Hor(ror)mones

I have heard that living with a pregnant woman, many men actually develop pregnancy symptoms such as gaining weight, queeziness and mood swings themselves. Most men’s estrogen levels rise significantly when they are living with a pregnant partner.

Now I am (mostly) not a man, I consider myself emotionally extremely “in sync” with my wife and on top of that in general a highly sensitive person (I would go so far to call myself hyper-sensitive). And I have to tell you, am feeling slightly pregnant myself.

It started with a veeeeerrry late period last month. So late that we were even joking about the idea that some drops might have landed in the wrong place and that we might have two babies to deal with…
But then it came and I was (we were) very relieved.

The next thing was a one-time morning sickness escapade that came out of nowhere and completely shocked my system. Hanging over the toilet while my partner is not even showing any nausea, seemed surreal.

And then the raising estrogen levels: It is true! My hormones are having a party right now. And I don’t mean a nice sit-down dinner party… I don’t think that I have ever had PMS symptoms so horrific than this month (and this is just the beginning). I remember last time my partner was pregnant my menstrual cramps were out of control…

I am not necessarily unhappy about the closeness and about the physical effects the pregnancy has on me – after all it is going to be my child and I want to be able to feel it as much as I can. If I am not pregnant myself, I can at least sympathize – mentally and physically, right?

I certainly know that I can not even fathom the intensity of what my partner is going through but it is still really good to feel like I am part of this.

I just wish I had known about this phenomenon before it kicked in. I could have prepared much better. It completely threw me off and for the first time in my life my PMS-related “mood swings” (depression would be a more proper word) included a serious death wish.

So be prepared that you will not only watch your pregnant partner ride the roller coaster but that in a way you’re going to be right there with her.

And for the trans-men amongst you: Not that I could speak of experience, since I am not taking any hormones but you might want to re-consider your testosterone dose when you are living with a pregnant person. The estrogen is apparently (or so I have heard) affecting your testosterone levels pretty intensely and I have had a friend who (after talking to his doc of course) actually went on a higher dose during the first trimester of his wife’s pregnancy.

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Be your own role model

Hey, now this one is going out to all the dudes, the buddies and the bois, the butches and the trannies and mabye even the non-trans men who have motherly feelings and have a hard time giving them a place. Or a name. Or a reason to be here. I want to play a little game….

Scenario 1: If I was a non-trans woman and married to a non-trans man.
Who would be the mother and who would be the father?
I would be the mother and he would be the father, right?

Scenario 2: If I was a non-trans man and married to a non-trans woman.
Who would be the mother and who would be the father?
She would be the mother and I would be the father, right?

I might be ignorant, but this is mainly how it goes. And, hey if there are couples out there that do it differently, holler! I need to see you, I need to find you! I need to hear your experiences!!!!!

Scenario 3: If I was a trans man and married to a non-trans woman?
Who would be the mother and who would be the father?
I think that is up to the couple to figure out. Or even up to the kid to figure out what energies come from each of the parents, right? In my immediate community however I see a strong tendency to adapting the common roles of “mommy” for the non-trans woman and “daddy” for the trans man. Which to me honestly makes total sense because the word father translates into a masculine identity and might be easy for a lot of guys to take on. Whether they also step into the “role” of father is a whole new question and I will try to figure this one out later.

Scenario 4: If I was a non-trans and non-gender-variant woman and married to a non-trans woman?
Mother? Both….? Father? Both? None? I know a lot of lesbian couples who have setups where one is Mommy and the other is Maman or Mommy and Mama or Mama and Cordi or…. the list goes on. I love the creativity that folx come up with!

Scenario 5: If I was a non-trans but very gender-variant being and married to a non-trans woman?
This is where we come close to my/our setup and even after thinking about it for so many years I am still at a loss. I wish I could just look at the world and see how other people do it, but all I can see is someone a little too masculine to identify with or a little too little masculine to identify with. Well… actually I don’t even want to quantify: Simply a little too different for me to identify with – is that less offensive? I ask myself: Can I be all and both and none and friend and sister, brother, mommy, daddy, everything at the same time? And the answer comes easily: Yes, dear you can be all of this. Even my sister who is a single mom and mainly identifies female (although she has a big part male turkish youth in her, she says) tells me that she is dad and mom to her son. What my head and my sister and many other people I’ve talked about for that matter say: Yes, dear, no problem. You just have to be who you are and the energy will come flowing out of you as it does.

Wow. So easy? That’s great! Unfortunately – although I truly believe that what they’re saying is true – it is still hard for me to be calm about this. It is still hard to know whether my part in being a parent is valid (and constant) enough to matter. I am dealing with a good portion of internalized homophobia directly taken in from my parents. And I think the words from my mother stick with me and are a dagger in my side everytime I think about my role as a parent. If you hear the words: “I do not think that 2 women should have children, because a child needs a man in the house and they will never be able to provide the kid with what it needs” over and over and over again… although you don’t believe them and although you know that love and compassion are way more important than anything else. Although you know that you will go your own way…. those words stick with you.

And those words are poisoning my thoughts and my ability to see my own ability to love and raise a child – as daddy, mommy, mami, papi, phoenix, mommy-pop or whatever else we will come up with.

I realize that I am not able to create my own role-model because the role-model my mother planted into me is: You will never live up a real man and you shouldn’t have children if you get yourself the help of a man in the house. Wow. This is hitting me deep right now – just writing about this and remembering the last time I heard those words… about 1 month before I moved to San Francisco to start my new life.

The last words about queer families (when I told her the first time that we were pregnant) my mother said to me was: Well, you know what I think about that. I don’t even want to tell her that we are going to have a child in April.

So if you have any ideas for good names that can describe the true soul of somebody in between genders, please comment on this post! I heard mamapaps which I looooooved, but I kinda want to come up with my own reclaiming I-can-be-the-man-in-the-house-if-I-want-to-but-I-don’t-need-to-be-a-man-todo-this-name…. thanx

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Our first try…

… in January 2009 ended very sadly in a blighted ovum. Look it up here, folx – I really don’t want to explain it. After the first shock of actually being pregnant and the first shock of actually having some cramps and bleedings, my wife asked me to go to the hospital with her at a relatively early stage (I think it was the 3rd or 4th day after we had found out. This was probably a big mistake, because although the people at SF General were extremely sweet, friendly and open, we got sucked into a spiral of weekly ultra sounds for medical reasons. I will spare you the details here.

So every Tuesday at 4:45pm we rushed to M5 at SF General and were sitting (and lying spread eagle) in these tiny rooms where they perform the ultrasounds. Every Tuesday for about 4-5 weeks we stared at the screens and saw strange little black and white dots. Every Tuesday we hoped for some clear information and every Tuesday we heard: “We see something, yes there is a little yolk sac, but we can not say anything yet, please come back next week”.

Those few weeks were torturous and we already had a strong feeling that it would have been easier to just wait for the 9th or 10th week until you can be sure to see something. In week 9 we finally got one technician to say “That doesn’t look like it’s living here, I can’t see anything” and we all (our dear friend C was with us) cried and let go of some stress and the loss that we’ve all been kind of expecting.

I will spare you the rest of the procedure. Needless to say that it was difficult and sad to let go of something that you’ve been hoping and wishing for for so long. What I do want to share though is the reaction of somebody who I work with and who quite know what was going on. He contacted me via skype – our main tool of communication in the office) and he usually presents himself (and probably thinks of himself as) as the guru of compassionate buddhist mindful communication… but read for yourself, I will comment below:

Can you imagine why I might feel really really called to writing this blog when around us so many people still do not understand the fineries of emotional support? Let me break this down for you:

• The first question (okay he had the decency to say sorry and put some skype smilies in there) was “Who was the father”
• The second comment after that was: cool! with those supercool stupid smileys behind it

And that was the end of this conversation. Let me think. How would you interpret this? I am just saying: Dude, when you feel loss then it doesn’t fucking matter how subversive you are! And mindful would be if you accepted me as the dad without even asking.

But I guess we have still a long way to go, right? Let’s start!

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Anyone ever…

… thought about leaving your partner during pregnancy? I mean for real?

Folx, don’t get me wrong. I’ve never ever thought about this until I’m here now. I’ve been one of the loudest yellers condemning the fathers you hear about who leave their pregnant partners and leave those poor women/people by themselves with the baby. I have condemned this with my own words, my own anger, my own feminism!

And now I am sitting here and am trying to figure out whether it’s the hormones, the extra stress, or the setup at whole. Everything seems stronger, harder, more difficult during this time and I sometimes just don’t know how to hold it all. Or actually: I just know that I can not hold it all.

It may sound really hard and selfish, but although I am not the parent growing organs and carrying a baby-bud in my belly, I am at my energy’s end just as my wife is. Everything (and I mean everything you can imagine that would define a household) seems to depend on my well-being and energy. If I don’t function then we won’t be able to pay the rent – and this is just the beginning. What is coming our way scares me as much as it makes me jump in joy.

The stress level and the fear of existence creates a lot of tension and sometimes I can’t hold it anymore. I get really easily angry. When I’m angry, I get extremely impatient and I have this dangerous frown on my forehead – almost a burning Harry Potter scar.

I also do things about 15 times faster than normal and rush through the house like a Tasmanian Devil. The reason I am doing this is because I think that I should be using this extra energy to get more things done in less time so I can catch up with our situation, so I can work more, eat less, be there for my wife more, be there for myself less…. do more, feel less…. kaboooooooooooooooom! As soon as I kaboom, everything is in ashes. I need help, I need support, I need somebody to a) pick me back up and b) do the things that I can’t be doing.

But my pregnant partner can not pick up here. It almost seems like she is too scared to be close to a maniac like me (who has been haunting the house for too many hours) and like she is too tired/weak/pregnant/hormone overloaded to do the jobs that I had taken on before I broke down. This is the perfect world for the next KABOOOM – The relationship explosion. Go figure. An explosion which just makes me want to run and leave it all behind.

How do I get a good balance int this without leaving my family-to-be? I really don’t feel like “those husbands that just left their family while she was pregnant”. I don’t even feel like a husband. Or at least not all the time.

Maybe it’s time for me to open up from the hetero-normative patriarchal point-of-view to a new one: Instead of seeing a pregnant women as to-be-protected and a husband/father-to-be as to protect and provide… more like: This is a fucking team effort, people and we all have our part in this. We have beautiful burdens to bear, not-so-beautiful burdens as well, we have different responsibilities and we must support each other. EACH OTHER! How can I ask for help in this situation when I need it? How can me asking for help be perceived as valid and not as “you can not be there for your wife, you should suck it up right now”. I have not really made the experience that I am in the position to ask for help.

Has any other father, co-parent or mother ever felt this way and not been able to have a voice? Have you ever been stuck in the strong desire to do ANYthing and EVERYthing for your wife but simply collapsing on the way? Have you ever felt enormous guilt around not being able to be available all the time?

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Gender Role Confusion

I feel slightly in between. I always have.

It’s pretty cool most of the time and I intend to stay that way!!! It’s also pretty hard at times because you tend to see things from all angles and are – well – in between chairs. This is true for my life at large and far exceeds my gender. And boy, do I love the play and the balance with this in-between thing. It gives me the feeling of foresight and wisdom and simply an idea of the world as it is. There is not black and white, there is not right or wrong, there is just us – as individual and right and valid as we all are.

And as far as my gender identity is concerned.. I guess I don’t care whether you call me boy or girl, you can choose which pronoun you want to use for me, as I take pride in both being a girl-born-girl AND a tomboy-born-boi! It’s all cool, it’s all great… as long as the dark (not so) subtle forces of the mainstream gender roles don’t creep up and make me all confused.

Now that we are embarking on this magical exciting journey of having a child, now, all of a sudden I feel a push here and a pull there and I look around myself to identify the force behind that.

I try to find out what society has in place for me as the mommy-pop of an itty bitty unborn child and I see: Not much… If bad luck goes my way, I could get deported 4 months after my baby is born. Or I don’t have any say in the baby’s life/future etc.

Then I look around and see what my family and community offers me as the mommy-pop and I see so much beauty, so much responsibility, so much joy and love and hope.

And then the confusion kicks in… Can I keep my masculinity and still embark on the journey of motherhood? Or is “motherhood” already taken by the pregnant mom, the biological mom, the breast feeding mom, the high femme? I strongly feel the different vibes of motherhood and fatherhood flowing through my body and I am extremely afraid that I will have to compromise.

Again – I am afraid to have to fight against a perceived role a perceived “responsibility” that will be put on me. Or more accurate: I am honestly afraid that the hetero-normative pull is so strong, that I don’t have the strength to find my own/our own way of parenting.

I already find myself in the bread-winning and care-taking role and we haven’t even left the first trimester…

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So you want to be a parent?

I think before I can really get started on documenting my journey into queer parenthood, I need to share a few things with you. First I want to sum up the main reason why I want to write about my experiences and path here in this highly open arena. Let me start with a quote that I have read today and that pretty much summed it up for me:

Often queer parents-to-be feel they must be perfect before they parent, not only to provide the best for their children but also to prove to everyone who may wonder whether we can be excellent parents. This self-expectation of being 200 percent perfectcan reveal itself in various forms.

While I agree 100% with this quote (btw. from “The New Essential Guide to Lesbian Conception, PRegnancy and Birth”) I think that there are far more factors than simply our own pressure of proving something to society:

Mix the open and internalized homo-/transphobia with a good portion of co-dependency and serve it on a think layer of gender-queerness and confusion and you get me – Ze Phoenix.

I am exceptionally grateful for all the queer parents around us; our community creating more family, more love and more joy all around me. And I am really proud to be part of this gorgeous energy and love generating moment in history. And yet, there are enough thoughts and enough fear in me to fill pages and pages of journals and I am not willing anymore to feel isolated with my fears around being a parent and doing it all right.

What it comes down to is this:

1. How do we define our families?
2. Will I be – just because I am not necessarily all the way female – the breadwinning dad?
3. Will the fact that my partner is femme and I am boi define our roles in parenting?
4. Why didn’t I get pregnant?
5. Will I miss out on my life-experience if my partner is the mama?
6. What role other than the supporter do I play in all this?
7. Is this something that all fathers go through or does the fact that my body could carry a child make it harder?

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What is babycakes 2.0 about?

It is terribly hard to start. I have had the blog on babycakes for about 5 years now and never did I have anything *really important to share about. I shared my favourite videos, some interesting word games and had a collection of the best yoga studios I’ve visited so far. Over the past few months there’s been a pretty big shift and not only did I stop writing any entries into my blog, I also started looking for something deeper to “blog” about. Something that really is mine, my world and my work.

Since words are not really my area of creativity, writing doesn’t come too easy to me. Let alone the fact that I am german and have a hard time feeling comfortable writing in a foreign language.

In the beginning of the year I stepped into a few pretty intense moments and pieces of my life that were the perfect stuff to write about, but I felt way too self-conscious to spill my guts out to so many people who know my very well or at least know very well who I am.

Last night though, I finally had the epiphany… while I was lying in bed, crying over so many things that were going through my head, my heart and my body, my partner asked me what I could do about these feelings and how I could work with them instead of turning them against myself. I am going to start a *real blog. Something that is not only going to be cathartic for my own process but also a resource for people who are going through the same situations and emotions.

This is just the abstract, so let’s get started… Thank you for reading, commenting, sharing!

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