Hi there all,
Been a fan of the site for some time now, this is my first time swinging through the forums. My husband and I have been dealing with a lot of ecstatic confusion lately after we discovered, much to our excitement, that we're pregnant with our first child. Ten weeks LMP today!
I'd been considering posting here for the last couple of weeks, but I'm not sure what kind of response I'm expecting. I don't think either of us want too much attention from the scientific community drawn to us, but I am curious about how many times this has happened before and whether or not we should be making efforts to report our situation. When I explained our situation to my OB/GYN, she looked at me like she thought I was lying about our situation and suggested sarcastically, "Well, maybe you can go on Oprah and get paid for making a baby with a hermaphrodite." Pleasant response, eh? Sheesh.
My wonderful, wonderful husband is a 47-XXY true hermaphrodite, "corrected" surgically from infancy to appear essentially male. This was followed up with additional hormonal "correction" in adolescence, which was extremely damaging to his body overall but may (or may not?) be the reason that he is apparently somewhat fertile. I could give more info if it's at all relevant, but (as I'm sure you can all understand) I'm not one to typically drop too much detail unless there's a specific reason that I should.
So here's the question... I know that my Dr was joking (quite rudely, IMO) about going on Oprah, but I have been curious about how we might go about publicizing our situation if it could truly benefit the scientific, GLBT, or intersex movement.
One thing that I have been particularly interested in potentially sharing with the media is that, had my husband been allowed to develop naturally, it's likely that he would have been female in appearance and that we would not have been allowed to get married.... and yet, we've conceived a child together. I'm a self-identified lesbian (yes, that confuses many people, since I'm married to someone who appears male) and I think our story could bring a lot of light and progression to the GLBT rights movement.
Maybe I'm running away with myself and our situation isn't as unusual as I think. We're sure that we're not the first or the last couple to be in this situation. I was wondering what some of you might think: do we give Oprah a call, our keep our life together private and out of media attention?
Thanks for any and all responses.