TRYSTAN Reese has short dark hair, a thick beard and a protruding belly that peeks out from the waistband of his trousers. It’s a baby bump — he is 35 weeks pregnant.
Trystan is a transgender man who has not undergone gender reassignment surgery. He and his partner Biff Chaplow, who live in Portland in the US, are preparing to welcome the child they conceived naturally.
The couple already have two children — they adopted Biff’s niece and nephew out of a troubled home — and shared their story on the popular parenting podcast The Longest Shortest Time.
Here they explain what their pregnancy experience has been like.
On finding out they were pregnant:
Before the couple decided they wanted to fall pregnant, Trystan was taking testosterone, which meant he grew facial hair and stopped getting his period — but it came back after he stopped taking his hormones.
Trystan and Biff tried for months to fall pregnant but were having little luck.
“One morning I woke up and I felt really, really bad,” Trystan said on the podcast.
“Like I had a fever bad, like lying on the tiles of the bathroom floor because how cool they are — feels good on your face kind of bad.
“And I randomly grabbed one of the tests and it came back positive. And I was like ‘Oh my God, this is actually happening’. I had to go wake [Biff] up and I was like ‘Ah I’m pregnant.’
“He was a little bit sleepy but he was just like ‘I told you so.’ So that’s still, like, romantic. He said ‘I’m really excited to start planning for you. But like is it OK with you if I go back to sleep now?’”
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