There is an air of desperation hereabouts as I head towards my date with an estradiol patch. I've reached my early forties, been married for nearly a decade, and yet there is no pitter-patter of tiny feet. It's not for lack of wanting, just that the time has never been right for my wife. I say this without malice, I think deep down she's never really wanted a child. There has always been some excuse or other - work, salaries, family difficulties or a small flat - and now the trans one which let's face it is the mother of all excuses. It doesn't change my attachment to her but I am consumed with sadness at the thought of growing old alone.
I'm in the queue for fertility treatment. Storing a sperm sample in a vat of liquid nitrogen, which I should be able to do within a month or two. It's why I've gone much longer than many on my RLE and have yet to have any hormones. It's odd, having dropped my Finasteride to make sure there's no chance of any effect on my fertility I find I have rather too much of the boy back. I'd grown accustomed to having that part of my body under my own control, to feeling less aggressive somehow, and yet here it is back again. I hated being a teenager.
But storing sperm isn't the solution. You need a partner who also wants a family. And since I'm not about to dump my wife I face an uphill struggle convincing her.
There are alternatives of course. Anonymous donation through the NHS is out, you have to be under 40. Or there are services that bring LGBT people together for sperm donation, which is a bit more interesting. You can do it anonymously, as a 'named parent' where the kid knows who you are but you play no part in their life, or as a shared parent which is I guess a bit like an amicable divorced couple.
Still, it's a big unknown. Are they reputable? And do I fancy entering a meat market? "Above average height transgender engineer who works in the publishing industry, likes old cars and makes cider. Warning, your child may dismantle stuff for fun". Oh yeah, that'll pull 'em in.
And then there's the embarrassment. Doing your thing into a cup and handing it over. It's bad enough having to do the one thing that's still a bloke about you without someone else having to be in the next room.
I used to have a colleague who managed to spawn children like I amassed Wrecks at the time. It seemed he could barely keep his trousers on and unseemly fertile women would throw themselves at him in nightclubs. I tried to settle down and get it right, and this happens.
Life ain't fair, is it.
