The Joys of Pregnancy                      by: Debbie Cybill

 

My wife simply adores being pregnant. Unlike some other women, she does not suffer through the indignity of morning sickness, her back never aches when she is pregnant, her blood pressure remains normal. And she just loves it all. Her complexion blooms like a rose. Indeed, she begins to glow as soon as she is pregnant, even before a test will show it. He hair becomes sleek and her mood swings disappear.

Jeannine has always believed in the adage, "If you have it flaunt it." And she certainly does have it. She is no wilting anorexic lily, of course, and in fact she comes of sturdy peasant stock - French Canadian. Even after all these years of marriage to me her English is not very good, and at home we speak what i locally known as Franglais, a mixture of French and English. I try to speak French to her, but throw in the occasional English phrase if I can’t remember the French, while she tries to speak English to me with rather more admixture of French phrases. Some of those phrases and words are strictly Canadian French, and include words no longer used in France, such as ‘bagnolle’ for ‘auto’.

No, Jeannine is stocky, but she has beautiful eyes, a veritable mane of black hair, firm eyebrows and lips made for kissing. When she is not pregnant she has a well-defined waist, even if it has never been exactly slender, swelling hips and lovely firm breasts. She keeps herself fit and her legs are gorgeous, even if she never wears heels: I am the one who wears heels. It has never troubled Jeannine that I am a compulsive cross-dresser. Even before we were married I would go out with her en femme. I am tall and slender, and I can pass quite well. I have never been read, at least not since I started going out with Jeannine, and she has given me many tips, especially on feminine behavior. To tell the truth, I think she has always got quite a kick out of it, especially since with my figure I can present the elegance that she never could. I think she sees her wannabe self in me. She enjoys shopping for me, buying me the most elegant costumes and lingerie that she would never be able to wear herself.

I am not exactly pretty, or beautiful come to that; my lips are too thin, my nose too large, my cheekbones too poorly defined, but I wear my clothes (of both genders) with a certain panache, a degree of self-confidence, that Jeannine assures me makes up for that. She says I make a striking woman. Like most transvestites I tend to overdress, or rather underdress in short short minis, showing lots of leg and skin. Jeannine keeps me in check and insists that I dress in a less exaggerated fashion. I always wear clothes that can be bought at normal women’s outlets, not the stuff that can only be obtained at sex-goods stores. Neither of us wears much makeup, sometimes no more than lipstick and a little blusher. Anything more, Jeannine believes, would make me more obviously a man, drawing attention to my masculine features. Just a hint of makeup makes me look more feminine.

When she was pregnant with our first child, our son John, she never tried to hide her pregnancy as some women do. True to her motto she flaunted it. If she had to wear a bigger bra so be it; she would wear a bigger bra and make sure that her tits stood out more than ever. She sewed pregnancy dresses for herself, with high waists, emphasizing the belly instead of trying to disguise it. Late in pregnancy, when her dresses were drawn tight across that great protuberance, I recalled the saying of the seventeenth century poet: "A pregnant woman is as beautiful as a ship in full sail." Or was it the other way round? Was it, "A ship in full sail is a beautiful as a pregnant woman."? I forget. Anyway, he was comparing the swelling bellies of the sails of a square-rigged sailing ship to the belly of a pregnant woman. How right he was! And Jeannine knew it too.

I had worried that she would cease to enjoy my cross-dressing once her figure swelled with pregnancy, but no such thing. She adored her own appearance and loved to compare it with mine when I dressed in one of my more elegant outfits. We must have made an odd sight at this time going out to a restaurant for dinner with me in heels and a slim dress, and Jeannine in a dress that actually drew attention to her pregnant condition. Far from envying my slim figure she several times said, "What a pity you can’t become pregnant, Henri, you’d enjoy it so much." She always pronounced my name in the French fashion. One regret she had was that our winters here in Canada demand such heavy layers of clothing that under it all no one could tell she was pregnant, but by the time the warmer weather came around and she could leave off all these coats, vests, and sweaters she was gloriously pregnant, waddling along and enjoying every minute of it.

Pregnancy did not even interfere with our sex life. We made love as often as ever. The only difference was that we could no longer do it with me on top, but Jeannine had to sit on my lap. God, that woman is sexy. I love her.

The birth was easy, a mere two hours of labor, and Jeannine took it in her stride. That’s one of the advantages of a stocky figure, I suppose. Her magnificent breasts produced copious milk, and she delighted in offering them to me to suckle, after John had taken his fill.

"I love nursing you, Debbie," she said, "But I should like it better if you were my little girl." Actually, she said this is a mixture of English and French. The next thing I knew was that Jeannine had made me a little girl’s dress. Of course, I wore my suit to work and when we went out together at all, to the mall or just for strolling and pushing the pram, I dressed as I always had, en femme, though in sober day-dresses rather than some of my finery.

During all this time I did much of the house work and all of the cooking. I had always done my share of the housework and at least half of the cooking, which is something I enjoy, but now I did it all, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Serving Jeannine gave me an excuse to wear a maid’s costume, not the stupid so-called "French" maid’s outfit, which is a mere fetish, but a more sensible outfit, with a tight black skirt and moderate heels.

"What do you want John to call you, Cherie," I asked Jeannine one day.

"’E cannot call you ‘Dad’ or ‘Daddy’ when you are dressed like zat." She giggled. "I think ‘e should call you ‘Debbie’. And in that case he should call me Jeannine."

Jeannine always had trouble with ‘h’ and ‘th’; she generally omitted the former and changed the latter to ‘z’.

"So you don’t want me to stop dressing when he is old enough to notice?"

"No, of course not. You enjoy it. In fact I don’t think you could do without it and you would only go into the closet. Besides, I like it too, when you dress." She smiled and kissed me then shoved her left nipple into my mouth.

I was grateful for this attitude. I had feared I would have to stop and I did not want to.

"Perhaps he should call me ‘Debbie’ when I am dressed and "Henry’ when I am not."

"And he should call me ‘Jeannine’. Debbie, Henri et Jeannine, avec Jean." Jean, pronounced zhon, is the French for John.

Once Jeannine weaned John she went on to "wean" me too a few days later, and she devoted more time to making money. She was a free-lance consultant and took jobs she could mostly do at home seated at her computer, so we did not need a baby sitter. She stepped up her exercise regime and soon regained her figure. But then she began hankering after another pregnancy.

"But we can hardly afford another baby, Jeannine, even with the extra money you are bringing in now. We could barely make ends meet while you weren’t earning, and we could never do it with John to feed and dress as well."

"Mais, ‘oney, it’s not more children I want, it is just zat I love being en ceinte, pregnant."

"But how can you be pregnant and not have a baby," I asked.

"I could be pregnant and give ze baby away."

"Never!" You can’t give our baby away.

"Well ‘ow if I enroll in ze program for surrogate mozzers?"

Now that was an idea. I think Jeannine intended that all the time, for she had done her homework about it on the internet. She made an appointment for us both to see the director of the program at the local university, and from her we learnt of the legal implications of what Jeannine wanted to do. We should have to sign all sorts of indemnities, irrevocable promises of adoption, denial of any desire to keep the child born of this surrogate motherhood. On the other side we were to meet the donor of the egg or eggs, though not the father-to-be, and Jeannine would receive a sum of $10,000 plus her expenses.

In practice I had no say over it all. It was strictly Jeannine’s affair, though I had to sign or co-sign most of the papers. The egg donor was a well-educated (and well-heeled) woman of almost forty years old, who told us that her tubes were no longer capable of passing an egg, and that she must soon have a hysterectomy because she had massive fibroids in her womb. She seemed a pleasant person. She was admitted to the clinic after she had been given hormones that would induce multiple ovulations. Jeannine was admitted at the same time. The gynaecologist removed no less than seven eggs from the donor, and promptly fertilized them in a small dish by mixing in a stored specimen of sperm. I never knew whether it was her husband’s sperm or from someone else. Four of the fertilized eggs were then stored in liquid nitrogen: "Just in case the first batch don’t take," said the gynaecologist, and the other three were implanted into Jeannine’s womb.

"Why three eggs?" I asked.

"Well, we hope one of them will take. It’s very unlikely that more than one will survive, and if none survive we shall just have to implant the rest of the batch."

It was clear from the glow on Jeannine’s face within a week that something had taken and that she was pregnant, but it was not until three months later that we knew that Jeannine would have twins. I checked through all the papers we had signed to find out what legal effect that would have on Jeannine’s contract, and then turned to our lawyer for clarification. It seemed that Jeannine was only bound to hand over one of the twins, according to the contract, but that she could insist that the egg donor take both, if she wished, or could negotiate an extra fee.

Jeannine was even more magnificent than during her first pregnancy, a bigger belly, a greater glow to her complexion, even happier than the first time. It was quite clear that pregnancy suited her. In her fourth month, when she already looked as most women do in their sixth month, we engaged a baby sitter for John one evening and went out for dinner. There I was, walking alongside Jeannine in my four inch heels and mini cocktail dress, having problems keeping up with her because of my tiny steps imposed by those heels and by my corset. She ran her eyes over my svelte figure. "I wish you could ‘ave some of the joys of pregnancy, Henri. I feel selfish that you cannot."

"I enjoy your pregnancies almost as much as you do, sweetheart. I know I can’t conceive."

She looked me over again, and I could see something developing in her mind. I found out what it was the next day. She knew my clothes sizes very well, better than I did myself, I sometimes thought, and it was quite common for her to buy me dresses, lingerie and underwear, so I was not surprised to see several packages waiting for me when I returned home from work. I stripped off my male clothing and showered. Jeannine came waddling in. I teased her about her waddling at this time, but she took it in good heart - it was all part of being pregnant, which to her was the height of sensuality.

"I bought you some presents, ‘oney. ‘Ere try zis on."

"Zis" was a girdle, but not a normal girdle. Rather it was one of those girdles with a very elastic front panel, that some women wear when pregnant. It had six garters. I put it on and raised an eyebrow, questioning her. Next she produced a new bra for me, with larger cups than the 36B that I usually wore.

New larger breast forms came with this bra. I began to get the idea. She next produced a small pillow which she proceeded to stuff inside my girdle. I completed putting on my lingerie, including the new large-waisted panties that Jeannine had thoughtfully provided, pulled on a pair of stockings, clipped them to the garters, added my wig, and then Jeannine produced a new dress for me, a maternity dress, a bit dowdy, but then what maternity dresses are not dowdy? I put it on, completed my makeup and looked at myself in the mirror. Mirrors are very important to cross-dressers like me. I saw an obviously pregnant woman in the mirror, not as far along as Jeannine, but still very pregnant-looking.

"Now you can waddle too, Cheri." she said with satisfaction in her voice.

I looked at her, wondering if she was getting back at me because of my teasing, but she was quite serious. She really did feel so happy being pregnant that she wanted me to experience at least some of the same joy, the only part I could experience in her view, that of walking around with a protruding belly and breasts.

A few days later I visited a sporting goods store and purchased a soccer ball bladder. Once home I filled it with warm water and used it instead of the pillow. It was much heavier and more realistic, and this time I really did have to waddle. When I tied my apron over my belly it stuck out almost horizontally. The two of us made quite a sight when we visited the mall or the supermarket, taking turns to push John in his push chair.

It was quite fun as a novelty, but I did not get the kick out of it that Jeannine did. For one thing my back hurt, and my feet. But it made Jeannine happy that I "could share her joy." Besides, I was always proud of my figure, especially when corseted, and I regretted losing that, but it pleased Jeannine, and that is always important.

When the twins were born the obstetrician wanted to give Jeannine progesterone pills to stop her milk, since she would not be breast-feeding them; she had decided that they would both go to the donor of the eggs. But she refused to take the pills. She had decided that she wanted to nurse me instead, so it was back to little girl dresses for me for a few months - and sleeping with a comforter in my mouth this time.

Sex continued to be great. Even through pregnancies we made love at least three times a week, right up to the end. By then it was a matter of my lying on my back and Jeannine carefully lowering herself. Once firmly seated she rode me like a wild woman.

Jeannine had received an extra two thousand for the extra baby, and she made me a gift of this sum, which did not figure in her careful budget.

"It is for you to ‘ave your beard removed by electrolysis,Cheri." The rest of the money went into mutual funds.

Two more pregnancies followed, both as surrogate mother, both single births - no more twins. Jeannine was as ecstatic as ever, delighting in being pregnant. She did not have me mimic her on either occasion, for she realized that I really did not enjoy it. We were becoming more affluent and moved to a better neighborhood, where we even had a sun-deck and a small above-ground swimming pool in the back garden, which was sufficiently secluded that we did not have to bother about neighbours seeing us. Up until that year I had always worn male attire for the beach and for swimming, but the seclusion of our back yard tempted me to buy a one-piece bathing suit for sunning and swimming.

Lying there one Saturday, sunning myself, John, who was five years old by now, came up to me and said, "Debbie, why do you sometimes wear men’s suits?" We were talking French, and Jeannine was not pregnant at the time. I knew that this had to come sometime, but I had expected the opposite question - why did I sometimes dress as a woman? I was not prepared for it this way round. But then, John saw me most often dressed, since I wore my suits only to go to the office.

Before I could think of an answer Jeannine said, "It is because ‘e really is a man, Jean, not a woman. ‘E is Henri." John mulled this over for a few moments. "Then why does Henri dress as a woman. Are Debbie and Henri the same person?"

I left the answer to Jeannine. "Yes, Cheri, they are one and the same. ‘E is Debbie when wearing women’s clothes and Henri when ‘e ‘as to wear a suit."

John turned to me, "Which do you like best? Women’s clothes or men’s?"

I did not hesitate this time. "I like women’s clothes best. They are so soft and pretty. They have such lovely colors. They feel better. They are not dull and coarse like men’s clothes - or boys’ clothes."

"Then why do you wear men’s suits, Debbie?"

"I have to go and earn money for us to live, John, so I must work in the business world. In that world men are expected to wear business suits. I don’t like it, but if I did not do it we should not have very much money."

That seemed to satisfy him for a moment. He looked down at his own scruffy jeans and tee-shirt, then he turned to his mother, "Can I dress in girls’ clothes, Jeannine?"

"Of course you can, Cheri. I would love it if you did. You can wear such pretty clothes." She turned to me, "Let’s all get dressed and go to the mall to buy some outfits for Jean."

I threw on a sun-dress, added a peach-colored linen jacket, and slipped a pair of sandals in the same shade onto my bare feet. Off we drove to the mall.

The first stop was a shoe shop, where John was fitted for new sneakers with pink trim, and two pairs of Mary Janes, one black patent and one white. He walked out of the store in his new sneakers. Somehow that change alone made him look more girlish: in his jeans and tee-shirt, though the only point of gender distinction was the pink-trimmed sneakers.

Next we moved on to a girls’ dress store, where it was possible to purchase everything else Jean might need. We started with knickers and slips, taking a whole armful into the dressing room. Jean was quite excited by the feel of the nylon against his skin. While Jeannine searched for everyday dresses I looked through the party frocks, and found a lovely mint green one, with an elaborate petticoat to support the skirt. That fitted too. Three or four blouses, a denim pinafore dress and a sun-dress were Jeannine’s contributions at this stage. While John was trying these on I looked through the racks of leisure clothes, finding a cute pink denim romper, a pair of light blue shorts decorated with lace and with embroidered flowers, and two bathing suits. We were about to leave when Jeannine suddenly remembered socks. We bought a three-pair pack of ankle socks with turnover lace tops and a two pairs of white nylon knee-highs. I added several ribbons to this final purchase.

During the drive back home John was bubbling with excitement, eager to dress in some of this finery. He had to try on everything all over again, modeling it for us and swirling around in front of the looking glass, with ribbons in his hair.

"We need a new name for our pretty new daughter," said Jeannine.

"I’m not a daughter. I’m like Debbie, a boy who likes to wear girls’ clothes."

"Quite right," I said, "But you still need a new name, just as I am ‘Debbie’ when I wear a dress and ‘Henry’ when I wear a business suit. You need another name for when you are wearing a dress. But you are still my boy. Just as I am Jeannine’s man."

That mollified him. "I see. Yes, I do need a new name."

"I think we should call him Charmaine," said Jeannine, "Parceque elle est si charmante." Because she is so charming.

"I like Charmaine," said our son, "But don’ call me ‘she’. I’m a boy."

"Everybody calls me ‘she’ when I’m being Debbie, but ‘he’ when I’m Henry. You do, you know."

"I suppose so." John was dubious about this. Then he brightened. "This is such a pretty dress."

"We could call you Jean," - pronouncing it the English way, like ‘Gene’. "It’s a girl’s name in English. Then we can call you Jean [giving the French pronunciation] when you are dressed in boy’s clothes, and Jean [English] when you are dressed as a girl."

And that was what we agreed, all three of us.

"Why don’t you change into a swim suit, Jean? We have to keep that dress for parties."

That evening for dinner was the first time Jean wore a complete outfit, not her party dress but a cotton dress and jacket worn over panties and slip with lace-topped socks and Mary Janes. She looked so cute and so pleased with herself and with life. She had her mother’s coloring, black hair, brown liquid eyes and high cheek bones, perhaps revealing a touch of First Nations’ heritage in her Canadian ancestry.

As the summer wore on until it would be time to send our son to school we began to wonder should he go as a boy, or as a girl? He had ceased totally being John, and refused to wear his boy’s clothes. He was determined to go to school as a girl. There was no longer any problem about using the feminine gender in addressing Jean, and she did not shrink when neighbors commented on our pretty little daughter. Her claim to be a boy had quite disappeared.

Jeannine favored letting her go to school as a girl. My own thoughts were more complex. I fully understood where Jean was at, but I was wondering what would happen at puberty in six or seven years time. Would she be able to sustain her femininity through this crucial period?

"I go to work," I said, "In male attire, and only dress en femme when away from work. It may be best for Jean to do the same - go to school as a boy, but be a girl outside school."

"But what happens when school friends want to come over, or simply drop by?" said Jeannine. "I think she should be a girl full time."

The argument went on between us for several days before we decided to put it to Jean herself. We had to come to a decision soon for we must buy clothes for school, apart from anything else. We offered Jean the choice, explaining some of the disadvantages of each course of action.

"I’m a girl, now, not a boy. I love wearing these clothes. I want to be a girl all my life. I like you better as ‘Debbie’."

That decided it. We took her to the mall once more and bought a complete school wardrobe for her, with all the warm clothing she would need for winter, a hooded parka in shocking pink, with boots and a tuque to match, rabbit skin muff, padded gloves, scarves, thick tights, and thinner ones and pumps for her to change into at school, and everything else that a first-grader needs.

There was no trouble registering her at school as ‘Jean’. Her birth certificate (or rather his) actually read ‘Jean’, which was his baptismal name: we only called him John because we felt he might have to grow up in an English speaking milieu. At home Jeannine, at least, used to call him ‘Jean’ - zhon -all the time.

She now called her ‘Jean’, merely changing the pronunciation to rhyme with ‘Gene’, while I had really been the only one to use the English form ‘John’. Nobody at school noticed that the birth certificate was marked ‘M’ for male; they simply accepted the name as an English girl’s name, not the French boy’s name.

It was a delight to see Jean after school playing with her dolls, always neat and tidy. She was very popular with the other girls and was invited to several birthday parties. The result was that we had to buy several new party dresses for her, for no girl could wear the same party dress too often. She learnt to sew, and often helped me in the kitchen. I took care not to let her see me too often as Henry, for I did not want her to feel that she was abandoned in her feminine role. In retrospect I doubt if it would have had the slightest effect.

Jeannine was making noises about needing another pregnancy, and suggesting that it be one of our own this time, since we were so much better off. I was reluctant. For one thing I was in competition for a new job, one that would pay me far more than I was currently earning. The position was that of full professor at the university, professor of cybernetics.

"Let’s wait until I hear if I have the job, Cherie," I said.

"Once you are confirmed in zat job you can be Debbie all the time, the university ‘as a policy forbidding discrimination for sexual orientation and so forth."

I had not thought of that, but Jeannine was right. It would be easy now that I had no trace of a beard. I could pass as a woman, and only the senior administration of the university need know that I was actually a man.

So we compromised - no baby of our own until I knew if I had the job. I might have expected it, but Jeannine’s view of the compromise was that she would be a surrogate once more, since she was dying to be pregnant again. So for a fourth time Jeannine was pregnant with some other woman’s fetus, and loving every moment of it.

I won the competition for the position at the university, and as soon as all the papers were signed for my appointment I told the Dean that I was a compulsive transvestite and proposed dressing as a woman full-time. He did not blink an eye - a university dean meets all kinds of strange situations, and I suspected that none of this was entirely news to him. His only question was, "What does your wife think of this?"

"It was actually Jeannine’s suggestion, Dean. She has always helped me to dress, and for the last ten years I have worn a suit only for work. I had not thought of changing that arrangement, but she persuaded me that I should be a woman all the time - except in bed." I grinned. "Everyone calls me Debbie when I am in a dress."

"I think I should tell you now that we have five transvestites among the students here and three transsexuals. One of the professors of English is a transvestite, and a professor of chemistry is a pre-op transsexual. Are you a transvestite or a transsexual, Debbie?"

"Oh, I’m strictly transvestite, Dean. I have no desires to change sex, merely to appear to the world to be a woman. I am also firmly heterosexual and monogamous. Since long before Jeannine and I were married I have been totally faithful to her, in my mind as well as in my body. I have no desire to have a sexual relationship with anyone else, man or woman."

"Good," was all he said.

So Henry disappeared from our household for good, and our family was an all-female society, even if two of the three of us were genetic males. Jeannine was pregnant again, for the fifth time, the fourth as a surrogate mother, Jean was doing really well at school, and enjoying it, and I was starting a new job as Debbie.

As always, Jeannine was reveling in her pregnancy, more beautiful than ever. My hours as a professor were irregular, and now that Jean was at school all day Jeannine had more time to herself. Whenever I came home I would find her at her computer, or more often in bed with her notebook computer on her lap, sometimes working on a contract, but at others surfing the internet. We were amassing a useful portfolio of mutual funds, and a healthy bank balance. Altogether we were prospering.

Soon after that particular baby was born, with as little trouble as all the others, I raised the question of Jean’s future. "Puberty is no more than five years away, and possibly less, and we must make long-term plans."

"But I see no difficulty, Cheri. Jean wants to be a girl. We should allow her to continue."

"At puberty, unless we do something about it first, Jean’s testes will begin to produce testosterone and other androgens. She will start to grow a beard and the musculature of a young man."

"Well zat is all easily stopped by using ‘ormones."

"I agree, if that is what Jean really wants. We must explain everything to her and help her to decide for herself."

"I suppose so, but I do know my own daughter. She really wants to stay a girl."

Jeannine was right as usual. We explained to Jean what would happen if she was allowed to develop without any intervention and what the consequences of hormone treatment might be.

"Would I have the hormones by injection or are they pills?"

"Both I think, Sweetheart. You will have regular injections, perhaps every fortnight, and pills every day between."

"And that will prevent me from becoming a man?"

"Yes."

"I just love being a girl, and I don’t want to change ever. I am so glad that you are Debbie all the time now. I never really liked it when you were Henry. Did you take hormones, Debbie?"

"No, Sweetheart. When I was young the hormones were not available and it was much more difficult for me than it will be for you. I became a man, and then had a hard time becoming a woman."

"When will I start getting the hormones?"

"Oh, not for two years yet. If we gave them to you now you would begin to develop breasts, and you are too young for that. But we might start now to give you some anti-androgen. That would suppress any activity of your testes and lessen the chance of your becoming a young man."

"I would hate to become a young man. I hate those stupid things between my legs. They have no place on the body of a girl. I wish I could get rid of them."

"For the moment the best we can do is to shrink everything down there. That will make you feel better."

By now Jean had a prettier and more extensive wardrobe than many of her friends, and often seemed more feminine than any of them. Jeannine finally decided it was time to wean me once more. These periods of being breast-fed lasted about six months after each birth, and we both loved the suckling and nursing. So the little girl dresses and comforter were put away - until the next time.

"Can I have a little sister, Debbie? Please."

I suspected Jeannine had put her up to this, for she wanted to be pregnant again.

"You’ll have to ask Jeannine, Sweetheart."

"I already have, but she told me to ask you. She says you should have the baby this time."

Now I was certain that Jeannine was speaking through the mouth of her daughter. I decided to confront her and find out what she had in mind.

"I ‘ave been exploring the possibilities of men becoming pregnant, Cheri, and I think you would enjoy a pregnancy of your own."

"Wh . . . wh . . .what?"

"I need to be pregnant again and you should experience zat wonderful event too, Debbie."

I was in a state of shock.

"Dr. Johnson tells me zat ze clinic ‘as developed a method for men to become pregnant. Now is your opportunity to experience all the delights zat I enjoy."

I made no answer. She continued, "If we take one of my eggs and fertilize it with your sperm, zen it will be our baby."

"Of course it will," I said.

"Zen we can implant it in your belly, Debbie, and it can develop zere. It will be an ectopic pregnancy, but you will ‘ave all the pleasure of pregnancy, and enjoy it as much as I do."

"Whoa! Hold your horses. Why don’t you carry this baby of ours? Why me?"

She giggled. "I thought we should both be pregnant at ze same time. My original thought was zat I should carry our baby and you could be a surrogate mother, but ze clinic will not accept you as a surrogate, so it ‘as to be zis way round."

"But what will our daughter think?" I was clutching at straws to escape this.

"She ‘as seen me pregnant before, and she knows you are a woman, so what is ze problem?"

I capitulated. At the clinic Dr. Johnson explained what would happen. Ectopic pregnancies are not uncommon in women, and nowadays are generally carried to term so long as the placenta is in a suitable part of the gut cavity. The best place is the omentum, the membrane that supports the stomach. The liver is a bad place, because the developing placenta can damage it. It is the developing egg that causes the development of the placenta, not the mother at all, and a fertilized egg will cause the development of a placenta wherever it is located.

"For a man to be pregnant he must be prepared by suitable hormone injections first," she said. "Then a fertilized egg is injected with a long biopsy needle and placed against the omentum, near the stomach. Within a very short time it implants itself in the omentum and starts the development of a placenta. New blood vessels grow towards it, and it is nourished by the host - you in this case - just as if it were in the womb."

"You talk about hormones. I suppose that means oestrogen. What effect will that have on my male organs?"

"Oestrogen and progesterone. As soon as a placenta is formed it starts producing its own hormones, and we can discontinue injections, though we shall continue to monitor your endocrine status."

"You have not answered my question, Dr. Johnson. What effect will all this have on my male genitals?"

"Do you still have male genitals, Debbie? Since you are always dressed as a woman whenever I see you, I thought maybe you were a post-op transsexual."

"No way! Under all this I am a full man, and Jeannine and I have a great sex life."

Jeannine confirmed this.

"Well, the hormones will inhibit sperm production, but only while you are receiving them. Once you have weaned your baby it will start up again. You will have less frequent erections, and they will be slower in coming, but you should be able to have sex all through this period."

"You mean I can make love while I am pregnant?"

"Certainly! If you can manage to contort yourself enough." She smiled. That might be difficult in the later stages of pregnancy, especially if you are both pregnant." So Jeannine had told her what she hoped for.

"How are you going to go about this?" I asked.

"Well, first, we must take a sperm sample from you and store it in liquid nitrogen. You may not be able to produce any sperm at all by the time we have prepared you for pregnancy. Then when I judge that your body is completely ready we inject Jeannine to make her superovulate. At the same time we do the same to the donor whose egg will be implanted in Jeannine’s womb, if she is to be a surrogate again."

Jeannine nodded her head to agree that she did indeed want to be a surrogate mother once more.

"Then we fertilize Jeannine’s eggs with your sperm and the donor’s eggs with whatever sperm she wants. You’ve seen that done, I know." It was my turn to nod. I had seen it each time Jeannine had received some other woman’s eggs.

"Next we implant the donor’s eggs into Jeannine’s womb and one of her eggs into your belly."

"You don’t put three into me?" I asked facetiously.

"No, just one at a time. If it does not take we try again with one of the stored eggs."

So that was how it was done. I gave a sample of sperm and then it took three months of hormone shots to prepare me. My balls shrank to half their normal size and erections became less frequent, but Jeannine and I continued to make love three times a week. I had enough for that.

At the clinic everything went exactly as Dr. Johnson had described it. The donor this time produced five eggs of which two were implanted into Jeannine’s womb. Meantime Jeannine had produced a phenomenal nine eggs. Dr. Johnson fertilized all of them with my sperm. I was lying on an examination table, slightly drowsy because of a shot of valium. A nurse cleaned my upper belly and around my belly button with antiseptic and then gave me a shot of a local anaesthetic. Instead of the biopsy needle I was expecting, Dr. Johnson made a small incision near my belly button and inserted a laparoscope, a device consisting of bundle of optical fibers. With this she was able to throw an image of my innards onto a television monitor screen. She maneuvered the tip of the laparoscope until it lay close to the attachments of my stomach, and then injected some liquid down a tube that ran down the middle of the fiber bundle. I saw the egg emerge from the tip and settle in place.

"That’s ideally situated," she said.

I had to stay flat on my back for 24 hours so that the egg would not move around and get out of place, so I spent that time in a room at the clinic, with the fiber bundle sticking out of my belly button. The next day Dr. Johnson connected the rest of the equipment to the bundle and pronounced everything set and in place. I was then told to go home and rest for a week, doing nothing strenuous and report back for an examination at the end of that time.

By the time the week had passed Jeannine was already showing her normal glow of pregnancy; all I had was a sore belly button. Dr. Johnson poked and prodded me, took blood and urine samples to check my hormones, and pronounced me fit. The next week she said the hormones were what they should be, and that the placenta was working nicely, producing its own hormones. I still felt nothing of all this, and to my relief I could still get an erection and make love to Jeannine.

It was about six weeks later that I got out of bed one morning and barfed in the john. I was worried that my pregnancy was going agley, but it turned out to be only normal morning sickness. Every morning for the next couple of months I suffered from that wretched complaint. Why did Jeannine not have morning sickness? She would not enjoy pregnancy so much if she did!

I noticed that my nipples were sore and asked Dr. Johnson if this was a result of the hormones she had given me.

"Not at all, Debbie. It’s the hormones produced by your placenta that are doing it. By full term you will have breasts able to produce milk. That happens to every woman during pregnancy. It’s a result of the hormones raging inside you. That’s the cause of the morning sickness too, and we don’t know why some women don’t have it. In any case the fact that you have morning sickness is actually a good sign: it means that you have the normal hormone balance of pregnancy. Now let’s do an ultrasound scan and have a look at your insides."

She showed me the baby developing inside me. It was a fantastic sight. Here was I a normal man, - well, a man, anyway; I am not sure what was normal about me - a man who dresses as a woman with a developing baby inside me. The fetus looked good, lying there, perhaps a couple of inches long, looking just like the pictures I had seen in books and on the web. I felt much happier once I had seen that everything looked normal. There’s that word again- ‘normal’.

The morning sickness finally stopped, just as it does in a woman’s pregnancy. I still could not see why Jeannine took such a delight in pregnancy. It seemed an over-rated pastime to me. Now that the morning sickness was over none of my clothes fitted. My professorial duties of course remained unaffected, since all my students thought I was a woman and took it as normal that I should become pregnant. Jean was delighted that both her parents were pregnant. By now she knew that I was her father, but accepted my feminine role, just as she did her own. I never did find out if she boasted to her school friends that her father was pregnant as well as her mother.

It was great to be rid of the morning sickness, but now my back began to ache, which was something that most pregnant women go through. But not Jeannine. She sailed through as she always did, loving every moment of her pregnancy. Not me though. Sexual intercourse became more and more difficult; not just because I was finding it progressively more difficult to get it up, but also because of the contortions we both had to go through to get it together. For the first five months or so we could manage it doggy style or else with Jeannine sitting on top of me, but then my belly began to get in the way too much. In the end we had to forego actual copulation and make do with oral intercourse. The last few weeks for me were hell. I developed toxaemia and my blood pressure soared. As a result I

was confined to bed for the last month, the second half of that in hospital. I no longer had to wear breast forms since my breasts had grown to what seemed to me to be huge proportions. For the first time in her life Jeannine had to prepare meals for our daughter; up to now it had always been my chore. And we finally had to face the problem of what would happen to Jean when we were both confined.

Eventually we were able to persuade my sister to come down to stay with us for a few days. She thought it a scream that her brother should be pregnant, even though she had known of my cross-dressing ever since my teen years.

About a week before Jeannine was due to give birth the obstetrician decided that it was time to deliver my baby. The delivery was by Caesarian section, of course, since I had no birth canal, and went more smoothly than I expected. I was given a shot of oxytocin to start my milk flowing, and then came the part I really did enjoy, breast-feeding my baby. A week later, once Jeannine had given birth and handed her baby over to the genetic mother, she was able to share the breast-feeding with me. And, needless to say, we each enjoyed suckling from the other, sometimes both at once with each sucking milk from the other’s breast.

Jean’s new sister was actually a boy, whom we named Jacqueline, for we determined to raise him as a girl from the beginning. We did not want a male in our all-female family, even if three of the four of us possessed Y chromosomes. It was quite easy to register him as a girl. I refused to allow the hospital to do the registration but went instead in person to the registry office. I simply declared the birth of a daughter to be named Jacqueline. I was in a quandary about how to register her parentage, thinking at first to put myself down as the mother, but that would leave the question of the father up in the air. I eventually decided that Jeannine would be the mother and ‘Henry’ would be the father, for after all it was Jeannine’s ovum and Henry’s sperm that resulted in the conception, even if I had been the pregnant one and actually borne her.

It was perhaps three months later - certainly before I ever weaned Jacqui - that I had a telephone call that went something like this:

"May I speak to Ms Debbie Robertshaw, please."

"Speaking!"

"This is Joseph Partridge of the Office of mumble mumble mumble. I would like to ask you a few questions."

"What is this about?"

"There seem to be some discrepancies in the records of your family. You have two children I believe."

This was census year and I concluded that this was something to do with the census. "Yes I have two daughters. What kind of discrepancies?" I asked.

"First, I can find no record of any Debbie Robertshaw. Can you give me the place and date of your birth, please?"

I laughed. "I was born on the 12 March 1967 in Ottawa."

I heard the clack of a keyboard; presumably he was inputting this into his computer. "There is no record of that in the data base," he said.

"I don’t suppose there is. Debbie is just a name I use, a nickname if you like. My real name is Henry. Try that instead."

More clacking sounds. "Yes, I have found a reference to a Henry Robertshaw born on that date." He sounded puzzled.

"What office did you say?" I asked.

"The Office of the Registrar of Births, Marriages and Deaths." There was a silence as I digested this.

"Now, about your children. You say you have two daughters, but I can find no record of them either. You have one son, who is now - let me see - eight years old."

"No I have a daughter of that age." Just then I heard her come in from school. She rushed up to me and planted a big kiss on my lips.

"Oh, it’s so hot. Can I go and change into a sun dress, Debbie, please."

Before I could answer I heard Joe’s voice on the phone, "Are you sure that is your daughter and not your son? Let me speak to him please."

"Go and take the extension, Jean, please. There is someone wants to talk to you and I want to make sure that he does not harass you."

Jean picked up the other phone.

"You are Jean Robertshaw," he asked, using the French pronunciation, making it a boy’s name.

"No, I am Jean," she replied, using the English form, which is a girl’s name.

"How old are you, Jean and when were you born?" She gave her age and birth date.

"I heard you say you want to change into a sun-dress. Can you describe it for me?"

"It’s a pretty pale blue cotton one with a print of swimming fish, mostly pinks and reds. It has two wide straps to hold it up, and it is wide, with no waist, just hanging from the yoke. I love it."

"And what are you wearing now?"

"I’m in school uniform. The skirt is so hot, it’s pleated navy blue wool. Can you imagine, in this weather?"

"Thank you Jean. That will be all."

"Why don’t you go and change now, Cherie?" Jean put down the phone and ran up to her bedroom to change.

The bureaucrat sounded even more puzzled. "Well, that certainly sounded like a girl, but I don’t understand. Jean Robertshaw is recorded in the database as male."

"Just let me pull her birth certificate out of my desk, will you. I have an idea." I pulled it out straight away, knowing just where to find it. I acted surprised: "Well, I’ll be . . She is down as male. Why did I never notice that before?" I paused a moment. "I see the registrar who signed it is Pierre Lalonde. If he is a French speaker then he probably read ‘Jean’ (English pronunciation) as ‘Jean’ (French pronunciation) and just assumed this was a boy. Can you correct it or do I have to go through some legal process?

"I think you are probably correct. If so, it was our mistake and I am empowered to correct it. Consider it done."

"Thank you. You will mail me the new certificate then?"

"Certainly. But I find there is yet another discrepancy in the database. You registered the birth of a daughter on 13 March this year, with Henry Robertshaw as father and Jeannine Robertshaw as mother. But the hospital tells us that Debbie Robertshaw gave birth to a son on that date."

"It’s obviously the hospital that made the mistake on this one. I am a man named Henry, and Jeannine is my wife. I admit I often use the name ‘Debbie’ as a nickname, but how could I bear a child?" I wondered if he would accept this one.

"There has certainly been a mix-up somewhere. But you told me you had two children. How can you have children it you are a man?"

"I have two children in the sense that I am the father of two children. Does that satisfy you?"

"I guess so. Now I shall have to correct all these records. How could one family have so much wrong in their registrations of births? I’m sorry to have troubled you, sir."

It was a long time since anyone had called me ‘sir’. I wondered what he would think if he met me in person.

It was a year later that Jean started receiving hormones, and five years after that that she underwent sex reassignment surgery at her own urgent request. She is now a well-adjusted young woman requiring only a little labioplasty to complete the operation, and her sister Jacqui is following in her footsteps. Jacqui should be starting her own hormone therapy next year. She does not want a complete transformation like her sister, but hopes to become a she-male like me. That may present problems for a teenager since the other kids are very likely to find out what she has under her skirt. We shall have to decide later in family conference.

I continue to take hormones - just enough to maintain my female body conformation and breasts, but not enough to suppress my male functions. Jeannine is as sexy as ever and has had two more pregnancies since then, as a surrogate, but I have resisted all her suggestions to have another myself.

One pregnancy is enough for me. After all, I am a man.

 

© 1998
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