The Natural Mother of the Child: A Memoir of Nonbinary Parenthood

Belc is a beautiful writer, and has taken an interesting approach to sharing his story of being a transmasculine parent to two children carried by his wife, and to one child whom he himself carried. The book addresses the experience of pregnancy for him (confusing, painful) and the experience for both him and for his son of being/having a father who was also a gestational host (beautiful - special for having this connection as gestational host and genetic match but also isolating.) Belc chooses to structure the discussion around things that in and of themselves are both prosaic and essential -- this is about the paperwork. Belc tells stories around his own birth certificate (which at least as of the writing of the book he had not yet show more changed to reflect his gender despite having gathered the documentation to do so), his son Samson's birth certificate (where he is listed as the natural mother of the child), the birth certificates of his two other sons whom he adopted after his wife gave birth and to whom he does not have a genetic relationship, his marriage certificate, photographs, and other corporeal indicia of who he is and who he has been perceived to be. It is a smart and surprising way to anchor his story. And this is Belc's story. I wanted a little more about his wife Anna, because it would help me better understand the family dynamic (Belc does talk about the ways in which the son he gave birth to his like him, and his other sons like their mother and sperm donor.) I absolutely get the reason to focus the story away from that larger family story, I think its a smart choice, I am just saying for me as a reader I had a lot of questions that left me from feeling like I was missing something, but that is me. Overall this is a really great portrait of a loving family (which includes Krys, his wife and their kids and also Krys' parents and siblings), and I highly recommend the read to anyone who wants to better understand one person's experience of gender and gender dysphoria and parenting as a transman.

I would like to be all rah rah, but I did have one major issue with the book. Belc falls back on this idea that certain behaviors are man things or women things. There is not one way to be a man or a woman, and for a book that is based on the premise that gender is nonbinary it was disappointing to see Belc focus on the manliness of his anger, violence, and impatience vs. the womanliness of his wife's peacefulness, level-headedness and friendliness. He can be any kind of man he wants to be, but his masculinity is not dictated by some archaic definition of gender. show less

It feels mean to have issues with a clearly heartfelt autobio, and yet I was overall unsatisfied with this one. The changing addressee was confusing and annoying, and I'm not easily confused and annoyed. I didn't understand why it added anything for some sections to be (ostensibly) addressed to Belc's wife; I have to assume it was pure ~aesthetic. I was interested to learn about the history of ultrasounds, and also, I now get what people mean when they say they're sick of braided essays....