Planning our Family

Planning a family. 

We started looking into ways to have a family, firstly we looked at adoption however at first because we did not have our own place we were told that they will not even start the process until we have a spare bedroom and our own stable place to live. Our local council also told us that most of the children who needed homes are all over 5 and mostly teenagers, Although we would take on a child who needs a home for our first child we really wanted to have a young child to build that bond and having experience as a parent from birth. 

Also when speaking to someone on the phone at the local council after stating we were a trans couple they were very unsure and started to make what we felt as excuses, like oh well you are very young, or you should have life experience first and complete your transition before we would place a child in your care. This is discrimination and as soon as that was said we put the phone down. We decided that the local council was not the way to go. 

We then had a long talk and think about what we wanted and how we could have our family we longed to have. 

We did look into other organisations as well as surrogacy however, it just was not for us. Surrogacy was expensive and risky because of the surrogate having all rights until birth, then we would then have to go through the processes to adopt the child. 

Ben had also wanted his own child but being Trans and having hormones, he thought that it would not be a possibility. However with more trans people now having children and it being in the media, it was something we were able to look more into and got a lot of support. So in August Ben decided to come off hormones to try for a baby.

We spoke to the gender clinic about this, to get there expert advise and support, which Dr Seal was so supportive and offered to help us by seeing Ben as an outpatient at the local hospital. We have close friends who are both trans man and one of them carried their daughter, Although he was not on hormones, he was an inspiration to us and gave us a lot of hope that we could have a baby. They gave us lots of advise and we had been there throughout his pregnancy so, they were both amazing inspiration and great dads. He also blogs so go check his blog out (Papihadababy). 

We started our search for a sperm donor on Facebook sites. Someone Ben knew offered to help us and be a donor, he was young and single and healthy which we took up his offer and where overcome by this kindness. We all sat down to talk about how it would happen, when we were likely to be able to start donors and the rights of the child also that he wanted to have no contact. We were all very happy with this. 

However as time went on and it started to come closer to us being ready to start he distanced himself, he stopped replying to messages and when we saw him about, he would say he was still up for helping but, he works a lot and had some family stuff going on he just did not have much free time. 

Ben had to wait after stopping hormones until his cycles come back and he started to ovulating again, we were told by specialist that it could take up to 6 months, then longer before ovulation was regular to be able to conceive. Therefore we were prepared it would possible take a long time. Then in January Ben got his first Shark week. (Trans term for menstruation) only 5 months after stopping. So we started tracking his ovulation by taking test everyday after his shark week, additionally we kept a track in the diary and on an app called Clue. This help us determined when he was ovulating, 

Because our friend was distant and had a lot going on we decided to look for a new donor online, we had some genuine ones unfortunately, they were busy when we would have needed them, but we also have a lot of donor who were pushing for NI (Natural insemination: sex) which as a couple we do not agree with. We wanted AI (artificial home insemination). We had donors that said they would help but on the day there were meant to met us or a few days before would block us and just not turn up. 

This left us very dishearten and frustrated, we lost hope that we would find a good trusting donor. Lucky we had each other and great friends to support us and keep us going. So we kept on searching and dreaming about our family.