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Visibly Vibrant is a blog written by Dr. Kade Goepferd.

Navigating parenthood as a transgender man: Abe’s story

You don’t hear a lot about transgender parents, though they are part of almost 10% of LGBTQ families. I’ve shared my own experience as a queer and trans/non-binary parent, the experience of my kids and what it has felt like to navigate parenting outside the binary. And now I’ve invited my friend Abe to share his unique experience as a transgender parent.

As part of Abe’s story and his family’s journey, you’ll also read how this was a learning opportunity for us as a health care system. Our practices were not always ideal in giving them the best experience possible. But we learned and improved. So much so that Abe is now a member of our Children’s Minnesota Family Advisory Council, with whom we work to ensure all patients and families have the best experience possible.

In this world where we often don’t get a chance to sit down and have a conversation with others whose experience is outside our own, I am grateful to Abe for sharing his story with us and for continuing to advocate for inclusion for all patients and families in health care and beyond.

Abe’s words:

While I always knew I wanted to be a parent, how I was going to do so was unclear. Even before I came out as a transgender man, I had no desire to be pregnant. After coming out as transgender, parenthood felt even further out of reach. It would be many more years after starting hormone therapy with testosterone before I was ready to take a deep dive into my journey to parenthood. My partner and I explored the options that LGBTQ+ people currently have access to in becoming parents. Ultimately, we knew which paths we did not want to pursue, but a clear path still did not exist. With neither my partner nor I wanting to be pregnant, our journey was at a bit of a standstill. We decided that at a minimum we could do an egg retrieval to have at least one potential option available to us to have a biological child.

A last resort

Unfortunately, after multiple failed attempts at egg retrieval it seemed we were running out of options and money – in vitro fertilization (IVF) is expensive! We felt fortunate to have access to this option as we recognize many folks find IVF cost prohibitive. On our final attempt we were informed that again the protocol had failed. As a last resort, our fertility doctor acknowledged that while he understood this was not our wish, we could turn our IVF journey into an intrauterine insemination (IUI). Since I was the parent doing the egg retrieval, that meant I would potentially become pregnant as a transgender man. My partner and I had a big decision in front of us. We could put our journey to parenthood on permanent hold or we could give this a shot. After much consideration, we decided we would give parenthood one last chance. We moved forward with the IUI, with me becoming the parent who would potentially carry the pregnancy.

Twists and turns

It seemed that this time luck was on our side. On our first attempt at IUI, I was pregnant. After having socially and medically transitioned more than eight years ago, being a pregnant man was not once in my plans for my future. However, here I was on the journey to navigating life as a seahorse dad (birthing father). Our journey to parenthood was not without more twists and turns. Being pregnant was surprisingly the easier part of the journey. Baggier clothes and extra weight being carried in my stomach gave me nothing more than what most people assumed was a “beer belly.”

My partner and I had carefully selected an obstetrician-gynecologist who was specifically educated in caring for transgender folks to reduce the challenges of being a birthing father as much as possible. Unfortunately, nature had other plans for us. At 28 weeks’ gestation, we were facing a diagnosis of preterm premature rupture of membranes (PPROM). Simply put, fluid was leaking from the amniotic sac. Our carefully laid out birthing plans were suddenly completely changed as we were rushed to The Mother Baby Center [a partnership between Allina Health and Children’s Minnesota].

What was I, the father, doing at The Mother Baby Center? Upon arrival, the first nurse asked my partner, “Where is she?” The question completely threw her off, making this already difficult situation feel ostracizing as well. When the doctor walked in to greet us, she spoke directly to my partner, initially not realizing I was the pregnant person. Whenever my partner came to visit, she was met with confused looks when security insisted on her disclosing what the “mother’s” first name was. These micro-aggressions built up over time and wore us down more than we initially realized. To say the least, we were feeling nervous about what would happen during the birth of our child.

Finding support

I would be in the hospital three more weeks before our baby was born. One of my favorite memories was a nurse who brought me pads to help with the leaking fluid. She had crossed off the “m” in maternity on the packaging and replaced it with a “p” so it read paternity. This allowed me to let my guard down a bit more.

During this time, I turned to as many resources as possible to help ease the stress. One of those resources were other seahorse dads. There is a small but very mighty group of seahorse dads who provided amazing support to me.

At exactly 31 weeks’ gestation our baby decided to make his way into the world. With a rotating care team, we wouldn’t know the doctor ahead of time. Fortunately, on that day we ended up with the best care team we could have ever asked for. They kept gendered language completely out of their vocabulary, which allowed us to stay fully present in the moment. It was amazing.

Because our baby was born nine weeks early, he was rushed to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) [at Children’s Minnesota] shortly after birth. Upon arriving in the NICU, my partner was greeted by a nurse who asked what her relationship to the baby was, what name and pronouns we use for our baby, and the name and pronouns of the birthing person. After a very long and tenuous day, this acknowledgement let our walls come down and let us take a moment to just breathe.

A proud seahorse dad

After a 56 day stay in the NICU, we thought the challenges were behind us. Then we received our baby’s birth certificate in the mail, and it was wrong. Even after submitting a certified copy of how the information should appear on the birth certificate, it was incorrect. Our names had been switched around and our birth dates reversed. Initially they wanted to charge us to fix the birth certificate for an error we did not make. It would take many phone calls and emails over many months to get the birth certificate corrected. While we could have paid a small fee to fix it, we wanted to make sure there was some accountability so this couldn’t happen to others.

I feel fortunate that I have access to many resources to help carve space and give more voice to the experience of birthing fathers. More young people than ever are identifying as LGBTQ+ and anything I can do to help make their journey to parenthood a little bit easier is worth the extra work now.

Today, I am a proud seahorse dad to a kid who is remarkably silly and full of boundless amounts of energy. While my journey to being a transgender parent was never one I would have predicted for myself, in hindsight, I am grateful I can say I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Dr. Angela Kade Goepferd
Dr. Kade Goepferd, (they/them)

Chief education officer and medical director of the Gender Health program

Dr. Kade Goepferd, (they/them), is the chief education officer, pediatrician and medical director of the Gender Health program at Children’s Minnesota. Dr. Goepferd is an advocate for advancing equitable health care for all children – including trans and gender-diverse youth. They have been named a Top Doctor by both Minneapolis/St. Paul Magazine and Minnesota Monthly for the last several years and gave their first TED talk, “The Revolutionary Truth about Kids and Gender Identity” at TEDx Minneapolis in 2020.

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