I’ve envied the fun of gender reveal parties ever since I first heard of one. The thought of having all your friends and family join together to find out at the same time what you’re carrying, sounds like complete joy!
While it wasn’t a ‘thing’ when I was pregnant (way back in 2002), I’ve imagined just how much fun it would be.
That is until the early morning of April 1 when I discovered a gender reveal that I wasn’t expecting nor wanted.
Blue balloons and streamers hung from our kitchen chandelier, while three cards addressed to “mom,” “dad,” and “sister” laid on our kitchen table.
I was shaking when I opened my card. And my heart was beating so fast I could hear drumming in my ears.
“I’m not ok with this.” Was the first utterance I could muster out of my mouth and into the world that forever changed me.
My husband read his card and I read mine. Then we switched and sat in silence reading the words of our firstborn letting us know she is a he.
He had left for school already so it would be hours before we would talk with him. A wise move on his part as it gave us time to hash-out our formal response.
“I’m not ok with this,” quickly turned into “I don’t know what to do with this.”
I’ve been scared of the unknown before but this was on an entirely new level of unknown.
My love for him in that moment never faltered, I want to make that clear.
It was never a question of whether or not I could love him as my son, but my mind had to catch up to what was happening.
After a lengthy talk with my partner about what lies ahead for us, I realized that it was April 1st – as in April Fools’ Day. And being the sort of family that likes a good laugh, I thought my first ‘response’ to my transgender child would be to text him that the gender reveal was a funny April Fools’ Day prank.
Ok, maybe not the BEST parenting move, but sometimes a laugh is better than a cry.
Don’t worry, I quickly added further texts to tell him that I was joking and was looking forward to talking with him after school.
We recently shared this ‘gender reveal’ story with our local LGBTQ support group, who laughed and clapped and thought it was a brilliant way for our son to come out.
TransMama 