A British couple has shared their remarkable story of how they were able to make their dream of becoming parents come true. Their road to becoming a modern family has not been easy, but dad Reuben Sharpe and his partner Jay have welcomed a beautiful baby together.
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Reuben transitioned to a man 12 years ago, and he was the one to give birth to their child. Even after his transition, he never lost his desire to have children, so Reuben decided to stop taking testosterone six years ago in order to prepare to welcome his own bundle of joy.
The couple join other men in the UK who have gotten pregnant after transitioning.
The couple aren't the first to welcome a child after transitioning from female, but they shared their story with the Daily Mirror. Reuben and Jay opened up about their path and all that it took to be able to hold their baby in their arms. Reuben was the one who was pregnant, through a sperm donor who is a trans woman. His partner, Jay, was by his side along the way. Jay is nonbinary and doesn't identify as either male or female.
Reuben says he finally feels complete after welcoming his baby.
Reuben was able to carry the pregnancy and give birth successfully. Their baby, Jamie, was born three months ago. “It’s taken six years to get this far, but now we have a baby in our arms and that was the end goal. I finally feel complete," Reuben told the publication. “It wasn’t that I was desperate to have the birthing experience or pregnancy experience, but I wanted a child and I had the facility to do it."
Becoming parents has been years in the making for them.
The road to parenthood has certainly been long and winding. Reuben shared that he began taking male hormones to start his journey of living as a man in 2007. The hormones gave him a beard, deeper voice, and masculine features. Reuben realized he wanted to have a child of his own, so he spoke to a trans doctor, who told him that it was possible since he still had a uterus and ovaries.
Reuben had to fill his partner in on his baby plans.
Once Reuben had already gotten started on his baby planning, he decided to tell Jay, whom he was dating at the time, about his plans. “After a few months I started getting nervous, realizing I was planning to have a kid–I’d been building towards it for three years to this point. I realized I would have to talk to them (the pronoun Jay prefers). If they didn’t want kids we’d have to break up," Reuben shared. “I managed to bring up the subject but luckily Jay was open to the idea.”
Jay jumped right in on the plan, saying, “It just seemed right–we wanted to raise kids similarly.”
The pair then had to decide where they would find a sperm donor, so they turned to Facebook. They reached out to a contact who is a trans woman but still produces sperm, and they found their match. "I thought they would be perfect. Sperm donation is a big decision to make, but when we asked the donor, it felt so right. We sent a message on Facebook to ask,” Reuben said.
The pair got their wish!
“The first round didn’t work. They gave me a fertility injection and I released too many eggs. We couldn’t go through with that attempt as we could have ended up with six children! Deflated, we became convinced it wasn’t going to work," he shared. “We tried a second time and the earliest point I could test was on my birthday. We’d been on edge for weeks. I did the test, ignored it and went to brush my teeth. Suddenly Jay was shouting me into the room and telling me to look–it was a positive result.”
He welcomed the baby by C-section three weeks after his due date, and aside from some negative reactions from people, he had a pleasant pregnancy. The couple is open to expanding their family even more in the future, with Jay also considering being the one to carry the baby this time around.
