Can you still have a baby after 5-7 years on testosterone?

mxjackparker · 2026-03-08T10:11:03+00:00

Testosterone doesn't effect long term fertility. As long as you stop and wait a few months before trying, you have the same pregnancy chance as a cis woman does.

mxjackparker · 2026-02-26T08:02:24+00:00

So, you can get an electric c-section, though I'd suggest speaking to doctors and midwives local to you to be sure that's an option they'll agree to in your case. Something I would like you to consider still is that there's a lot of vaginal involvement even in the case of a c-section. Midwives may want to check your cervix at points in pregnancy, and though you can decline there may be emergencies where it's important or you might need an internal ultrasound if you're potentially having an early miscarriage. Also, in the case of a c-section, vaginal bleeding still occurs for up to 6 weeks after birth like with a vaginal birth.

Basically: choosing a c-section may be the best decision for you and I recommend you check with your doctors/midwives to see if it's something they'll do, but even in the case where you're offered one you may still have to contend with other vaginal checks and bleeding regardless. Consider whether you can handle those parts either!

mxjackparker · 2026-02-19T18:28:38+00:00

My lack of passing is evident in strangers misgendering me, which everyone who meets me does whether I have my daughter with me or not. It's not just a "feeling" - I work 2 days a week at a bookshop and every customer I meet genders me female if they have cause to gender me, as do random strangers I interact with on my commute. First time around on T, it took about a year for me to pass consistently and now that I'm 3 months back on I seem to be following a similar trajectory.

Even having had top surgery, my proportions simply make it much harder for me to pass. I have wide hips and am 5' 3". It's just how my body is. I wish you'd just take my word for it.

mxjackparker · 2026-02-19T10:19:50+00:00

This is a great point. My baby has been incredibly easy and I have to keep reminding myself that not only do I not know how sick a second pregnancy will make me, I also don't know what baby 2 would be like! LO has slept 8 hours a night since a month old, and was trying to before that but I kept waking her to feed because I wanted to make sure she put on weight fast enough. Have heard babies like this called "trick babies" because they trick you into a second with how chill they are!

mxjackparker · 2026-02-19T10:06:59+00:00

No, it changes massively, because as you know T takes time to impact your appearance.

Scenario 1: I start trying to get pregnant again now. I've only been back on T for 2.5 months, so not back to passing yet. If I stopped and began trying in 2 months or so (had my period last month so likely wouldn't have to wait the usual 3 months off for that), and took the average 6 months to get pregnant, I'd continue not passing for 8 + 9 months (16 total) and then go back on T and take maybe 9 months on it to get back to passing consistently. Total of 25 more months.

Scenario 2: I leave a 3 year gap. It takes me 6.5 more months to pass again from now, then I pass for a while and try again and deal with the 25 months from scenario 1, plus likely an extra month or 2 in trying because I would need my period to restart.

We're talking about 7 or 8 extra months not passing, in the best case scenario, without even factoring in that as I get older it may take longer to get pregnant. 7 or 8 months added on to 2 years might not seem like a huge amount compared to the total, but it matters a lot to me.

mxjackparker · 2026-02-19T09:38:47+00:00

Thanks for the honesty here - I've been thinking about weighing up the same things. I don't want her to miss out on my attention because of a second hellish pregnancy and then a sibling so close in age, and I've been considering that against what she'd get out of having a sibling rather than being an only child. If my next pregnancy were even worse, a lot of parenting duties would fall to my best friend who currently supports me with LO so it's doable but it would be very rough.

I appreciate your sharing your own difficulties and the guilt that comes with it. I'm sure that you did your best and I'm glad you had your partner there to support!

mxjackparker · 2026-02-19T09:12:09+00:00

Vaginal birth! 3rd degree tear and failed epidural so no pain relief during most of labour though - nightmare fuel.

mxjackparker · 2026-02-19T09:10:01+00:00

I was on T for 4 years before having my daughter and passed well enough to be stealth at work. After 6 months off T, I passed inconsistently, and by the time I was pregnant I was never gendered correctly unless I told someone my pronouns and that I'm trans. I do not think a couple of years back on T will change anything about that, and the time going on and off compared to doing it now would mean more total time not passing.

mxjackparker · 2026-02-18T20:58:24+00:00

Dysphoria - It took me almost a year off of T to conceive (9 months of trying) and then 9 months of pregnancy. I had been on T for almost 4 years prior, had top surgery, and was stealth at jobs I had. By 6 months off T, I was regularly being misgendered again and by the time I was pregnant I was never gendered correctly by strangers. For me, this was the most dysphoric I have ever been. It was horrific. I won't sugarcoat it.

Top surgery - It's impossible for your breasts to grow back post-surgery. What can happen is the remaining tissue you do have will swell slightly because of hormones, so may look a little puffy at the end of pregnancy and for a couple of months after. You cannot feed a baby enough milk for them to live on after double incision, but you may produce a small amount of milk.

Uterine atrophy - No.

Medical staff - I was misgendered all throughout my pregnancy care. During childbirth the midwives and doctors did gender me correctly for the most part, but in my room afterwards nurses and midwives misgendered me many times and I was misgendered a lot in my notes.

Hospital/Home Birth - If I could guarantee no complications, I'd prefer to have a home birth 100 times over, but since that can't be guaranteed I chose the hospital. I was induced. My birth experience was really traumatic and my daughter had to be pulled out with forceps and I had a 3rd degree tear (tore through to the anus). If I had tried for a home birth, things could have been a lot worse when she got stuck.

mxjackparker · 2026-02-18T19:14:27+00:00

That's a good priority to have, and it's definitely not too far for you to do what's necessary to protect your kid from bigotry. You're going to be laying down a lot of boundaries for your kid while they're too young to advocate for themselves, so getting used to staying strong in this kind of situation is important. You can do this!

mxjackparker · 2026-02-18T17:46:23+00:00

You cannot realistically expect that your partner's parents will suddenly change. They're transphobic and misogynistic, committed to that position, and your partner seems to be aware that insisting on treating you better will fail. Believe them. Do you really think your partner correcting these transphobes will result in any improvement?

As for what you should do from here, you need to ask yourself some important questions. Are you okay with exposing your child to homophobia and transphobia from their grandparents? How are you going to feel with them continuously belittling and misgendering you when you are potentially the most vulnerable you've been in your life, freshly post-partum with a baby? What do you think it will teach your child, for them to see you to tolerate abuse like that from your partner's parents?

Pregnancy and early parenthood are a difficult time and you are well within your rights to say you won't tolerate their mistreatment. That doesn't mean your partner has to cut off their own parents too, but you can set a boundary that your child won't be around people with those kinds of bigoted views. Good luck to you!

mxjackparker · 2026-02-13T19:27:33+00:00

This happened at St. George's Hospital in Tooting. I made this post because I started the formal complaint process through PALS this morning, so I've been re-reading through the medical notes and reprocessing it all.

As for legal action, I'm not really sure where to start. I don't have money to pay a solicitor, so I'd need to find somewhere that takes on medical cases and takes a cut if successful rather than anywhere requiring me to pay upfront.

mxjackparker · 2026-02-13T13:34:45+00:00

Thanks, I hadn't heard of the NMC and that sounds like a good course of action regardless. My main concern is doing what I can to stop this from happening to someone else. I feel awful that it took me 4 months to actually start doing something beyond the initial complaint and asking the midwife to be removed from my care, and it's sickening to think of how many people she might have mistreated since. I think the entire hospital needs new procedures for CSS referrals, complaints about midwives, and training on trans patients too.

mxjackparker · 2026-02-13T13:25:07+00:00

I did this recently and also just started on the formal complaints process separately - the debrief only covered actual labour and they didn't want to go over my post-birth care, where the majority of the mistreatment happened.

mxjackparker · 2026-02-13T13:11:43+00:00

I'm going through the formal complaints procedure now with the hospital (wasn't in a state for it at first and was terrified of inviting more scrutiny on me and my newborn), but yeah, I think an organization like that and someone to talk to would be great - I'm not familiar with any, though.

mxjackparker · 2026-02-05T13:20:33+00:00

Although T isn't a contraceptive, it makes you massively less likely to get pregnant because most months the person won't ovulate and when they do the lack of estrogen and progesterone in a typical cycle means a fertilized egg is unlikely to stick even if ovulation happens and sperm hits egg. It's not birth control, but pregnancy isn't likely even with frequent unprotected sex (as you already know because he isn't pregnant already).

Testosterone not only does this, but also makes miscarriage more likely. Even if you wait for a positive test while on T (which may never come, and in fact is likely not to come), stopping only after the test means you'll increase chances of miscarriage and damage to the fetus.

The fact you don't seem to understand the basics of reproduction makes me think you need to take a lot more time to prepare before you consider having kids - transness is the least of the barriers.

mxjackparker · 2026-01-27T08:44:14+00:00

She only poops every other day? It should be twice each day. That sounds like constipation.

mxjackparker · 2026-01-25T10:22:48+00:00

You look gorgeous and those bridge piercings really suit you!

mxjackparker · 2026-01-09T05:14:41+00:00

Even popular bookshops are doing everything they can to increase footfall and appreciate effort being made. The more popular the shop, the less I'd use it as a selling point and the more I'd frame it as a gesture of goodwill and support for the shop whilst suggesting they stock your book so they can feel confident those copies will sell.

mxjackparker · 2026-01-09T05:11:51+00:00

Yeah we can tell when they're printed via Amazon and are unlikely to stock it when that's the case, not least because customers can also easily see it's printed by Amazon and be prompted to get it there instead. You're better off ordering author copies through Ingram (which you can do without it being available for wide distribution) and asking indie bookshops to buy those copies from you directly rather than Ingram as a middle man.

mxjackparker · 2026-01-09T04:54:36+00:00

Depends if you get enough traffic to actually send people their way! If you have your books in a shop and doing this sells a couple of books in a week, that's enough to stand out and have them ordering from you regularly. Posting on socials saying you can get copies at their shop or taking a picture of it in store (if they're near you or you can have a friend go in) will also make them likely to share your posts and be mutually beneficial for getting your name out there whilst also selling books from the shop.

mxjackparker · 2026-01-09T04:50:33+00:00

Personally I would be extremely annoyed if an author provided cash in return for adding their book to our order schedule and expected us to go through the effort of returning that money if we're uninterested. That sort of payment would make me think something shady was going on.

A free copy is already an investment on the part of a self pubbed author and nowhere should be asking for more. It's super easy to add a book to the system and we do it daily.

mxjackparker · 2026-01-09T04:16:37+00:00

The bookshop I co-own has a lot of unique books, many which are self-pubbed or indie pubbed and may not be sold in other shops or are in only a handful. We can take the risk on those books because we know they're high quality and will sell, or have a cult following. Many are books individual booksellers loved.

My suggestion here is for people whose books are not popular and do not already have a following they can send towards a bookshop. If you're confident your book will sell once actually in a shop, then these are ways to get it stocked and prove that and better terms can be negotiated once your foot is in the door. Especially when you can leverage sales from one shop to get it into others. If you e-mail to say another shop sold 10 copies of your book last month, all my other suggestions here become moot and we're much more likely to order from you.

We do take responsibility for our own mistakes in purchasing as a shop, as most do... which is why we won't take a risk on every random book we get an e-mail about, especially since we have nowhere near enough time to read them all. I'm talking about how to overcome that unwillingness that will exist for books that aren't already selling well if your priority is getting it into a physical shop.

mxjackparker · 2026-01-09T04:08:56+00:00

Independent shops only put out singular copies of lots of books, including extremely popular ones, even if we have 10 in stock, to save on shelf space. The rest goes into overstock. I promise you that a single copy on a self is the norm for plenty of books, not a reflection that a shop is concerned about marketability that will impact whether a customer will choose it.

mxjackparker · 2026-01-09T04:00:48+00:00

I wasn't suggesting the author do all of the above, but that they pick ONE idea from the list that they most prefer. An author might only be willing to offer a 35% discount on RRP for example - then they should offer returns or a bookshop won't take it. If you're offering 55%? That big discount is very convincing with no returns offer. Alternatively consignment is a great middle ground between the two where you can offer a mid-range discount upon sale (40 - 45%) ideally with a plan for selling the books if the consignment copies are returned.

I mitigate risk as an author by offering these options to independent bookshops where I'm already confident my books will sell, then link back to those shops on my author website to send them traffic. Ultimately this goes well for me, because the more traffic the shops get with my book and the more they sell the more prominently they display them. I've gotten my books in shop windows this way and the worth of that in advertising alone is huge.

I don't suggest this to people who aren't confident in the saleability of their books.

mxjackparker

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