LST FAVES: The Accidental Gay Parents 5

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Okay, here we go.

So this is Tristan and I'm here with Biff.

Hello.

Please cut that out.

Please edit that part out.

This, of course, is Tristan and Biff.

From our very popular accidental gate parent series, and they said it was okay to use that

tape after all.

This is our fifth episode with these guys.

If you're new to the series, stop right now.

Go check out episodes one through four.

They're in the post for this episode at LongerSortistTime.com.

It's episode 125.

You will be so happy that you did, I promise.

Now, we've been talking with Tristan and his husband, Biff, for two years, and so much

has happened in that time.

They told us the story of how they became dads virtually overnight when they took custody

of Biff's niece and nephew, Haley and Riley, to save them from an abusive household and

prevent them from going to foster care.

It was a whole big, scary thing because they had to fight Biff's sister in court for

emergency guardianship of the kids.

The situation was extra precarious because Tristan and Biff thought an unsympathetic judge

might deem them unfit to be parents, just because of who they were.

Not only are they gay, but Tristan is transgender.

He was born with a female body.

Ultimately, the couple did win guardianship of the kids and eventually adopted them.

And the last time we heard from them about a year ago, Tristan had actually gotten pregnant,

which is a thing he can do.

He's got a uterus.

But sadly, just days before the six week checkup, you know where you get the first ultrasound,

they lost the pregnancy.

But then in December, I got an email from Tristan, with much happier news.

This is the longest shortest time.

I'm Hillary Frank, and yes, you guys Tristan is pregnant again.

His email from December was seven weeks in.

He sent me a picture of his belly with text over the photo that said the baby was as

big as a blueberry.

And he is still pregnant.

This one is sticking.

Today, we're going to hear about what it is like to be a pregnant man, and to be that

guy's partner, and how to share that news with your parents, your children, and a world

that has a hard time wrapping its head around this concept in the first place.

Now, Tristan and Biff have similar voices, but you may remember they have very different

dispositions, especially when it comes to the subject of Tristan getting pregnant.

Tristan had been fantasizing about it since long before the first pregnancy.

You kind of want someone to like turn around and start to cry and like pick you up and

be like, of course, I would love to make a baby with you.

But you know, Tristan has all sorts of fantasies and all sorts of things.

Tristan's a dreamer, and I'm a realist.

Biff eventually did come around to the idea.

He got pretty invested in it, actually.

That was one of the reasons that Tristan's miscarriage was so hard for both of them.

After they lost the baby, Biff was shaken, and he wanted to wait a year before trying

again to give both of them a chance to catch their breath.

Meaning though, when your transgender is complicated.

In order to get pregnant in the first place, remember Tristan had to stop taking testosterone,

the hormone that helped his body transition from female to male.

Waiting another year to have a baby would mean that Tristan would have to either stay off

testosterone for that year, or he'd need to go back on testosterone, then come back

off of it again, which Biff realized would be a physical and emotional roller coaster

for Tristan.

And then after like six weeks, I was like, you know what, never mind.

I don't like this waiting longer thing.

Why don't we just start trying again?

To get the baby making started, they took a tropical vacation to Mexico.

Which sounds really bougie, and it kind of was, it was really great.

I got to be with him on the other side of this pretty tough experience and look at him

and just remember how much I not just love this person, but also really like this person.

It was a little weird because Tristan was not able to drink, so I had to drink by myself

the whole time.

And we started trying during that trip, and it didn't work, and it didn't work for several

months after.

Tristan did start having regular periods again for the first time in over a decade.

He was meticulously tracking his cycle with apps and thermometers, trying to conceive

at all the right times, month after month after month.

There were a couple of times for sure that I was like, oh, that one chance we had it,

it didn't work.

Maybe this door is closed for us.

I think a thing that a lot of people feel when they're trying to get pregnant and it isn't

happening is like, my body is failing me.

Did you have feelings like that?

You know what I think I had to work so hard to feel great about my body.

But I didn't ever blame it on my body.

I just sort of thought maybe this isn't meant to be.

You know what I mean?

Maybe we learned what we were supposed to learn from this experience, and we need to just

sort of accept where we are and this beautiful family we have, which is not a consolation

prize at all.

And so we were actually getting to the point after like six months where we were like,

you know what, maybe we need to talk about like how long should we try before we just

say we're not going to do it anymore.

And one morning I woke up and I felt really, really bad.

Like I had a fever bed, like lying on the tiles of the bathroom floor because how cool

they are feels good on your face kind of bad.

I don't know if that has ever happened to you.

Oh yes.

Okay.

Good.

Tristan asked Biff to take the kids to school.

He was not feeling well enough to drive.

And Biff was like, are you sure you're not pregnant?

Tristan was like, no way.

He checked his ovulation, had not ovulated yet that month.

And I randomly grabbed one of the P tests and it came back positive.

And I was like, oh my God, this is actually happening again.

At this point, Biff had gotten back from dropping off the kids.

He was taking a nap.

And I went and I had to go wake him up and I was like, ah, I'm pregnant.

What did he say?

Well, you know, I woke him up.

So he was a little bit sleepy.

He was a little bit sleepy.

But he, you know, he was just like, I told you, I told you.

I told you so.

I told you so.

So that's the romantic answer you got back.

That's right.

It's typical.

You know, and he was like, I'm really excited to start planning for you.

But like, is it okay with you if I go back to sleep now?

In true Biff style, his excitement was subtle.

But Tristan says he's learned to appreciate the cool ways that Biff does show his enthusiasm.

Pretty early on, Biff started getting the baby's room ready, thinking of names, buying Tristan

his favorite vegan jerky at the grocery store.

This time Tristan says things have been different for him too.

He's been making a conscious effort to enjoy the pregnancy.

He's been geeking out on the sciencey stuff, the wonder of it all.

I know it sounds really stupid, but I just couldn't stop thinking like, this is how we

make more people.

We grow them inside of other people's torsos, just like the sheer reality.

It's so crazy.

It's so crazy.

You know, each week, it was something new and exciting.

Like, oh, this is the week when the like ears are developed enough that they're actually

sending a signal to the brain and hearing starts to happen.

This is the week, you know, every single week something really, really new and exciting

is happening.

But don't let Tristan fool you.

He definitely stepped into a very cautious phase emotionally.

Like Biff noticed Tristan weighing himself a lot.

Well, yeah, because before the miscarriage, I was gaining, gaining, gaining, gaining.

And then I stopped gaining weight, you know, just like four or five days before we had

the ultrasound where I learned that the pregnancy was not viable.

So in those first few weeks, I was weighing myself obsessively.

I also kept taking the pregnancy tests for like weeks afterwards just to make sure I

don't know why I thought a pregnancy test would show me.

But wait, like, even if you had a miscarriage, wouldn't it still show positive?

Listen, listen.

This is not rooted in like rationale here.

Just double checking.

Like what if he finally said to me like, okay, you need to take these and hide these because

I just keep taking pregnancy tests and I forbade him from buying anymore.

What did you do with the ones that you had?

I actually, I actually put them in my bag and then when I would go to work, I would take

them in with me in my bag because I knew that he wouldn't really try to take one when

I'm around.

He would do it when I was at work.

So I would just take them with me to work.

Both Biff and Tristan were anxious about the six week mark.

They wanted to just get past that first ultrasound, hear the sound of the heartbeat that they

hadn't gotten a chance to hear the last time around.

The week of the appointment Tristan called the OB clinic ahead of time asked them to make

a note in his chart, triple checked to make sure the doctors were prepared to treat

a pregnant dad.

You know, it sounds weird and I don't know if this is going to make sense.

But I can feel someone looking at my face and searching for the remnants of womanhood.

Like I can literally, they kind of squint their eyes a little bit and I can tell they're

trying to like, take away my beard, they're trying to detransition me in their heads.

That's like the difference between someone who's done their work and someone who hasn't.

This clinic Tristan says had done its work.

I mean, there just hasn't been an ounce of transphobia from anybody that I've come in contact

with.

Like I expected to have to show extra ID, them to have to call their manager, all kinds

of things and none of that happened.

Even if I went to go give blood at the phlebotomy lab, you know, checking in with the person

at the desk and she would type in my medical record ID and she'd be like, okay, you're

here for the six weeks along blood test.

Oh, six weeks along, congratulations, you look good.

And I'm saying there and I'm like, did you not notice that I am a man?

You sound almost disappointed.

No, no, not disappointed, just shocked, just completely shocked that every person would

not even bat an eye that there is a dude with a beard claiming to be pregnant who's

here to get blood work done.

And I have been trans long enough to know that that doesn't happen magically.

It happens when someone has put a lot of effort into educating themselves, educating their

peers and shifting a medical establishment so that it's going to give excellent medical

care to people like me who come through.

So it has been really just like shockingly wonderful.

So one hurdle cleared.

But getting gelled up for the ultrasound, Tristan was still nervous, flashing back to the

first pregnancy and the scan at the same point that it revealed no heartbeat.

I looked the same, you know what I mean, I looked at my stomach, nothing looks any different.

What if this was all a dream, you know?

And then she puts it on there and then just like, there's the little, you know, there's

a little squiggly line moving up and down and she's like, yes, everything is fine.

It's just, you know, it's just really, really wonderful to know that like, okay, everything's

going to be okay.

It's, you know, this is happening.

It's not that we are broken, you know?

It's just that sometimes there's a glitch in the system.

We're doing another car report having just gone to our first ultrasound where it's stuck

in traffic.

So Biff, do you want to give an overview of the visit?

Not entirely, but I'll give an overview.

Some of it basically, it just looks like a little blob up against other little blobs.

It does feel like we're past the first hump.

You just wanted to say hump, didn't you?

Although it would actually be the second hump.

So we're still going to be able to apologize on his behalf.

When we come back, Tristan and Biff tell their kids that dad's pregnant and the kids have

questions.

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We are back with Tristan and Biff.

Now whenever you're expecting a baby, there is always the question of who to tell and

in what order, and of course a lot of people tell their parents.

Tristan and Biff did that, but for them of course the conversation also included the fact

that Tristan's a pregnant man.

And here I want to back up a minute, because I realized that in all of my interviews with

these guys, I had never asked how their own parents had responded to the news that Tristan

was transgender in the first place, like whether they'd been accepting of it.

Biff says telling his mom Tristan was trans was pretty straightforward.

My mom like literally will accept anything.

Like there isn't any damn thing that could surprise her.

For Biff's stepdad though, it took a little more explaining.

He was used to Biff dating men.

So when Biff first explained that Tristan, his partner, was transgender.

First he thought that I meant that Tristan wanted to become a woman, which is obviously not

what I meant.

So I said, you know, Tristan was born with a female body.

And he transitioned to become a man.

And then my stepdad put up his fist like for a fist bump and then he said, I knew you'd

like pussy if you tried it.

And of course, like I just like laughed hysterically.

And that's like totally indicative of my stepdad and my parents and the way that we sort

of relate to each other.

Biff's stepdad even shed a tear looking at the tiny little bean of the ultrasound.

So I appreciated having somebody get sentimental with me about it, because Biff sure wasn't

going to.

And then after the six week mark, I emailed my mom to tell her that I was pregnant because

I didn't, you know, I didn't know what her response was going to be.

And I didn't want to put her on the spot with the expectation that she was going to fawn

and gush.

Tristan and Biff knew that Tristan's mom's reaction to the pregnancy might be more subdued,

but not for the reason you might think.

I mean, she's just like wildly unsentimental as a person.

And as you know, I'm the opposite.

So it isn't even so much about me being trans.

It's more about her skepticism around why people would engage in this whole parenting making

babies experiments.

And you know, I did marry my mom.

Biff is very similar to my mother.

Remember at first, Biff was not too crazy about biological baby making either.

He figured why make one when there are already so many kids in the world who need families.

And Biff and Tristan's mom have actually had long conversations about how perplexed they

both are about pregnancy.

She is like, oh God, it was terrible and awful and, you know, I felt like I had a tumor

in me for nine months and then I got a baby at the end of it.

She's like, I feel no connection to any of them because they came from my body.

I truly could have, they could have just given them to me and I would feel the same way

about them that I do now.

So I'm like, I'm like, yeah, I'm with you, but you had three of them yourself.

So what was it like telling her?

I brought like five or six drafts of the email just to make sure that I got it right.

And she wrote back right away, congratulations.

I know you're going to be great dads.

There's no reason why only screwed up people should have kids.

Don't forget to tell your father.

So has she been more accepting of you transitioning than of you being pregnant?

That's a real apples to orangish thing.

You know, because my transition happened so long ago, 15 years ago, is when I had that

conversation with her, I'm a different person now.

She's very different.

She's very different now than she was 15 years ago when I came out to her.

And I feel like this doesn't me being pregnant doesn't fundamentally erode something she

thought was true about herself.

Being the mother of three daughters is a story that she wrote for herself.

It was part of her identity and me coming to her and saying, no, actually, I'm not your

daughter.

I'm your son.

That is a huge like a seismic shift she had to make.

We called up Tristan's mom and she said she did have to shift the way she thought about

her family story and about gender.

She added though that one of the funny things about being born into the gender that fits

who you are, the way she was, is that it isn't at the center of your attention in the

same way that it must have been for Tristan.

So it was hard for her at first to wrap her head around why gender was so important to

him and why he'd need to change it.

But me coming to her, after having transitioned a long time ago, becoming a parent to two

kids overnight, already having gotten pregnant and having had a miscarriage, you know what I

mean?

Like this being pregnant again doesn't even register.

Right.

It's like a, it's something where she'll like, you know, shrug her shoulders and be like,

I don't know why anyone wants to have kids, but okay, but it's not anywhere near the

level of disruption that having a kid transition is and was for us as a family.

How did your dad handle your transition?

Yeah, I mean, everyone's parents are, you know, complicated in their own way.

For me being trans, I kind of forgot that it wasn't just me transitioning, it was everybody

in my life transitioning their relationship to me and that they would then have to navigate

the world forever as the brother or sister or cousin or aunt or uncle or mom or dad of

a transgender person.

His dad had an easier time at first with some parts of Tristan's transition, like adjusting

to the name change and the pronoun change.

Although he had no practice being the dad to a son, so all the way up through my 20s,

he was still treating me as his daughter, like in public, like he would still call me like

sweetheart and things like you would call your daughter.

Were you okay with that?

You know what, there's something about my dad that is very, very, he's very innocent

in some ways and so it's, I was okay with it, I found it very charming.

That in fact, you know, his love for me didn't change or shift at all when I transitioned,

like almost to a fault and I don't know, I really thought that that was okay.

It was a little bit awkward only because I present so gay.

So like if we're at a restaurant, my dad and I, and he's a man in his 70s and I'm a man

in my 20s and he's like, well, sweetheart, have you decided what you want?

It's awkward because I know that that waitress thinks that something else is happening.

But I didn't even want to tell him, hey, dad, the waitress thinks that we're gay together.

Yeah, how do you even say that?

Nope, you don't, you don't.

You just let him carry on and let the waitress think whatever she thinks and be happy

that you have a, a 70 year old dad who wants to call their son, sweetheart.

On the plus side, as far as Tristan's pregnancy goes, my dad has been delightful.

Oh, he was overjoyed.

He emailed back right away.

I'm so happy.

He's a little bit more like me.

He's more said, he's more sentimental.

Tristan's dad is a doctor, so he's comfortable with pregnancy in general and he immediately

wanted Tristan to email him the medical report from his doctor's visit.

You know, he would do that doctor thing where he'd put his hands on my stomach and kind

of feel around and say, oh, oh, yep, all right, okay, that's the leg right there.

So that's been nice.

My mom doesn't want to have anything to do with that.

So parents, check.

But Tristan and Biff knew there were two other important people in their lives who were

about to be jumping into a new reality of their own, their kids, Haley and Riley.

When Tristan and Biff first became their guardians, the kids were traumatized.

Riley was three and completely nonverbal.

There were lots of meltdowns.

But in the years since their adoption, this little nuclear family that Tristan and Biff

have built has begun to hit its stride.

Riley is nine now, an all-American boy wearing soccer jerseys and basketball shorts, much

to his dad's bemusement.

He's into Legos and Pokemon.

Haley is six.

She's into writing songs and inventing things.

And she's got self-confidence to spare.

Biff says she walks around the house like she runs the place.

Tristan and Biff knew that a new baby might shake things up.

So they spent a lot of time prepping their kids beforehand so they'd be ready when the

time came.

And then, one night after Tristan had cleared his first trimester, Biff and Tristan broke

out some sparkling cider at dinner.

The kids were like, yay, Soda.

About halfway through the cup, Haley was like, wait a second.

What are we celebrating?

Tristan and Biff told Haley and Riley that Tristan was pregnant and they were going to have

a new sibling in the summer.

And the kids had lots of questions, whereas the baby is going to sleep, is it a boy or

a girl?

Haley was curious what race the baby was going to be.

Yeah, I feel like we failed them in the science department.

We were like, well, honey, I'm white and dad is white, so our baby is going to be white.

To be completely fair, there are a lot of mixed families and Tristan and Biff circle of friends.

Riley for his part has been kind of preoccupied with wondering if the baby will look like him,

which maybe he is biologically related to Biff.

And then the last six months really has just been continuing to help them understand

that nothing is going to change in terms of how much we love them.

There's still going to be our little special kids and we're so excited for them to step

into this new role as big brother and big sister to this baby that's coming.

Another thing that's come up with the kids has been how to handle conversations at school.

Riley actually asked Tristan not to pick him up from school once Tristan started showing.

This was a little hard for Tristan to hear at first, but he did some research and he found

out that emotions like shame and embarrassment can be particularly thorny for kids who are

survivors of trauma.

To be honest, shame and embarrassment are kind of thorny for nine year olds anyway.

But he really did start to get a complex about, well, what if the kids in his class found

out that his dad is pregnant?

And he says he doesn't care if they know that he has gay dads because he knows that that's

okay, but he's pretty sure that having a dad who's pregnant is not something that they've

ever heard of and that that could be something that kids tease him about.

I've got to say he does kind of have a point there's it's pretty likely that if children

who have not heard of a man being pregnant heard of that his father was pregnant that they

could make fun of him.

Totally, absolutely, absolutely.

And there's always that line as a parent where you're like, okay, well, how much do I just

say, listen, kid, this is happening.

I'm so sorry, but like here I am in all of my goofiness or uniqueness or whatever and

how much do you say, okay, maybe there isn't this isn't a time to try and push some agenda

or try to be controversial.

I mean, you think is going to happen once the baby is here?

I mean, he tried to ask us if we would pretend like the baby was just our cousin that we

were babysitting, like just anything to have this not be our baby that my dad gave birth

to and we were like, that's a bridge too far, like that we will not do.

So we're happy to let him protect himself, however he needs, but there is a limit.

And pretending that this baby is not ours is where the line is drawn.

Yeah, and Haley's gone the complete other route, like she is told everybody in her class

that her dad is transgender and is having a baby and she's going to be a big sister.

So we've kind of gotten to see it play out.

Initially, the kids in her class were just like, well, that's cool.

Then they went home and told their parents and then came back to school the next day and

they were like, my dad says your dad can't be pregnant.

That's not possible.

Dads can't have babies.

So that's been an ongoing topic of conversation in our house.

And we have made Haley agree that she will not tell any of Riley's friends.

That's also been I think a really good learning experience for her.

In a minute, Tristan and Biff confront how the world sees a pregnant man stay with us.

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How far along are you now?

Six and a half months.

You're getting there.

How much are you showing?

A lot.

A lot.

Because it's still freezing cold in Portland, I'm able to layer.

So we're like a chunky sweater, a long open coat and then like a drapey scarf.

You cannot tell at all when I'm on the bus, train, walking on the street, whatever.

But when I run into a friend and they're like, oh my god, I heard you're pregnant.

All I have to do is like pull the scarf aside and it is no joke.

It is really sticking out there.

So you're intentionally hiding it when you're out in public?

Oh yeah.

Absolutely.

For safety reasons?

Yes.

Yes.

You know, when you're already visibly queer, like you get really, really good at keeping

yourself safe at assessing risk and then taking actions to preserve your own health safety

well-being.

So I'm not trying to wear any controversial t-shirts right now.

My like, I met God, she's black shirt or anything that's going to make anybody try and

notice me.

I'm just trying to blend in on the train and get to work safely every day.

There is a place though where Tristan and Biff are inviting a very public conversation about

Tristan's pregnancy.

They've actually started a Facebook page called Biff and I where they post updates on how

the pregnancy is going.

And a very common supportive comment has been, oh, I wish you didn't have to cover up.

I wish you could be more visible because I talked a little bit about like, look, I can

just wear a coat in a scarf and nobody knows.

And I know when people tell say like, oh, I wish that this world was different, sometimes

it feels like they're saying that they wish that I was braver.

You know, like they wish I was taking more risks or like pushing the envelope more.

And I know they don't mean it that way.

But like, I know how to keep myself safe.

I know how to do this and maneuver my way through this fairly unique experience in a way

that preserves my integrity.

So it doesn't feel like a burden or anything to me.

I'm the one that's doing something that is outside of the norm here.

Tristan, this is something I really love about talking to you is I feel like there are

some people in your position or others who expect other people to just know right off

the bat, like what their experience has been and is going to be.

And I love that you kind of, I mean, it's a lot of work for you.

But I love that you step in and help people out a little bit, you know?

Well, the reality is that like most, most people in America don't know the very,

very, very first thing about transgender people, issues, community, any of it.

So to me, I'm only setting myself up for failure.

If I pretend to live in a world where being trans and being a pregnant man is just accepted

as woven into the larger fabric of normalcy in our world, I know that most people

have no idea that this is even a thing or is even possible.

And so I've tried to make it really easy for people to ask me questions.

I've tried to be as open as possible because I want it to be easier for the next person that

comes along that maybe doesn't have the same resilience and support and resources that I have.

One great example of this is a video that Tristan posted to the Facebook page.

It's titled A Pregnant Man WTF.

In the video, Tristan breaks down why a person who identifies as male would want to carry a baby at all.

I think a lot of people are curious about it, but they're too nervous to ask because they think

that maybe it's too personal or it would be offensive or something.

So I thought I would just answer it and then you will all know.

I think to really understand why I would want to carry a baby, you kind of have to unfortunately

dismantle some of the stories that have been told about what it means to actually be trans.

This video, it got a ton of attention. Right now it has almost 180,000 views.

And in the comments, most people were overwhelmingly supportive, but Tristan also got a pretty mixed

bag of negative stuff. Everything from a lady upon learning that I am a trans person who's

pregnant saying that I look like a circus freak. Like that is real and much worse things than

that have been said to me and about me. All the way to trans people who are angry that I even made

a video to begin with because I shouldn't have to explain myself. We shouldn't have to prove anything

to anybody. But I think that we're in too much of a culture of critique right now where someone

even asking a question is taken as an attack and that's not the kind of world that I want to live in.

And so I've tried to weave myself in and out of both of those realities as best I can.

Knowing that not everyone wants to or is able to answer a bunch of questions, I can.

And I can survive being called a circus freak or people saying whatever things are going to

say, I can survive that. I have Biff. I have, you know, I have a really, really wonderful

world that I've created for myself that keeps me safe. So I'm able to go out and take these risks

in some ways. In the hopes that for every person that says something awful, there's a hundred

others who come out of it better informed. Some of the transphobic comments were so ugly and

hateful that Tristan had to enlist Biff as a bodyguard to monitor the Facebook video and delete them.

For his part, Biff is really supportive of Tristan being out there. He knows how gifted his

husband is as an educator and advocate. But being on the front lines of this has made Tristan and

Biff do a lot of thinking about when is the right time to be out there educating and showing how

proud they are of the life they're building. And when is the time to just protect their family

and each other's privacy? A couple months ago, they took a trip as a family to the coast of Oregon,

a couple hours drive from Portland where they live. This area is made up of smaller seaside towns,

you know, slightly outside of Portland's liberal bubble. And I took the Tristan slept in,

and I took the kids down to breakfast at the hotel. And that breakfast Haley introduces herself

to some lady and Haley says, hi, I'm Haley. I have two dads. They're both gay. One is transgender

and he's pregnant. And immediately, Riley just turned beet red and like to really slouch down

in his seat. And I had that reaction where I was like, oh my god, like Haley, you can't do that.

You know, we're not in Portland and we don't know these people and you can't say that.

It's interesting what you've said about Haley because you've also, you've raised your kids

to have pride about you and Tristan. And so it's not surprising to me that she would go and

proudly tell a stranger all about her family. Well, it is like a weird thing where it did bring

me interested into this place with the kids where we had to try to talk to them a little bit more

about what life is like outside of Portland or outside of our circle. Like what did we have to

deal with as children? How were we accepted or how did people react to us? But it is like this

thing where it was a wake up call where I was like, oh my god, we are raising some sheltered ass

children that think that they could just like walk to anybody and share that their dad's a transgender

pregnant person. I decided that I would bring this to the family. And I said, Haley, when you

shared that, that made me uncomfortable. And maybe we should create some rules about sharing

when we're together. And you know, because if you're by yourself or you're with Daddy and you

guys want to share that with somebody, of course, you don't need our permission. But if you're with

Riley and you want to share it, you should check with Riley because not everybody is going to

say, oh, wow, how interesting. Sometimes you will get something negative from somebody.

And that bothered Tristan a little bit because I think he felt like that meant that there was some

shame or that we were ashamed of him in some way. And I just had to say, like, honey, you've got to

like you've got to let us make, you know, we've always told the kids that they're allowed to tell

their own stories. And they should get to make that decision about this too. A lot of the family's

focus has also been on just getting ready for this new person entering their lives. A little boy

person. Yes. Yes. The our baby has been diagnosed male. That's my own little joke in our family.

Diagnosis male. This was fantastic news for Riley. He was just over the moon. I've rarely seen him

happier than that moment. Because I think in Riley's mind, that sort of meant that like the baby

was going to be like him. And how did Haley react to hearing that it was going to be a boy that

makes her the only girl in the family? You know, she was a little disappointed kind of, but I also

think that there was like that moment for her where she was like, yes, like I still get to be queen B.

It's a very different situation from the first time you became a parent. You had these kids.

You became you became a parent overnight. How does this how does this feel compared to your first

experience? Well, for one thing, we'll have a bed set up ahead of time. So that feels really

comforting because we bought we bought a bed for Haley and Riley on our way driving back from

Baker's field. We stopped it target, but closed for them and bought a bed. So actually being able to

plan and prepare ahead of time sounds awesome. I think I picture Riley and Haley being more

independent. Like this is obviously going to be a big step for them and that I, you know, we can't

make an enormous deal over the tiniest scrape that Haley got on her finger. You know, it's like

the next step where what I have to offer you is not like that basic level of love and care.

It's the next thing, which is like guiding you and trusting you and testing you.

Riley is excited about buying his little brother all the coolest toys. Haley says she will love

the baby after he's born, but she does not want to be in the room for the labor and all that

black stuff. Actually, if interested are both mildly and denial about the whole giving birth thing

too. Tristan says he is really excited to be getting back on testosterone again back to his old

self and clear of all the pregnancy mood swings. But for now, it's been really awesome. And that's

like not cool to say you're like the cool thing is you're supposed to like complain about your

cancels or whatever, but I have been having a blast being pregnant, feeling the movements has

been so cool. The kids every night will read stories to my belly, you know, I'm just like this is

awesome. If it could be like this forever, I would have a hundred more babies because this is

super fun. You know, and Tristan feels kicking and we get to all the like it's like it's just it's

almost like some gross heterosexual tale of childbirth, you know. Tristan and Biff's new baby

is due in July, which means, of course, that they are soon to be the accidental completely on

purpose gay parents. My mom said to tell you that she ran into an acquaintance of hers who's

also like a 70 something old lady, as she would say, who was, you know, complaining about how,

you know, how dysfunctional her family is and my mother attempted to one up her by saying,

oh, you think your family is weird. My son is pregnant, expecting the woman to be totally

scandalized and instead the woman just burst into tears and said, isn't it amazing Janet that we

have lived to see the kind of world where anybody can be whatever they want. You guys, we are doing

something really exciting with Tristan and Biff in a couple of weeks. I have loved interviewing

these two over the last couple of years and now you have a chance to interview them yourselves.

In the middle of June, we're going to be doing a Facebook live with them on our Facebook page

and you can ask them any question you've been dying to ask. Make sure you are following our page

the longest shortest times page so you don't miss this. You can also follow their Facebook page,

Biff and I, to stay up to speed on their story. We will put a link to that on our website

longashortistime.com and while you're there, we want to hear from you. We know that when you're

pregnant, even when you're not trans, random people can have all sorts of opinions about your

pregnancy and your body. We want to hear about what you did to stay sane with all the questions

about how you're going to deliver the weight you're gaining or not gaining. If it was planned,

yep, my landlord asked me that one. Tell us everything in the comments for this episode. That's

episode 125. This episode was produced by me, Hilary Frank, with Kristen Clark and Abigail Keel.

We are edited by Peter Clowny. Our engineers are Pete Caram and Gerardo Connell. Our technical

director is the Reverend John DeLore. Our music is performed by HotMoms.gov and directed by

Allison Layton Brown. We also use music from Chris Sibrisky and The Batteries Duo. We get editorials

support from Emory Waldonado, Antoniak Tunde and Rika Murthy. Thanks also to Julie Sibati for

recording Tristan and Biff's side of the conversation.

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