people assume... because it doesn't matter.  The store clerk may as well have asked us what our favorite Chinese food was, or if we had ever been in a hot air balloon, because both of those questions are as relevant as the one she asked.  So, from this awkward exchange, we found something really powerful.  So thank you check-out clerk, your assumption led to our revelation.

The Non-Birth Story of Hayden Frances

Last shot of pregnant me... Taken at home
before heading to the hospital

For four days I have been obsessing over writing Hayden's birth story.  I have spent multiple hours alone in the office in my house...  writing and re-writing... re-reading, second guessing, checking, re-checking and fumbling with writers block, and self-consciousness.  I would walk away upset, frustrated, sad and confused.  Amy kept telling me to give myself a break, and stop over analyzing things.  But I was like a man possessed... trying to process and re-process and make sure that everything was coming out correctly.  Different phrasings would go over and over in my head, even when I wasn't at the computer.  Each time I came up with a the words to describe a moment of the story, the next moment I would be second guess the phrasing.  Don't get me wrong... I got a good portion of the narrative complete.  The beginning of the draft is a full 4 pages... and I barely made it past the point of us arriving at the hospital and being in triage.  The draft is unwieldy and long on details, which as I read back just seem so mundane... which is not how I remember the experience.  It was certainly anything other than mundane...

Thats when it I realized that this is not a story that I can share.  The details are too personal and complex.   The story of Hayden's birth is not about the details...  the time of day, the medications, the medical gauges of readiness for birth, what happened, and what didn't happen... the important parts of the stories are in the feelings evoked, and the obstacles overcome.  So here is the long and short of it...

I was in labor for over 24 hours...  I spent a lot of that in denial that it was actually happening.  I was afraid that acknoweldging it was actually happening would make it stop.  We had waited long enough for our baby, and to be honest my patience was shot...  I always thought that 24 hours wouldn't be that long to be in labor.  I was, afterall, a camp professional and had worked many many 24 hours days in my time.  However, this kind of 24 hours was a whole other world. 

Badass Midwife Pat after Hayden's
arrival

When our baby was born, I was surrounded by the perfect collection of people...  We worked with the most amazing group of midwives throughout our pregnancy.  Each one of them were impressive in their own ways, but there was one that I feel like I really gravitated towards (because of my need for bad-ass strong women to get my through tough times), and was so relieve to find out that it was Pat who on call when I went into labor.  The midwives work on a rotation, and although I really would have been really happy if ANY of them had been the one on call that night, I liked Pat the most from the very first time we met. She is the kind of lady that commands attention and respect, with a strength that you only find from an old soul. It is this type of personality that I need when faced with a challenge that seems insurmountable.  Someone who can show some tough love, but can be equally calming and gentle. Furthermore, I feel like we shared a lot of our journey with Pat. She was the first one that we breeched the trans-subject with in the Midwives office, and although she openly admitted that it wasn't something that she had an understanding of on a personal/emotional level, I feel like she was always open to making sure i felt as comfortable as possible...  and she was funny, in a slightly salty, slightly innappropriate grandma type of way, and if there is one thing that can make ANY situation better it is a good sense of humor and well timed joke.


Sharon (aka Mother Birth) with
Mama and Baba

I don't know how anyone gives birth without a doula.  I really don't.  Our Doula, Sharon, had become so much more than part of our birth, she was part of our journey, starting when we first met her in June.  When we were laboring at home, I felt such relief when Sharon arrived.  I have come to call her “Mother Birth” (only in my own head) because she embodies all the strength of a mother taking care of a scared child... without the part of a mother who cries for herself when her child is in pain.  I looked to her for strength and calmness and confidence, and each time was met with exactly what I needed.  We had found Sharon on the suggestion of multiple friends, and she helped us in many more ways than we could have ever expected. Sharon helped me let go of a lot of fear that I had pent up not only around birthing, but around who I was as a person, and how I was perceived in the world.


These two are just meant to be

And of course Amy was there...  There is no other person on this planet that I would have wanted to take on this trip with me.  Amy exuded strength when I couldn't and acted like my own private cheering section when I needed it.  She held my hand, until I almost broke hers, and bore witness to my fear in a way that calmed and comforted me moment by moment.  When I was tapped out, and thought I couldn't take anymore, I would look straight into her eyes and without words I would be ready to give it just a little bit more.  Obviously, every part of me wanted this baby, but when I thought about our birth, the most motivating force was the moment that Amy got to hold our baby for the first time.  I couldn't wait to give her that gift... and this image gave me the strength to continue, in the face of fear and exhaustion.

Bringing our baby into this world was the hardest thing I have ever done... physically, spiritually and emotionally, and there were a great many things that surprised me about the process.  I was surprised to find that I had very little concern surrounding my gender identity during birthing.  I feel like I went to a place where my body became very functional...  it was there to do a job (a very impotant, job...) and it didn't matter if I identified as male, female, neither, a snowman, a unicorn or anything else.  The body, carrying out a vital function of creating life, had taken over, and anything other than the functions of that process seemed tertiary and unimportant.  There was something so primal and natural about it that it completely superceeded any necessity for me to feel male or female or anywhere in between.  (Now that being said, I was lucky to have had an amazing hospital experience, where everyone was understanding of my feelings, did their damnedest to use my preferred pronouns and worked hard to make us feel comfortable.) 

I was also surprised at the physicality of giving birth.  I consider myself a pretty decent athlete... I mean, I did survive Division 1 Soccer Pre-Season in the 100 degree heat of a South Carolina summer... and have completed 2 half marathons in recent history...  But there is no physical event I have EVER participated in that even holds a candle to giving birth.  I pushed for two and a half hours (which is coincidentally exactly how long it takes me to run a half marathon, and part of me thinks that if it had been any longer than that I would have just refused to continue.)  We listened to my favorite running playlist (and I distinctly remeber being worried that there was cussing in some of the songs, and maybe it would offend someone in the room...  legitimate worry ama right?)  There were certainly moments I was glad that I had done squats throughout my pregnancy, because those muscles came in handy.  At some point, it was decided that I would hold one end of sheet, while someone would hold the other side of a sheet, and when pushing I would pull as hard as I could on my end, and the person on the other end would do the same (you know like tug-a-war). I think this really helped me focus my energy.  Of all of the many body parts I planned on being sore the day after giving birth, my deltoids were not on the list.  But when I woke up the next morning it felt like I had done multiple sets of dumbell lateral raises, with weights that were way out of my class.  (Sharon, who ended up at the other end of the sheet, said she was also very sore, so I must have done my job quite well.) 

But of everything that happened, I was surprised at how strong I felt afterwards.  Because I never had planned to get pregnant or give birth, I had given very little thought to what my "magical birth" would be like.  I certainly didn't plan for this process to affect me the way it did.  When Amy and I decided I would carry our first child, it was a decision made out of necessity.  So when I thought about our "magical birth" it would be one that, simply put, ended in us having a baby.  But if I had dreamed up my version of a "magical birth" this would have been it.  I have to admit, I spent the last hour of pushing convinced that it just wasn't going to happen.  I was scared, I wanted to stop, and I was convinced that I couldn't do it.  I was reassured by everyone present, that I indeed could do it.  Trying to look tough, or macho, or even "under control" was completely out the window.  I think for once in my life, letting myself be completely vulnerable brought me more strength than I ever imagined.


Kind of similiar to the first
view I had of our baby girl

By the end, I was so exhausted that I could hardly stay awake. Between contractions, I would close my eyes... I can't say that I was sleeping, but I certainly wasn't alert or awake.  As we neared the point of Hayden actually making her appearance, someone asked if I wanted to watch in the mirror.  Having contemplated this when writing our birth plan, I had thought...  "GROSS... YUCK... WEIRD... NO WAY!" but in that moment, in that state of really being witness to myself and the present, I did want to watch.... and I have to say it was one of the most amazing things I have ever seen.  I mean, for someone who still routinely uses the term "downstairs" when talking about their private parts and for 28 years having disregarded anything downstairs related, this was a pretty big deal.  Again, I think it was this willingness to be vulnerable that stayed my hand and got me through those final moments.  Also, seeing Hayden's head get closer and closer to its final emergence was a pretty amazing motivator.

I do wish I could share more details from the moment that Hayden finally came into the world... but it was such a blur of emotion that I am not at all sure what happened.  I know she was immediately put on my chest... and I remember screaming out of excitement that our baby had finally come and this wasn't all just a dream, and also out of relief that I had done it  (now when I say screaming I mean like really screaming... like going down the first hill of a rollercoaster screaming)!  But beside my primordial Xena Warrior Princess yelling, the rest of this memory is gone.  I told Amy I like to think that maybe my mind has saved the memory for if there is ever a time that I need a really powerful memory to give me strength... maybe then I will be able to recall it in full detail.


Hayden... working on "pinking up"

Everything was happening so fast. My next memory was them taking Hayden away because she wasn't crying. Amy later told me she was born with a double nuchal cord. I remember looking over at Amy, and all the sudden there were several people in the room. Amy looked scared, and that made me scared. Sharon kept telling us that it would be okay. Eventually I remember there being crying, and someone saying she had pinked up. What a weird phrase.... But it meant that she was okay, and for that I was greatful.  Then all the gratuitous scrub clad people left the room, as quickly as they came, and Amy was able to sit in the rocker with Hayden tucked snuggly into her sweatshirt, and it was every bit as beautiful as I could have ever imagined.

Although I don't remember what that whole series of events really looked like, I do remember the feeling of it.  I felt strength, exhaustion, disbelief that it had actually happened and an overwhelming feeling of love.  People say the first moment you see your child you will feel a love like nothing you have ever felt.  I have felt a lot of love in my life, and I can't say it was a better love than anything I have ever felt... but it was a different love.  The kind of love that you know is worth sacrificing everything for.  Everything we had worked for, and everything we had longed for, and all the nights we cried ourselves to sleep hoping for a baby that we felt  would never come, in that moment it all made sense.  All of the loss, and the hardship was worth it.  It was a completeness that I had never known.

So there you have it...  The moment that our lives changed forever...  Now the next part of our journey begins... and I for one, cannot wait to see what happens.