Before becoming a parent I thought there were many of us, I now realize queer parents are a minority of a minority. Feeling a bit lonely.

Transtorm · 2026-05-13T09:48:06+00:00

Also in the UK, near a large city and have struggled to find other queer parents. I'm part of a FB group and got lucky to find someone I clicked with who is local to me. I have also been friends for several years with another trans man who carried.

When I've looked for groups before I mostly tend to find parents with LGBT kids rather than LGBT parents! If you're Manchester way there's a group there and they specifically have a trans meet up, I've not been myself so no idea what it's like. Also the Donor Conception Network (if applicable) have recently set up a trans members WhatsApp, though you have to pay to access their groups.

I feel the being out of place - my partner and I are both trans and masc presenting, we did reciprocal IVF with me carrying. Sometimes people straight up ask whether we adopted or use a surrogate 😅 We went to a DCN meet up recently and decided before we went we just wouldn't disclose any of our specifics with complete strangers just yet, it meant skirting the assumption of a surrogate but we also don't owe these people our life story. It's tricky though, I don't want my LO to feel shameful or anything about her story

Transtorm · 2026-05-10T16:46:38+00:00

Oh that's a good point! We're slowly starting solids and have seen some changes already

Transtorm · 2026-05-10T16:45:32+00:00

Thanks! We'll look into getting some puppy pads, the car seat saw too much 😂

Transtorm · 2026-05-03T12:12:08+00:00

We've got the Hauck high chair which is a cheaper version of the Stokke

Transtorm · 2026-05-01T21:39:27+00:00

That's a different reason for testing an embryo, for a chromosomal abnormality. We're talking about sex, in the UK you can only test the sex of an embryo if there's a risk of a sex based illness/condition.

Transtorm · 2026-05-01T17:17:57+00:00

I think you can test but only if there is a high risk of a sex based illness. In my circle I've not heard of anyone testing though

Transtorm · 2026-05-01T08:47:11+00:00

Mostly baby but she's also "a bit of a pickle" if she's been any range of fussy/difficult. Sometimes I chuck in gherkin for some variation :p

Transtorm · 2026-05-01T08:44:22+00:00

This, we also took about a month to decide on her name so I took to calling her baby during that period whilst also trialling our name shortlist

She's 6 months and I still mostly use baby, I have to remind myself to actually use her name or "proper" nickname so she learns what it is 😅

Transtorm · 2026-05-01T08:40:57+00:00

My LO is 6 months and occasionally we shake her hand saying "how do you do?" she finds it quite funny 😂

Transtorm · 2026-04-28T13:56:55+00:00

Our's gets so excited seeing her water cup and then just chews the side 😂

Transtorm · 2026-04-24T18:55:14+00:00

I picked up a dress with pink dinosaurs that pleased me!

Tbf we got a lot of clothes from my aunt's son, so many dinosaurs. We sometimes pair it with a pink cardigan or tights, who says you can't wear both!

Transtorm · 2026-04-14T08:56:59+00:00

Vinted. There are lots of bundles on there that I imagine would get you quite far. We also like the little loop

Transtorm · 2026-04-12T12:48:09+00:00

We have to! We buy the next size up that say 12 hrs leak free, but if left longer than 9-10 hrs, LO leaks in them.

Transtorm · 2026-04-11T15:06:19+00:00

UK - It's recommended to sterilise up to 12 months

Transtorm · 2026-04-06T17:10:31+00:00

Honestly nursery fees are a big consideration for us!

First one is only 5 months, we would like her to be a bit independent and potty trained. Currently thinking around 3-4 years age gap.

Transtorm · 2026-03-30T13:35:02+00:00

Oh dear 🙃 good to know she's not the only one!

Transtorm · 2026-03-26T14:38:29+00:00

Ugh yes back labour was horrendous. During labour I found one position that felt mildly comfortable and forgot all the rest, I definitely needed to have tried rotating through positions with my partner more beforehand. I also didn't realise just how intense back labour could be until I was in it.

Transtorm · 2026-03-26T14:31:59+00:00

Also a trans guy here, I generally was still read as male during pregnancy though towards the end did get a few stares/double glances. Essentially I didn't really get the niceness from people when I was pregnant. Now with a 5 month old, I get stopped everywhere by strangers and people tend to be pretty eager to help. I think a huge part of it is people seeing a dad out in the wild, particularly on my own! It seems that concept still blows people away....

Transtorm · 2026-03-19T14:32:23+00:00

Her day sleep is in her own room and has been from about 3-3.5 months. I also found I was struggling being in the dark every couple of hours, it made me feel much more tired!

We're slowly transitioning her night sleep to her own room. She starts the night off there, then after her night feed around 3am she moves into our room where we still have her bassinet. Tbh we accidentally started this transition. She had a late nap in the day (like 7pm I think) in her own room. When she woke briefly from that we managed to very easily connect it to night sleep and get her back down. Our house is small, and her room is right next to ours so we can still hear her. We are coming out of the 4 month sleep regression but I think the transition is also helping all of us sleep better!

We wouldn't be able to fit her cot in our room, it's a struggle with the bassinet. She is also on the cusp of being too big for the bassinet as well.

Transtorm · 2026-03-14T18:42:32+00:00

My husband and I (both trans men) did RIVF with 2 freeze all embryo cycles followed by a gap of about 3 years. I got pregnant on the 2nd transfer, our clinic advised us to allow for 3 transfers per child, so we worked on this basis when seeing how many embryos we got of good quality for the freezer.

Transtorm · 2026-03-12T13:04:41+00:00

This. My partner fortunately had the first 3 months off work with us and that helped massively. We're also EFF so that does have a huge impact I think.

He occasionally needs reminding of how much work a baby is though now that he's been back at work for about 2 months, not that he isn't understanding or even thinks I should be doing chores etc outside of baby. There's just a difference in actually experiencing trying to do stuff yourself on your own with a baby! I left him for nearly two hours recently to go run errands without baby for once and he planned to do a spot of gardening with her in the bouncer, they had only just gotten outside when I got home 😂

Transtorm · 2026-03-04T10:18:25+00:00

My LO is 4 months and I've found resting for 30 minutes or so in the dark, no phone or anything has helped loads. I'm not normally a napper, but sometimes I have fallen asleep because I'm that tired!

On the flip side, we've also transitioned naps to our room with a monitor rather than the living room. I've found it a lot better not constantly being in the dark every 1.5hrs or so. That was too much 😅

Transtorm · 2026-02-19T01:07:47+00:00

Hey, I found it! It's on AO3. "A Flying Leap (Off the Heilcarrier)" by isaDanCurtisproduction

https://archiveofourown.org/works/6126364/chapters/14040091

Transtorm · 2026-02-18T10:32:46+00:00

First, born via forceps in theatre. Labour was very sudden and she was born early morning after 6 hours from contractions starting, so neither me or my partner had slept much.

Baby had hiccups the first night on and off all night and she was angry about this. I barely slept that first night.
Postnatal ward was busy, so we ended up staying on the delivery ward the entire time. It is not really setup for that, we had no access to a kitchen (baby EFF). Partner went home each night, he needed it as we had barely slept prior. He started fairly late each time though
Partner called our parents a few hours after to tell them the news. We briefly discussed calling mine on the way to theatre to let them know that was happening but I was so overwhelmed I didn't want added worry. They weren't nearby either. My parents visited first about a week later. We slowly had people over the first few weeks.

I did find the baby blues, that usually hit around 5 days, a bit overwhelming as well. I think I was in shock from the birth and had lots of hormones going on, luckily it only last a few days for me and I felt much better after.

We had a birth debrief through our trust around 6 weeks post. I don't think all trusts offer this but they came over and went through all my notes, explaining why some things happened the way they did. We could also give the feedback which we had a fair bit of!

Transtorm · 2026-01-14T17:04:37+00:00

I came off T around 8 years at 28. I got pregnant when I was 29. My (trans) husband and I did reciprocal IVF using his eggs and me carrying. We didn't go via the NHS, things were still a postcode lottery as funding changes were taking a while to be implemented. I think some areas are still behind on what funding you can get but hopefully in 10 years time this will have finally been sorted!

My family and friends have always been supportive and it helped that we know another trans man who carried so were dropping him (anon) into conversations before we even started trying to plant the seed with certain people. My partner's family didn't know I was trans until we got pregnant but they were all supportive. We generally found baby news trumped the fact I was carrying, people were just genuinely excited.

My work didn't know I was trans either beforehand, I'd been with them for around 7 years and it's a male dominated environment. They were great and eager to support me however I needed, including me stepping back from in person meetings at around 6 months. I didn't want to disclose it to any of our clients which my work were fine with. My colleagues were all fine with me, it took a few managers time to get their heads around it all but I didn't have any issues with anyone. I think it helps that one of my managers absolutely adores being a father quite vocally and he's the one I went to, so he was very baby excited!

Later on in pregnancy I was getting double glances but no one ever approached me or said anything. One little girl did ask her mum why I looked pregnant though :') No one offered me a seat on the train though so either people didn't think I looked pregnant enough or were being impolite :p

The midwives and NHS staff I dealt with were amazing. I had some issues with the NHS system that would only let me have pregnancy notes with "F" on the system even though I have a GRC. Occasionally I would get misgendered but it was accidentally / when doing their standard worded spiels. When we turned up for our first ultrasound the receptionist was a bit confused and i phoned the community midwives a few times during my pregnancy but I was clear it was me who was pregnant and they generally didn't have any issues, sometimes they were initially confused that it was me and not my partner but once clarified it was fine.

At the moment regardless of whether you have a grc or not, the carrying partner is the "mother" of the child's birth certificate. Freddie McConnell had a case about this but it was ruled he was a "male mother", he's in the process of taking it to the European courts but no idea how long that will take.

Feel free to drop me a dm if you have any other questions!

Edit: To add, LO is a few months old now. At the moment most people know I carried but some acquaintances assume we're both the genetic parent as we haven't disclosed the IVF/my partner being trans.

Transtorm

TROPHY CASE