I moved to Stamford in the efforts to be more comfortable with myself and be in an area where I felt I could. For those who don’t know me, I was assigned female at birth. I identify as a trans male. Ever since I was young, I wanted to be a parent. I would ask my mother non stop for baby dolls, especially the ones that you could feed and it’ll come out their tush! I transitioned when I was 13 years old. When I decided to transition to male, I was afraid my dreams of being a parent would plummet. But, I knew I had to do what was right for myself, to make myself happy and make myself comfortable in my own skin. When I moved to Stamford, I talked with doctors, family and friends, about carrying my own child.

I was afraid of being shamed for being masculine presenting and pregnant. I was afraid of what my peers and family would think about me. I’m so happy to say that everyone has been super supportive and I live in a great city and state that supports my needs and desires. There’s so many resources and so many people who want to help. You might have many questions like:

• Why did you transition if you wanted to get pregnant?
• Wouldn’t pregnancy make you gender dysphoric?

A few things: 

Being pregnant didn’t change me being a trans man. A lot of people get confused on why I fought so hard to become a man, and be seen as a man but tried to do everything in my power for something appeared to define womanhood; getting pregnant and having a baby. There’s something about growing a human, a human that is part of you, that is so endearing. The process and the idea itself wasn’t easy to fathom. I always would ask myself, why do I want to put myself through so much physically and emotionally? When I had my first appointment to start Testosterone, I thought to myself, should I postpone this if I want to have children? Even when I got top surgery, I thought I was making a mistake of potentially being able to chest feed my future baby.

But I decided it would be careless to wait to have a baby because how would I give my baby the love it needed if I, myself, were unhappy and disoriented. Many people might ask: why not adopt? Why not get a surrogate? And in turn, I’ll say, why ask me that? Do straight couples get asked that when they tell people they want to try for a baby? I want to use my journey to continue to inspire those like me.

My journey started at a fertility clinic off of Long Ridge Road called Illume Fertility. They accepted me for me, and I did not feel uncomfortable at all. In fact, they figured out why I wasn’t getting pregnant at home with a known sperm donor, and a a few months after, I ended up pregnant on my own, with the use of a donor and conceived my identical twin boys.

I was then referred to the Women’s Health Clinic at Stamford hospital, despite the name, I was also cared for and referred to by dad. My OBGYN at the time also identifying in my community, she made me feel very comfortable and made me feel seen.

My boys did give me a bit of trouble after a while, and in turn I had to switch my care to Yale New Haven Health because they had a level 4 NICU. Despite that, I was happy with the care I did receive out of Stamford Hospital, and their fetal maternal medicine unit that catered to tougher pregnancies.

My boys are 5 months old and we still are in Stamford. I feel comfortable going outdoors with my queer family. I’m sure people may judge in secret, but if I had to do it all over again, I wouldn’t choose another city.