The Baby That Never Was

Okay so forewarning, this one is going to be a little personal, I'm a bit tipsy and it has been an enormous few weeks and I am barely holding onto my calm.

But I really wanted to talk about something that has bothered me for the better part of a decade and only gets more relevant the closer I am to taking hormones.

Parenthood... Motherhood... Offspring.... Making Lives

So my last real relationship was with somebody that I definitely couldn't have ever ended up with, two mentally unstable people who were deeply attracted but could never find a healthy middle ground with one another, fundamental disagreements on life direction and various core moral things.
It was doomed and we just circled one another wishing it wasn't doomed and biting small pieces off one another the whole way down.

I could get into a LOT of detail, but I won't because that's not really relevant to the issue I want to talk about.  When I was with her, she got pregnant, and we chose to abort.  And neither one of us has ever really questioned whether that was the right thing to do, because it so clearly was the right thing to do, we weren't working and dragging a baby into the middle of it would have been really silly.

But here I am a decade later kind of wishing that baby had existed, and wondering what they may have been like, imagining the possibilities of who they may have become and who I may have been if they had existed.  I think about this way more than I will ordinarily admit.

But that's not going to be a possibility for me for very much longer, they throw around tentative numbers like 3-6 months after taking hormones before fertility basically goes out the window.

Freezing semen costs WAY more than is really practical right now, so that's not really an option, and so here I am... occasionally and with ever increasing frequency thinking about that baby that might have been.

I wish I had a child, I feel like I have an enormous amount to teach someone with the life I have led, and who I am now.  Or at the least, I wish a part of me had lived on in someone else.  As things stand I have been single basically ever since the girl I talked about above, and the likelihood of meeting someone who randomly wants a baby in the very immediate future is basically not happening.

So I have been easing myself into a future of that just not happening, and it makes me sad.

My Mum is a huge part of why I am who I am, she taught me all the best bits of me, and I am actually super jealous of my friends who are mothers, I really wish I had been able to experience that.
And as I get older even the possibility of adoption is basically not something I can do.

I don't know what this post really hopes to achieve, a kind of venting I guess, a random cry in the darkness for the baby that never was, and never will be.  Like writing a wish on a piece of paper and throwing it into a fire.

So if you have a child, love them, teach them, help them.

And if you want a child before March and need a donor, you have until then.

Lots of love,
Abigail.

Reflections

Basically every year around my birthday, I pause and think about all of the things I told myself that I would have achieved in that year, if I am being honest most years I am feeling really disappointed that I haven't achieved nearly as much as I had planned.

This year though...

I publicly "came out" as transgender, and my friends and family have all been really fantastic.
I quit the job that was eating away at my soul and returned to University to seek a degree in Psychology with a bunch of gender and philosophy papers along the way, and I passed my first semester of that.
I moved back to Dunedin to be around some of the most fantastic people I know, and away from Wellington and someone who had been my closest friend for years.
I have been working a contract job working on farms, waking up at 5:00am every day and finishing around 7pm, for seven days a week, its bordering on miraculous that I am actually still doing that given my normal work ethic.
And in December I go to the endocrinologist to hopefully get my approval to start hormones finally.

So it has been a gigantic year.

And next year is set to be every bit as big if not bigger, since I will be doing all of these huge things while sitting in the maelstrom of a second round of puberty.

I never seem to let myself have it easy for very long.

The shift to presenting feminine on a daily basis I am aiming for around March, and I am still incredibly nervous about that, I have gone to a few parties and things like that but only in a very cautiously dipping my toe kind of way.  I haven't had to deal with the day to day reality of people looking at me for being "different" and I still don't know how well I am going to take that.

But even though it scares me half to death, I am also super excited about it.

Do several things a day that scare you.

Happy 40th birthday to me for Monday, I will still be wading around in cow shit and not even able to really enjoy it, but the cow shit is helping me get to where i need to be going into next year, so hooray for the cow shit this one time.

Lots of love,
Abigail.